17 th December: 3 rd Sunday of Advent

In Praise of Mary

Mary’s ‘Song of Praise’ stands at the beginning of Luke’s gospel as a beacon. Much in the manner of the heavenly choir and the star in the East, Mary’s song is there to herald the significance of the holy child, Jesus, Son of the Most High. This is a traumatic time for Mary and it is a pregnant moment in the history of the world. Mary accepts being with child as a gift from God; but the gift transcends personal privilege. The ramifications will be traceable throughout history; an indissoluble bond has been created between heaven and earth. God is totally committed to the children of the earth and to the earth itself. This vulnerable life-event for the young Mary is no less a vulnerable moment for the Most High who ‘stoops to conquer’. God chooses suffering and death—the enemies of life—to become vehicles of redemptive love. No longer are pain and mortality to be feared (a constant affirmation of Luther) for God our Saviour embraces them; and in that embrace they are transfigured into sacraments of grace and life.

Textually, this hymn takes us back to the Hebrew Scriptures; its content is drawn from the psalms, the prophets and the history of Israel. Scholars ponder and debate whether the Magnificat is the literary creation of Luke or an earlier Jewish-Christian hymn. In any case, it represents a ‘piety of dependence’, perhaps a devotion that Mary imbibed.

However, whilst textual discussion looks backwards, the Magnificat, as a devotional poem, looks forward. Its thrust is eschatological, with respect to both the near and the distant future. Mary’s prophetic words will come to realisation in the preaching of Jesus, in the suffering of his Cross, in his triumph over death and in the endowment of the Spirit. Mary’s words await ultimate fulfilment in the far reaches of time and eternity. Though Mary’s subsequent role in the gospels is occasional (at the wedding at Cana, at the Cross, and at Pentecost), her ‘hymn of praise’ assures her a place at the centre, not the periphery, of Christian faith.

Mary has inspired Catholic and Orthodox devotion that has been intense—one may think of devotion to the seven sorrows of Mary, as well as to the seven joys of Mary. On the other hand, Mary’s ‘hymn of praise’ has been an inspiration for the radicalism of liberation theology and for feminist criticism of the Church. In often contrasting perspectives—whether comforting the sensitivities of the soul or challenging prejudices—Mary remains a central figure for the Church and the world.

Returning to the words of our text, let us reflect on Mary as a model of faith: faith as a journey and faith as contemplation.

In the biblical tradition, Abraham is the great exemplar of faith as a journey. Mary stands in that tradition. She herself understands her calling as a link in the long chain of God’s providential working. She is heir to the promises given to Abraham and ‘his ancestors forever’ (v. 55). This continuity is not merely abstract and historical; it is primarily existential. Mary recapitulates joy followed by trials and loss: these invariably come to those who take God at his word. Abraham left the security of his homeland and journeyed towards the unknown; and, on arrival in Canaan, a greater challenge awaited him. The call to sacrifice his son, Isaac, stood in contradiction both to the tenderness of his paternal affections and to his trust in the loving kindness of God. Mary, too, would travel this way, from confidence to near desolation. The joy Mary experienced at the Annunciation would dissipate in the cares of motherhood, in the constant danger that surrounded her son and, finally, in the darkness of Calvary. Abraham and Mary drank from the same cup: a drink distilled from crushed hopes. There is a parallel, too, in their experience of redemption. Abraham found God faithful in the end; Mary found God faithful on Easter Day.

These patterns of rising and falling are repeated for people of faith in every age. They may come through illness that questions the goodness of God, or through bereavement that takes away the joy of life. Trials to faith may come culturally, as the ways of the Kingdom seem all too insipient and feeble in the face of crude power and proud unbelief. Wherever our ‘faith’ journeys take us, Abraham is an example of courage and perseverance. He is ‘father of the faithful’ in the Abrahamic religions. For Christians, Mary likewise stands as an icon of patient endurance and faithful obedience. For Christians in the Catholic tradition, she is more; she is ‘mother to believers’ (Benedict XVI).

Faith is not merely a journey; faith is also contemplation, a yielding of attention to God. As the American baseball player, ‘Yogi’ Berra, remarked, ‘we learn a lot by observing’. To observe as God observes is the gift of the contemplative. Contemplation makes claims on our patience and demands a readiness for surprises. ‘Let it be according to your word’ was her response to the ‘strange’ news that Gabriel came to impart. Mary’s life, to borrow a popular idiom, exhibits ‘mindfulness’; she observes her thoughts rather than being caught up in them. Mary is an example of ‘soft power’ rather than the muscular spirituality of fundamentalism. The Finnish theologian, Elina Vuola, comments, ‘in different cultures ordinary people, especially women, have encountered the same ordinary and loyal Mary who understands the pains and contradictions of life…. Mary is more than an example … she participates in the divine in a special way: she gave human nature to the divine’. ²

Nor should the grace of Mary be considered exclusive to women or to Catholics; the icon of ‘Madonna and child’ is a healing, comforting, primordial image for men, as for women. Interestingly, a recent study has brought to light the continuing honour paid to Mary by Martin Luther. He preached some eighty sermons on Mary for feast days; he extolled her as Theotokos, Bearer of God. For Luther, Mary was worthy of praise and imitation, a model of listening obedience and trust, the embodiment of God’s unmerited grace. ³

Today, the appeal of Mary transcends ecclesial boundaries; many souls have found that graces of encouragement, of hope and of love take on a human face in Mary. This should not surprise; the faith, the courage and the love of Mary run from the Annunciation to the Cross. Perhaps most importantly, Jesus was nurtured by his mother’s love in his infancy and her love was not absent at the moment of his death.