Mary’s Birthday

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birthday, caregivers, celebration, devotion, gratitude, immaculate conception, Jerusalem, model, mothers, nativity of Blessed Virgin Mary, Nazareth, Protoevangelium of James, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I have lots of people whose birthdays I remember and I celebrate them at least in my mind if not with a card, a call, or (these days) with an e-mail. Today Eastern and Western Catholic Churches celebrate the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary – a birthday I always mark with a smile and/or a prayer of gratitude for her role in our life. This morning I wondered who came up with this date as probably no birth certificate exists to prove her arrival and most of what we know from that time is less than an exact science. What I found was that the first written mention of Mary’s birth was in the apocryphal text called the Protoevangelium of James, a document probably in its final written form in the early second century. It speaks of her parents, Joachim – a wealthy member of one of the tribes of Israel – and Anna, but is not clear about where or when she was born. Some accounts speak of Nazareth as her birthplace and some say it was a house near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. The date for commemoration of her birth was logically set, but not until the sixth century, as nine months after the celebratory date of the Immaculate Conception.

Regardless of historical accuracy, the Christian Churches have always celebrated Mary in many ways during the year with great devotion. She is particularly dear to mothers around the world who look to her even on the ordinary days as a model for living – in good times and times of suffering. Perhaps that is a good reminder for us today to give thanks for our own mothers and/or those who have “mothered” us with their care and love – all those who have encouraged our birthing into spiritual maturity. I will think on those women today and mark this day joyfully in celebration of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Woman Like Us

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bless, Blessed Virgin, Elizabeth, hope, love, Nazareth, Paul, pregnancy, Romans, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Visitation of Mary

Today is one of the many church feasts honoring Mary, the mother of Jesus. I always remember the date of this one because it is the birthday of my cousin, Ginni – Virginia – named for Mary under the title of the “Blessed Virgin.” When I was young it was celebrated as the feast of the Mary, Queen of Heaven. I find it interesting that when the liturgical calendar was updated some years ago, this feast became instead the commemoration of the Visitation of Mary to her kinswoman, Elizabeth. I wonder if the rationale for the shift was the same as that of Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ in her book entitled Truly Our Sister: Mary in the Communion of Saints. Sister Elizabeth’s thesis is that although Mary is revered for the great honor bestowed on her by God she was a human being who lived a human life with the same joys and sorrows of women of the world in all eras of our history. The book is scholarly, to be sure, but my favorite section is the one that paints a picture of what life was like in Nazareth in the first century, including such images as the setup of the family home and the daily rituals, successfully bringing into focus Mary’s reality. It is a wonderful book, best read perhaps saving the first sections on theological considerations until after one has been treated to the world in which Mary lived and a consideration of all the biblical texts where she is mentioned and/or encountered.

The story of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth is indicative of the shift in the above-mentioned perception of her as a woman. Young, most likely terrified not only of the fact of her pregnancy but of its consequences in her culture, Mary flees “to the hill country” to an older relative, also miraculously pregnant and most likely somewhat anxious herself. One can only imagine the comfort they found in each other and how everyday tasks that they performed together became the solace needed to put their worlds right again. I picture them in the kitchen chopping vegetables and sharing their feelings about life and what the future might hold for each of them. As a backdrop for these thoughts, the words of Paul in his letter to the Romans (12: 9-16) seem particularly apt this morning. See if you don’t agree.

Brothers and sisters, let love be sincere; hate what is evil, hold onto what is good, love one another with mutual affection, anticipate one another in showing honor. Do not grow slack in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the holy ones, exercise hospitality. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Have the same regard for one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly; do not be wise in your own estimation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hometown Boy

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A Sleep of Prisoners, Christopher Fry, Jesus, Joseph, Jr., justice, Luke, Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi, Nazareth, prophet, speaking the truth, upstart Spring

In today’s gospel, Luke lets us know that telling the truth is sometimes dangerous. (LK 4:16-30). Jesus comes to Nazareth, where he grew up, and all is well – even amazing – as he stands up in the synagogue and reads (eloquently, it seems) from the prophet Isaiah, proclaiming that the message he read was being fulfilled as he spoke. The local folks wonder how he became so erudite – or so wise – since his father was Joseph (the inference being: a local guy, simple like themselves.) All was fine until Jesus started talking about past failures of Israel to be attentive to the prophets, such that God’s favor fell on foreigners instead. He had predicted their reaction by saying, “A prophet is never accepted in his own native place,” and was proven true as they ran him out of town and were ready to kill him in their fury – but it was not his time and he escaped.

There have been many people in our lifetime who have been vilified for speaking the truth, calling attention to societal conditions that are unjust or immoral. It’s easy to point to famous examples like Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. Today, however, I’m thinking of local people of conscience who work tirelessly for justice and are often ignored or disparaged for upsetting the status quo. It seems now that there is so much that needs fixing in our world that we can no longer turn a blind eye but must all be willing to speak up for change. And I believe there is hope in this era of mass communication where we have access to so many resources and so many spiritual people calling for transformation. I’m reminded of the epilogue from A Sleep of Prisoners, a play by Christopher Fry, that speaks of this urgency today and I write it as a spoken message to be read aloud because I think it is in the speaking that the urgency can best be felt.

The human heart can go to the lengths of God. Dark and cold we may be, but this is no winter now. The frozen misery of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move. The thunder is the thunder of the floes, the thaw, the upstart Spring. Thank God our time is now, when wrong comes up, to face us everywhere, never to leave us until we take the longest stride of soul [men] ever took. Affairs are now soul size. The enterprise is exploration into God. What are you making for? It takes so many thousand years to wake. But will you wake for pity’s sake?

To the Ends of the Earth

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cardinals, communication, continents, Galilee, geography, global, Jerusalem, Jesus, Luke, Nazareth, Pope Francis, spread of Christianity, St. John Neumann, Syria, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, zeal

As some people my age, I have come “kicking and screaming” into the world of technology. Those who know me, however, are aware of my enthusiasm for the GeoMaster APP which has enabled me to learn the names and locations of places everywhere around the world. I now feel connected to people and events as never before because I know where they live and see where it’s all happening. In an organic way it has expanded the reach of my prayer as well.

This morning I found an incredible synchronicity as I began to prepare this reflection. It began (rather whimsically actually) with a line from Luke’s gospel that says Jesus left Nazareth and went to live at Capernaum by the sea. I had a fleeting image of him sitting in a beach chair watching the waves…but was brought back to my task as I continued to read chapter 4 which gave me a totally different picture. He went all around Galilee, it said, teaching and preaching the Kingdom and curing every disease and illness of the people. His fame spread to all of Syria and great crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and beyond the Jordan followed him. On a map these countries of the Middle East are among the smallest,  but we need to remember that Jesus traveled on foot and only occasionally by boat – small boats.

Next I read about the canonized saint of the Catholic Church whose feast is today. St. John Neumann, born in 1811 was an immigrant to the United States of America when he was 25 years old, coming from what today is known as the Czech Republic. He was a priest of the Redemptorist Order and, his biography states, did “missionary work” first in New York, then in Maryland, Virginia and Ohio, where he was popular with the German community. Named Bishop of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania he became a champion of education, drawing many religious communities of nuns and priests to teach in the schools and creating a system of diocesan schools that remains strong today. He died in 1860 and proclaimed a saint in 1977.

When I went to http://www.americancatholic.org to read about John Neumann, there was a headline on the website about Pope Francis having named a new group of cardinals. There are 15 eligible electors (those who will name the next pope) and 5 honorifics (cardinals who are too old to participate in a conclave but were named because of their long and outstanding service to the Church). The 15 come from 14 nations on every continent including Cape Verde, Tonga and Myanmar. There are 3 from Asia, 3 from Latin America, 2 from Africa and 2 from Oceania. This is an astounding shift and I am proud to say that I can locate all of those places on a world map!

What does all this mean for me today? It just points up the growth and spread of Christianity from a small band of followers of Jesus in a tiny territory over 2,000 years ago to over a billion believers scattered all over planet earth. The miracle of this all boils down to zeal and communication – gifts, talents and willingness exercised by good people not unlike you and me whose faith has continued the story and helped new chapters to be written. Today these include renewed relationships among Christians across the denominational spectrum as well as new connections with those of other religious and philosophical traditions around the world. I am grateful for that today and can only conjecture…where will it go from here?