Mary

December 13, 1998

James R. Gorman

I come this morning to sing the praises of Mary the mother of Jesus. The Gospel of Matthew, we discovered, especially depicts Mary as a strong woman who will do anything to protect her son against all threats against him.

Mary is also silent. In the Gospel of Matthew she has no speaking parts. In the Gospels of Luke and John, Mary is given some things to say, but in Matthew she has none. She mostly, as the King James Version puts it, "ponders [things] privily upon her heart."

For those of us who enjoy pondering and may even be accused of being a bit ponderous at times, Mary is our example and hero. She is thoughtful. Aware of all that is around her, she is more likely to think quietly and privately about those things than to act on them or speak about them directly. And as Elizabeth puts it, Mary is "full of grace."⁽¹⁾ Her personality is reserved. For those of us who talk too much or project too much of ourselves onto our environment, Mary ought to be a corrective, an alternative model about how to be gracefully present in the world by pondering things privily upon our hearts rather than speaking too soon or too often about things of which we know so little. We too often darken counsel without knowledge. Mary, on the other hand, is willing to "let it be" even when she doesn't fully understand all that is being made manifest in her life and world.

It's no wonder that Protestants have underplayed the importance of Mary. We are a people of the Word, and because of that, we are also scrupulously committed to this Bible, this Word of God, and we are hesitant to go much beyond what the Scriptures say about things, including Mary. Over the history of Christianity there has been a wonderfully developed piety of Mary, but most of it has been developed beyond the witness of the Bible and these statements about Mary must be inferred from what the Bible says rather than simply read there. Last Tuesday, for example, was the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. We know this because we tried to call the Archdiocesan office and everyone was on holiday. The idea that Mary was conceived immaculately, or that Mary ascended into heaven, or that she was without sin, or that she was the real author of the Apostles' Creed or that sort of thing, goes beyond what Scripture confesses and we Protestants are reluctant to do that.

But by our refusal to go beyond Scripture on this subject, we deprive ourselves, I think, of a wonderful resource for reflection and prayer. Mary is a touching symbol for our faith and it is good for the church to think more creatively about her than we Protestants do. But that means doing more hard work in our Bible study than we currently do. The fact is that there is not much there about our Mother, Mary.

A good place to be introduced to Mary is surely the Magnificat. One of the longest speeches of Mary, in fact the longest and only speech of Mary, is this well known canticle found at the end of the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke. The Canticle of the Magnificat is used as our psalter this morning.

The Magnificat comes as a result of a series of unusual conversations recorded in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke. First the Angel Gabriel comes to Mary to tell her that "the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women."

And she responds to herself, "What sort of greeting is that?"

And then Gabriel tells her that her cousin Elizabeth is also with child. Elizabeth, who is great with age, is also great with child. And Mary, who is just barely into her teens as far as we can tell, is also with child. And the angel says, "Nothing is impossible with God." Indeed, nothing is impossible with God. Nothing is impossible, but everything is perplexing.

In response to this, Mary says, "Let it be." I always loved that phrase, if only because of the Beatles' song that goes, "When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be."

Mary then runs to be with her cousin Elizabeth, and in what the church has called the "visitation," the child within Elizabeth, who will be called John (later "the baptist"), moves for the first time and Elizabeth sings, "Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." Thus completing the first part of the "Hail Mary" or what is called in Latin, the "Ave Maria." The "Hail Mary" part comes from the angel Gabriel who says, "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." The "Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb" part comes from the visitation with Elizabeth.

When I was a kid I used to wake up to the Ave Maria on the radio on Saturday mornings during which the announcer would list those who died and were buried in the past week. The announcer would say as the famous music would go on in the background, "A mass of Christian burial was performed for John J. Schmidt on Tuesday." And in my mind I would think of a bulldozer pushing all these Christians into a mass grave. "A massive Christian burial."

The use of the Ave Maria at funerals comes from the last part of the Ave Maria which goes, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death." Mary as an intercessor on our behalf at the moment of our greatest need is an essential ingredient of how the Church has seen Mary over the years. She has been an intercessor for us now and at the hour of our death.

The great 14^th century poem, the Stabat Mater, has been put to music by almost all the great composers, Rossini, Vivaldi, Palestrina, Verdi, Hayden, Scarlatti and my favorite, Dvorak. It has been set to dance by the New York City Ballet. It is an extraordinary poem that begins:

At the cross her station keeping,

Stood the mournful Mother weeping,

Close to Jesus at the last....

Oh, how sad and sore distress'd

Was that Mother highly blest

Of the sole-begotten one!

O thou Mother! Fount of love!

Touch my spirit from above;

Make my heart with thine accord.

The closeness of Mother and Child is expressed by the story of Mary from this beginning in hope and to the end in another kind of darkness. Walter Wangerin, the Lutheran minister and novelist re-tells the story of Mary in this way:

When the angel said, "Hail" in the middle of the night, like bright explosions in [Mary's] bedroom, poor Mary jumped and covered her mouth and could not talk, because she was afraid.

God in heaven whispered, "Hurry, Gabriel, Comfort the woman."

So the Angel said, "Hush Mary." The Angel softened his glorious voice and murmured like rain in the night, "Mary, hush. The dear God loves you, don't you know? God favors you, and the Lord is with you."

God favors me? Mary was trembling. Her mind was racing in the unnatural light. This greeting of the angel troubled her. What does it mean? What is he saying? She thought. Why would an angel come to me?

"Mary, do not be afraid," said the angel, still more gently--and the light grew warmer than bright, and it touched her, just on the forehead, with a single beam of [divine] kindness. So Mary grew calmer; her mind grew quiet; and she began to listen.

Now the world was very dark in those days. And the people are scared in the dark, you know. But they are specially scared of changes in the dark--like moving furniture, or changing your habits [of thought], or changing your mind; because if people don't understand these changes, they bump against them and hurt themselves and cry. In the long, long night, when people had only their candles for seeing, change was considered a dangerous thing.⁽²⁾

And we, in our own various darknesses can take a lead from Mother Mary. She was unafraid of the changes that confronted her because she believed from beginning to end that all of this was somehow, mysteriously, of God. Such a simple faith in such dangerous times.

And we, who find ourselves in times of trouble, can allow Mother Mary to come to us, speaking words of wisdom, "Let it be."

1. Luke 1:28 (Vulgate version)

2. Walter Wangerin, The Manger is Empty (Harper and Row, New York, 1989), p. 32, 34-35.