I have a very difficult time with our image of Mary the Blessed Virgin and I have to preach about her next week. I decided to re-post this entry form March 2012. I would really like some feedback as I begin to write my sermon for next week. Thanks:
After this week and a half of a sick child, exams and papers; I have been thinking a lot about Mary, the mother of Jesus. In January I was taking a class with a brother from the Society of St. John the Evangelist on spiritual direction. It was a wonderful class but it was during a week when BB was sick. He was not allowed in day care and my husband had to return to work. I was juggling being a student and caring for the child who was in class with me. My classmates were wonderful and the brother was very gracious and truly made BB welcomed.
He stated that Mary was a wonderful example of contemplative life because "Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). I thought "That's a lie." And then I realized that my thoughts were being said aloud. I was being asked to comment on them. I heard Winnie the Pooh's voice saying "Oh dear!" in my head.
So here is my reasoning . . . Mary has been held up as the example for all women throughout the ages. She's so perfect and Mary Magdalene is such a "sinner." These teachings have been used a a means to control women through the generations. By holding up this one line from scripture we have set the bar for women entirely too high. If a mother shows a passion, anger or frustration about or towards he child, she is a bad mother. Not that anyone in society would tell her that but she has internalized this message from the time she sat in the pews with her parents. Every Christmas pageant show a young beautiful Mary who is happy to have given birth in a barn and was even happier to have all that company. I don't know about anyone else who has given birth but I did not want to have a lot of company after BB was born, especially strange men bringing farm animals and really expensive stuff, that I don't need.
I don't think I would sit quietly if my child was given a present that predicts his death and I know that I wouldn't calmly travel to Egypt as other women lost their sons to protect mine. I wouldn't sit by and accept that my son would cause me great pain and suffering because He is the world's salvation. I would definitely argue with God all the time and very very loudly.
I wouldn't quietly accept the idea that God had chosen me to be the mother of His Son without arguing. Get real. I'm going to be a fallen women and I might be killed because I'm a loose women. I think I would argue and maybe I would finally say yes but I"m not so sure. I would definitely have a stronger reaction than "Blessed am I among women."
Come on, it took me ten years to answer God's call for me to go to seminary and that happened before I had a family . . .
We need to stop de-humanizing the characters in the Bible, in particular Mary. If Christ is truly human and God as we state in the Creeds then we must acknowledge that faults that He and his mother had. Holding her up as the icon of womanly perfection is ridiculous. if she is perfect then she must be perfect because of her passion and love for her son. it must be because she experienced more than anyone's share of the joy, pain and frustrations of motherhood. She did it out loud with all the vigor that we have heard from our own mothers.
She did not sit quietly and wait for things to be done to her and to her family. I sure that the writers of the Gospels would like to image their wives and daughters behaving calmly and serenely at all times but we all know that is not reality. I need Mary to be real and human. Or perhaps it is, as my friend Elizabeth says, that many people interpret Mary to be a flat character when she's not.
Regardless, if we dehumanize her actions, then we de-humanize her Son, Our God and Savior.
I agree with you when you say that Mary must have had a hard time with a lot of the things that came with being the mother of our Saviour. The scripture says that she pondered those things in her heart and maybe, just maybe they were right—She may have been sad, upset, disappointed, angered, scared ….many of the times (and did not show it), but at the same time we must not forget the position women had at that time, they had voice but it was not heard, they were second class citizens (to say the least), therefore there was no use in saying anything or even worse, doing anything. Again, maybe, just maybe she was this pious, docile mother (as they portrait her) not by her own choice but by the choices made by the society she lived in; a society ruled by men.
ReplyDeleteAlso, when you consider that she was told that her child would be the saviour, the redeemer, she decided to let all her fears, angers, frustrations, et all in the hands of God. If she could not change many of the things she disagreed with, then at least, put them in the hands of God and let things take their own curse. What was going to happen was already set and nothing she did or said would change that, so, why make things more difficult?
Many times we ourselves ponder things in our hearts, any new experience, even if a good one carries with it uncertainty, fears, hopes, expectations and I think, us, women (especially), spend countless hours awake at night thinking about those life changing experiences while the rest of the family sleeps. How many times do we become Mary when we silently ignore actions against our children just because the society “says so”. We become prudent, cautious, polite, and maybe distant because those are the only resources we have to mark boundaries and still be society-correct?
How many Marys are there around the world when they find themselves pregnant (one more time after 5, 6, or more children) when there’s not even money for rice and beans? When they are affected by HIV and know that their children will inevitably end up dying from the disease? When they know that their children will most probably not survive a war that their country is going through? When they have an abusive husband that will hurt them and their children if they say a word? And what do they do but ponder and accept the reality in their hearts? That does not mean that they have a wide range of feelings (from happiness just to look into their children’s eyes to despair when realizing that there’s little or nothing they can do to change what they are going through.
A couple of months ago, while in EfM class, one of my classmates asked us to tell her what we understood by Mature Faith and the expression “Putting things in God’s hands” came to my mind. It is very hard for me to do that or even think about that, it sounds to me like giving up and certainly I can’t take that but it is also letting go of the strong desire to control everything, our lives, our environment, our actions; it takes a lot of faith and self-control to let go of our urge to have control or any control over a situation.
(Please forgive my grammar and any misspelled words, I was fast and furiously typing so I would not lose the ideas as they kept on coming to my head) I hope, this gives you some ideas.
Blessings!!!!!
Monica
Monica-
DeleteIt helps because like you I think Mary was amazing because she was willing to sacrafice herself and trust God. I'm just not so sure that she was quiet and "well behaved" about it. I just worry because the way she is portrayed in the Bible is so often used to teach women how they are to behave rather than acknowledging that women do have all of these feeling because of the situations they are in and the situations they are worrying about constantly. I consider her to be one of my heros because in spite of everything she still believed in God and trusted that she was doing what she was called to by God. I just wish we could see more of her pain and suffering and her reaction to this great lose so that our passionate responses would not shock people.