Mary, the Mother of God is an Advent study presented by Brother James Dennis during November and December 2015 at Church of the Holy Spirit in Dripping Springs, TX.
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Meditation
If we really take the incarnation seriously, if we believe that the incarnation changed the world forever and was not just a one-time event that happened some 2000 years ago, what does it mean for us to be pregnant with God, to carry Jesus and to deliver Him into a world that is often hostile and perhaps worse, dreadfully unconcerned with Christ?”
Mary: History and Themes
Mary becomes deeply associated with Christian worship.
One of the principal and very early forms is the rosary.
Probably did not originate with St. Dominic (1170-1221), although special association with the Order of Preachers.
The very word bead in English derives from the old Germanic word meaning “to pray” (modern German beten”).
Deësis and Mary
Late Byzantine art form (13th-14 thcentury)
Depicts Mary and John pleading (intercession) on behalf of sinners.
Mary and John stood on the border of the Old Testament and the New.
Mary deeply associated with the Incarnation and with intercession.
The Mater Dolorosa
Early in Christian history, Mary is identified as the Mother of Sorrows.
“A sword shall pierce your soul also.”
“Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.”
“Woman, behold thy son!”
The Stabat Mater
13th Century (“The sorrowful mother was standing”)
“Through her heart, His sorrow sharing, all His bitter anguish bearing,now at length the sword has passed.”
The Sorrowful Mother in Art
Michelangelo intentionally portrays Mary as a young woman.
As the virgin “full of grace,” Mary has been spared the ravages of age, just as in death she would be spared the ravages of corruption.
Goethe’s Faust
Gretchen prays: “Incline thy countenance graciously to my need, thou who art abounding in pain. With the sword in thy heart and with a thousand pains thou dost look upon the death of thy Son.” Goethe’s .Faust
Mary as Mediatrix
14th Century, St. Birgitta of Sweden has a vision (Revelations) in which Jesus tells Mary:
“You are like the precious gold that has been beaten on the iron of the anvil . . . .Through my suffering, you have suffered more than anyone else.”
Mary had a unique role in the incarnation and in redemption.
By her “yes”, she had made possible both the incarnation (of God) and the redemption (of man).
Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153): “She is our Mediatrix, she is the one through whom we have received thy mercy, O God, she is the one through whom we, too, have welcomed Jesus into our homes.”
“Look now upon the face that is most like the face of Christ, for only through its brightness can you prepare your vision to see Him.”
Dante, The Divine Comedy
Theology from Bernard of Clairvaux
The Black Madonna
Song of Songs: “I am black but beautiful.”
The art form generally arises during the medieval period.
Many Black Madonnas inscribed with the phrase from the Song of Songs.
The Queen of Poland Legend:
Painted by St. Luke the Evangelist.
While painting it, Mary told him about the life of Jesus. He later incorporated that into the gospel.
Found by St. Helen in 326 Jerusalem and given to her son Constantine.
In 1655, small group of Polish defenders drove much larger Swedish army from the sanctuary.
Became a symbol for Polish resistance to the Nazi occupation.
Lec Walesa wore a pin of the Queen of Poland while leading the Solidarity movement.
Mary, The Great Exception
1854 Pope Pius IX issues Ineffebalis Deus (dogma)
Mary, “at the first instant of her conception and by a singular privilege” and God’s grace was preserved from the stain of original sin.
Originates with St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury (1033-1109).
The doctrine carries forward with the ideas of Blessed John Duns Scottus (1266-1308): Maximalism.
Summed up as potuit, decuit ergo fecit.
(God could do it, it was good that he do it and therefore he did it.)
Rejected by Bernard of Clairvaux and Bonaventure; questioned by Aquinas.
None doubted that she was free from sin.
The question: was Mary rescued from sin or preserved from it from birth.
By the 15thcentury, the doctrine was widely accepted within the church.
1950 Pope Pius XII issues Munificentissimus Deus.
When the course of Mary’s earthly life had run, she was assumed body and soul into heaven.
Very early doctrine: at least by the 5th
century (Transitus Mariae).
Around the 6th century the Feast of the Dormition celebrated.
Theodore the Studite (8th century) described the Dormition [koimesis] as the ineffable mystery at which the twelve apostles along with Enoch and Elijah attended Mary at the end of her life.
10th Century Byzantine Icon
12th century saw an intense debate on whether Mary was assumed bodily and reunited with her soul in heaven or body and soul together.
By 1854 (doctrine of Immaculate Conception), widespread support for the doctrine of the Assumption.
More support than for the Immaculate Conception.
Mary and the Reformation
Sola scriptura
Sola fides
Luther accepted the perpetual virginity of Mary (“Christ was the only son of Mary and the Virgin Mary bore no children besides him.”)
“But the other conception, namely the infusion of the soul, it is piously and suitably believed, was without any sin, so that while the soul was being infused, she would at the same time be cleansed from original sin and adorned with the gifts of God to receive the holy soul thus infused. And thus, in the very moment in which she began to live, she was without all sin…” Martin Luther.
John Calvin:
“Helvidius displayed excessive ignorance in concluding that Mary must have had many sons, because Christ’s ‘brothers’ are sometimes mentioned.”
Huldrych Zwingli:
“I have never thought, still less taught, or declared publicly, anything concerning the subject of the ever Virgin Mary, Mother of our salvation, which could be considered dishonourable, impious, unworthy or evil.”
John Wesley:
“The Blessed Virgin Mary, who, as well after as when she brought him forth, continued a pure and unspotted virgin.”
The English Reformation
Latimer, Cranmer and Jewel accepted that Mary was “Ever Virgin.”
From 1561 on, the Book of Common Prayer recognized 5 feasts associated with Mary: the Conception, the Annunciation, the Nativity of Mary, the Visitation and the Presentation.
The Book of Common Prayer, however, no longer recognized the Feast of the Assumption.
Lacked Scriptural warrant and exalted Mary at Christ’s expense.
Extended the Magnificant to use in the Daily Office.
Political and national disassociation/antagonism
Absent clear scriptural authority, however, the doctrine omitted from the Protestant creeds.
Hostility to Rome
Tendency to view veneration of Mary as idolatry.
Ponder These Things
Hodegetria
Mary points to the Christ (whose eyes are fixed on her)
Even as a child, Jesus’ hands are fixed in a teaching pose (scroll)
Overlooked (an unmarried woman in an occupied country in a dead end of the empire)
Embarrassment: an unexplained pregnancy shamed her family and fiancé
Accepting risk, reproach and scandal, she points the way to her Son.
That will be his life as well.
Are we willing to risk the world’s condemnation of us as “failures?”
The Orans
Ancient icon
Mary carries Christ, hidden within her (for nine months, God was hidden within her in the mystery of the incarnation.)
Mary has always been taken as a sign for the Church.
The life that fuels the Church may well be moments of exposure and insight or even desperately needy openness from some “irregular” Christians.
Suppose the life of the Church depends the most on those it least values publicly (tax collectors, and not Pharisees).
Our honest helplessness may be the well from which the real living waters will spring.
About Brother James:
James R. Dennis, O.P. is a member of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church in San Antonio and of the Anglican Order of Preachers. He frequently writes, preaches and teaches around the Diocese of West Texas on spiritual matters. He lives in San Antonio with his two silly dogs.
Adult Christian Formation 