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Holy Week resources and reflections

My Mother’s Mary

Union Seminary had let out for the 1957 Christmas holiday, and I had come home, looking forward to being with my parents, and to sharing the good news that I had "met someone" with whom I might get serious. As I looked about the neat little house my parents had just built in the York County, S.C. countryside, I noticed that there was a new woman keeping watch over the modest Christmas display.

It was an exquisite statuette of the Virgin Mary that caught my eye.

I thought that was interesting, but I never asked Mother why this lady had been invited to spend the holy days with us. Mary had never been part of our conversations, nor of our religious expressions. In fact, anything that remotely resembled a Catholic understanding was taboo.

Perhaps this pale blue and white representation of the mother of Jesus was purchased in the floral shop, to add “tone” to our household. I do remember that Mother had also hung Sallman’s “Head of Christ” in the parlor when I went to study divinity. Was this to remind me that I was to preach Christ, or to remind my parents that they had a son preparing for the Presbyterian ministry?

As time has gone by, I have often thought about our temporary visitor. Mary stood watch in my parents’ home for a couple of weeks. Then, without ceremony, she was wrapped in tissue paper, placed in a shoebox, and stored on the shelf with the lights and baubles until the time arrived for her to be revealed again.

Speaking from my Protestant perspective, temporary is the word for her. She appears in the beautiful ceramic manger scene in the vestibule of many a Presbyterian Church. She, and a solemn Joseph guard the Holy Child. And, then, she disappears for a year’s space, along with the rest of the cast. Little mention is made of her, and little, or no, honor is paid to her during the rest of the year. I have checked about, and I see churches of my particular Christian denomination named for St. Paul and St. Andrew, and St. Columba. I am sure other apostles are honored by having their names attached to Presbyterian churches. Mary has received no such honor, unless we note that in the little town of St. Mary’s W.V. there is a St. Mary’s Presbyterian Church.

Perhaps it is time that Protestants review their neglect of that strong and powerful theologian Mary of Nazareth. The angel of the Lord does address her as the highly favored one. “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” (Luke 1:28) Later, Mary, strongly influenced by the Hebrew Scriptures, sings of the God who brings down the powerful from thrones, lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich away empty. (Luke 1:46-55)

That is powerful stuff.

A Christian affirmation that Mary is the “God Bearer” may cause difficulty to Protestants, but one understanding of Mary’s life and witness can be that she is the inspiration for all baptized Christians to be the bearers of the Word of God into the world even as she was.

So, where does all of this lead me, and my mother, during this holy season some call Advent, about Mary, the mother of Jesus. At the very least, we cannot discount her as we have discounted so many women in the past. The fact that she affirms to the angelic messenger that she is the servant of the Lord does not reduce her to the role of a disappearing mother. She is very much alive through the ministry of Jesus, and is seen as much more than just a useful means towards a divine end.

Moving up the ladder a bit, we could profess our kinship with millions of Christians who proclaim her as full of grace, and highly favored. The divine messenger does just that when he announces to her that she will bear the Word of God into the world. Even if we cannot fully enter into prayer to her and all the saints, we can at the very least respect those believers who entreat to her to pray for us sinners “now and at the hour of our death”. We who profess our faith in the communion of saints might some day, perhaps a century from now, admit that prayers addressed to the heavenly host of angels and saints might not be so bad after all.

We have already done just this in one of the hymns in the 1990 hymnal (451), where we entreat the Blessed Virgin:

O higher than the cherubim,
More glorious than the seraphim,
Lead their praises, Alleluia.
Thou bearer of the eternal word,
Most gracious, magnify the Lord,
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.

Text: John A. L. Riley


What next?

Perhaps some Presbyterians might go out on a cosmic limb and name a church after her.

LAWTON W. POSEY is a retired minister living in Charleston, W.V.

 

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