January 1, 2024: Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God

 January 1, 2024

January 1, 2024 : Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God

 

On this first day of the calendar year, we celebrate Mary, as the Mother of God.  This title was conferred on Mary in the 5^th century after a theological struggle in the Church. Historically,  and interestingly, this dogma was articulated not so much as a response to a question about who Mary was, but rather as part of the Church’s effort to clarify who Jesus was.

 

As the early Apostles and disciples had died - without the end of the world coming as they had expected (see my Blog  Nov 12, 2023) - the ‘experience’ of Jesus was no more first hand.  So Christians, trying to hand over the dual experience that the Apostles had of Jesus - a person whom they had clearly experienced as a man, and yet one in whom they also experienced God, - were struggling in the early centuries to explain who Jesus was:  Was he born a man and later become God?  Was he a semi-divine being? Was he just God, disguised as a man? etc  How were they to articulate this experience of Jesus? Remember there were a lot of ‘sons of gods’ personalities (e.g. Perseus, Hercules) in the Greco Roman pantheon and even virgin births, and they needed to differentiate Jesus from these.

This led to intense debates about who Jesus was. Over the centuries, there were some like Arius, a priest (4c), who ended up denying Jesus’ divinity speaking of him as a kind of demi-god, while a century later others like Nestorius,, a bishop, suggested that Jesus was born a human, and then was ‘infused’ with the Word of God, and that was how he could be called God and Man. And so, according to both, Mary could be called the Mother of Jesus, or even Mother of ‘Christ’ (the Annonited one), but not the Mother of God as she gave birth to a human Jesus.  Both Arius and Nestorius had a huge influence on many Christians in their respective times. While Arius’ teaching was condemned in 325 AD, a century later, at the  Council of Ephesus (431 AD) in opposition to Nestorius, the Church, wanted to insist on the ‘unity’ within Jesus, so  the Jesus who was born of Mary was not a kind of split personality. And so at the latter Council, the Church declared that Mary by being the Mother of Jesus, was simultaneously also the Mother of God, because Jesus could not be split into two ‘beings’.  

 

When I reflect on some of these early very contentious debates in the Church about these dogmas, I, of course, have the benefit of centuries of development in Christian Theology, and in particular, the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas (who used the term analogy to describe our statements about God), and the insights we have received from other religions. For instance, understanding our essential inability to fully understand God, Hinduism uses the phrase “Neti Neti” (not this, not that) to refer to ANY description of God.  Or the ultimate Reality is called NIR-GUNA, i.e. one without any qualities (guna) which doesn’t mean that God has no qualities, but that no quality we humans can describe, can be applied literally to that Ultimate Reality.  I have tried to explain this in a simpler way in my own parable of the Planet of Plants, (see Blog of June 4, 2023) where I suggest that if plants were to describe human beings they would have to use plant concepts. And so perhaps our ‘legs’ would be described as ‘roots’, our arms as ‘branches’ and our hair as ‘grass’ etc. And while there is a pointing in the direction of truth in such descriptions, it would be foolish for us to take such descriptions literally to understand human beings. So too, when we want to describe something related to God, then we too have no choice but to use the equivalent of ‘plant’ language. In other words,like plants, we inevitably will have to use our very very limited human concepts and language.  

 

So the need of the early Church to find a title that describes Mary in relation to Jesus does not feel very urgent to me.  But in today’s world, where we must consider the discrimination that is caused by traditionally handed down gender roles, it is troubling that many religious authorities often use Mary as an example of how a ‘good’ woman ought to be, - and describe her as self-effacing, obedient and accepting. There is, therefore, a need to see who Mary herself really was. Was she in fact that kind of a woman, or do the Gospels give us another picture of her?  Because In addition to wanting to declare this dogma about Mary being the Mother of God, it appears that the Church also wanted to insist that as Mother of God, Mary had an extremely essential and important role to play in the mission of Jesus.  In fact the Catholic Church calls Mary a co-redemptrix with Jesus.  So what kind of a person was Mary?

 

We first come across Mary in the Gospels when we are told of the visit of the angel Gabriel who announces to her that God had chosen her to be the mother of Jesus. There is an indication in the Gospel story that she is not one who just accepts what has been told to her, because as Luke’s Gospel tells us, “Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be” . And so Mary asks a question that any sensible girl would ask: “How will this be, …. since I am a virgin?”  Mary is just a young girl, but she knows the huge implications of what the angel is telling her, because getting pregnant out of wedlock was a clear proof that she had engaged in sexual activity before marriage and that adultery, as per the Mosaic law, meant that she would be liable to death by stoning. And though Joseph saves her by still marrying her, then it was quite ikely that she would experience complete ostracisation by the community. So when she eventually agrees, she clearly exhibits a tremendous bravery in accepting the burden of being an unwed mother.

 

Then Mary decides to go and visit Elizabeth. The Gospel does not tell us why she chooses to go, though the traditional belief is that she went to help her cousin in her pregnancy.  But while that may be a possibility, it could very well be that Mary went to visit Elizabeth also to check out the ‘proof’ that the angel had given her. Whether that is true or not, when she reaches there, Elizabeth, who is indeed unexpectedly pregnant, experiences a movement in her own womb, and recognizes what has just happened to Mary, even though Mary is just a few days pregnant. And then Mary raises her voice in praise of God in her Magnificat (Luke 1:46ff). A careful reading of this text of Mary’s Magnificat would tell us that it is quite subversive of Jewish traditional belief that people who experience good fortune in this world (wealth and power) are the ones blessed by God, for Mary says exactly the opposite in her prayer of praise of God. So she is clearly one who questions/challenges the traditional beliefs of the Jewish community. And since a child’s thinking is deeply influenced by his/her parents,  we might ask ourselves whether the Jesus who later repeatedly challenges traditional Jewish beliefs and practices was initiated into such independent thinking by Mary.

 

The next time we come across Mary is at the time of Jesus’ birth where they do not find a place in the inn, which, as I reflected in my blog of last Sunday, may have raised the question as to how this God was taking care of them.  And then suddenly strangers come to visit the child saying they had been told of the birth through signs and wonders. Being a person who doesn’t accept things blindly, these apparently opposing experiences of God’s care for them may have confused Mary, but as the Gospel tells us, she “treasured all these things in her heart and pondered on them”.

 

And as Jesus grew, Mary, like many parents do, also had difficulties in understanding her son. When Jesus is 12 and gets lost in the temple (Luke 2:41ff), Mary and Joseph spend three days looking for him and when they finally find him in the temple, it is Mary, not Joseph, who berates him: “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”   Jesus may be whoever he was, but he needed to be scolded for irresponsibly frightening his parents for three days.  But when Jesus answers cryptically that he had to be in his Father’s house, we are told “they did not understand what he was saying to them”.  But even though his answer did not make any sense to both of them, they refrain from scolding further. Instead, Mary ‘treasured all these things in her heart”, pondering on what this might all mean.

Fast forward to the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-12), at which point Jesus already had a few disciples, and where Jesus clearly tells Mary that his time has not come. But Mary, the strong woman that she is, and as mothers sometimes do when they are absolutely sure that their son will not disobey them, ignores his words completely,  and tells the waiters to follow whatever he would tell them to do.  

And from that moment, as John’s Gospel tells us, Jesus is pushed to begin his public life and his disciples begin to believe in him (John 2:11).  Soon Jesus is creating an upheaval in the Jewish community with his unorthodox teachings, with some even saying that his wonder-working was possible because he was filled with an evil spirit, while others like his family began to think he had gone mad.  “When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”(Mark 3: 21ff)  So once again Mary decides to take things in hand.  Accompanied by Jesus’ brothers she comes to take him home.  However, unlike at Cana, Jesus does not give in this time.

The last time we see Mary during Jesus’ earthly lifetime, is when we see her towards the end of the Passion story, standing below the cross.  Perhaps she still did not yet fully understand her son, or his role in God’s plan, but though all but one disciple had run away, and even though we can assume that she herself could not bear to see her son hanging on the cross, she chooses to stand below the cross of a convicted criminal. It doesn’t matter that he had been condemned to the most shameful death and that too by the religious authorities whom she as a good Jewess would have respected. Like most (?) parents she cannot forget that he is her son.  And we can guess that even as she sees him on that cross, she cannot probably still understand what drove him to this point, because we are told that after his death she stays with the other disciples in a secret room, in prayer and supplication (Acts 1:14),  - I guess, looking for meaning in all that had happened.

 

So this Mary of the Gospels, the Mother of Jesus, the Mother of God, was a woman who asked questions, who thought for herself, who did not just remain in the background and was assertive enough to take action when she felt she had to. She was also one who suffered much, and yet continued to live her life with such grace, not cursing God for all that she went through, so that we can truly say, Hail Mary, full of grace.

 

All this might make us question the kind of ‘meek and submissive model of Mary’ that is often used to strengthen gender stereotypes that many religious authorities place before women.  Furthermore, if all of us are called to be like Mary, co-redeemers of our world, we must remember that we too are called to question even the highest religious authorities (Mary questions the angel, she questions traditional Jewish beliefs, she questions Jesus), we too are called to be active partners in bringing about the kingdom, not passive and obedient followers.   And, of course, like Mary, we too may not always understand why we face so much failure and even suffering?  Perhaps Mary’s life can help us find a way to continue to move forward, for it gives us a glimpse into how God works through human beings.

 

 

First Reading:   Numbers 6:22-27

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them,

The Lord bless you and keep you;

the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;

the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.

So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.

Second Reading: Galatians : 4:4-7

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.

Gospel  Luke 2:16-21

So the shepherds went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.