The Virgin's Name ... Mary

Central to our Advent piety and thematic is the figure of Mary, Mother of God. Just this past week we celebrated the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, the patronal feast of the United States. This coming week, Monday, December 12th, we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness, not only of Mexico, but all the Americas. We soon will celebrate the New Year with the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, as we seek God’s blessing for the New Year.

Many of our Advent and Christmas hymns sing of Mary as either waiting in expectation or as giving birth to Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary. The hymns reflect the intimate mystery of the Incarnation. Beginning with the Annunciation of the Good News to Mary and her “yes” to the mystery of God-with-us, we move to celebrate in song and rhythm the birth of the Savior among us. Mary is presented as the person of faith, the hearer of God’s Word, and the accomplishment of that Word of God with us in Christ, Emmanuel.

The Infancy Narratives
The inspiration of our art, our music, our piety, and our worship is rooted in the scriptures. The Infancy Narratives, those parts of the scriptures that describe how the birth of Jesus came to be, certainly invite us to devotion, to romanticism, and, not least of all to faith. The Narratives are written in a literary form which is human and warm and inviting in its storytelling.

According to Franciscan tradition, these infancy narratives moved Francis of Assisi to enact the story in his first Creche in the early Middle Ages. Francis, in his love for the poor, gathered the peasants, not only to hear the gospel story of the Birth of Jesus, but to see before them the young virgin mother, the newly born Savior, Joseph the carpenter, the shepherds, the animals and the kings and the camels. Francis’ insight into the mystery of the Incarnation was that the faithful poor could hear, touch, smell, and actually gather with the shepherd and the kings. Their ordinary agrarian world was transformed and touched by the

presence of God among them. They had encountered the Father’s love in the newly born Savior and the multiple characters of the gospel story.

Along with this romantic and devotional approach to these stories of the birth of Jesus, in which we accommodate or apply the meaning to our every day life, there is another strata of faith revelation and textual interpretation. In the writing of the scriptures, these so-called Infancy Narratives were written later in the history of the gospels.

Significantly the Passion, Death, and Resurrection narratives were the first strata of gospel writing. This part of the Christian scriptures was central to the preaching of the community and to their liturgical experience. The preaching and ministry of Jesus was added in recorded memories to explain the central mystery of the death and rising of the Lord.

Mary, Woman of the Word
The Infancy Narratives are a reflection on the whole of the gospel story. Despite their apparent romanticism and naivete, the infancy stories are the reflection of a theologically mature Christian community. These stories are a mini-gospel about the Word of God realized in the human family, heard and responded to by people of faith. It proclaims the fidelity of the Father in Christ. It declares the new age of the Kingdom.

Mary is presented as the first of believers. She, like the men and woman of the Jewish scriptures, waits for God. She and her husband, Joseph, are among the poor of God, the first to hear and know the fidelity of God among them. Jesus is the Word of promise and the fulfillment of that promise. The story of Mary, like the other parts of the scriptures, is the woman of faith. She is the paradigm of faith and trust in God. She is the first of believers within the community. Mary is the Mother of the Church.

Mary as Mother of the Church is the first to hear God’s Word and to cooperate with the saving deeds of the Father in Christ. We see her as preacher in visiting her cousin, Elizabeth. Mary, in the words of Jesus, is among “those who hear God’s word and do it” in their lives.

CDH