I am not going to go through a detailed discussion of Mary. If you want to see how Catholic Theology approaches this, there is a very long and detailed exposition in MULIERIS DIGNITATEM that dives into the murky depths of who is the Theotókos. IAnd I am not John Paul. I’m a reformed layman. What is worthwhile looking at, instead is how this fits into the unfolding story of the gospel.
My first point is that the Spirit does work through women and has always worked through women. There have been prophetess since Miriam grabbed her tambourine and led the women of Israel to praise God after crossing the Red Sea. But these women have had to be within the structure of society: as Miriam herself was punished when she demanded equal honour with Moses.
But in the first passage we see an example of womanly encouragement, and shelter. Mary was in the hill country: the pregnancy of a virgin affianced woman was a scandal. And the Spirit comes to Elizabeth, who starts this by asking this teenage girl — who was scared, for people were stoned for adultery — why has the mother of our God come to visit her. She calls her blessed, and then Mary prophesies.
39In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
46And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, 47and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 49for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name. 50His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
51He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 52He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and Lifted up the lowly; 53he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. 54He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, 55according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”56And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.
Now, us Protestants have been accused of not giving Mary enough honour. Well, no, we should honour her courage, her faith, her dignity: but we stop at seeing her without sin, for no one was without sin but Christ.
Honour, well, yes: and for that I refer you to that great Reformation composer, Bach.
But the Magnificat (switching from Latin and the Baroque back to English and our fallen times) is propehcy and stands as such. The content of this is very similar to that of much of Psalms and the Prophets. This spam, which was placed next to the gospel today, is an example of that. It reminds us that we will be the conquerors and the judges of nations, and that the nation and time are akin to grass. We need to think far more of where we are going. There is another part of this, which I will come to after the passage.
1 Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the faithful.
2 Let Israel be glad in its Maker; let the children of Zion rejoice in their King.
3 Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre.
4 For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with victory.
5 Let the faithful exult in glory; let them sing for joy on their couches.
6 Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands,
7 to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples,
8 to bind their kings with fetters and their nobles with chains of iron,
9 to execute on them the judgment decreed. This is glory for all his faithful ones. Praise the Lord!
In the Psalm we see the women (again, as with Miriam) singing and dancing as they praise God, but we see the men picking up swords, to execute vengeance. The Puritans loved this: they used this and some of the prophecies within Judges to justify revolution and regicide, demanding that the King either sign a covenant (yes, I know that was the Scots, but the Puritans and Covenanters had much more in common than many will admit).
What I want to look at is the fact that women had one role: men another. the women were, if you will, the cheerleaders. Men have always sacrificed themselves for their wives and children. They have always fought to protect home and heath. The pacifist societies died: the best documented example of this is when the Taranaki tribes sailed to the Catham Islands, killed all the men (and ate a few of them) and enslaved all the women. In 1835:.
On 19 November 1835 and later in 5 December, about 900 Maori armed with guns, clubs and axes arrived on the brig Lord Rodney. The Maori included men, women and children, along with 78 tonne of seed potato, 20 pigs and 7 waka.[9] The Maori came from two tribes, Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutunga. Initially they were cared for by the local Moriori. When it became clear they intended to stay the Moriori withdrew to their marae at Te Awapatiki. The Moriori debated what to do about the Taranaki M?ori invaders. They decided to implement their policy of non-aggression. After this hui the invaders began to takahi, or walk the land, to lay claim to it. They proceeded to ritually massacre about 300 Moriori, who are thought to have totalled about 2,000,[9] cannibalise the dead and enslave the survivors. A Moriori survivor recalled: “[The Maori] commenced to kill us like sheep…. [We] were terrified, fled to the bush, concealed ourselves in holes underground, and in any place to escape our enemies. It was of no avail; we were discovered and killed – men, women and children indiscriminately”. A Maori conqueror justified their actions as follows: “We took possession… in accordance with our customs and we caught all the people. Not one escaped…..”
We should not delude ourselves. There is not that much difference between the Maori and the Europeans. On a personal note, my family descends from the European Settlers who conquered the territory of these tribes in the Taranaki — during a three-year land war that started in 1857. There is payback for doing these things, and at times it occurs within years of the original event. We may not eat our enemies, but we don’t have many qualms about using industrial methods to kill them. or prevent them being conceived, or come to term.
You would wonder if Mary the Mother of God was a student in a modern high school if the guidance counselor would have considered the girl deluded and organized an abortion without even consulting her mother and father. (Let alone Joseph, who would probably be told that it was illegal to have a marriage contract with her).
Within the church we have to not be like our society. Our society is becoming more pagan. We have to therefore consider that being aligned with the society is now inconsistent with the gospel, and with good Christian behaviour.
2:11For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, 12training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, 13while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 14He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.
15Declare these things; exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one look down on you.
3:1Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, 2to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show every courtesy to everyone. 3For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another. 4But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. 6This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 8aThe saying is sure.
We live in this world as it is: it has always been a drain, the only question is if the storm-water is separated from the shite, or if the shite is demanding to contaminate everything. When the society demands that Christendom is like themselves, in their structured injustice, inequality, approved perversions and banned virtues, it is time to let the society go and live as we ought.
This society is fungible. It will end, as did the Theocratic republic of Maccabean Israel, as did the Roman empire that followed it. We must stay self controlled, do good, and not allow us to fall into the corruption of this age.
We need the courage and faith of Mary: who chose to bear the Christ (yes, there were abortifacients in those days, or the Hippocratic oath would not ban them), taking the shame that came with that in the hope of a greater promise. We need to keep our own house in order. And we need to stop those who would demean, disempower and destroy the church, for they worship this time and the current state.
The church must be a place of healing, righteousness, and with enough of a spine to defend the good: to model right living. We do not want to end up in the Churchian hell Nic Cave describes.
UPDATE: I am aware of the logic behind the ideas of Mary being immaculately conceived, but the assumptions around ritual purity being important and the perfect being made from the imperfect work just as well if you honour her as a woman and not a special species. It also follows the rule of parsimony, or Occam’s razor.
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