All things Mary, Marian theology, imagery and language
Louise
Epiphanies Host
in Epiphanies
@questioning 's post copied over from Gendered Language thread to start a new discussion
questioning wrote: »If anything, Mary has a knack to get involved. At the annunciation Mary could have said, "Sorry, I'm going to pass." As Lamb Chopped pointed out, to sing what we know as the Magnificat would have been a radical step--though I happen to think Luke is using the song as a device to put how subversive the Jesus movement would become. She seems to be a source for many of Luke's accounting too. Just think how wrenching it would be to watch your first-born son die the death of a common criminal.
But I am getting ahead of the discussion.
I'm wondering if we need to start a Marian thread...
One of my challenges with the story of the annunciation is that - as written - Mary actually has no choice. The angel says, "Mary, this is what's going to happen." Mary responds, "How the heck can that be?" The angel explains the how, and Mary acquiesces. The angel doesn't ask, "Are you OK with this?" The angel says, "This is what is going to happen."
Mary is voluntold and submits. I've been grappling with the notions of consent and submission in this story for a couple of years now. I don't think it's accidental that we know the story as The Annunciation - an announcement, not a request or an offer or anything else that suggests choice on Mary's part.
I really wonder how much of our interpretation of scripture has been coloured by patriarchal interpretations.
(I could also go on about Isaiah 49:15, "Can a woman forget her nursing-child,
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?" I've heard male preachers and interpreters put all sorts of lovely, pretty, poetic spins on this. Frankly, any mother who has nursed a child knows that she can never forget the child. Her breasts are going to ache, swell, and spurt across the room if that child doesn't get fed promptly. This is not elegant. This is magnificently earthy and human. I'm don't know a lot of men to whom this passage has ever been that physical!)
Comments
As an aside, I think we all bring our particular personality traits and presuppositions to these things. On the 'source' thread, for this one, for instance, there was a comment that Christ's apparent dismissive reaction to his mother at the wedding of Cana, was typical 'young adult' behaviour.
As if someone aged 30 was a 'young adult' in 21st century terms at that time.
Also, that there was a stereotypical 'Jewish mother' element to Mary's behaviour. As though 20th/21st century comedic 'Yiddish Mother's stereotypes apply to 1st century Palestine.
Ok, I'm not offended by that nor am I being po-faced or Puritanical, hence the tone of levity in my comments about the old 'Star Of The Sea' section.
But we do need to tread carefully. There are, of course, egregious examples of sexism around this whole topic and much debate about how Marian material affects views of women whether positively or negatively.
My levity and lightness of tone should not imply that I am indifferent or unaware of this.
I love that last observation about Isaiah 49:15. That's the absolute truth--it was shocking, the degree to which my nursing baby took over my life, starting with my own body. He was in charge, not I!
Re Mary and the "voluntold" bit--
I can't help thinking about a close friend of mine, who is really a sister to me in all but blood. We knew we had passed a major turning point in that relationship when she had an emergency involving her family. Without asking me--she couldn't--she committed me to handling transport and other issues around a hospitalization. Later I did much the same in reverse by basically moving into her home during an emergency of my own, along with my infant. Neither of us would have ever dreamed of imposing on a friend that way, without asking; but when the need hit, we both committed the other person without asking and without stressing about it, and the other one accepted the burden and felt glad to have been trusted so. That's how we knew we were past friendship and into family.
Which leads me to wonder just what kind of relationship Mary had with God, to be "told" and not asked. Was she so close to him that he knew he didn't need to ask?
This RC swerves away from Marian stuff. It just doesn't resonate with me at all, whether its popular devotions or proclaimed dogmas like the Inaccurate Deception. I just don't see the need for it.
Maybe I'm missing something.
The RCs and Orthodox have various pious legends about the childhood of Mary, of course, how she was dedicated to God by her parents Joachim and Anna and brought up in the Temple etc.
The Orthodox don't go as far as the RCs with their idea of the Immaculate Conception of Mary and various 'Co-Redemptrix' approaches. We do, of course go a lot further than most Protestant Christians would, and some Orthodox go further than I would also.
With all due respect to our RC sisters and brothers, I find some of their Marian extremes highly repellent. But there are equally areas where we can find common ground.
The bottom-line I think, is what these emphases bring to the table in terms of divine-human synergia. The Incarnate Word derived his humanity from Mary.
Mary was wise, shrewd, obedient - had a clear social conscience judging from the Magnificat
I have no problem in seeing her as an exemplar among the Saints and of invoking her aid. We can debate whether the stress on her virginity - or her Perpetual Virginity in Holy Tradition - idealises virginity and implies that sex is icky and sinful.
We can argue whether putting Mary on a pedestal somehow diminishes everyone else or creates some kind of deficit in our devotion to Christ. I've heard that said.
We can certainly find over-the-top depictions and execrable Marian hymnody and poetry.
Yet, in essence, it's all about Christology and integrated with that all about humanity. All about humanity in union with the Divine.
Yes, the Orthodox can sanitise things and believe you me, I struggle with elements of popular piety and some of the Big T Tradition, but in our iconography of the Nativity the midwives are shown washing the infant Christ.
That may appear at variance with some of the language we use and may very well be. Dare I say 'both/and'? 😏
I could play the 'It's all a Mystery' card. Which of course it is. In the theological sense.
But in doing so I do not intend to close down debate.
I think when it comes to a book like the Bible, in which tradition plays a large part in interpretation, one can favour the most productive interpretation.
For the record, I wasn't criticizing you at all. When I read your post, I just thought "Yeah, that's a paragraph that could only appear on the Ship", so I was trying to convey that sense of uniqueness.
She made it clear that she was merely speculating, but she suggested that Mary was on this occasion acting as a Prophet. Jesus, far from being dismissive, was actually being polite, and was genuinely uncertain as to how his ministry should continue. Mary (suggested the vicar) was perhaps inspired by the Holy Spirit at this moment to confirm - maybe by a look, rather than with words - that Jesus' time had come, and, acting on the knowledge that her son would comprehend, duly gave the servants their instructions.
Well, I sort of saw what the vicar (whose parish BTW would be classed as *middle-of-the-road*, with no inclination towards Marian devotion) meant. She had a way of looking at familiar Bible passages in a rather oblique manner.
YMMV.
I've been thinking about this post.
My feeling is that maybe it is missing the point to take the story as historical fact and then to get het up about it. However .....
As for the lack of consent aspect. It seems to me that this is a feature of much of God's interactions with individuals in the OT. People (mainly men) are told to do stuff and they do it. "Go," "tell," "speak" are frequent commands. The Almighty doesn't often say, in the words of Sergeant Wilson, "would you mind awfully ......" And Jesus's prayer was "Your will, not mine." There is a toughness in God's interactions that can feel uncomfortable to our present sensibilities.
There is a strong RC tradition (which may or may not reflect the truth of the event) is that Mary did assent and could have refused - and that her "let it be done to me as you have said" is actually her assenting to become pregnant. Medievals used to ponder whether God had a Plan B in case she refused (as a break from counting angels on pin heads.)
I doubt you really want to open the doors the Mary-sports analogy leads to. I mean, if someone's devotion to Mary is comparable my devotion to baseball, I really wonder about the role of faith in their life. I truly enjoy baseball, but it's not a religion, the opening monologue of Bull Durham notwithstanding.
Major parts of Christianity, including the one @Alan29 belongs to, push Mary's role and importance and devotion to Mary pretty hard, so to me it's significant when someone inside the faith rejects it all entirely.
I don't reject her role in the story of salvation - I mean Theotokos is pretty significant. But I don't pray to any of the saints, Mary included. I like their histories and usually make a point of checking out their biographies on their feast days. Its fascinating to see the different ways that God's grace works in people. But I don't do statues and candles etc. I guess i'm a pretty low church kind of an RC. Or a very British kind.
As a complete aside, I did an archaeological dig there in the summer holidays of 1974 and really enjoyed the religious buildings and artefacts. Thank you for prompting my memories!
I guess you mean Rocamadour, not Willesden! But this used to be a little village outside London, and there was quite a pilgrimage, to see Our Lady of Willesden. The modern Anglican one is a very nice modern statue, whereas the Catholic one is more traditional. The one in Brompton Oratory is lovely, she has a little skirt on.
It stays in my mind along with a church on a hilltop on a Greek island. Quite small and surrounded by a walled enclosure crowded with box tombs, and dedicated to St Anne.
Both gave me a sense of some chthonic goddess predating the religion into which she had been incorporated.
I commend, btw, Alone of All Her Sex by Marina Warner on the changing image of Mary over the centuries. (My favourite phase is the medieval Eleanor of Aquitaine model who will wade in on your side irrespective, provided you are one of Hers).
'Let the one among you who is without sin cast the first stone,' says Jesus.
Immediately a stone whizzes past his ear. Jesus doesn't turn his head.
'Oh, Mother,' he sighs.
The old jokes are the best jokes...
I had to look up *chthonic*, having it in my mind that it related somehow to the Great and Dread Lord Cthulhu.
I wasn't that far off, as *chthonic* means relating to or inhabiting the underworld...
Yes, one of the standard ideas about Black Madonnas is that they represent pre-Christian goddesses, and also hidden aspects of deity. So, sort of unconscious. I suppose it could be seen as racist.
I think many Jungians have been interested in Mary, as a symbol of the feminine in deity. If my memory is working, Jung caused a stink by suggesting that the Trinity could become a quaternity, through the admission of the feminine, (Mary). This did not go down well. Begg (above) was a Jungian analyst.
How common is this among British RCs?
I met a Catholic once who told me he had an issue with Marian devotion but I took him to be something of an outlier.
Pardon me for saying so, but your comment doesn't sound 'low church RC' at all but pretty Protestant.
I know Roman Catholicism can be a 'broad church' but I didn't realise it was that broad.
Perhaps I'm neatening things too much when I tend to think that when it comes to Marian themes:
RCs over-egg things.
Protestants under-egg them.
We Orthodox get it about right
... 😉
@Bishops Finger I wouldn't argue particularly with that vicar's take on Mary's 'prophetic' role in that incident. I wouldn't dogmatise it but neither would I dismiss it as an outrageous interpretation.
@Dafyd, yes, I'm glad there's someone piping up here for the role of tradition / Tradition in the way we interpret scripture.
Well, all analogies fall short of course. I must admit I liked the analogy @Lamb Chopped deployed on the 'voluntold' issue but there too, of course, an analogy will only take us so far.
Like you, though, I was puzzled by the sport analogy. After all, @Alan29's rejection of what most of us would see as a particularly RC emphasis and distinctive does sound a lot 'bigger' than someone dissing baseball, cricket, 10-pin bowling or table tennis.
Might you be thinking, however of Altoetting, which is not too far away from Chiemsee and a major Bavarian centre of Marian pilgrimage with its 'Gnadenkapelle' (chapel of grace)
and its 'Gnadenstatue' which is a tiny Black Madonna. ?
In Central Europe, as opposed to Western Europe, Catholic Marian objects of piety tend to be either icons/painted pictures such as in Jasna Gora,Tschenstochau/Czestochowa or tiny statues such as in Altoetting. Usually these pictures or statues will have been found in somewhat unusual circumstances giving rise to a belief that they are of divine provenance.
Whether British or any other nationality I think you will find that many people who find themselves, even happily, within the fold of the Roman Church, will not be too bothered about the intricacies of points of doctrine promoted by the Church and may not even know what they are.
I find that it is the same with Anglicans in general as well as members of most of the other religious communities as for example the Church of Scotland which until fairly recently anyway would have been the default church community for many in Scotland.
Our only bit of Marian imagery is a lovely statue based on the Walsingham statue, which is far from emotional in style.
The stuff we have doesn't compare in scale or impact with the Theotokos mosaics I have seen in Eastern Europe. So I am a bit surprised at your middle way comment.
It is said that Rowan Williams would concelebrate when on retreat at a French abbey.
Well, we don't insist on some of the RC stuff such as the Immaculate Conception of Mary, for a kick-off.
We are also fairly sceptical about some of the Marian apparitions such as Fatima and so on ... 'conversion of Russia' indeed!
Although looking at the way Patriarch Kyrill and the Putinistas behave then perhaps 🤔...
We don't do statues, but do have the occasional bas-relief.
Yes, there will be large and impactful mosaics of the Theotokos but most of our iconography is very stylised. You won't find those creepy clothed Madonnas you guys go in for in Italy, Spain and Portugal.
I am not suggesting that Orthodoxy doesn't make a big deal about the Theotokos. We do.
We tend not to do it in as icky a way as the RCs. 😉
More seriously, I know that when there was talk, real or imagined, about Pope John Paul II declaring Mary as 'Co-Redemptrix' with Christ there were many Orthodox who got hot under the collar about that.
In popular devotion, though, you'll find many Orthodox just as assiduous as the RCs - and it can become a form of folk-religion almost.
As a general rule of thumb, though the Orthodox would tend to see the 'Latin West' as having ratcheted things up a few degrees further than we do.
'Rome has added, the Protestants taken away,' type of thing.
It is a pity this thread has chosen to manifest itself in Epiphanies rather than Purgatory. Why? That precludes many of us from engaging properly with it. It is too important for that.
I will say two things though. I hope neither breaks the rules nor gets me excluded.
The first is that on balance, I think it is more likely that Mary was taken up into heaven at the end of her mortal life, rather than just buried like everyone else. This is simply because unlike every other saint, she has no tomb and there are no physical relics of her. I tend to find the Orthodox Dormition rather than the Catholic Assumption easier to believe.
The second, is that I have real theological problems with the notion of Mary's immaculate conception. I can see why theologians and others might feel that Mary must have been made special to be able to bear Jesus, who is the Son of God, holy and without sin. That answers an understandable instinct, but why should it be necessary? It is either just shifting the mystery one generation back or requiring it to take place in two stages rather than one. Why is it assumed that Mary must already have been spotless because otherwise her womb would have contaminated the sinless child, rather than that Jesus sanctified her womb by being carried in it, the stable by being born in it and humans by his being incarnate?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmarian_Catholic_Church
From that (very) long article:
On 12 August 1978, Pope Gregory XVII in his Second Document proclaimed as further infallible doctrines, binding on all the faithful, four major Marian teachings; Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces, Co-Redemptrix, Queen of Heaven and Earth, and Mother of the Church,
and
In 1982, Pope Gregory XVII proclaimed as infallible doctrine the real presence of both Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist. This doctrine is not completely novel, having precedents in the Catholic theological writings of some 17th century Franciscan and Jesuit authors...
My italics.
There's a crypt and and associated church on the Mount of Olives. The crypt dates back into antiquity, exactly what the crypt represents or contains has been complicated by the various traditions of pre-Reformation Western and Eastern Christianity.
I was complimented afterwards on my skill in preaching about a subject in which I did not believe...
Seriously, though, it's the assumption of soul and body that I jib at - so heaven is a physical place? Where, exactly?
Granted, I'm probably missing something important here, but...
I assume Mary is portrayed with green hair and piercings? She seems to have been Not Proper At All. And this would be at least as anachronistic as a light blue robe and tastefully draped white headscarf.
Hmm. Yes, but is this *body* an actual physical body, with bones, blood etc. etc., yet presumably incorruptible?
I see what you mean about Mary's head start, though.
You mean that the behaviour of Kyrill and Putin might make one wish that Russia would put the kibosh on them by converting to RCism?
Because my guess would be a mass Tiber-swim in Russia would just lead to a putinism that bows to Rome rather than Moscow.
As opposed to naked Madonnas??
I gather the winkie there is meant to indicate jocularity, but as a happily ex-Catholic, I find "icky" a pretty apt adjective to describe the phenomenon in question.
At the time, I remember it being mentioned that the proposed co-redemptrix status was popular with factions among both traditionalists and feminists, the latter I'm guessing of the jungian sort.
"Folk religion" has pretty much always been my perception of maryolatry in general. For a long time, I harboured the prejudice(totally unfair, I'm sure) that worshippers steeped in the tendency couldn't begin to tell you why the son of Mary is an important figure for their faith.
Please ignore the sports thing. I obviously wasn’t communicating, a fact not surprising when i had a migraine.
So he did, but I can't quite get my head around the idea of a physical body in a physical heaven...
Sorry if I'm getting tangential, but just where is this physical milieu, which contains Jesus and Mary?
‘Tis a Mystery.
Just so, and I'd be better off not fretting about it! I'll find out (or not) soon enough...
Ok. I suspect it is in Epiphanies because it could quite easily become less Purgatorial and more Epiphanous. But that's for the Admins.
I can only speak as I find. As a fairly Proddy Prod who has converted to Orthodoxy, I can, of course, well understand your objections and concerns. That doesn't mean that I want to 'put you right' or change your mind or try to persuade you to think like me.
I have already outlined my understanding of these things. That it's about Christology first and foremost and as an integral part of that about humanity and human capacity - through divine grace - for union with the divine - for 'synergia' and 'theosis.'
If I may say so, I think you do 'get it', as your exposition on what we Orthodox call the Dormition is completely in line with our theology, as is your rejection of the idea of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
Without wanting to beat our RC sisters and brothers over the head unduly, the Orthodox would say that the Immaculate Conception idea emerges from a flawed - and over-egged - understanding of Original Sin.
There have been threads on that.
On the relics thing, no, they don't do much for me either, in an 'affective' sense but I do understand the theology behind them.
We are all wired differently. I'm particularly susceptible to a 'sense of place' - genius loci for instance. Particular locations resonate strongly with me, and not only places associated with Saints.
I've described my Little Gidding experience on these boards before.
'Matter matters,' as St John of Damascus put it. Which is why Orthodox worship is so tactile and physical. Which is why we believe in a bodily Resurrection and not disembodied spirits floating around on clouds.
It ain't for me to judge but I'd have you down as pretty small o orthodox on all these things.
@Stetson, no, I wasn't saying that Patriarch Kyrill and the 'Putinistas' should convert to Roman Catholicism. I was mischievously suggesting that they should convert to Christianity, to Christ.
But then, I need to do that too.
Which of the Desert Fathers was it who upset his fellow monks on his death-bed by crying out to the Lord for mercy?
'But Abba,' they protested. 'We know you to be a godly and exemplary man. Why are you calling out to God for mercy?'
'My Brethren,' the Abba replied. 'I have not even begun to repent.'
But that's a tangent...
I try to keep in mind that we know very little about the structure of reality--it wasn't that long ago that we figured out the earth went round the sun!--and so when someone asks where a physical body can be located other than earth, my working assumption is that God has that handled--but probably not in a way that can be explained to us in our current state of knowledge. Sort of like God's overall answer to Job--"You wouldn't understand me if I told you."
I think it was Lewis who pointed out that we are living in a "historical period," like all the various "periods" of history, and that we too have our pet schemas for understanding the universe around us--which may seem just as laughable to our descendants as the systems of past thinkers do to us today. It's a useful corrective to the way most people seem to think--that we have mostly got things figured out, or even if we haven't, that the things we think we know are in fact correct. Our ancestors thought so too, until new discoveries came to light.