Memorial — Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Virgin Mary, Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato

If you were to ask me how the Most Holy Virgin spent the time of Her youth, I would answer that that is known to God Himself and the Archangel Gabriel, Her constant guardian. — St. Jerome

The quote above is found on tons of Eastern Orthodox sites, all within the same homily that has been copied from place to place — and with no attribution for St. Jerome's quote. So it is probably too apt to be something St. Jerome actually said. However, it does reflect my feelings about knowing details about the Virgin Mary's childhood which I discovered "everyone knows" after I became Catholic. The tale of her miraculous birth, "presentation" to the Temple, and similar details come from a 2nd century apocryphal book which has been rejected by the Church, The Protoevangelium of James.

Today's feast is associated with an event from the Protoevangelium that Mary's parents brought her as a child they brought her to the Temple in Jerusalem to consecrate her to God. Later versions say that Mary was taken to the Temple to live at around the age of three to fulfill a vow. 

Did that happen? Who knows? Despite  that, there is a good reason to care about this feast day.

St. Luke is notably diligent in examining all the sources that can offer personal information concerning the people he describes. In the case of Mary's childhood, however, he omits any mention of specific facts. Our Lady most probably never mentioned anything about her earliest years, since there would be very little in them of extraordinary interest ...

The feast we celebrate today does not have its origin in the Gospel, but in ancient tradition. The Church, however, does not accept the fictitious narrative that supposes Our Lady to have lived in the Temple under a vow of virginity from the time she was a young maiden. But the essential basis of today's feast is firm — the personal oblation that the Blessed Mother made to the Lord during her early youth. She was moved by the Holy Spirit to consecrate her life to God, who filled her with grace from the first moment of her conception. Mary's complete dedication was efficacious, and continued to grow as her life went on. Her example moves us not to withhold anything in our own life of dedication to the Lord. ...

Our Lady was moved by a special grace of the Holy Spirit to commit her entire life to God. Perhaps she made the decision just as she reached the age of reason, a mile-stone in any life and a moment that must have been particularly significant for a person as full of grace as Mary was. Maybe the Blessed Virgin naever mae a formal declaration of her commitment to God, but was simply accustomed from the beginning of her life to living her dedication in a natural way. ...

Today is a good opportunity — as every day is — to renew our own dedication  to the Lord in the midst of our daily duties, in the specific situation in which God has placed us.

Francis Fernandez, In Conversation with God, Special Feasts: July-December

Feast of the Nativity of Mary

Via The Deacon's Bench

Responsory Prayer from today's readings

Let us celebrate today, with great devotion, the birth of Mary, the every-virgin Mother of God, whose virtues shed light upon the Church throughout the world.

Let us glorify Christ with heart and soul on this feast of Mary, the noble Mother of God, whose virtues shed light upon the Church throughout the world.

More about this feast day and the symbols, customs, and activities associated with it can be found at Catholic Culture.

The Birth of the Virgin Mary by Alessandro Turchi, c. 1631-1635
Via J.R.'s Art Place

Mary, Queen of Heaven

 

Coronation of Virgin, Giacomo di Mino, 1340-1350

From the earliest ages of the Catholic Church a Christian people, whether in time of triumph or more especially in time of crisis, has addressed prayers of petition and hymns of praise and veneration to the Queen of Heaven. And never has that hope wavered which they placed in the Mother of the Divine King, Jesus Christ; nor has that faith ever failed by which we are taught that Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, reigns with a mother's solicitude over the entire world, just as she is crowned in heavenly blessedness with the glory of a Queen.

Ad Caeli Reginam
His Holiness Pope Pius XII
Encyclical on Proclaiming the Queenship of Mary
Promulgated October 11, 1954

I remember the thing that made this feast day come into focus for me was learning about King Solomon's Queen Mother who brought cases before him for special attention. I tell you, typology really helps you get a mental grip on things.

Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary (with some modern science commentary)

It's a Holy Day of Obligation! Check local Mass times!

Adam and Eve with the Virgin Mary (detail), Correggio, Assumption of the Virgin
via Khan Academy

The Assumption is the oldest feast day of Our Lady, but we don't know how it first came to be celebrated. ...

On November 1, 1950, Pius XII defined the dogma of the Assumption. Thus he solemnly proclaimed that the belief whereby the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the close of her earthly life, was taken up, body and soul, into the glory of heaven, definitively forms part of the deposit of faith, received from the Apostles. To avoid all that is uncertain the Pope did not state either the manner or the circumstances of time and place in which the Assumption took place — only the fact of the Assumption of Mary, body and soul, into the glory of heaven, is the matter of the definition.

Catholic Culture, where there is a lot more info

Each year on the Assumption of Mary I like to revisit this from The Anchoress. Because it blows my mind. And the Assumption is a good time for mind-blowing. This was originally posted this at Patheos where the original post link no longer works:

When studying Anatomy and Physiology in college, the lesson that briefly discussed fetomaternal microchimerism, became instructive to me on a different level. Learning that every child leaves within his mother a microscopic bit of himself — and that it remains within her forever — the dogma of the Immaculate Conception instantly became both crystal clear and brilliant to me.

Mary, then, was indeed a tabernacle within which the Divinity did reside — not for a limited time, but for all of her life. Understanding this (and considering how the churches seemed to get it ‘way before microscopes told us anything) the Immaculate Conception made and makes perfect sense: God, who is All-Good is also completely Pure; the vessel in which He resides, then, must be pure, too, or it would not be able to sustain all of that “light in which we see light itself.”

Microchimerism also relates to the dogma of the Assumption of Mary, as well. In the psalms we read “you will not suffer your beloved to undergo corruption.” Christ’s divine body did not undergo corruption. It follows that his mother’s body, which contained a cellular component of the Divinity — and a particle of God is God, entire — would not be allowed to become corrupt, either.

I believed it anyway, but that made sense on several levels. Incredible.

Assumption of the Virgin, Correggio
where the above detail is included
Click through to the link to look at it enlarged.

The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin

I love this celebration which always makes me meditate on the beauty of one good friend going to help another, carrying Christ with her to someone she loves. I also really love this icon below, which celebrates the unseen reality of this feast.

The Visitation of Virgin Mary to Elizabeth.
The photographer says: "14th century wall-painting in the Timios Stavros Church in Pelendri.
The unborn John the Baptist bows before the unborn Jesus. ..."

Today we learn once more that each encounter with Mary implies a new discovery of Jesus: If you seek Mary, you will find Jesus. And you will learn a bit more about what is in the heart of a God who humbles himself, who makes himself accessible in the midst of the routine of ordinary life. God's great gift to mankind whereby we can get to know and love Christ, had its beginning in Mary's faith, whose perfect fulfillment Elizabeth now openly reveals: The fullness of grace announced by the angel means the gift of God himself. Mary's faith, proclaimed by Elizabeth at the Visitation, indicates how the Virgin of Nazareth responded to this gift. The Virgin Mary, who had already pronounced her complete and unconditional fiat, presents herself at the threshold of Zachary's house as the Mother of the Son of God. This is Elizabeth's joyful discovery, *** and ours too; it is one we can never get used to.

In Conversation with God:
Special Feasts: January - June

* J. Escriva, Christ is Passing By
** John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater
*** cf ibid

Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church

This is not a holy day of obligation, but the faithful are encouraged to observe this day in devotions or private prayer. I wrote this some time ago but find it works well for my own reflection on this day.

Bohemian Master, The Pentecost

Christmas and Pentecost, Springing from the Womb

Nine days before Pentecost Mary, the apostles, and disciples gathered in prayer for the coming of the Spirit. Art always pictures Mary, the mother of Jesus, as seated in the center of this holy gathering. The setting is one of prayer and contemplation. Mary is the principal contemplative, the woman wrapped in the silence of prayer. The contemplative dimension, with Mary at the center, prevailed.

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended on those gathered in the Upper Room. The Spirit manifested and revealed the Church publicly. Now Peter became the visible leader, the Shepherd and Pastor and Rock. Pope John Paul II, reflecting on these scenes, taught that the Marian dimension of the Church precedes the Petrine one. The environment of prayer is the womb from which the Body of Christ is born. Because of this, prayer, contemplation, and the adoration of God have the primacy in the Church.

Fr. McBride's Guide to the Bible by Alfred McBride

Reading this, my focus was brought to the word "womb" as a description of the Upper Room. Never having had considered this imagery before, I couldn't let it go. Inevitably, perhaps, with the images of Mary and womb before me, I also began to think about the parallels between Pentecost and Christmas. Both were preceded by an enforced period of waiting, with Mary as a central figure, with a previously unimaginable power and light being unleashed on the world as the climax.

It made me suddenly look at Christ's coming anew, at how that tiny baby held power and light that we still have a hard time comprehending, made me have just a bit more understanding of how he flashed on the world like a fire. Likewise I looked at the Upper Room anew, seeing it truly as the womb which sheltered and fed the apostles despite their lack of comprehension at what they were being prepared to become.

This probably is nothing new, but it surely was for me. It set forth a direct connection between the two which I will always think about when either Christmas or Pentecost comes to mind. All facilitated by Mary's willingness. Which is something else to consider. Especially in connection with myself. No big conclusions here ... just pondering and turning over these points.

Jean II Restout, Pentecôte

Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God

Image from Chant Art

All the feasts of Our Lady are great events, because they are opportunities the church gives us to show with deeds that we love Mary. But if I had to choose one from among all her feasts, I would choose today's, the feast of the Divine Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin ...

When the Blessed Virgin said Yes, freely, to the plans revealed to her by the Creator, the divine Word assumed a human nature, with a rational soul and a body, formed in the most pure womb of Mary. The divine nature and the human were united in a single Person: Jesus Christ, true God and, thenceforth, true man: the only-begotten and Eternal Son of the Father and, from that moment on, as Man, the true son of Mary. This is why Our Lady is the Mother of the Incarnate Word, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, who has united our human nature to himself forever, without any confusion of the two natures. The greatest praise we can give to the Blessed Virgin is to address her loud and clear by the name that expresses her highest dignity: Mother of God.

St. Josemaria Escriva, Friends of God

Mary: As Marvelous as a Day in May

May is Mary's month and what better way to celebrate it than getting a better understanding of Our Blessed Mother? This excerpt from chapter 6 of Adventures in Orthodoxy discusses the common idea of "virgin" versus the real meaning as applied to "Virgin Mary." As a bonus, this explains something I always wondered: why didn't Mary and Jesus (and possibly Joseph) stand out as unusual? The comments in brackets are my own for clarification of points the author discussed earlier in the chapter.

"... born of the Virgin Mary"

...Mary, the mother of Jesus, is an icon of beauty and purity because she is a virgin. But I'm aware that this term, too, [like the term "purity"] has been misunderstood and maligned. We think of a virgin simply as a person who hasn't had sexual intercourse. This is the shallowest of definitions. Defining a "virgin" as someone who hasn't had sexual intercourse is like defining a person from Idaho as "a person who has never been to Paris." It may be true that most Idahoans haven't been to Paris, but to define an untraveled Idahoan by that simple negative definition is too small. Even the most stay-at-home fellow from Idaho is bigger than a negative definition.

What were the early Christians thinking when they honored the Virgin Mary? Was it simply their form of goddess worship? [as some nonbelievers would say] If so, why the emphasis on virginity? When you look at what they believed about Mary, it turns out that they were honoring her for far more than the biological fact that a maiden remained intact. For them the Virgin wasn't just an untouched woman. Her physical virginity was a sign of something far more. It was an indication of her whole character. In her they sensed a kind of virginity that was a positive and powerful virtue. Mary represented all that was natural, abundant, positive, and free. Mary was a virgin in the same way that we call a forest "virgin": she was fresh and natural, majestic and mysterious. Mary's virginity wasn't simply the natural beauty and innocence of a teenage girl. It held the primeval purity of Eden and the awesome innocence of Eve...

You might imagine that such total innocence and goodness would make Mary a sort of Galilean wonderwoman. It's true that her innocence was extraordinary, but it was also very ordinary. That is to say that while it was momentous, it didn't seem remarkable at the same time. There is a curious twist to real goodness. It's summed up by the observation that what is natural isn't unusual. If a person is really good, he is humble; and if he is humble, he is simply who he should be. There is nothing bizarre or egotistical or eccentric about him. There is therefore nothing about him that calls attention to him. Truly good people blend in. They are at home with themselves, and no one is out of place when they are at home. In the same way, Mary wasn't noticed in Nazareth. Because she was natural, she didn't stand out. Mary fit in because she was simply and wholly who she was created to be. Because she was perfectly natural, she was perfectly ordinary. Therefore, she was both as marvelous and as unremarkable as a morning in May.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905), The Madonna of the Roses
via Wikipedia

What's that? You haven't read Adventures in Orthodoxy? Tsk, tsk. It is simply a fantastic book that communicates the wonder and joy of the Faith in a way that is not often found. If you haven't read it then you're missing a real treat.

May is Mary's Month

William Bouguereau (1825-1905)
L'innocence [Innocence]

The May Magnificat

May is Mary's month, and I

Muse at that and wonder why:

Her feasts follow reason, Dated due to season --

Candlemas, Lady Day;

But the Lady Month, May,

Why fasten that upon her, With a feasting in her honour

Is it only its being brighter

Than the most are must delight her?

Is it opportunest And flowers finds soonest?

Ask of her, the mighty mother;

Her reply puts this other

Question: What is Spring? -- Growth in everything --

Flesh and fleece, fur and feather

Grass and green world all together;

Star-eyed strawberry breasted Throstle above her nested

Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin

Forms and warms the life within;

And bird and blossom swell In sod or sheath or shell.

All things rising, all things sizing

Mary sees, sympathising

With that world of good Nature's motherhood.

Their magnifying of each its kind

With delight calls to mind

How she did in her stored Magnify the Lord

Well but there was more than this:

Spring's universal bliss

Much, had much to say To offering Mary May.

When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple

Bloom lights the orchard-apple

And thicket and thorp are merry With silver-surféd cherry

And azuring-over greybell makes

Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes

And magic cuckoo call Caps, clears, and clinches all --

This ecstasy all through mothering earth

Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth

To remember and exultation In God who was her salvation.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

The Form of Emptiness

Tomorrow begins the novena leading up to the solemnity of Mary's Immaculate Conception. This is a good place to begin.

That virginal quality which, for want of a better word, I call emptiness is at the beginning of this contemplation.

It is not a formless emptiness, a void without meaning; on the contrary it has a shape, a form given to it by the purpose for which it is intended.

It is emptiness like the hollow in the reed, the narrow riftless emptiness which can have only one destiny: to receive the piper's breath and to utter the song that is in his heart.

It is emptiness like the hollow in the cup, shaped to receive water or wine.

It is emptiness like that of the bird's nest, built in a round warm ring to receive the little bird.

The pre-Advent emptiness of Our Lady's purposeful virginity was indeed like those three things.

She was a reed through which the Eternal Love was to be piped as a shepherd's song.

She was the flowerlike chalice into which the purest water of humanity was to be poured, mingled with wine, changed to the crimson blood of love, and lifted up in sacrifice.

She was the warm nest rounded to the shape of humanity to receive the Divine Little Bird...

It is the purpose for which something is made that decides the material which is used.

The chalice is made of pure gold because it must contain the Blood of Christ.

The bird's nest is made of scraps of soft down, leaves and feathers and twigs, because it must be a strong warm home for the young birds...

The material which God has found apt for it is human nature: blood, flesh, bone, salt, water, will, intellect.

It is impossible to say too often or too strongly that human nature, body and soul together, is the material for God's will in us...

Think again of the three symbols I have used for the virginal emptiness of Mary. These are each made from material which must undergo some experience to be made ready for its purpose.

The reed grows by the streams. It is the simplest of things, but it must be cut by the sharp knife, hollowed out, and the stops must be cut in it; it must be shaped and pierced before it can utter the shepherd's song. It is the narrowest emptiness in the world, but the little reed utters infinite music.

The chalice does not grow like the flower it resembles. It is made of gold; gold must be gathered from the water and the mud and hewn from the rock, it must be beaten by countless little blows that give the chalice of sacrifice its fitting beauty.

The twigs and fluff and leaves of the bird's nest are brought from all sorts of places, from wherever the brave careful mother alights, with fluttering but daring heart, to fetch them, from the distances and explorations that only the spread wings of love know. It is the shape of her breast the moulds the nest to its inviting roundness.

Thus it is with us -- we may be formed by the knife, pared down, cut to the least, to the minimum of our own being; we may be marked indelibly by a succession of strokes, blown from the gold-beater's hammer; or we may be shaped for our destiny by the love and tender devotion of a devoted family.

Caryll Houselander, The Reed of God

I don't know why no one has ever mentioned Caryll Houselander among all the wonderful Catholic writers that are quoted so often. I have seen her mentioned only in Magnificat and every time that I have read an excerpt it has spoken right to my heart. If I had let myself go I could easily have put the entire book on this site. I had to stop myself from underlining practically everything in it. It is a wonderful contemplation of the Virgin Mary and, through her as always, we get a clearer and better look at her son, Jesus. The excerpt above says better than I can what sort of a writer and thinker she was. It is simple but provides many opportunities for our own contemplation.

Getting Closer to Jesus: His Mother

This beautiful, profound meditation on Mary and why we should imitate her is from The Reed of God by Caryll Houselander.

When we are attracted to a particular saint, it is usually the little human details which attract us. These touches bridge the immense gap between heroic virtue and our weakness. We love most those saints who before they were great saints were great sinners.

But even those who were saints form the cradle are brought closer to us by recorded trifles of their humanness ...

Of Our Lady such things are not recorded. We complain that so little is recorded of her personality, so few of her words, so few deeds, that we can form no picture of her, and there is nothing that we can lay hold of to imitate.

But it is Our Lady -- and no other saint -- whom we can imitate.

All the canonized saints had special vocations, and special gifts for their fulfillment: presumption for me to think of imitating St. Catherine or St. Paul or St. Joan if I have not their unique character and intellect -- which indeed I have not.

Each saint has his special work: one person's work. But Our Lady had to include in her vocation, in her life's work, the essential thing that was to be hidden in every other vocation, in every life.

She is not only human; she is humanity.

The one thing that she did and does is the one thing that we all have to do, namely, to bear Christ into the world.

Christ must be born from every soul formed in every life. If we had a picture of Our Lady's personality, we might be dazzled into thinking that only one sort of person could form Christ in himself, and we should miss the meaning of our own being.

Nothing but things essential for us are revealed to us about the Mother of God: the fact that she was wed to the Holy Spirit and bore Christ into the world.

Our crowning joy is that she did this as a lay person and through the ordinary daily life that we all live; through natural love made supernatural, as the water at Cana was, at her request, turned into wine.

In the world as it is, torn with agonies and dissensions, we need some direction for our souls which is never away from us; which, without enslaving us or narrowing our vision, enters into every detail of our life. Everyone longs for some such inward rule, a universal rule as big as the immeasurable law of love, yet as little as the narrowness of our daily routine. It must be so truly part of us all that it makes us all one, and yet to each one the secret of his own life with God.

To this need, the imitation of Our Lady is the answer; in contemplating her we find intimacy with God, the law which is the lovely yoke of the one irresistible love.

I'm with Chaput - Let's Punch the Devil in the Nose

The Blessed Virgin Mary punching the devil (13th century MS, British Library).
Via Gregory Wolfe and Catholic News Agency

I featured this artwork about a month ago. Today I got a complaint that it is not treating Mary reverently enough ... and also that it might be pop art.

For me this shows Mary as a powerful spiritual warrior, especially when I look at the expression on both faces. I'd like to think I could be like that.

I'll be fair. Mary could also be holding a seal of some sort with which she is marking the devil.

Looking around for a proper reference to prove it wasn't pop art I wound up at the Catholic News Agency. The bonus was this wonderful talk by Archbishop Chaput which used it as a springboard to exhort us to be like Mary.

“If we want to reclaim who we are as a Church, if we want to renew the Catholic imagination, we need to begin, in ourselves and in our local parishes, by unplugging our hearts from the assumptions of a culture that still seems familiar but is no longer really ‘ours,’” Archbishop Chaput said.

“This is why Mary – the young Jewish virgin, the loving mother, and the woman who punches the devil in the nose – was, is, and always will be the great defender of the Church,” he added.

Archbishop Chaput addressed the 2016 Bishops’ Symposium at the University of Notre Dame on Wednesday. He spoke on “Remembering Who We Are and the Story We Belong To.”

He began his talk referencing an illustration, reportedly from the Middle Ages, of the Blessed Virgin Mary punching the devil in the nose. “She doesn’t rebuke him. She doesn’t enter into a dialogue with him. She punches the devil in the nose,” he said.

Catholic News Agency

I love that guy. Read the whole thing. It's good medicine.

Genesis Notes: Her Seed — Jesus

GENESIS STUDY
The Agony in the Garden - Luke 22:39-46
The Crucifixion - John 19:1-11; 19:31-37
The Resurrection - John 19:38-42; 20:11-18. Hebrews 2:5-18
The Tree of Life - John 6:41-59
Created In God's Likeness - Gal. 3:27; 1 Cor. 15:53; Eph. 4-22-24; Col. 3:9

We are still breaking away from Genesis with Genesis: God and His Creation to look at the answer to the promise that the woman and her seed would defeat God's enemy.

The previous posts about "the woman" made it clear that Mary had innumerable links to Eve. This summary that amazes me every time I read it. I mean, how much clearer can you get? In the immortal words of This is Spinal Tap: none, none more clear.

• Eve’s conversation with a fallen angel leads to the loss of God’s likeness in human flesh; Mary’s conversation with an angel leads to the Incarnation, God taking on human flesh.
• Eve, left exposed by her husband, talks herself out of being embarrassingly gullible in believing God’s Word about the forbidden fruit; Mary, full of grace through the work of her Son, chooses God’s will for her life, knowing the potential for embarrassment over her unusual pregnancy.
• Eve, having broken the covenant she and Adam had with God, hears God’s curse on her life, which will be pain in childbearing; Mary, having accepted God’s plan, hears a voice of blessing on her and her childbearing.
• Eve, Adam’s helper, assists him in entering the devil’s bondage; Mary, at the wedding in Cana, assists Jesus in showing Himself to be the Messiah Who had come to free Israel.
• Eve becomes the mother of the dying; Mary, the mother of the living.
• Eve is expelled from Paradise; Mary appears as the Queen of heaven.

Her Seed — Connecting Jesus to Adam
Now we are free to examine Jesus' connection to Adam in fulfilling the promise of "her seed." We see that God performs His surprising renewal through reversal once again. I must say that I felt pretty silly for never noticing all the times Jesus is connected with a garden.

Via Bad Catholic

The Agony in the Garden - Luke 22:39-46

It isn’t just a coincidence that Jesus happens to be in a garden when He has to make His decision to choose God’s will over His own, no matter what the cost. This is the moment when Jesus completes His work as the New Adam. The first Adam was silent and passive in the face of temptation. Jesus, well aware of what it will cost Him to obey God, puts the will of the Father first. The pride of the first Adam is replaced by the humility of the Second Adam. If Adam shrank from the danger in his Garden, giving into disobedience, Jesus rises to the challenge of the danger in His Garden, surrendering Himself perfectly to God’s plan. The undoing of the devil has begun.

In Genesis 3, God tells Adam that his face will be covered with the sweat of his toil as a punishment for his disobedience. Adam’s dominion over the earth, meant to be a source of joy for him, instead will bring him suffering. For Jesus to sweat "like great drops of blood" in His Garden is a vivid picture of Him taking on Himself the curse placed on Adam. The first Adam’s disobedience was punishable by suffering and death. Jesus, the Second Adam, in the agony of the Garden, begins to experience it. The sentence pronounced so long ago is now being executed ...

In these verses, we see a picture of Jesus doing precisely what Adam didn’t do. He was afraid, but His fear led Him to call down help from His Father. This is the test of love that Adam could not endure. Love has to be a real choice, which means that it must be tested. Love of God leads one to continue to trust Him and to seek His help in the midst of the most threatening circumstances. It is a conscious, willful choice to believe in God’s goodness, no matter how contrary the evidence. This anguished cry of Jesus, with tears, fills His Garden with the sound of faith. It was a cry that reached heaven, undoing the silence of the Garden of Eden.

This series first ran in 2004 and 2005. I'm refreshing it as I go. For links to the whole study, go to the Genesis Index. For more about the resources used, go here.

Genesis Notes: The Woman: "Seeing" Mary

GENESIS STUDY
The Annunciation - Luke 1:26-38
The Visitation - Luke 1:39-56
The Presentation in the Temple - Luke 2:22-35
The Wedding at Cana - John 2:1-11
The Crucifixion - John 19:25-27
A Vision of Heaven - Revelation 12:1-7

We are still breaking away from Genesis with Genesis: God and His Creation to look at the answer to the promise that the woman and her seed would defeat God's enemy.

This look at Revelation and the Catholic interpretation of it may challenge Protestants the most. Yet, it does answer the common protest that veneration of Mary isn't Scriptural. This shows the basis for Catholic belief in Mary's protection of the Church and of us individually.

Madonna on the Crescent Moon, Peter Paul Rubens

A Vision of Heaven - Revelation 12:1-7

The dragon aimed his earthly wrath at "the woman" first. She was protected from his fury by God. So, being angry with the woman, the dragon then went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, those "who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus," which is the Church. Here we are able to see in dramatic detail just what God meant in Gen. 3:15 when He said He would put "enmity" between the serpent and the woman. In this scene from Revelation, she becomes the direct object of his assault, as he lashes out in anger as his time dwindles away. Who is this "woman"? Certainly she is a figure of Mary and the Church. Apocalyptic literature presents special interpretive challenges, but we can see why Christians throughout the ages have read this passage with Mary in mind. The point to note is how determined an enemy the dragon is of both the woman and her offspring. The woman is safe, but her offspring are terribly vulnerable while the dragon's time lasts. No wonder the Church has, down through the ages, given thanks for the special protection and advocacy which Mary gives to her children. This tender relationship is nurtured in the numerous Marian devotions that characterize Catholic life ...

Objections among Protestants to Marian dogma and devotion are usually rooted in their conviction that the Catholic Church teaches many things about Mary that simply aren't in the Bible. They are convinced that Mary has an exaggerated position in Catholic thought, either from over zealous pagan evangelism in the early centuries of the Church or from sentimentality over women in the Middle Ages or from a faulty understanding of redemption since the Council of Trent.

It was not always this way. At the time of the Protestant Reformation, in the 16th century, Protestants continued the 1500-year old tradition of reading the biblical references to Eve and Mary the way we have in this lesson. Even Martin Luther believed that Scripture accorded Mary a unique place in the human story. As time went by, however, a kind of Christian minimalism set into Protestant thought. Some of that was no doubt provoked by excesses and distortions practiced by some Catholics. Because of some abuses which seemed more like superstition than true Christian faith, Protestants gradually insisted on removing everything and everyone in Christian tradition that was not absolutely necessary to salvation. Jesus, of course, is necessary to salvation, so He is always at the center of the Protestant vision of redemption. Mary, we must remember, is a gift to the Church, as we saw in John 19:23-27. Gifts can be declined or left unopened or stored away and forgotten.

Modern Protestants, perhaps not knowing the history of the Church or even their own early history very well, have not been taught to "see" Mary in the Scripture as the New Eve. They are unaware of the fact that during all the years of Christian history before the Reformation, faithful Christians read the Bible this way. They do not realize that a Mary-less vision of redemption is a historical novelty. Mary appears to them to be an intrusion into an icon that has only Jesus in it.

Catholics can take confidence in the fact that, as we have seen in our lesson, there are strong scriptural reasons for retaining the icon of Mother and Son in our hearts and minds down through the ages. Being good students of Genesis, we would fully expect that when God conquers His enemy and restores man to a life of blessing, that life would be presided over by a New Adam and a New Eve, ordering everything as it was always meant to be.

This series first ran in 2004 and 2005. I'm refreshing it as I go. For links to the whole study, go to the Genesis Index. For more about the resources used, go here.

Genesis Notes — The Woman: From Jesus' Lips

GENESIS STUDY
The Annunciation - Luke 1:26-38
The Visitation - Luke 1:39-56
The Presentation in the Temple - Luke 2:22-35
The Wedding at Cana - John 2:1-11
The Crucifixion - John 19:25-27
A Vision of Heaven - Revelation 12:1-7

We are still breaking away from Genesis with Genesis: God and His Creation to look at the answer to the promise that the woman and her seed would defeat God's enemy.

I never really thought anything about how Jesus addressed His mother but the following two snippets of study make it crystal clear. The use of "woman" is a direct connection back to Genesis, the first woman Eve, and the "woman and her seed." For Him to deliberately us that word again when being crucified makes it even more powerful as to how important it was to make this connection.

The Wedding at Cana - John 2:1-11

Marriage at Cana, c. 1500, Gerard David, Musée du Louvre, Paris

For Jesus to address His own mother as "woman" in this context takes us right back to Gen. 3:15. We know He could not have meant any disrespect for her, so we must understand that it has special significance. For Him to ask her what she wants of Him is to heighten the dramatic power of the episode, and John doesn't want us to miss any of its meaning. It is clear that Jesus has every intention of granting Mary's request. What follows is a collaboration of the two of them that produces the very first sign of Jesus' Messianic mission in Israel. Mary acts as advocate ("they have no wine") and mediator ("do whatever He tells you"). Jesus changes water to wine, a miracle rich in Messianic overtones. What has John done in this episode? He has given us the grown-up icon of the Woman and her Seed. With language meant to call to mind the Garden of Eden, he has enabled us to see in Jesus and Mary the New Adam and the New Eve. The work of the Messiah has begun. [Note: According to The New Bible Dictionary (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1965), one site in Israel thought to be that of ancient Cana is marked by springs of water and groves of fig trees, much like a Garden we know.]

The Crucifixion - John 19:25-27

The Crucifixion, seen from the Cross, by James Tissot, 19th century.

John's gospel is the only one to preserve this scene from the Crucifixion. Is the exchange prompted by sentiment or expediency? Is Jesus worried about what will happen to His mother when He is gone? Or is there deeper spiritual significance in this episode? Actually, the gift of a familial bond between Mary and John rockets us right back to the Garden of Eden. There we remember that the first Eve was called the "mother of all living," but before she had a chance to begin a family, she and Adam were expelled from Paradise. The original family plan for humanity was for Adam and Eve to preside over children who could enjoy the blessedness of the Garden and eat freely of the Tree of Life. Disobedience brought death into the human story, so Eve's motherhood was bittersweet. She became the human mother of the dying. That hope of blessed family life in the Garden was shattered.

Shattered but not lost. When Jesus, as He is dying, establishes this new family between Mary, the New Eve, and John, the only one of the Twelve at the foot of the Cross, He elevates Eve's motherhood to a supernatural fulfillment. Mary's motherhood will extend to all those who are in union with her Son, as John showed himself to be. Just as God becomes the Father of all who are born again into new life in Christ through baptism, Mary becomes their mother, by this gift from Jesus. This new "family," of course, is the Church-all those "who hear the word of God and do it," just as Jesus described it in Luke 8:19-21; see also Rev. 12:17). We can see that it was Jesus' intention to share Mary with His followers. Her motherhood in the Church is a powerful sign of God's plan to recover what was lost in the Garden (see CCC 964).

This series first ran in 2004 and 2005. I'm refreshing it as I go. For links to the whole study, go to the Genesis Index. For more about the resources used, go here.

Genesis Notes — The Woman: Both Blessed and Suffering

GENESIS STUDY
The Annunciation - Luke 1:26-38
The Visitation - Luke 1:39-56
The Presentation in the Temple - Luke 2:22-35
The Wedding at Cana - John 2:1-11
The Crucifixion - John 19:25-27
A Vision of Heaven - Revelation 12:1-7

We are still breaking away from Genesis with Genesis: God and His Creation to look at the answer to the promise that the woman and her seed would defeat God's enemy. I strongly encourage anyone interested to get this study and read Lessons 6 and 7 for themselves. As if these scenes aren't powerful enough on their own, looking at their connection to Genesis adds such depth of meaning that it takes my breath away. This is the sort of thing where I see the "proof" that the Bible is divinely inspired.

Jan de Molder, The Visitation

The Visitation - Luke 1:39-56

Elizabeth "was filled with the Holy Spirit." Her utterance has the power of prophecy. In blessing Mary and the Child in her womb, Elizabeth gives voice to what all creation would want to sing out with "a loud cry" at the coming of the "woman" and her "seed" promised so long ago. Notice that Elizabeth does not separate the Child from His Mother. Her blessing is on both of them together. Her reverence is for both of them when she humbly asks why she should be the glad recipient of a visit from "the mother of my Lord." Even the child in her own womb, John the Baptist, leaps for joy when he hears Mary's voice. So closely are Mother and Child linked in this passage that the sound of Mary's voice is enough to produce rejoicing in the prophet-in-utero. John and his mother, Elizabeth, represent Israel, waiting for Messianic consolation. Jesus and His Mother, Mary, are God's comfort for His people. They are the flesh-and-blood icon of the Woman and her Seed from Genesis.

Menologion of Basil, Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

The Presentation in the Temple - Luke 2:22-35

And now in this passage we learn from Simeon that the Mother will also share in the suffering of the Son ("a sword will pierce through your own soul also"). Were we prepared in Gen. 3:15 for the possibility of suffering?

Yes, we were. We could anticipate a ferocious battle between the serpent and the seed of the woman, both inflicting wounds on the other. The suffering shouldn't surprise us. But how and why would Mary share in this suffering?

We must remember that Jesus opened up to all His followers the possibility of sharing in His suffering for sinners. His call to those who would follow Him to take up their crosses daily represented a call to obedience to God's will, no matter what, AND an invitation to suffer for sinners. That is what the Cross meant to Jesus. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:8) He intended to make it possible for all who belong to Him to join Him in that redemptive suffering (see CCC 618) ...

Simeon's prophecy to Mary makes it clear that she was the very first Christian to share in His suffering for sinners. Her place in this is unique, of course, because of her unique relationship to Jesus and to God. It was not simply that His suffering would make her sad. Simeon's unusual words somehow place Mary there with Jesus on the Cross when the solider pierced Him through with a sword to make sure He was dead. She was the first one to be joined to Jesus in her suffering, but not the last. Down through the ages, the Church has called her children to join their human sufferings, in whatever form they experience them, to the perfect suffering of the Lamb of God on the Cross, Who takes away the sins of the world. Ever since the fall, suffering is inevitable. Remember that it is the lens that restores spiritual sight. The Cross teaches us not to shrink in fear from suffering but to actually rejoice-rejoice!!-in it. Why? Because through it we see God and ourselves in truth, through it we cry out to Him for mercy, and through it, the world is won back to Him.

This series first ran in 2004 and 2005. I'm refreshing it as I go. For links to the whole study, go to the Genesis Index. For more about the resources used, go here.

Genesis Study — The Woman: Full of Grace

The Annunciation - Luke 1:26-38
The Visitation - Luke 1:39-56
The Presentation in the Temple - Luke 2:22-35
The Wedding at Cana - John 2:1-11
The Crucifixion - John 19:25-27
A Vision of Heaven - Revelation 12:1-7

This is where Genesis: God and His Creation breaks away from what would typically be considered a study of the book of Genesis. They take the time to examine the answer to the promise that the woman and her seed would defeat God's enemy.

This section concentrates on Mary as "the woman" and it is perfect timing when you consider that we also are in the count-down to the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Veneration of Mary is one of the most Catholic of beliefs and is arguably the one most non-Catholics have problems with. Perhaps these snippets of the Catholic Scripture Study will aid in understanding. Certainly they opened my eyes even further to the fact that God had Mary in His plan from the beginning.

When Catholics study the Bible they recognize that the Old Testament holds truths that lead to the New Testament. This acknowledges that Scripture has many levels of meaning and often "types" of people shown early on are "types" that foreshadow the revelations of the New Testament. Two people who we see "types" of again and again are Mary and Jesus and never more than when studying "the woman and her seed." I found this whole concept really fascinating when I discovered it.

Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation, 1898

The Annunciation - Luke 1:26-38
"Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!" shows why Catholics venerate Mary. She gave herself entirely over to God and with her humble obedience made it possible for Our Savior to be born. I remember being astounded by the idea that Mary was the New Eve but the logic made impeccable sense.

Mary's humble obedience in her fiat made possible the Incarnation. No one has described it more beautifully than St. Iraenaeus (c. 140/160-202 A.D.), who was Bishop of Lyons:

Even though Eve had Adam for a husband, she was still a virgin... By disobeying, she became the cause of death for herself and for the whole human race. In the same way, Mary, though she also had a husband, was still a virgin, and by obeying, she became the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race... The knot of Eve's disobedience was untied by Mary's obedience. What Eve bound through her unbelief, Mary loosed by her faith. (from Adversus haereses, quoted in Mary and the Fathers of the Church by Luigi Gambero; Ignatius, 1999, pg. 52).

Just as Eve's participation in the fall of man was real, although the sin was charged to Adam, so Mary's participation in our redemption was quite real, although the victory was won by her Son.

It seems entirely logical and reasonable that if God created a male and a female to preside as the first parents over all creation, He would also place a male and female in special roles over re-created humanity. In addition, the very fact that God promised to defeat the serpent through a "woman" and her "seed" proves that He wants a male and female to begin the restoration. To see Mary as the New Eve was a very natural development in early Christianity. In fact, we have evidence of it in the writings of the very first great Christian apologist, Justin Martyr (c. 110-165 A.D.). In his defense of the faith in Dialogue with Trypho, he writes this way:

[The Son of God] became man through a Virgin, so that the disobedience caused by the serpent might be destroyed in the same way it had begun. For Eve, who was virgin and undefiled, gave birth to disobedience and death after listening to the serpent's words. But the Virgin Mary conceived faith and joy; for when the angel Gabriel brought her the glad tidings that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and that the power of the Most High would overshadow her, so that the Holy One born of her would be the Son of God, she answered, "Let it be done to me according to your word" (Lk 1:38). Thus was born of her the [Child] about whom so many Scriptures speak, as we have shown. Through him, God crushed the serpent, along with those angels and men who had become like serpents. (Quoted from Mary and the Fathers of the Church, by Luigi Gambero, Ignatius, p. 47)

It is important to understand that Justin Martyr was writing a defense of the Christian faith against attacks from the Jews and pagans. He was not developing new theological insight, since he was actually a layman. He was only defending what the Church believed and taught at that early time in her history. The development of Marian thought was as early as the development of the doctrine of the Trinity, which is another example of a truth which is only implicit in Scripture (since the word "Trinity" never appears) being made explicit over time. Time is not the enemy of truth. The question is not whether a doctrine took time to develop but whether the seed of that doctrine was contained in the gospel preached and taught by the apostles.

This series first ran in 2004 and 2005. I'm refreshing it as I go. For links to the whole study, go to the Genesis Index. For more about the resources used, go here.

Friday Litany: New Testament Litany of Mary

Since October is the Month of the Rosary, I thought that a litany to Mary would be nice. There are many out there but this one connected with my meditations when saying the rosary. So here we have it.

New Testament Litany of Mary

R: Pray for us.

Mary, Daughter of Sion

Mary, Temple of the Lord

Mary, Ark of the Covenant

Mary, New Eve and Mother of the Living

Mary, Faithful Remnant of Israel


R: Pray that we may hear the Word of God and act on it.

Blessed Mary, ever full of grace

Blessed Mary, you welcomed the Lord into our midst

Blessed Mary, the Holy Spirit came to you and God's Power enveloped you

Blessed Mary, you are favored above all women

Blessed Mary, the Lord has accomplished great things in you

Blessed Mary, you went in haste to render service to Elizabeth

Blessed Mary, you brought forth Him who is our Saviour, Emmanuel, God-with-us

Blessed Mary, you took delight in Jesus' growth in wisdom, age, and grace

Holy Mary, from the compassion you showed at Cana

Holy Mary, from your experience of anguish and loneliness

Holy Mary, from your joy at the resurrection

Holy Mary, from your prayer in the Pentecost Church

Holy Mary, from your life of fidelity

Holy Mary, from your hope in the fulfillment of God's promises

Holy Mary, from your love of God and God's People

R: Lead us to your Son

Mary, Mother of our God, and Saviour, Jesus Christ

Mary, our Mother

Mary, Mother of the Church

Mary, woman of heavenly glory

Mary, woman clothed with the sun

Mary, first among the redeemed

Mary, image of the Church perfected

Mary, sign of hope and consolation

Lord God, our Father,
Receive us.

Lord Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary,
Receive us.

Spirit of Life and Truth and Love,
Receive us.

Let us pray:

Blessed are you,
O Lord our God,
for the great things you have accomplished in Mary,
the Virgin Mother of your Son.
By the power of the Holy Spirit
she is for us a model and sign of faith and hope.
May we come to welcome you as she did,
to treasure all that you send us in love,
and to ponder the Great Mystery,
hidden for ages,
and now made known to us in Jesus the Lord.

All praise be yours,
Almighty Father,
through Jesus Christ your Son,
in the Holy Spirit, now and forever.

Amen.

Source

Are You Wearing Blue?

My youth group leader was giving a talk one night and he said, "There are over a billion Catholics in the world. If Catholics decided to wear the color blue tomorrow, everyone would be like...Blue is a cool color." And that made me have this crazy idea.... What if all of us Catholics actually did that? So I decided in honor of our mother Mary, on December 8th, which is The Feast of The Immaculate Conception, we will all wear the color light blue. Please help me accomplish this goal! Invite all your Catholic friends! Even if you are not Catholic and you want to honor Mary...that's cool too. Join us in this movement and be a witness to the world!

"If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire. Let the truth be your delight...proclaim it...but with a certain congeniality."

-- Saint Catherine of Siena

Today's the day, people. I have to admit that I couldn't find a single blue thing at Target that didn't look dreadful ... so my "blue" is actually a teal. However, I do have my eye on a lovely mail order light blue sweater that I am going to have ready for next year.

As for now, get that blue on (or the closest equivalent) and flaunt it!

My "little friend Mary"

The friend in this story is someone who I have worked with for about 15 years, since before either of us had children. She is a strong Christian but not Catholic (which is important to this story) and also is a client of ours. She was in our office telling of her extreme computer woes at home and that no one could figure out what was wrong. It was wreaking havoc as their kids had on-line school work and had to go to friends' homes to do it. As she was leaving, she started laughing and told me that she half jokingly had asked her teenage son the night before it if was ok to pray for her computer to be fixed. He'd said, of course, that God cares about everything. But my client kept thinking of someone she knew who had just been diagnosed with cancer and didn't know if it was right to ask for such small things. She "knew" it was all right but I think just wanted to be reassured.

I instantly pointed out the wedding at Cana, that before Jesus went on to cure lepers he had given that wedding all their wine just so they could continue the celebration. I told her, "That's where a Catholic will go to Mary because she's the greatest saint. She's the one that pointed out the wine was gone and cared enough to ask Jesus to fix it. She's got that little extra pull with Jesus so we'll ask her to put in a good word for us." She left without saying anything right after that and I wondered if I'd been out of line but then forgot it.

I just got a call and without even identifying herself my friend said, "You can tell your little friend Mary that she fixed my computer." I didn't even connect what she was talking about until she repeated exactly the same thing (because somehow I'd never think of Mary as "your little friend Mary"). Then I said, "You mean Mary, otherwise known as the mother of Jesus?" She said, "Exactly. My computer was fixed in less than an hour thanks to that tip that Tom gave me. I can see why she's the greatest saint of all." Now, my friend was laughing the whole time but I have to think that the fact that she gave Mary the credit, however jokingly, is a great tribute to Our Blessed Mother.

As I was typing this story it just occurred to me that it has now been about a week and a half since I have started saying the rosary every day again. While in the middle of saying it this morning on the way to work, I had to stop my car in the middle of the street and wait while a huge moving van pulled into an apartment parking lot. While that van was practically parked in front of me, I couldn't avoid seeing that the part of it directly in front of me showcased their name ("Budd") and the red rosebud painted on the side of the truck. At the time I thought it was odd since I was praying the rosary but now that I got this phone call ... well, are those enough "coincidences" for y'all? Which, as anybody who knows me well will tell you, are things I don't believe in ...