By Molly T. Marshall
Baptists, and Protestants in general, have not known what to do with the Catholic preoccupation with Mary. We just do not get the nuances of the Immaculate Conception (different from the virginal conception of Jesus) and the Bodily Assumption, two significant affirmations of that venerable tradition.
I never got to play Mary in the Christmas pageant, probably because I could not sit in wordless contemplation! Indeed, many little girls prefer to be an angel because at least an angel gets to do something.
Sitting in blue and white in calm repose (as if long travel and labor had not occurred), Mary is simultaneously “queen of heaven” and virgin mother. Laden with theologically heavy interpretations, the courageous young woman is nearly eclipsed.
When possible, Central’s professors gather at Conception Abbey for the annual faculty retreat. It is an important time for assessment of our previous work and planning for the new academic year. This welcoming Benedictine monastery invites us into the rhythms of prayer and table hospitality, and we leave refreshed for having been there. We also live into the Spirit of Jesus’ prayer “that they might be one.”
While at the Abbey this past weekend, the community observed a major feast day, the celebration of “Mary being taken up into heaven,” the Bodily Assumption. In this affirmation, Roman Catholics have added tradition to the spare scriptural narratives about Mary, thus elevating her role in the story of redemption.
The hymns and chants portrayed her as the “New Eve,” the one who had reversed the curse brought about by the mother of the race. There was no mention of Adam and Christ in these pieces, which startled me theologically. And the incense was as thick as the cloud that carried Mary upwards.
After Vespers, my friend Abbot Gregory and I had a chance to catch up for a bit. After regaling each other with our tales of travel and fund development, he inquired about how our group was engaging the Marian piety on display, knowing of our Baptist sensibilities. I wryly noted that the scriptural warrant seemed a little thin, but simply stated our respect for our differences.
In further reflection, I wished I had said that our Baptist expression of the Body of Christ could do well to make more of the life of Mary. She believed that the Messiah was coming and that she was God’s unique instrument in the story of salvation. Her adolescent trust rightly earned the description of “blessed.”
Willing to entertain Gabriel’s startling message, and questioning it appropriately, Mary is the exemplary first disciple. Her role in this love story of cosmic proportions is indispensable, and her consent matters. St. Augustine was fond of saying that God would do nothing “without our consent.”
God is not content to remain in heaven but desires to dwell among us. Truly, heaven cannot contain God’s overflowing love; it spills into the world. God cannot wait for mortals to get it right (we never will), so God is birthed as one of us in the frailest form of human life, a male infant, and Mary is God’s first earthly home.
Mary believed before she conceived. Just as the Spirit of God brooded over the face of the deep, bringing forth new life, so it would be with Mary. What more unlikely place than a virgin’s womb to bear the Son of God? Similar to the ancient doctrine of “creation out of nothing,” her conception portrays the power of God to create life out of seeming emptiness.
She trusted that the Lord was really with her, which is why she can sing of the many reversals of injustice as if they have already taken place. Her own great reversal of identity was a sign that God would do what she sang out in the Magnificat.
Mary waited — with heaviness, yet with profound expectation that God’s strong arm would put to rights the world’s injustices. She well knew that only God could lift the heel of Rome from the neck of her people, and she knew that only God could call the arrogantly religious to true faith. We long for God’s justice to prevail, and we need her courage as we face the cruelties of our time.
Her unselfish sharing of her Son, even when she did not fully understand the nature of his ministry — and certainly not his death — remains an unparalleled model of faith. I see her influence in the courageous witness of many American nuns in our day. Wordless and docile they are not!
It is time we make more room for Mary in our preaching and teaching about discipleship, giving her more than a nod as she inhabits the Christmas tableau. Her trust and resilient faith have much to teach our tradition, also.
