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The woman called Mary

“I am the Lord’s servant, may it happen to me as you have said.” - Luke 1:38

Mary in the Scriptures

I have chosen for our reflections the life of a woman called Mary, the Mother of Jesus. In a predominantly Roman Catholic country like ours, Mary is certainly a very popular figure, sometimes even more popular than her son Jesus Christ our Lord. This was shown in a survey conducted sometime ago among young people in Metro-Manila. It was found out that Mary was on top of the list in terms of popularity. In fact, Jesus Christ our Lord was way down below. Ninoy Aquino was even more popular than Jesus Christ our Lord, according to the Survey.

But who really was Mary? For many centuries, we have known Mary as the Mother of God, the Virgin who was Immaculately Conceived, according to church theologians. But sometime ago, Bishop Tissa Balasuriya, a Roman Catholic Bishop of Colombo, Sri Lanka, wrote a very controversial book entitled, Mary and Human Liberation, wherein he departed from the traditional Roman Catholic understanding of Mary. He tried to present Mary as the epitome of genuine human liberation. However, the Vatican reacted very strongly, and they defrocked his ordination as bishop, but due to a worldwide protest, his ordination was restored.

Risking criticism by our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, I would also like to look at Mary, not as the Mother of God nor the Immaculately Conceived Virgin, but as a genuine human being, a woman. As recorded in the Scriptures, Jesus Christ our Lord himself had a great love for his mother as a woman. At the Wedding Feast in Cana, as well as in the Crucifixion Event, Jesus addressed his mother not as “Mother” or “Mama”, but as “Woman”(Jn. 2:4;19:26).

Recently, some Biblical scholars noted that the title “Woman” was actually a common way of addressing one’s mother in Jesus’ time. It was a respectful and not a derogatory way of addressing a mother. And so, when Jesus addressed his mother “Woman”, he was not only giving her due respect, but he was also stressing the value of womanhood in God’s Kingdom.

However, such high value of womanhood has not been recognized by the church throughout the centuries. History shows that religion has been used to perpetuate the inferior position of women in church and in society as well. For instance, the theologians of the church like Tertullian, said that women were the ones who brought sins into this world and that they are the very reasons why Jesus died on the cross. St. Augustine himself also regarded women as “unstable animals”, whatever that means. St. Thomas Aquinas also believed that women are inferior to men, because, according to him, men are more rational than women.

Throughout history, Mary has been portrayed as passive and submissive. This is a masculine perception of idealized femininity which has been inflicted on us and which many of us have internalized. When imitated, such devotions to Mary become extremely useful means of domesticating women and other oppressed people.

Biblical scholars unanimously agree that Mary’s witness in the Scriptures as a woman is a witness of faith. The simple announcement of Christ’s coming in the fullness of time, as we read in the Lukan Gospel, is met by the single-minded faith of this woman, who had lived in the stream of God’s promises in the history of her humiliated people. Mary’s response saying, “May it happen to me as you have said”, is often interpreted as a passive, unquestioning acceptance of God’s will.

However, this kind of interpretation does not do justice to Mary’s life and witness. For it reinforces the subordinate position of women in the family, in society and in the church as well, especially when this is used as a model for the poor in general, and for women in particular.

Mary as the Liberated Human Being

Mary’s receptivity to God’s call does not imply powerlessness nor is it simply a passive trait. Rather, it is a creative submission of a fully liberated human being; an authentic woman, who is truly free to serve God. We can glean the growing maturity of Mary’s faith from her initial positive response to God’s call up to the heights of crises which mark the different situations in the unfolding of the mystery of Christ in her life.

Each of these crises was an acute experience of human limitations and struggle in the face of God’s inscrutable design. Mary mothered our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and consistently accompanied him from his birth to his crucifixion and resurrection, and was actively involved in the Early Church.

The birth of Jesus along with the stigma of bearing him, the visit of the Wise Men from the East, the escape to Egypt, and the loss of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple – all these events are accounts suggesting critical phases in Mary’s personal life.

When Jesus was crucified, the Gospel of John narrates that Mary stood her ground at the foot of the cross (cf.Jn.19:25-27). She was there, helpless and without any powerful friends who could intercede for her, without money to bargain for her son’s life, with nothing but her love for a beloved son who was arrested, tortured, and executed on false charges.

How deep must be Mary’s compassion for the mothers and wives of today’s victims of injustice. Mary knew too well what it means to suffer for the sake of your son. As a mother, Mary instinctively felt the value of human life.

Mary’s motherhood at the foot of the cross should not be seen merely in terms of her own relationship with Jesus, but also in terms of her relationship with a wider human community (Jn.19:25-27). At the foot of the cross, Mary was seen with her own sister Elizabeth, with another Mary the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene. They were all trying to comfort each other in the face of a tragic death.

Mary is truly our sister in faith who committed herself for the coming of God’s Kingdom. She is definitely the closest ally of women in their struggles for fuller humanity. Valuable, indeed, is this insight into the humanness of Mary’s own experiences, especially for us who need to explore the positive meaning of suffering as well as how to transcend its individualistic perspectives.

We need the example of Mary’s strength, for it gives us courage and hope to overcome our fears and hopelessness, even as we face the challenges of this new year.

Mary’s Theological Significance

Mary’s theological significance can be found in her influence in Jesus’ life. Acquainted with the kind of woman she was, as pictured in the Gospels, we can deduce the quality of exemplary humanity she must have mirrored to her son Jesus in the decisive years of his growth as a human being.

If Jesus of Nazareth, as the Scriptures would tell us, was a unique Jewish teacher, who went about Galilee preaching the coming of God’s Kingdom, and doing good to the people, I do believe that he must have “caught” this sense of God and this concern for others from his first-hand experiences with his own Mother Mary. I do believe that it was Mary’s openness and receptivity to God’s will and purpose that Jesus showed when he made the blind see, healed the sick, and dined with public sinners.

And so, if the Scriptural image of Christ shows Jesus to be the model of a new kind of humanity, then it would be safe to say that Mary was also Jesus’ own model of that new kind of humanity. From the accounts of her own life, we can draw some significant implications of Mary’s experiences as a woman for today’s women.

First of all, we see her face reflected in the faces of so many women today, who are undergoing the same pain and suffering that she herself endured as a woman. For instance, it would not be difficult for Mary to understand the situation of squatters and homeless people, because she herself and her husband Joseph also found no room in the inn when she was about to give birth to her son Jesus (Lk.2:7).

Mary truly understands the powerlessness of the poor, who are forced to leave their homes due to development aggression; the sufferings of the refugees due to natural and human-made calamities, because she and her family were also refugees in Egypt. They had to flee to Egypt in order to escape the persecutions of King Herod (Mt.2:13-15).

Mary understands the hardships of the widows, who single-handedly carry the burdens of raising their own children. For she herself, according to Biblical scholars, was also widowed at a very early age.

Indeed, Mary stands for women today, who are victimized, suffering, and discriminated against in many ways, women who are courageously struggling for human survival - offering her own solidarity with them. May the life of this woman called Mary offer us some challenges and inspiration, even as we seek a deeper commitment to Christ in the service of God’s Kingdom of justice and peace. #

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