Ave Maria
O Lover,
Well You know that Marian issues have sometimes stuck in my craw. Entering the Catholic orb in mid-life, I came predisposed. As a child and youth I was taught that Catholics worshipped Mary; that her mediating role to the mediating Christ was unnecessary at best, idolatrous at worst; that the doctrines of her immaculáta, perpetual virginity, and assumption had náda biblical foundation. In seminary the centrality of theotókos (“Mother of God”) in the Council of Ephesus (431) was a puzzlement insofar as I was being taught that Marianism was largely a syncretistic accretion from Canaanite fertility cults.
Part of the process of being drawn to become Roman Catholic in 1991 was my emerging resolve to embrace the Holy Mother aspect of my new ecclesial home. In some respects that decision was richly rewarded as You opened to me fresh and vital meanings of Mary’s appearances in Christian scriptures: e.g., the annunciation and magnificat (Lk 1 & 2), the wedding at Cana (Jn 2:1-11), Mary’s misunderstanding of Jesus’ mission (Mk 3:20-35), her presence amid the embryonic community awaiting Pentecost (Acts 1:14). I resonated with how Mary embodied Your “view from below” offsetting both the church’s hierarchy and patriarchy. I thrilled as I stumbled upon yet more Catholic choral music with Marian themes. And I would be invariably moved in basilica student celebrations of the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Yet, other aspects of Marian teachings have left me conflicted. I shared life with Discalced Carmelite seculars for whom Mary’s role (devotions, apparition tourism, etc.) was more prominent than what I encountered in either Teresa or Juan. I still remember my interior “I cannot suffer this!” when during an exploratory visit to another OCDS community I was conscripted as a litter-bearer circumambulating with a statue of the Holy Mother. I found myself recoiling from what I perceived to be a “co-mediatrix drift,” especially during the reign of John Paul II, as I was realizing that the Catholic restorationist impulse is almost invariable excessively Marian. I experienced the mystical edge of the tradition of Jesus, particularly in the pivotal 13th-16th centuries, to have but a modest Marian role compared to that of much modern popular devotion. With all of the above, and more, I have struggled in a university context whose alma mater oxymoronically conflates Marianism and football. In short, on these issues perhaps more than any other I have occasionally felt like a closet Protestant.
But, nudged by Crawford Wiley’s Ave Maria sung by the liturgical choir in last Sunday’s Mass, I seek deeper light. The principal task in my remaining time consists of enlarging my existential “yes!” to You who are Immanuel (“[You] with us”), of more fully embracing the paradox of Your relationship with the cosmos as being both beyond enumeration (advaíta, “neither two nor one”) and also unítas indistinctiónis. But how did I become aware of such intimacy, solidarity, amorous-entanglement, such Oneing? While in my anecdotage I repeatedly glimpse hints of that relationship, it is clear that the shift began and is grounded in Your Christ. He was and remains central in Your transformation of my earlier images and theologies of You inimical to such unítas. Thus the root and core of my faith is incarnational. And while I now see Your taking on “flesh” (Jn 1:14) as pertaining to all creation, that awareness is for me forever tethered to the birth of an infant two millennia ago to an adolescent girl who responded to Your proposal with an unequivocal “yes.” I unabashedly confess her to be theotókos: God-bearer (and God-barer). That “yes” (Lk 1:38), immeasurably greater than Mary could have known, continues to escort me into to the cosmic proportions of Your Christ’s “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30).
Among the saints Mary’s role is both unique and paradigmatic (Lk 1:26-38): in her courageously pressed query—“How can this be, I being a virgin?”—she exercised Your awesome gift of freedom; she assented to Your messenger’s mind-boggling response in a manner grounded in trust extending far beyond understanding; she offered her entire being, most concretely her womb, as incubator out of which awareness of Your lavish Love would bloom; she thus models the reconfiguration of awareness of Your relationship with the creation from separation and alienation to unítas. Her “yes” was the key opening the door to the incarnational concretion of Your eternal relationship with the beloved creation. In this regard I am experientially Marian.
Ave Maria!
