Today we celebrate Mary in her role as Mother of God. Protestant bible scholars have a very hard time with the veneration of Mary common to Catholic and Orthodox churches. They may agree, along with the First Council of Ephesus, that Mary is the mother of God, because obviously if Jesus is both God and man and was born from Mary, and you can’t separate his goddess from his humanity, she’s his mother. But it stops there. In fact the noted scholar John MacArthur argues that Jesus began going about his father’s business at the age of 12 and when he addressed Mary as “woman” at the wedding feast of Canaan and on the cross, he was indicating that his time of being subject to his mother was over, and he was now entirely engaged with his Father in heaven. And he’s right, if the only authority you trust is the bible. Of course we know as does any bible scholar, that the bible itself was put together by the Catholic Church sometime in the third century. Books of the bible were accepted if they did not disagree with church teaching, if they could be traced back to the first generation of Christians, and if they were venerated by most of the Christian world. The gospel of Thomas, for example, has a bit of heresy; the Gospel of Barnabas was clearly written in the late second century. So they, and many other writings, were deemed not part of scripture.
By the time the bible was put together, Christians had developed devotion to Mary. Protestants who question Marian devotion by Catholics laugh at the idea that Mary can influence God because of the one scene in the bible where it seems she changed Jesus’ mind -- the wedding feast at Cana. But early Christian devotion was more attuned to the angel who declared her “most favored” or Elizabeth, who proclaimed her “Mother of my Lord'' or even Mary herself who said, “My soul magnifies the Lord” and “all generations will call me blessed”. People in the early church weren’t asking favors, they were standing in awe of the person God himself had selected to give him humanity, to grow him in her body, to nurse him from her breasts, to teach him to walk and talk and innumerable other things -- and yes, to change a diaper here and there, and wipe a nose and kiss a booboo. And the church went on to discern, very early, that Mary was free of original sin from her conception -- partly because of the angel’s proclamation -- full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women. To bible-only Protestants, these words mean little, and they grudgingly accept “blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus”.
Can Mary influence God, get him to change his mind, persuade him to work a miracle? We have some prayers that seem to say this. We pray that way sometimes. But we know deep in our hearts that nothing can happen that is not in some way part of God’s plan for the world. No one understands whether Mary or any saint, or for that matter you and I, can alter God’s plan in the least, and just as Mary concluded her own encounter with the angel with the words “I am the handmaid of the Lord, do unto me according to his will, our prayers must always end, as Jesus taught us, with the words “Thy will be done”. Can Mary change God’s mind? No. Can Mary help us to see his plan more clearly? I think so. And can God, who stands outside of time and space, plan from the moment of creation to answer prayers Mary will make in the future, sure. However it works, keep asking Mary for her help. When you get a positive result, you will glorify her, and that’s something God wants from you. He wants all generations to call her blessed.
Look at our della robbia. In the upper left corner Mary encounters the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation. In the lower left, she meets with Elizabeth. In the lower right, she and Joseph learn of Jesus’ mission when they find him in the temple in Jerusalem. In the upper right, Jesus is telling the beloved disciple, maybe John the apostle, but most certainly the beloved disciple, who in John’s gospel always stands for you and I -- that he is her son, and she is his mother. And it says that the beloved disciple henceforth took her into his own home. And finally, in the center is Mary, the woman clothed in the sun, the queen of the universe, looking out on her children.
So bring Mary into your prayer life if you don’t already. And if you do, don’t let it get to be a rote habit. The wonderful thing about the rosary is that it’s always fresh if we look at those twenty mysteries as telling the story of Jesus' time on earth and the indispensable role of Mary. Mary offered herself to God and the Holy Spirit conceived Jesus in her being. And if we do the same the spirit will do the same for us. So ask Mary to help us accept the Holy Spirit as she did, so that you will also be a true son or daughter of God the Father.
