There Really IS Something about Mary

Having spent all of my life in Protestant churches, I have had very little exposure to Mary. In an attempt to be "not Catholic," most Protestant traditions expend little or no attention to Mary's place in Scripture or her role in the Christ narratives, nor do they often include her in liturgy or in worship.

This is the world I come from.

Having spent the last three years at a Catholic university - a Marianist university, no less - I have been exposed to a great deal of teaching on and contemplation of Mary. I have learned from friends and colleagues who have Marian devotions, and I have come to understand more about how she has functioned in the church throughout its history.

Though I am long past that (regrettable and ill-informed) Protestant charge that Catholics "worship" Mary, I still had (and have) some...let's call it 'baggage' about Mary as a symbol of ultimate obedience. Absolutely, her "yes" to God is inseparable from our understanding of the Incarnation, and her exhortation to "do as he tells you" at Cana is a model of openness and obedience and true faith. However, as a feminist (yes, I used the "f word" - get over it), I have some deep concerns about assigning to her (or limiting her to??) this picture of obedience. Of course we'd give that role to a woman! Obedience? Definitely a feminine virtue, right? It just seems too easily coopted and used against women.

I could go on about this, as it's a very important and complex idea, but I didn't mean to do an exhaustive treatment of it here. I only brought it up to say that now, being pregnant, I have done a good deal of thinking about Mary. The obedience issue aside, I have a newfound appreciation for the way in which Mary can be a guide to spiritual contemplation.

As a woman, it is a stunning thing to think about Mary as a co-creator, with God, in the Incarnation. Before you get too scared, the church has had many, many debates and controversies about whether we can call Mary theotokos ("God-bearer") or merely christotokos ("Christ-bearer"). That is, was she the mother of only the human Jesus or can we say that she bore God? Ultimately, because we say that Christ is both (and inseparably) truly God and truly human, it is the orthodox position to say that Mary is, indeed, theotokos. This is perhaps simplifying too much what is a much more complex discussion, but it's a start.

At any rate, I return to my claim that Mary participated most profoundly in the way Jesus entered the world. We often see her as and refer to her as a vessel - and she was that, to be sure - but as I have been experiencing pregnancy, I know for sure that her role was certainly not as passive as we sometimes portray it. Indeed, her body formed and nourished our Lord. She carried him, gave birth to him, nursed him at her breast, and raised him.

Mary was a mother. Her body gave physical life and birth to the second person of the Trinity. God could have chosen from an infinite number of ways for the Logos to enter into our world, but God chose to do it through a woman and for whatever reason, God chose this woman. It was through a woman's body that Christ entered most fully into the created world.

Mary was obedient - yes. She was also brave and strong and was both simultaneously open to and active in the will of God. She cooperated and co-participated in creation.

She kind of rocks.