Sermons from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
The Feast of St. Mary the Virgin (transferred)
August 13, 2006
The Rev. Melissa M. Skelton
The regal bearing of Our Lady of Walsingham, the sweetness of the Madonna and child in our own Mary Shrine, the brisk stride of the walking Mary statue at Salisbury Cathedral, the tender and introspective sadness of the “Our Lady of Vladimir” in the icon displayed in our nave, the dignity and humility of Allan Crite’s “Madonna of the Streetcar,” the unearthly image of Mary on the wall of my kitchen, a Madonna with a flaming heart, suspended in the clouds.
Most of my life has been spent with very little real connection to Mary, the mother of Jesus. I had, of course, in seminary studied the Biblical passages in which she played a part, few though they were. I had also learned something of how Mary had been viewed within the history of the Church. Some had described her as Queen of Heaven, theotokos, Mother of God, mother of us all. Some had called her the primary image of the Church, itself. But in more recent decades the depiction of Mary in Scripture and the reverence given her has been criticized. She was too much the passive vessel, some said, the Virgin Queen upon whom Western culture had projected all its unhealthy longings for the ideal woman and all its ambivalence about women’s sexuality.
But I must tell you that as interesting and as important as all of this study was and is, it did not solve the fundamental question for me of whether Mary was going to occupy any place whatsoever in my spiritual life.
And, of course, you might say, there was no need for her to occupy a place in my spiritual life. After all, within the Episcopal Church a relationship to Mary is not deemed essential to Christian life. What did I need with Mary in my spiritual life? For that matter, what do any of us need with Mary?
But, of course, spiritual life is not just about our conscious need or about us at all. It’s about the unfolding of a mystery that we did not initiate and that we have no control over. And so I began to notice new things happening to me.
I found, for instance, that I was always craning my neck to look at the Mary shrines out in front yards in certain neighborhoods in Chicago, trying to find out what kind of statue was there and wondering what it said about the family that had placed it there. I also found myself reacting strongly to icons of Mary of all kinds, finding myself either touched to the point of tears by them or befuddled to the point of frustration at what they could possibly be signifying. And then out of nowhere I became powerfully attracted to crèches, nativity scenes of all shapes and sizes, all of which included a figure of Mary.
And so it seemed that over time, I gradually became aware of being pursued by Mary, or something in me pursuing her—it’s often hard to tell the difference. This, of course, did not mean that I was ready to be caught or ready to catch her. No, for I had decided that I would not let her into my spiritual life until I had figured her out, until I had defined her and cleared up all the questions that swirled around her, until I had determined where I stood on the idea of virgin and mother, on Immaculate Conception, on bodily assumption and so on.
Kathleen Norris in her book entitled Meditations on Mary speaks about her own background as producing much the same kinds of tendencies. She describes it this way: “Along with the angels of the Nativity, (Mary) was one of the decorations my family unpacked every year for Christmas, a strange but welcome seasonal presence who would be relegated to the closet again at the new year. Mary was mysterious, and, therefore, for Catholics; our religion was more proper, more masculine in ways I had yet to define… (a) Protestantism….with ‘all the mystery scrubbed out of it by a vigorous and slightly vinegary reason.’”
Things began to change for Norris when she began her visits to a Benedictine monastery some fifteen years ago. She began to enjoy singing something called the Magnificat in Vespers each evening, gradually making the connection to the words from Luke in our gospel lesson for today. Then she began to notice and find comfort in the presence of a small black Madonna and child in a side niche in the chapel, learning that it was modeled on a very famous one in Switzerland that had been attracting pilgrims for hundreds of years. And so slowly, ever so slowly, Mary began to make her way into Norris’s consciousness and into her life of prayer.
This is part of what happened to me. The praying of Mary’s words in the Magnificat: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord” and in the Angelus “Let it be unto me according to your word,” the praying of her words as my words began to chip away at my need for clarification and explanation, at my need to objectify her.
And that’s when I discovered something else: that whereas I had long ago stopped holding God, creator-father-mother, or Jesus, the holy and human one, at a reasonable and reasoned arm’s length in my own spirituality and prayer, I had been requiring something different of Mary. I had been requiring that all her mysteries be solved in order for her to become a source of mystery for me. It could not, of course, work that way.
And so one day, not so long ago, I decided to allow Mary in, allow her to inhabit the world of my spiritual imagination and longing, the place in me where God as creator, God as the Christ and God as Holy Spirit all dwell. And once I let her in there, I realized that like her son, she encompasses all the names and the faces we have given her, and yet is beyond them all.
For there is something about her that cannot be contained, something that wants to express itself within the specific face and garb of many cultures but also in images that reach across time and beyond time. There is something about her that cannot be contained, that breaks out beyond theological, doctrinal, ecclesial, political or politically correct control. There is something about her that cannot be contained, that beckons us, you and I here and now to follow where she has gone, into simple, unconditional and willing assent to God, an assent that draws us more deeply into God’s values and actions of reversal: the lifting up of the lowly, the casting down of the mighty from their thrones. She shows us what openness and surrender to God looks like. Because of this she is blessed mother and sister of us all.
Rachel Naomi Remen tells a story about a conversation she had as a child with her beloved grandfather, an orthodox rabbi and a scholar of the Kaballah. After his wife died, Rachel was the only family member who valued her grandfather’s spirituality and religion. This particular story is the story of her grandfather’s awareness that his very young granddaughter whom he called Neshume-le, meaning “precious one,” possessed what I would call a Marian sense of spiritual openness, capacity and surrender.
“My grandfather and I had many discussions about the teaching and principles of Judaism, but I can remember only one disagreement. It had to do with the nature of a “minyan.” The idea of a minyan is central to the spiritual life of the Jewish people. While anyone can pray at any time, before an official prayer service can be held there must be at least ten men present. This group of men is called a minyan.”
“Why Grandpa?” (she) asked, puzzled. Patiently he explained the law to her. It is believed that whenever ten adult men are gathered together in the name of God, God…is actually present in the room with them. “Immanent, her grandfather said. Any room then can become consecrated ground, a holy place where the sacraments of the religion could be performed. After five thousand years of persecution and homelessness, nothing could be taken for granted. Holy ground had to be portable….
“But why only men, Grandpa?” (she) asked. He hesitated. “The law says ten men,” he responded slowly. She waited for further explanation, but he said nothing.
Isn’t God present when ten women gather together?” (she) asked.
“The law says nothing about this, Neshume-le. It has always been ten men, since the beginning.”
(She) was astounded. “If something is old, does it have to be true?”
“Certainly not,” he responded.
“Well, then I think that God is there in the room when ten women gather too,” (she) stated flatly.
He nodded. “This is not what the law says,” he told (her).
She goes on:
“We had never disagreed about anything before and I was shaken, but my grandfather seemed quite comfortable with the distance between our beliefs. We never discussed the matter again, and I thought he had forgotten it.
A few years later, he became very sick. In the months before he died, I was allowed to visit him only briefly so as not to tire him. I was almost seven years old and terribly proud of my reading, and so I would read to him from one of his books or we would simply sit quietly together. Sometimes I would hold his hand while he slept. Once after a nap he opened his eyes and looked at me lovingly for a long time. “You are a minyan all by yourself, Neshume-le,” he told me.”
Mary’s openness to God made her a minyan all by herself and showed us how we might be and do the same. And so, praise to you, O Magnifier, tower of David, Rose of Sharon, Hope of the Poor and Relief of the Oppressed. Praise to you, Sister of Humanity, Mother of God and of us all.
Works Cited or Consulted
Kathleen Norris, “Virgin Mary, Mother of God” from Meditations on Mary
Rachel Naomi Remen, “The Presence of God” in My Grandfather’s Blessing: Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging
