A Space for God: Mary’s Gift
It was kind of a big ask.
The angel Gabriel said something along these lines: Mary, don’t be afraid, but you’re going to have a baby! I know you’re only 14 and you’re not married yet and others won’t understand, but God wants to use you to bring the Son of God into the world. God picked you! You probably fear what’s ahead, but everything will turn out okay because God has filled you with grace. So, what do you say?
Wait. What??!!
Of course, the actual biblical prose in Luke is much more beautiful and ennobled. Mary’s life-altering encounter took place over 2,000 years ago in a world across the globe. Now, from where I sit in church, I am in full view of a pristine and luminous statue of Mary. Except, she is as if glorified, already in heaven looking down on us. She is untouchable, god-like and, frankly, unrelatable. I look at her and wonder how the real Mary, at fourteen in a first-century Mediterranean and Jewish world, would have looked and acted. I wonder if now she wishes that we would spend some time with that fourteen-year-old girl who somehow, by the grace of God, consented to a change in plans that would affect not only her, but her family and her betrothed, Joseph. She, after all, could have faced a violent death when others in her community discovered her pregnant and unmarried. Mary would have experienced shock, fear, even desperation at the gift of a baby in her womb. In her world, and as a female, Mary relied on the men in her life to offer protection and a way of life. It was, in no way, a world like ours in the West where women have minds of their own or live independently. We often mistakenly look at others’ culture and history with our 21st-century eyes. To better understand this story, we must consider Mary’s world.
In the time and place Mary lived, she was inferior to and lived to serve the men in her life. Every female who lived in a first-century Mediterranean and Judean community lived to bring honor to her father. She did this by her submission to authority, deference, passivity and restraint. “[The daughter] is not an individual, free to make up her own mind….Her main concern is to act in a way that mirrors the values, concerns and honor of her father and his family. What she personally thinks and feels is of no significance, and is best kept to herself” (Bruce J. Malina, p 5).* Malina, a Biblical scholar, goes on to write that a woman’s expected role and requirement for community living was to remain sexually pure until the appropriate time in an arranged marriage, then sexually exclusive thereafter. In fact, a woman’s chastity signified and strengthened a man’s honor. Mary, pregnant and yet unmarried, would be seen as dismissing and disregarding her father’s authority. “The community would deny [the father’s] claim to honor since he could not even control his daughter as fathers should” (p 5). Maintaining one’s honor was everything in this world. The price of robbing a male of his honor, especially for a woman considered unchaste, sometimes involved her death. If a woman was believed to have had sexual relations with a man, especially if she was thought to consent, she would most likely be stoned to death.**
Another Biblical scholar, Elizabeth Johnson, gives her perspective of what Mary might have faced. “[Let us consider] the consequences for a woman of that culture getting pregnant outside patriarchal social norms that even with belief in the virginal conception we begin to see the dangerous dilemma in which Mary was trapped….Until Joseph’s dream and his generous response, nothing but public disgrace, endless shame, perhaps a life of begging, even death, loomed before her. The terror of her situation should [help us develop] our Christian imagination, which has tended to ‘wrap Mary in an aura of romantic joy’ at finding herself pregnant.” (p 230).*** The reality of Mary’s situation gives me pause. As I ruminate on what she actually had to go through, I wonder at God’s vision for her life as salvation entered the world through Jesus. It seems that God intended to fortify Mary’s openness to the Holy Spirit despite cultural norms that would put her life in turmoil. Furthermore, I marvel at her response. I do not expect that I would have reacted in the same way.
How did Mary do it? How did she say yes to the angel Gabriel, to God, and accept her fate? We often ignore this part when thinking about the story of the Annunciation. What a beautiful story. I don’t know about you, but at the age of fourteen, I was nowhere close to having the capacity to gracefully accept such an outcome. And yet, she did. She amazingly didn’t freak out. She said yes to God’s unmerited gift that would change the world. I borrow the term “unmerited” from Biblical scholar, Karl Rahner, SJ, who taught that God’s grace, God’s very self given to this world, is an unearned, freely-given gift. It is not a reward for doing all the right things or a quid pro quo where I do this for you and then you give me grace. Jesus, God’s ultimate gift to this world, was and is an unmerited gift from God because of God’s great love for all of God’s creation. It reflects God’s desire that we all turn toward God and welcome this love, embracing our identities as God’s children. In his homily on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8, 2015), Pope Francis said, “The fullness of grace can transform the human heart and enable it to do something so great as to change the course of human history.” So, the Holy Spirit gave Mary the unmerited gift of Jesus in her womb. Because of this, her pregnancy is holy. Because of Mary’s openness to the Holy Spirit, she shows us a way to actively receive God’s gifts even though it may come as a shock, a surprise, and lead to a wholly different course in one’s life. And, in Mary’s case, a grave risk to her life.
In a world where women must accept their fate, Mary did not passively consent. Instead, she actively received it without seeing the future. I can passively accept things, but it is only when I actively say yes to something, to receive it in its entirety, that I take ownership of it and fully embrace it. Mary fully embraces this gift from God. In that, I stand in awe at Mary’s capacity to consent to God’s great gift.
In this interchange, God unreservedly speaks only to Mary. Even in her world, a world that gave only men full consideration and respect, Mary has a firsthand encounter with God. “God speaks directly to Mary, the message not being mediated by her father, betrothed spouse, or priest. In addition, she does not turn to any male authority figure either to be advised or to seek permission regarding what is to be done….She is portrayed in terms of her relationship to God independent of men’s control…” (Johnson, p 256). Mary was not forced, coerced, threatened, or bullied into receiving Jesus in her womb. Given what she faced in its wake, Mary’s choice to bear the Messiah is all the more remarkable.
And let us consider the experience of childbirth itself. Luke writes, “she gave birth.” There is no mention of the physical pain, the blood, sweat and tears of contractions, not to mention the dire risk for women in her world who often died in childbirth. Nothing is said of Joseph’s anxiety and worry. Did he help her give birth? Usually a job for a midwife and group of women in their time, did Joseph stay with her through the entire childbirth in a stable? We don’t really know the answers to these questions, but we do know that Mary, as human as you and me, experienced labor pains, swollen breasts, painful nursing. Jesus did not fly out of her womb with ease, a halo on his head, without physical change to Mary’s body. It was messy and impure with blood and amniotic fluid. In their first-century Jewish culture, Mary was unclean and needed purification after Jesus’ birth. Yet, in God’s design, childbirth is deemed a holy and natural phenomenon. Conceivably, Mary was exhausted and thankful for a healthy baby boy. Most likely, the animals did not step in time to the little drummer boy as Mary watched on smiling. Most likely, Mary slept in exhausted spurts when not breastfeeding her baby.
The Biblical text reads, “Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.” Submitting to authority was not new to Mary, but in doing so, Mary opened herself up to God’s divine will. As she “pondered” the mystery and the reality of her pregnancy and childbirth, her heart expanded. She gave space, you could say, to the Holy Spirit and all that is to come. In the midst of her very small Jewish community, Mary contemplated what all of this could mean. She decided to trust God despite not knowing the whole picture.
Mary pondered, or contemplated, all that she could understand and know throughout her life as she raised her son, Jesus. She did not fully understand what it meant for him to be a Messiah. Losing and finding Jesus in the Temple when he was twelve confused her. When she stood at the foot of the cross with the other women who had not abandoned him in his greatest need, she faced suffering unlike any other. Then she, together with Jesus’ disciples, received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. She received the same tongue of fire that commissioned her to spread the Good News of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. With each encounter of suffering and joy, as she made space for the mystery, Mary moved toward understanding her son’s mission of mercy and love.
For, how can a person change, be transformed, without embracing both the suffering and the joys of one’s life? If I ponder the story of the Holy Family, only considering the “aura of romantic joy,” I miss the full picture of what is real and I remain comfortable, not having to make room or find space for anything bigger or wider. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, images and names of Mary reflect this spaciousness.
Mary, The Theotokos (God-Bearer) Icon
Using different Greek names to reference Mary, the Eastern Orthodox call her Panagia which means “all-Holy,” Theotokos which means “God-bearer,” and Patytera which denotes “wider” or “more spacious.” With a compellation of titles for Mary, they show reverence for all that she personifies. Through religious icons, Mary is depicted in different ways. Icons, paintings on wood of sacred events or individuals, are used as an object of veneration or prayer. They help us in our sacred imagination to envision God’s world. For example, in the icon of the Theotokos, Mary is looking directly at the viewer, engaging the viewer to connect with the sacred. Elizabeth Johnson notes that “by containing the creator of the universe in her womb, Mary has become more spacious than the heavens.” Mary, for me, models the capacity to hold a space for that which is greater than me, that which the Holy Spirit can fill. It is a space for mystery, for the unknown, for God’s vision of the cosmos that lies beyond my understanding. In this space, like Mary, I can ponder the gift of Jesus for me and for our world.
Pope Benedict XVI, in a homily on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary (August 15, 2012), spoke of the space in each of us, like Mary, for God. He describes capax dei, a Latin term referring to every person’s capacity for God. He said:
“There is a beautiful passage from St. Gregory the Great on St. Benedict that we can apply to Mary too. St. Gregory the Great says that the heart of St. Benedict expanded so much that all creation could enter it. This is even truer of Mary: Mary, totally united to God, has a heart so big that all creation can enter this heart…she has a heart as great as the heart of God.
But there is also another aspect. In God not only is there room for humankind; in humankind there is room for God. This too we see in Mary, the Holy Ark who bears the presence of God. In us there is space for God, and this presence of God in us is so important for bringing light to the world with all its sadness, with all its problems…
What is there to say then? A great heart, the presence of God in the world, room for God within us and room for us in God…this is the symphony of this feast…”
In addition to naming Mary the Theotokos (God-bearer) and Contemplative (pondering the word of God in her heart), Fr. Eugene Hensel, OSB, in a homily for the Feast of the Immaculate Assumption in 2020, declared Mary the Highest Prophet who directly heard the word of God, acted upon it and proclaimed it. God’s grace freely flowed through her because she actively said yes, embracing the unknown as she trusted in God. Present in the suffering of Jesus’ violent death at the foot of the cross and present in the upper room during Pentecost, Mary bears witness to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Present at key moments in Jesus’ life, Mary lived the Paschal Mystery. She is a prophet that lived in the present moment, even in moments of suffering.
Despite social and cultural expectations, Mary freely responded to God’s big ask. In doing so, she made space for the Holy Spirit to move in her life. Mary trusted, body and soul, in God. We remember that, while she said yes, she also entered the unknown. How can we trust like Mary? Make room, give space, for the Holy Spirit to fill us, prompting us to trust, just a little more than we think we can. We recall our capacity for God (capax dei) and take a step forward with hope in the gift of Jesus.
Call to Action: In the comments below, share one thing from this blogpost that inspires your relationship with Mary. Name one way you, like Mary, can make room for the Holy Spirit.
Blog Notes:
*Malina, Bruce J. Windows on the World of Jesus: Time Travel to Ancient Judea, Westminster/John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 1993.
**For a look at the scriptural basis for the Jewish laws concerning expectations and customs of women in marriage and sexual purity in the first-century Mediterranean and Judean world, see Deuteronomy 22:13-21 and Numbers 5:11-31.
***Johnson, Elizabeth A., Truly Our Sister: A Theology of Mary in the Communion of Saints, The Continuum International Publishing Group, New York, NY, 2003.
Song for Contemplation: “Real” by Nichole Nordeman
