Of Mother Mary

Sub tuum praesidium

Beneath your compassion,
We take refuge, O Mother of God:
do not despise our petitions in time of trouble:
but rescue us from dangers,
only pure, only blessed one.

(Oldest prayer to the Virgin Mary, dating from about 250 AD)

For a couple of months Tuesday nights at my house have been about Mary, Mother of Jesus. Since the group is all female except me, I’ve learned a lot.

One statement especially strikes me: Mary and Jesus shared a heartbeat.

No other human being has the distinction of being so close to God. Luke carefully presents Mary as an exemplary servant of the Lord.

She’s there at the beginning, there at the cross, there in the Upper Room before Pentecost.

She ponders all she experiences, all she hears. Sometimes it isn’t pretty: a sword pierces her heart.

Mary in Revelation

But it’s the Johannine pictures of Mary that intrigue me.

First, Revelation 12. Here a woman clothed with the sun gives birth to a son who will rule the nations with a rod of iron. This is a messianic reference from Psalm 2.9.

God spirits the woman away from the dragon’s wrath on eagle’s wings, sheltering her in the desert for a brief time. The dragon goes off to make war on the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus.

Who is this? The Protestant answer, of course, is that she is Israel and the new Israel. Perfectly good answer.

But the Roman Catholic answer that she is Mary also is perfectly good. It’s the literal truth.

Mary in the gospel of John

Mary isn’t named in the gospel, suggesting she is more than simply Jesus’ mother (what Catholics call “a baby factory.”) She represents all women.

She is at the wedding at Cana in Galilee, the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, where she mediates between the servants and Jesus. And she is at the cross, an ideal disciple along with the beloved disciple.

Jesus says, “Behold your son,” making her the mother of the beloved disciple and all disciples who come after him (as in Revelation, which calls Christians the woman’s children.)

She is the New Eve, who gets to redo the role a woman played in the fall. (The man was responsible for himself.)

Worship vs. veneration

The classic Catholic defense of their “affection for” Mary (as one book puts it) is that Catholics practice veneration not worship. This apparently is rooted in Greek, that didn’t stick in my head.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s one of those mental videos we play to defend against real spiritual awareness.

Despite my West Texas Baptist anti-Catholic roots, I find myself appreciating more Mary’s unique role.

The Virgen de Guadalupe (pictured at the head of this post) has an especially warm place in my heart. My aunt Margaret, who was the matriarch and died at 92, seems to be the most grounded of all my dad’s siblings. She had a reproduction of the Virgen de Guadalupe on her coffee table.

I haven’t figured it all out yet.

Praxis 

Mary, you were an unmarried pregnant teenager in a time and place when such as you were killed. Yet you prayed, “Be it unto me according to your word.” Some people kick up a lot of dirt because of you. But I find it useful? important? delightful? to speak to you (pray to you, even). You knew Jesus best. Help me to be more like him. Help me to be as obedient and courageous as you were. Amen