Some Thoughts on Mary
Deacon Douglas McManaman
As a result of my encounter with the Salesians of Don Bosco very early on in my teaching career, I have been deeply inspired by the life and visions of St. John Bosco. However, I was never able to warm up to the image of Our Lady Help of Christians (Don Bosco’s Madonna), a heavy set woman wearing a gold jewelled crown and holding a royal scepter in her right hand, holding with her left arm a rather plump baby Jesus wearing a similar gold and jewelled crown on a rather large head. This image struck me as a cultural projection. In fact, it is typical of us to create our images of Jesus and Mary “in our own image”, as it were. Every Advent a local parish treats us to a very large display of international nativity scenes, which illustrate well the tendency to create the Holy Family in our own cultural image. The international nativity scenes are somewhat more exhilarating for me, because it is rather obvious in this context that no single culture is the paradigm instance of the nativity, and so it tends to inspire a more global theological perspective.
That is why I believe it is important to take our own Western images of the Blessed Mother with a grain of salt; for they embody a perception that likely has more to say about us than it does about the historical Mary of Nazareth. Mary was an Israelite, a first century Palestinian Jew. Her skin would have been brown, and her character should be gleaned more from the data of Scripture than from projections rooted in a patriarchal Western European society, which for the most part lends the impression that Mary was a quiet, submissive, passive, and dependent woman, disposed to be subject exclusively to male guidance. If Mary was the pre-eminent Israelite woman, she would have had integrated within her all the characteristics of the great women of the Old Testament, such as the wisdom, courage, and leadership qualities of Deborah, the humility, work ethic, and initiative of Ruth, and the shrewdness and sacrificial spirit of Esther and Judith.
In fact, there is much that we can infer from a consideration of the first chapter of Luke’s gospel. For example, at the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel says to her:
“Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be ….”
Mary was troubled at what was said because she did not see herself as highly favored by God. And if she is the exemplar of perfect humility, it is only because she did not consciously regard herself as better than anyone.
“During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, …”
Notice that she was not accompanied by Joseph or any other man, and so this would have been a particularly dangerous journey. Jesus sent the disciples out two by two for the sake of their own safety, but Mary set out in haste, motivated by the condition of her cousin, Elizabeth, with the intention of caring for her until the birth of John. And so, she is a woman of great courage and initiative who acted independently.
In her Magnificat, she says:
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness….”
Once again, Mary sees herself as lowly (tapeinos). She is not exalted in her own eyes, that is, she does not see herself as special.
“The Mighty One has done great things for me, …”
She sees that it is God who has done great things for her, not the other way around, and there is no hint in these verses that she merited divine favor. She simply acknowledges the utter gratuity of divine grace or favor.
“His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him….”
She knows this because He had mercy on her, and she knows from within her own fear of God.
“He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty….”
She rejoices in justice and the divine mercy that serves justice, and this is true only because she had a longing for that justice. In other words, injustice moved her to anger and sadness, albeit a patient anger and sadness. The degree of that sadness can be inferred from the degree of her exuberance. And so she was not one to stand by meek, mild, and unmoved by human oppression; rather, she was someone who observed and was willing to name the arrogance of the ruling class. She is attuned to the suffering, to victims of injustice, the hungry, which causes her to be incensed at the arrogance of the oppressive rich. She is one who delights in the victory of the lowly. In short, this is a woman who burns with a desire for justice.
“He has helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
She loves Israel as did the great Jewish women of the Old Testament; she has a definite sense that she belongs to a larger nation but is just one among many,
“Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home…”
Again, she returns home on her own, without any mention of accompaniment, but only after staying for three months, doing ordinary tasks ordered to the support of her cousin. Menial and ordinary household tasks are not below her, and she stays for the last quarter of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, when she is needed the most.
Another important point is that Mary tends to be amazed at what is said to her. We see this at the Presentation. She is amazed at the words of Simeon and Anna the Prophetess. In other words, she is one who can be impressed with others and can learn from them, that is, she allows herself to be enlarged by others. She has no pretensions nor airs of superiority. And she ponders. She thinks about what is happening around her. She does not have an immediate and comprehensive grasp of things, and so she patiently ponders on what things could possibly mean. And she spent three days looking for Jesus when they discovered he didn’t return home with them after a day’s journey. So she understands the pain of loss, the pain of intense anxiety.
“When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety….”
It is not Joseph, the man, who speaks; rather, she takes the initiative and asks: “Why have you done this to us?” And yet, she puts Joseph first: “Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety”. She is not calm and collected with some ethereal trust in God; rather, she panics. Three days of anxiety at the possible loss of a child is terrible suffering, and this suffering enables her to sympathize with parents who have lost their own child. But she also very subtly calls out her son, challenging him, a twelve year old boy so focused on what interests him that he fails to consider his parents. She corrects this typical adolescent absent mindedness: “Why have you done this to us?”, and not: “It is we who are at fault….”. No, it was you, Jesus. You did this to us.
After that, Jesus is obedient to them. Mary still did not completely understand all this, but kept all of it in her heart, to ponder, so as to eventually discover the meaning of it all. Thus, she is patient, and she clearly understands that understanding is going to take time and thought.