Tags
Christian, divine mystery, favored one of God, Mary, Mary of Nazareth, mother, Scripture, Sister Elizabeth Johnson CSJ, spirit, The Assumption, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Theotokos
Today Christians throughout the world celebrate one of the major feasts of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Known as “The Assumption” it is one of those tenets of Christianity which is not proven by Scripture but is rather “taken on faith.” That Mary was “taken into heaven, body and soul” seemed a logical conclusion to the life of the one that the Council of Ephesus in the year 431 had called Theotokos (God-bearer), the mother of Christ who was believed to have been “conceived without sin.”
Women throughout Christian history, especially mothers, have prayed to Mary as their “go to person” in needs of every kind and is held in high esteem as well by people of other faith traditions around the world. She is claimed as a mother by faithful men, perhaps especially in wartime or postwar peace, who carry their rosaries in their pockets, praying in foxholes or on the bus to work, asking her intercession and her care.
In 2004 theologian Sister Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, added a marvelous resource for our consideration of this “favored one of God” with the publication of her exquisite text, Truly Our Sister: A Theology of Mary in the Communion of Saints. Doctor Johnson studies Mary from the contexts of Scripture, archeology, history of the Church and the Tradition of Christianity. What emerges is a fresh face, a real woman of her times who calls us by her fidelity to do the work of God in the world as she did in her lifetime and continues to do by inspiring and leading us on. The opening paragraph of the final chapter holds a hint of what can be found and celebrated in this book and on this day dedicated to Mother Mary.
Mary, Friend of God and Prophet
Assembled together, the individual biblical portraits of Mary of Nazareth form a mosaic image of a woman of Spirit. Honed by the historical background of Galilean Judaism and interpreted by women’s sensibilities, the mosaic delivers a glimpse of an actual woman, a first-century member of an oppressed peasant society, whose walk with the Spirit at a pivotal moment in salvation history made a unique contribution to the good of the world. Within the overarching picture of God’s redeeming action in Christ, each tessera adds a different aspect to the church’s memory of her life. Our final task is to weave this living memory into that of the great company of friends of God and prophets which is the communion of saints. In the process, we need to keep doing our God work, understanding that female imagery rightly belongs in our discourse about the divine mystery: the living God herself is our mother of infinite mercy. And we need to keep doing our anthropology work, shucking off gender definitions of the feminine that confine women to subordinate roles. With our flanks thus continually safeguarded, we step back from a close focus on the Marian mosaic to espy the sweeping vista of which it is a part. (p.305)
In 1950, Pope Pius XII declared a feast celebrating Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as a dogma of the Catholic faith. There are many feasts of Mary and this one was not a new thought; it’s reality had been celebrated by Christians with rituals from as early as the sixth century. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven is, ironically, something “assumed” since there is no concrete evidence of the fact that Mary, like Jesus, was taken body and soul into heaven at the time of her death, because of her esteemed role in the birth and life of Jesus in this earthly realm. It is one of those instances that the Church follows the sensus fidelium, a time when “from the bishops to the last of the faithful, they manifest a universal consent in matters of faith and morals.” The Pope was, in a sense, just certifying what people had believed and practiced for centuries.
Yesterday I was speaking with someone who had participated in last weekend’s workshop at The Sophia Center for Spirituality about how simple, and yet how effective, the activities were. We concluded that it was a combination of the engaging manner of Jan Phillips, the presenter, that engendered trust by her honest sharing and the resultant willingness of the group members to act in like manner that carried the day. The focus of the sharing, a consistent energetic current that undergirded such success, was the life experiences of the participants and how those experiences had been transformative in some way. The genius of the process was that the transformation came from the simple exercise of speaking our truths aloud. Happy or sad, difficult or easy, long past or recent, we recounted our life events as we saw them and recognized ourselves in the eyes and hearts of the willing hearers in our midst. We found our creativity in the extraordinary poems that we wrote in 10 minutes, prompted by a series of necessarily included words like a color, a location, a body of water, a person…We moved our bodies in a simple circle dance and found it easier to do in the singing and connecting of hands and smiling eyes. In short, we realized our common humanity and celebrated our desire to reach out from that place to a world in need of our blessing and gifts.
Over the past 48 hours I have had the opportunity to spend time with two women whose fathers died this past summer. Last night my own father appeared in a dream which I only remember for his passing presence and the appearance of his wedding ring – not on his hand but clearly his – a strong symbol in his life and the lives of our family.
Reading today’s assigned Scripture texts for liturgy made me wish everyone – from the famous to the infamous – would pay attention to the messages. First we have Paul pleading with the Philippians to be united and then in what we actually call the psalm response the psalmist takes a humble tone that might actually turn things around if all were to act out of it. I imagine it as a conversation between God and us today. See if that makes sense and what might be the result if everyone took it to heart.
Not awakened by any word of Scripture this morning, I will pass on only a brief sentence said once (or probably many times) by Emily Dickinson – a perfect beginning to another round of work or study or dreaming new dreams:
