WOMAN OF FAITH

Woman of Faith

What is Faith?  Faith is, first of all, God’s action on us. God gives himself to you. He has faith in you since he created you with great hopes for your future. As Jesus says, “You did not choose me, I chose you. I chose you because I believe in you, that you will go out and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” One day, two thousand years ago, God chose a maiden of marriageable age and addressed her as “Hail, favoured one. I have chosen you because I see a great future, a great future that will arise from you womb, and radiate to the whole world, and bring the whole world back to me, the source of all good.”  You remember how Jesus once said: “When I am lifted up I shall draw all men and women to myself.”  When the faith of God entered into Mary, that very faith empowered her to answer her great “Yes” with a complete hope for the future. She would be faithful, strong and reliable. The first among the disciples, she is the one whose discipleship never fails. She is the woman who does not deny, does not betray nor leave her child and run away.

 

            In Pope Paul VI’s exhortation, “Marialis Cultus”, he noted “a certain dissatisfaction for the cult of Mary and a difficulty in taking her as a model for today” because of the changed circumstances. Modern women do not live in the same world as women of the Middle East at the time of Christ. To this Pope Paul replies that Our Lady is proposed as a model not for her particular (cultural) life-style but for her faith. So Mary is the type (model) of the disciple, and as such for all men as well as women.

            In the Gospels Mary is portrayed as a women of faith, who sings a psalm of praise, known as the Magnificat, upon meeting her cousin Elizabeth in the land of Judah (Luke, 1, 46 –55). The song reflects traditional Hebrew parallelism and metre common in the Psalms and expresses Mary’s belief in and obedience to God. She praises God for exercising divine justice and compassion on behalf of the lowly, both for herself and for Israel as “God’s servant”. With the covenant reference to Abraham, Mary claims this moment as an act in continuity with God’s promises and blessings in the past. Her obedience puts her alongside the leaders of Israel; not only Abraham but also Moses and David. The Magnificat is modelled on Hannah’s (Samson’s mother) song in 1 Samuel 2, 1 – 10, who prayed and said, “My heart exults in the Lord, my strength is exalted in my God.” It preserves the depth of Jewish prayer and is marked by humility and trust in God’s power to save.

            John’s account of the wedding at Cana (John 2, 1 – 13) provides the only Gospel account of a conversation between the adult Jesus and Mary. Although brief, it rings true as an exchange between a Jewish mother and her son. When Mary asks Jesus to provide more wine, his initial response appears rather tetchy. “What concern is that to you and me?” Jews, says the Talmud, often have their feet in the dust but their heads in the stars.

According to St. Augustine (Explaining John’s Gospel, 8.9), Mary is the mother of Jesus’ weakness, not his strength. He makes it clear he will do the miracle but not because of her – his divinity has its own aims, connected with the hour of death to which he steers under the Father’s guidance. She is not privy to that higher mission. The Father controls Jesus’ hour, and Jesus is obedient to him. “Before he does perform this sign, Jesus must make clear his refusal of Mary’s intervention; she cannot have any role in his ministry; his signs must reflect his Father’s sovereignty and not a human or family agency” (Raymond Brown, The Gospel according to John, Vol. I, p. 109).

            However, Jesus, like most Jewish sons, fulfils the biblical command to respect his mother, and obeys her. The wine appears, justifying Mary’s faith in him when she tells the servants the hauntingly unforgettable line: “Do whatever he tells you.”

            Our lives are to sparkle and dance and lure others into the arms of God. Mary’s faith life is a dance to imitate, but the steps are ours to learn, and no dance is the same. What is more important is to grow up, walk on our own two feet, and run after the Spirit’s gifts. A mother’s love stretches us and makes us imitate the love we have been given so graciously. Mother Mary saw that “the Child grew in stature and strength.”

Mary is the Virgin daughter of Israel who bears a Son, who says “Yes” to the God who calls her to carry God’s own Son and birth him in our world. She the lowly handmaid who will be called “Blessed” by succeeding generations, she has the Faith. Her will is to do “the command of the eternal God (Rom 16, 26), even if it means walking the hard road from Nazareth of Galilee to the place of the Skull outside Jerusalem. She saw her Son heading for disaster, but by faith and steadfast loyalty she walked by his side. From the “maid of Nazareth” she will become the “woman on the hill.” And we, men and women of faith, will walk with her from Bethlehem to Calvary. We shall stand and contemplate this magnificent woman on the hill, the woman of faith who replied to the angel Gabriel: “Be it done unto me according to your word.” Rest your eyes upon this brave Mother standing by her crucified Son.

She remembers saying to herself, when he was twelve and already about his Father’s business, “He’s not my little boy anymore.”

 

Rivulets of blood beading the earth beneath the Cross.

Deep down inside she knew that her little boy was born to die.

Why should she be there?

But this was hers. This cross upon the hill. He had not sheltered her from pain nor ever asked that she not be free to learn anguish. She had learned that.

He had not been fretful or concerned to throw around her soft protection, guarding her against a share in him. He’d spoken truth to her. He’d not been reticent or sparing.

He’d not held her unadmitted to the full acceptance, never.

She had heard what Simeon could say, and at the moment when she’d found the Child that had been lost, he had not consoled her with a gentle paraphrase of futures, eased away from what the days should be. And he’d not softened any loneliness when Nazareth was ended.

She was free to sorrow and not withheld. She could be eager, insistent, insatiate, for this was hers to take, her own. And by a long inclusion granted her, she’d known she’d need not ever turn from grief

Of all the spreading earth this was the one place she might stand with him.

She could be near. He would not deny her now; he’d not forbid her come here.

This was hers, her life, her dignity, her choice, the essence of her heart’s significance, the sum and substance of her existence, the end of her being.

She bore the right to be here, standing under the claim of being the “Woman.”

She could penetrate to this, this small and inner-concentrated anguish.

She could stand here. This was hers.

And he would only look, expecting her.

“Woman, here is your son.”

“Son, your mother.”

Love never looked like this.

The woman of the hill has become the woman of our hearts. As the Beloved disciple John took Mary into his own, we too take her home and give her pride of place, even though we humbly admit that our home is not always in order. The brokenness of sin, the evil of destructive attitudes towards through neighbour, and the lust of the flesh; all these destroy our homes and make them unfit for our Blessed Mother to live in. But today we shall offer our brokenness to Mary, the Mother of Health, trusting that she will transform it into something beautiful for God. For health does not mean physical fitness of muscular power;        rather, in the mind of Mary it means the capacity of surrendering our whole selves to God, whatever be our state of health, whether we lie on a bed of pain, or handicapped by injury or ailment or mental torture, we can offer ourselves to God through Mary. That is health. And those who can surrender selves to God are, indeed, in very good health.                                                          

        Prayer: O gracious Lady, beloved Mother of God and our loving Mother, from where shall we learn Faith if not from you, sweet Maiden who said “Yes” to God’s invitation to carry the Saviour in your virginal womb, and nurse him at your breast? You followed him with a mother’s concern right through his ministry, accompanied him on his cross-laden ascent to Calvary, and became the sorrowing woman on the hill. Through faith and steadfast loyalty you treasured the mysteries of Jesus in your heart, and have made them ours, so that whatever happened to you and Jesus must happen to us: a holy life and happy death in God and community in him forever. Amen.

{composed by me on 11^th. August 2012}