Legion of
Mary
Melbourne Senatus
Prayer with Action
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Legion of
Mary
Melbourne Senatus Prayer with Action |
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Summer School of 2008
MARY, MOTHER OF THE LORD, IN THE MYSTERY OF SALVATION.
Bishop Timothy Costelloe
I would like to begin this morning by saying how happy I am to be able to be with you and to share something of my understanding of the role which Mary plays in our life of faith as Catholics. When I was parish priest of one of our Salesian parishes in Perth we had a very active and committed Praesidium of the Legion of Mary. They did great work in the parish and it was a delight to be able to join them whenever I could for their meetings. It has always seemed to me that the Legion manages, in ways that other groups sometimes don’t, to combine a very practical apostolic outreach with a very solidly grounded spirituality. It is as if you have managed to get the balance right between what in religious life we call the active and the contemplative dimensions. And so, I am really very happy to be with you all.
The topic I have been asked to speak on this morning is “True Devotion to Mary.” That phrase of course is one which has some particular connotations. Whenever I hear it I think of St Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort and of his little book, “The Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.” I’m sure some of you know it. And of course I think of the motto which is so much associated with his spirituality: “Ad Iesum per Mariam – To Jesus Through Mary”. I am not going to speak specifically about this great saint or his spirituality but what I do want to speak about is very much in this line. What I want to suggest and develop is that when we get Mary right, if I can put it that way, we will inevitably find ourselves being directed towards Jesus. And I think the opposite is true. Get Mary wrong, or forget about her altogether and we run the very real risk of getting Jesus wrong as well. Mary both leads us to Jesus and helps us to understand the truth about him. I would also want to add that Mary leads us into the heart of the Church and helps us to understand the truth about the Church. And of course, in our Catholic tradition, we can’t speak about the Church without speaking about Jesus, and similarly we can’t speak about Jesus without speaking about the Church. After all, as St Paul reminds us, we the Church together are the Body of Christ and Christ is the head of his body. Separate the head from the body and both are dead. It is this fundamental truth, which comes to us from the scriptures, which helps us to see that because Mary is the mother of Christ who is the head of the Church then it is only right to speak of her also as Mother of the Church which is his body.
Of course not everyone sees it this way, not even all Catholics. We need to acknowledge I think that for some people in the Church and perhaps for many these days, the Marian dimension of our tradition is seen as being something rather peripheral, very susceptible to pious exaggeration, and fairly low down on the hierarchy of truths. While I would agree that the Marian dimension of our faith is certainly prone to pious sentimentalism, and accept that some of the Marian doctrines and dogmas are not at the top of the hierarchy of truths, not the most central truths of our faith in other words, I wouldn’t agree that the Marian dimension of our faith is, or should be, in any way peripheral. When we get it right, it becomes an enormously important element in our faith, both in our understanding of it and in our practical living of it. The trick, I think, is to get it right. Well, as a way of trying to help all of us to “get it right” I would like to try to do two things this morning.
Firstly I would like simply to speak about Mary as she appears in the Scriptures. I think this is important because I am convinced that all healthy and helpful marian spirituality must grow from a scriptural base. Then, if we have time I would like to reflect with you on the four main beliefs of the Church about Mary to see if we can understand a little better just what the significance of these teachings is. Let’s see how we go. Part One – Mary in the ScripturesWhen I used to teach Mariology at CTC one of the things I would do would be to give to students a particular chapter from a book by John Macquarrie called “Mary For All Christians.” John Macquarrie is a well-known Anglican theologian, and the book in question is a study of the basic doctrinal teachings of the Christian tradition about Mary. He deals with topics such as the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, the virginity of May, and her role as intercessor or, we would say, mediator. Usually my students are surprised that someone from outside the Catholic or Orthodox traditions would even be writing a book about Mary. They are even more surprised to discover that an author from a Reformation tradition would speak, and do so very positively, about doctrines which seem to be so typically Roman Catholic. One of the things I point out to the students when we are discussing this is the fact that it is precisely the new approaches to the Scriptures, which arose not in Catholicism but in Protestantism, which have enabled all Christian traditions to re-discover the figure of Mary. In particular, once we have established that the Scriptures, and here I am referring primarily to the Gospels, are what we might call “theologized history” rather than simple objective chronological history, we can begin to ask about the “theological” intentions of the gospel authors as far as their treatment of Mary is concerned. No longer do we have to feel embarrassed, for example, by the relative scarcity of references to Mary in the New Testament: we have learnt to see that “theological quality” rather than numerical quantity is the important issue to consider. We don’t have time to go through the New Testament treatment of Mary this morning in any detail, but I would like to make this point. I am convinced that, when you take the New Testament as a whole, and consider it in terms of the time it took for the New Testament, and the various books within it, to take shape, a period perhaps of up to seventy years, what you discover is that, as far as the mother of Jesus is concerned, there is a tradition developing which moves from little or no serious reflection on her place in the story of Christ to a very sophisticated consideration of the role she plays in the mystery of Christ’s life, death and resurrection.
If we accept that Paul’s letters are among the earliest Christian writings we have, and if we accept the generally agreed position of Scripture scholars that Mark is the earliest gospel, Matthew and Luke follow perhaps ten to twenty years later, and John’s gospel represents a much later and more developed tradition, appearing in its final form possibly as late as the end of the first century, then it is not difficult to demonstrate that, as the Church gradually deepens its reflection on the fundamental question of its faith, namely the question of the identity of Jesus, it also begins to understand more fully the importance of the woman who was so closely and intimately related to the appearing of this man who is recognized to be our Emmanuel, our God among us.
What I am suggesting, really, is that, in the light of the overpowering experience of the resurrection, the earliest communities of the Church were totally absorbed by the need to answer the question: who is this man really? The Scripture scholars tells us that the passion and resurrection narratives were probably the first parts of the gospel to be written, just as they formed the content of the first proclamation of the Church’s faith. Gradually, the Church realized that it had to look back into the ministry of Jesus in order to understand more fully his meaning and significance. And of course, as the uniqueness of Jesus came to be appreciated more and more, his origins became a matter of more significance. As well as asking “Who is he?” the Church is also asking “Where does he come from?”. Once this happens, his human origins become a matter of interest, and, given what the New Testament and our tradition affirms about these human origins, the figure of his mother, who conceives him while still a virgin, inevitably comes to the fore. Thus, in the early writings, those of Paul, we find no mention of Mary, beyond a reference in the Letter to the Galatians which does not even give her a name. We are simply told that Jesus is “born of a woman.” In the earliest gospel of Mark, we find no infancy narrative: the Church hasn’t yet got around to thinking this far back. Where the Mother of Jesus does appear, she does so in a not too flattering light. She and the rest of Jesus’ family are worried about him because people think he is crazy, so they set off to take charge of him and presumably drag him home where they can bring him back to his senses and keep an eye on him. In Mark’s gospel, indeed, there is a very pointed contrast between the mother and brothers of Jesus who stand outside not believing in him, and the crowd who sits at his feet listening to his every word. The latter are his real mother and sister and brother, according to Mark. The point I would make here is that Mark, at this early stage of the Gospel tradition, is not particularly interested in Mary, at least not from the theological perspectives of his gospel: she has not yet emerged in the consciousness of the Church as a figure upon whom we should reflect.
When we get to Matthew’s gospel, of course, things have changed. Matthew’s community, having traveled a little further down the road, have begun to ask questions about the origins of Jesus. Thus, Matthew gives them, and us, his infancy narrative. It must be said that Joseph seems to be a more significant figure for Matthew than does Mary. Joseph is the one who receives the angelic visitations. Joseph is the one who is portrayed as the man of faith who responds to God’s call. But Mary too is the object of some theological reflection on the part of the Gospel writer. One of the interesting things about Matthew’s gospel is his inclusion of a genealogy, and one of the fascinating things about this genealogy is the fact that among all the men listed there are five women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheeba and Mary herself. Without going into all the details, a careful study of this genealogy, paying attention to the women in particular, reveals that, in the case of the four Old Testament figures, all are involved in some form of sexual relationship or situation which is in some way or another out of the ordinary. Tamar seduces her Father-in-law, Rahab is the prostitute who hides the spies of Joshua as they check out the city of Jericho prior to the victory of the Israelite army, Ruth is a foreigner, a Moabite, who marries into a Jewish family, and Bathsheeba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, is seduced by King David. The point about these four women is that, in spite of irregular or unusual situations, they are actively involved in the continuation of the messianic line, and are presented in the Biblical text itself or in extra-Biblical Jewish tradition as courageous women who actively cooperated with God’s plan. That Matthew includes these four women indicates that he wants to present the fifth woman, Mary, as standing in the same line: she too is caught up in a situation which is unusual to say the least, and she, like the others before her, can be considered a courageous woman who has actively cooperated in God’s plan. All of this means that Mary is now becoming an object of theological reflection: her role is being considered.
When we turn to the next gospel, we find a major leap forward. Luke has focused very much on the person of Mary in his infancy narrative. If we were just to consider the Annunciation story, for example, we would find that Luke has presented it in terms which are reminiscent of either Old Testament vocation stories or Old Testament birth narratives of, more probably, both. In the Annunciation story, Mary is presented very clearly as a woman of faith who responds positively, though not easily, to the unexpected and overwhelming in-breaking of God into her life. Luke certainly does not present Mary merely as a passive instrument through which God works: rather she is presented as a willing cooperator in God’s salvific plan. It is no surprise then that when Luke tells the story which Mark uses about the encounter between Jesus and his family, Luke turns it into a positive praise of Mary. “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it,” says the Lukan Jesus. The reader of Luke’s gospel can’t help but remember that, in Luke’s telling of the story, we have already met someone who is a willing hearer and doer of God’s word: Mary, mother of the Lord.
There are clearly many other things to be said about Luke’s presentation of Mary in his infancy narrative. If we had time we could consider the significance of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, and in particular the words which pass between them. We could consider the event of the birth itself, with all the wonderful happenings which accompany it. We could reflect on the presentation of the infant in the Temple, and the words of the Prophet Simeon. We could consider the significance of the incident in Jerusalem when the twelve year old Jesus is both lost and found. Merely to mention each of these events is enough to make us realise that, while Jesus is clearly and unambiguously the central figure in the whole of the Lukan infancy narrative, there is also something of a sustained reflection going on as regards the presence and significance of Mary, the Lord’s mother. It is no surprise then that Luke takes incidents from Mark’s gospel and presents them rather differently. The growing realisation of Mary’s importance will not allow the Church to treat her any longer as a relatively insignificant presence.
If we look to John’s gospel, we find there a similar “quantum leap” as regards reflection on Mary. She only appears twice, but in a gospel which is recognised to operate on so many symbolic levels the two appearances are particularly significant. The Cana story is primarily, so the scholars tell us, a story about faith and about the manifestation of the true nature of Christ. It is, in the words of the evangelist, the first of the signs Jesus worked, and a manifestation of his glory, and all this in spite of the fact that Jesus tells his mother that his hour has not yet come. Of course that hour will come when Jesus dies on the cross. John’s gospel will tell us that this is the moment of his real glorification. The mother is present in both scenes, and the fact that she is not named, but is simply the mother of Jesus, or the woman, puts her in the same category as that other figure in John’s gospel who is never named: the Beloved Disciple. Mary, in other words, like the Beloved Disciple, who also stands at the foot of the cross, has a double role to play. Both of them are at once historical figures and symbolic figures. In the reality of their historical concreteness they take on symbolic roles, one as the symbol of discipleship and the other as the symbol of faith. This is clear when we remember that it is the faith of Mary in the Word of Christ which brings forth the miracle of the abundance of wine at the wedding feast. From the period of the Church fathers onward, the Johannine crucifixion scene has always been understood to be a profound theological reflection on the nature of the Church as the community of Christ’s disciples. The seamless and intact garment is a symbol of the unity of Christ’s disciples. The blood and water which flow from the side of the dead Christ are symbols of Eucharist and baptism. The giving up of the Spirit as Jesus says, “it is accomplished” is, more than a euphemism for Jesus’ death, a statement that in his death Jesus breathes forth the Spirit of God upon us. And why do I say “on us” in this context? Because the mother who is the woman of faith and the disciple who is precisely that, the faithful disciple, in the union which is theirs through the word of Jesus committing them to each other, represent the whole gathered Church, living its discipleship in faith.
John’s gospel is telling us that the Church is never complete, never fully what it is called to be in the creative design of its founder, until it finds a place within it for the woman who mothers Jesus into life, who mothers the disciples into faith at Cana, and who will mother all the disciples of Jesus into faith within the communion of the Church.
And of course, Luke will give us exactly the same perspective in the opening pages of the Acts of the Apostles, when he describes the infant Church awaiting the promised gift of the Spirit. It is a gathering, a communion, comprising the apostles, the wider group of disciples, including the women, together with Mary the mother of the Lord and with the brothers. Contrary to much popular iconography, Mary is not presented in Luke’s account as the absolute centre of this group. But contrary to some Christian practice, the Church is not properly constituted without her presence in its midst.
All that I have been saying is not the work of later Tradition, but the witness and the gift which the New Testament itself offers us. Far from needing to feel apologetic about the marian tradition which is ours, and far from accepting that it represents something from the past which has no relevance for us today, the New Testament itself demands of us that we find the rightful place for Mary in the life of the Church and in its liturgy and its spirituality. Bishop Timothy Costelloe
THE OTHER TALKS PRESENTED AT THE SUMMER SCHOOL ARE AVAILABLE FROM THE SENATUS IN A BOOKLET. |
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