Mary in the midst of her people
Could it be that the wooden beauty we see in so many of the artistic and textual portrayals of Mary has cast a shadow over the hard reality of her ordinary daily life, in fact the only place God can be encountered?
I imagine Mary, of the Magnificat and Passion fame, more and more often as being very different from the image we see depicted by numerous painters, sculptors, theologians and preachers. She is also rather different from the Mary I prayed to on the Scout's rosary I used to carry in my pants pocket on the way to school in the 60s. Have I strayed and become pretentious, now that I dare to entertain the idea that, too often and unconsciously Mary has been portrayed more as being beautiful than as being real. So beautiful in fact that her daily toil, hurts and sleepless nights never even slightly wrinkled her face; the hard reality of her life was conjured away in favour of her exalted role as Mother of the Saviour. But by overemphasizing her special status, aren't we in danger of turning her into an angel and disincarnating her, even when God took pains to become flesh in her womb in order to enlighten us?
I'll say something even more shocking: it was Mary I thought of while listening to Monique Lépine, the mother of Marc Lépine, recently on TV as she revealed what she had kept in her heart since those terrible events that occurred at the Polytechnic! I think that both women, involved in totally different events, suffered because of their sons and that neither had an easy task of it: the mother of Jesus of Nazareth wasn't spared any suffering even if the Word lived within her, and her grandeur is to be found in her daily consent to the heart-wrenching adventures that grew out of her initial choice, which we call the Annunciation.
Mary's ordinary existence
This isn't a novel. Mary was a daughter of Palestine with a face toughened by the sun, wind and sand, a woman who had to pull the cable to draw water up from the well, a woman with hands reddened and scarred from scrubbing and weaving, an ordinary woman of her people. Mary was a girl who had both a sense of God and ordinary common sense: How will it be possible? she asked the Lord's messenger Lk 1:34. She was a woman who didn't blindly resort to magical thinking, but who meditated and thought, a woman who knew the history of her people and the Scriptures Lk 1:53-55, a woman inhabited by God long before the Annunciation. Mary was a mother before whom her son dared to declare: My mother and my brothers are those who listen to the Word of God and obey it Lk 8:2 1, a mother who was powerless and in turmoil as, without shame, she witnessed the cruel death of the boy she had carried Jn 19:25-26 even while almost all his supporters trembled in fear, doubt and despair. Mary was familiar with the suffering generated by her clearsighted faithfulness... so far removed from submission.
Reconciling Faith and Tragedy
In Palestine, there must have been a lot of gossip, both good and bad, about Jesus. He wasn't universally liked; his trial is proof of that. There are words that warm the heart and others that kill like the stones thrown at the woman caught in the act of adultery. There are hypocritical words, hateful words, words that ridicule everything, humiliating words, discouraging words, words that lie and words that betray. We know how mothers react when their child's reputation has been damaged or whose grand projects have been thwarted. In the midst of her people, Mary listened and kept many memories, as well as much suffering, in her heart. Soon after the birth of her beloved little one, Mary started to realize what kind of heart-rending experiences she would have to undergo, and to glimpse the kind of events she would become involved in.
We must gather up all our things and flee to Egypt because of a tyrant Mt:2:13.This is a much more traumatic event for Mary and her husband than for the child bundled up in her arms. Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house? Lk 3:49. How quickly her heart must have been beating when she saw her son dragged from tribunal to tribunal and crucified like a criminal? Just how was she able to reconcile this tragic end with the angel of the Annunciation's words: He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His ancestor David; He will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and His reign will have no end. Lk 1:32-33
Mary's faith was put to the test, but so was her hope! Like a traveller walking in a storm, she was able to constantly shelter herself so she could keep alive the consent she had uttered in sunnier days. Having unceasing recourse to the Scriptures, prayer, personal reflection and friends sustained her hopefulness to such an extent that, although not spared any suffering, she became a living example of the Word, of the one she had carried: No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. Jn 15:13
by André Gadbois