The titular Image arrives in Cieza in 1881; this is how it is stated in the order book of its author, the Murcian image maker Joaquín Eusebio Baglietto: "For the construction of the image of María Magdalena de Altura from the natural to dress said Ymagen is for the town of Cieza placed in the Hermitage of the Holy Christ within the walls in front of the Station commanded by D. Pedro Martínez, chaplain of the Claras Nuns of said town, has received 1,200 reales for it, delivered on March 10, 1881".

The Image was commissioned by the ciezano priest D. Pedro Marín Martínez, 'Macharro' -as he was popularly known- chaplain who was of the Monastery of the Immaculate Conception, 'Las Claras, to occupy the side altarpieces of the Hermitage of the Holy Christ, whose works had finished in 1879.

It was her first Waitress, Ms. Visitación Aguado, who was in charge of paying for the throne, as well as the dress, cloak, handkerchief and turban of the Image; the embroideries and workmanship of these garments were made in 1892 by the ladies María Solera and Carmen Pérez Marín, taking advantage of the wedding dress of Ms. Pascuala Marín, mother-in-law of Ms. Visitación. The wig, which was always blonde, was made with natural hair from his own Waitress. On her death in 1917, Ms. Carmen Camacho took charge of the Image, which was replaced by her niece, Ms. Pilar Gómez, until 1940, the year in which Mr. Mariano Camacho took over the Throne and went on to run it. the camaraderie his wife Ms. Clara García who continued to do so until her death in 1993.

The primitive throne, somewhat smaller than the current one, was made in 1893 by Master Cañamón, a carver from Ciezano who, due to the small dimensions of his workshop, had to assemble it in the middle of the street, and it was gilded by 'Perico the painter'. The one that is now in procession is a work carved in wood and gilded by the sculptor from Malaga based in Cieza Juan Solano García, to whom it was commissioned in 1953 by the Brotherhood, opening the following year; it was restored in the year 2000 by Bonifacio Pérez Ballesteros, with the exception of the light arms that were restored in 2003 in the Domingo García Chauán workshop in Albatera and the rod tips that were carved in wood and gilded in Seville by Antonio Ibáñez Valles in 2006, and completed with a new set of finery embroidered in gold on velvet by the Sisters themselves in 1999.

During Holy Week, the throne and Image were arranged in the garage of the Aguado, located in 'Ejíos de Marín'. From there and together with the Throne de The Garden Prayer, he participated in the 'Brought of the Saints', waiting at the Corner of the Town for the arrival of the Thrones that descended from the Hermitage of the Holy Christ, then preceding the group to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Assumption to participate in the General, Penitent, Holy Burial and Risen Processions that he also led; hence the saying so common in Cieza: "Walk with God and may the Magdalene guide you".

Initially, the Santa María Magdalena Step did not have its own Brotherhood; in fact, in the first decades of the 20th century, due to the tightening of the ties that linked the Throne that did not have their own Brotherhood with certain trades, possibly to ensure their departure in procession, Saint Mary Magdalene was assigned to the esparto makers.

After the lapse caused by the Civil War and until 1945, the Image will be kept in the Convent of Saint Joaquin and Saint Paschal to be later located for a long period of time in the Hermitage of the Holy Christ from where it will once again participate in the popular 'Brought of the Saints' while it was in force, having recovered its traditional Transfer of the afternoon of Holy Wednesday a few years ago.

Meanwhile, in 1941 and being Mr. Mariano Camacho Blaya's Big Brother, the Brotherhood was founded, whose presence will become evident, as before, in the Processions of Holy Wednesday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Currently, the Paso maintains the departures in the General Procession of Holy Wednesday, in that of the Penitent on the morning of Good Friday -from which it was absent between 1994 and 1999, due to parading its Brotherhood with another Paso in its place- and in that of the Resurrected on Easter Sunday, having stopped doing so on the Holy Burial on Good Friday night in 2005, coinciding with the acquisition of the new throne for the sculptural group of the Most Holy Reclining Christ, whose Stewardship is linked to the Brotherhood of Saint Mary Magdalene.

Precisely to replace the Image of Holy Virgin of Pain, which is part of the sculptural group of the Most Holy Reclining Christ, due to its precarious state, this acquired in 2005 from the Sevillian sculptor Luis Álvarez Duarte an Image of the Virgin of her property and baptized it with the invocation of Our Lady of the Greater Sorrow; that same year the Sisters of the Brotherhood made a brocaded dress and cloak for said Image, and a year later a silver halo made in the Sevillian goldsmith's shop of the Delgado López Brothers was acquired.

The proceeds from the various activities organized by the Brotherhood made it possible for the new tunics of blue cloth to be designed in 1942 -in substitution of the original red ones- with the traditional gold 'moco' cap for the anderos, and blue corduroy with golden satin cape and hood for the Nazarenes, and the first instruments of the Band of drums and bugles are acquired, also commissioning the project for a new Step, The Descent of Christ, which ultimately will not come to fruition.

In 1970 and to take over from Mr. Mariano Camacho, Mr. Manuel Martínez was appointed President, who undertook the work of making a new cloak for the Image as well as the banner of the Brotherhood, both embroidered by Concha Escámez from Cartagena in 1971, to which will be added in 2001 a new suit embroidered in velvet by the women of the Brotherhood themselves.

After a few hesitant years, in 1977 a group of friends headed by D. José Gómez Rubio took charge of the Brotherhood who, starting from nothing and being forced the first year of his mandate to procession with civilian clothes and without Band of music, manages to get the Brotherhood out of the crisis in which it is plunged. A year later, the anderos return to parade with their characteristic tunics and the Band of bugles and drums, directed by D. Manuel Piñera Marín, the 'Pistolas', reappears with new vigor. D. José Gómez, elected President of the Board of Passionate Brotherhoods of Cieza in 1988, was succeeded by D. Francisco Martínez Camacho, under whose mandate the old chalice-shaped staffs of the Tercio de Nazarenes were replaced by new ones with identical motif made by the Ciezano goldsmith Diego Penalva. In 1990, Mr. José Sánchez Ramos became President of the Brotherhood, resigning from the position that same year, and being replaced by Mr. Manuel Ruiz Marín, who tragically died shortly after beginning his mandate.

The presidency then assumes D. Antonio Ruiz Lucas, under whose government the Brotherhood acquires in 1994 its own House and its second Step, The Exaltation of the Cross, which consists of seven Images made in polyester resin, three of which will be modified a a year later, by the sculptor Antonio Martínez Villa from Cieza, who is also the author of the throne, carved in wood decorated in blue and gold, and on whose vertices are the Images of the four Evangelists; the Throne parades between 1994 and 1999 in the Procession of the Penitent on Good Friday morning, replacing its owner, being replaced again by him in the year 2000. During his tenure, what is now the last restoration of the Image will also take place of Saint Mary Magdalene, which was carried out in 1996 by Javier Bernal Casanova, and which in turn had been the first intervention of this type that the Image had suffered since in the last decade of the 30s the ciezano sculptor Manuel Carrillo García I will retouch the gesture of the mouth to adapt it to the taste of the ciezanos.

Again under the presidency of Mr. José Gómez Rubio, and in order to recover the invocation of the 'Christ of the Blood', whose trace is lost in the 19th century and which could have been the invocation of the head of the Brotherhood of the Blood of Christ , disappeared in the middle of the 18th century, as well as the Via Crucis with which since time immemorial the Holy Week of Cieza had counted, the Brotherhood acquires the Throne of the Holy Christ of the Blood, of Andalusian bearing, composed of an Image of Christ Crucified to which another accompanies at his feet of an Angel holding a chalice, both works carved in wood and polychrome by the Sevillian image maker Luis Álvarez Duarte, and by a throne in varnished wood, the work of the Sevillian Antonio Ibáñez Valles, with cartouches alluding to the Passion chiselled in silver bas-relief by Goldsmith Maestrante, also from Seville.

With this new Step, the Brotherhood of Saint Mary Magdalene, whose brothers are going to incorporate the traditional 'executioner's hat', completed the procession in 2004 with a guide cross, made of wood in the Seville workshops of Antonio Ibáñez Valles, candlesticks, purchased at the Moreno Art Workshops in Granada, and a censer, made in Seville in the sixes.

Photographs by Manuel Carpio.

© Archive of the Board of Passionate Brotherhoods of Cieza