WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO MARY?
So far as the four canonical gospels are concerned Mary is not a prominent figure. In John’s gospel Jesus even seems on a couple of occasions to put her down. It is only in the birth stories of Matthew and Luke that Mary is a central character. It seems it must have been generally known that Jesus was conceived out of wedlock. According to John, some Pharisees taunted Jesus with this during his final visit to Jerusalem (John 8:41). This would be a grave impediment to any claim that Jesus was Messiah, which is the basic theme of all the gospels. However, someone, presumably Mary herself, must have told the apostles that the conception of Jesus was through a miraculous intervention by God, and that she was still a virgin when she married Joseph. Matthew says that Joseph also confirmed this in his story of an angelic visitation in a dream. Luke has given us a very beautiful story of an angelic visitation to Mary predicting her pregnancy. Luke never encountered Mary in person so the story must have been part of an oral tradition or, just possibly, a creation of Luke himself .
Luke also gives us a glimpse of Mary, Joseph and Jesus when Jesus was about twelve. The family had gone to Jerusalem for Passover and Jesus left the family party and went to talk with the learned men of the temple. It took Jesus’ parents three days to discover that Jesus was not with the party returning to Nazareth, and another three days to find him. This is a vividly human story of distraught parents searching for their child in a city far from home. Jesus’ excuse is enigmatic (Luke 2:49) and Luke remarks that his parents were puzzled. We get the impression of a quite ordinary, working-class couple who experienced the kind of frights and stresses common to parenthood.
The Church has exalted Mary above the whole hierarchy of saints but, in doing so, it has to some extent de-humanised her. Though the gospels give no such impression, by asserting as dogma her perpetual virginity, she has been denied a normal relationship with her husband. Matthew, however, names four brothers and also sisters. These may include children of an earlier marriage of Joseph, and the word for brother can also mean cousin. This allows for the possibility that Jesus was Mary’s only child but it is not conclusive evidence.
One wonders why the Church insists on Mary’s perpetual virginity. Would motherhood somehow soil her saintly image? Is sexual intimacy in marriage seen as something that defiles the soul? That has never been the teaching of the church, though the Roman Catholic Church, in insisting that her priests and bishops remain celibate, does imply that the celibate state is in some sense superior to the married state.
But Catholic dogma related to Mary doesn’t stop there. The Catholic Church claims that Mary’s hymen was unbroken, even after giving birth to Jesus. This seems to go from the doubtful to the ridiculous. What is the meaning and purpose of such a claim?
As a final assault on our credulity the Catholic Church asks us to believe that, rather than enjoying the normal funeral solemnities after her death, Mary ascended bodily into heaven as Jesus is described as doing. The word used is “assumption” rather than ascension, but the meaning is the same.
Bishop David Shepherd said once that, in his experience, more people had problems with Jesus’ humanity that with his divinity. This could well be, and the story of his virgin birth and ascension could contribute to this. Even the Catholic Church does not claim that Mary was divine, but, loaded with extravagant claims and dogmas, we might doubt if she was a normal human being. Normal human women do not conceive and bear children with their hymens intact for a start, nor do they go up into the sky after death.
My relationship with Mary is intellectually grounded in my belief in what is called ‘the communion of saints’. Communication with dead people is most often associated with clairvoyants and séances, but Christians are among that majority of humankind who believe that the living have a real relationship with dead people when they are related in some way. Christians believe that all humankind are our brothers and sisters, but particularly other Christians. If Mary is the mother of Christ then she is, in a sense, our mother also.
Jesus told his disciples to call God “Father”. From the cross, he told the ‘beloved’ disciple to regard Mary as his mother. It seems likely that all Jesus’ disciples felt a filial concern for Mary after Jesus’ death. In his account of the disciples’ Pentecost experience Luke says that all the disciples were together. Though Luke doesn’t say so, Mary may have been among them (Mary Magdalen too, perhaps). We have a Pentecost icon in the church that shows Mary among the twelve apostles. Unfortunately it gets too fanciful, placing her on a throne, presiding over the proceedings. I don’t think that Mary ever had that kind of relationship to the early church. It is another example of separating Mary from the real, historical world.
People generally have a distinct and unique relationship with their mothers, as significant, but different to that with their fathers or their siblings. In calling God “Our Father” I am identifying a relationship radically different from that with my own father (though it is almost certainly coloured by that). In calling Mary “Mother” I am also referring to a relationship different to that with my own mother. But it is not at all like my relationship with God. As with all the saints, I need to relate to her as a fellow human being, not a largely imaginary, idealised and theologised creation of rather male-chauvinistic, celibate ecclesiastics.
In the end I am suspicious of the academic discipline called Mariology. I don’t think Mary needs “ologising”. There is so much to admire and empathise with in the person so scantily portrayed in the gospels. Ologising her is an unwelcome distraction. Relating to a person who has died presents enough problems for a modern Western mind without making it more complicated with representations like our Pentecost icon.
Hullo Mary, my mother in Christ. You must have gained much wisdom in your experience of life, so full of bewilderment and pain. Since you are also mother of my Christian forbears, I think of you as a grandmother figure too. I welcome the possibility of an enlightening and supportive relationship with you
Posted: May 28th, 2010 under Uncategorized.
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