From Fr Matthews' Presentation for “At One with God”,
Held at Maitland Uniting Church's Ecumenical Service, 31/7/2013. Note that this Church was Methodist
before it became part of the Uniting Church. Methodism was founded, in a
sense, by John Wesley, though he never left the Anglican Church.
Our Ecumenical Lady
For a long time the devotion of
Catholics to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of our Lord, has been a
stumbling block to many other Christians. While Roman Catholics are best
known for this devotion and for theological expression of it, other
Catholics such as Anglo-Catholics and Eastern Orthodox have similar or
identical beliefs about her, and matching devotion. Protestants, on the
other hand have tended to look at all of this as unnecessary and
excessive at best, or unbiblical and idolatrous at worst. There has, in
addition, been a perception that such Marian devotion was a relatively
late accretion to the Faith.
But
all is not as it seems. I want to suggest to you that St Mary is a
treasure for the all Christians, and that another, closer look at church
history and the Scriptures will illustrate this.
First,
I will begin with some interesting facts about the Methodist tradition,
which seems particularly appropriate, given where we are. One of the
best books ever written about the Rosary, Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy,
was written by a Methodist, J. Neville Ward. (The Rosary when prayed
includes the “Hail Mary” as an important component, of course.) There is
evidence John Wesley used the Rosary. Speaking of John Wesley, few
realise that he believed in the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. And the
Book of Common Prayer that he loved as an Anglican clergyman (he
pronounced it the finest document of biblical and rational piety in the
English language) calls her “Our Lady” in its liturgical calendar. So, a
special respect for and love of the Blessed Mother is a native though
quiet part of the Methodist heritage, a hidden jewel, if you like.
The
original great Reformer, Luther, also accepted that Mary was properly
called the “Mother of God”, and remained a virgin throughout her life.
He taught that she was preserved from all sin by grace so that the fruit
of her womb, Jesus, would have a pure human nature. Similarly, the
Books of Homilies written by the Church of England during the English
Reformation referred to her “undefiled substance” and said that the rest
of us “in comparison to her are most base”.
Now,
Calvin was another story entirely, I admit, but it was also Calvinism
that John Wesley specifically and forthrightly rejected. So, for the
rest of the classical, Reformed traditions, Lutheran, Anglican and
Wesleyan/Holiness, a surprising Marian dimension is there at the source.
Theological
reflection on Mary and a special honouring of her can be found in the
very early Church Fathers. In particular, she was considered the New Eve
from the second century onwards. Her life-long purity, unique
blessedness, intercession and heavenly glorification were affirmed
increasingly explicitly and virtually universally throughout the Church
within the first four centuries.
That's
all very well, one might say, but what about the Bible. What does the
Scripture say? After all, neither the Reformers nor the early Church
Fathers appealed to their own authority as individuals, treating it as
determinative. They all taught that doctrine must conform to Scripture.
What
is it that made Mary special, apart from the bare fact of her being
chosen to bare God in her womb? Is there anything in Scripture to
indicate she was chosen for a reason, prepared for this role in our
salvation? The answer is yes.
Luke
gives us the most detailed portrait of the Blessed Virgin. The key
features of her character he shows are purity; a bold, yet sincere
humility; and a faith that spoke of a total reliance on God’s grace and,
importantly, directed the glory to God and his Son, not to herself.
Let me read the key passage from Luke 1:26-45
Now
in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of
Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was
Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art [1]highly favored, the Lord is with thee [2]. But
she was greatly troubled at the saying, and cast in her mind what
manner of salutation this might be. And the angel said unto her, Fear
not, Mary: for thou hast found [1] favor with God. And behold, thou
shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his
name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most
High: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father
David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob [1] for ever; and of
his kingdom there shall be no end. And Mary said unto the angel, How
shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said
unto her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the
Most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore also [1] the holy thing which
is begotten shall be called the Son of God. And behold, Elisabeth thy
kinswoman, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the
sixth month with her that [1] was called barren. For no word from God
shall be void of power. And Mary said, Behold, the [1]handmaid of the
Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from
her. And Mary arose in these days and went into the hill country with
haste, into a city of Judah; and entered into the house of Zacharias and
saluted Elisabeth. And it came to pass, when Elisabeth heard the
salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was
filled with the Holy Spirit; and she lifted up her voice with a loud
cry, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of
thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should
come unto me? For behold, when the voice of thy salutation came into
mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. 45 And blessed is she
that [1] believed; for there shall be a fulfilment of the things which
have been spoken to her from the Lord.
Purity: unlike Zacharias (and many OT saints), she did not cower at the angel’s presence, she was overawed by his words
(which praised her)! “Who am I to be greeted so? Why did he call me
that?” as it were. Note also the calm straightforwardness of questioning
and answer afterward. Only a pure heart could so converse
with the angel of the Lord. Remember, the angel added she had “found
favour with God,” and yet no particular deeds were mentioned {cf.
Daniel, or Cornelius in Acts}; it is a matter of who and what she is —
the angel named her “full of grace” or “highly favoured”.
As I said before, Mary was not afraid of the angel but WAS troubled by the honourable salutation. A little later she declares herself to be God’s servant, but notice the “behold”! Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; And yet, again, she doesn’t say “Yes, all right, I’ll DO it” be it unto me according to thy word.: she knows she can do nothing but receive. “Let it be DONE TO ME according to thy word.” The combination of boldness and humility reminds us of Jesus saying “I am meek and lowly”!
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NOTE:
The Magnificat is one of the eight most ancient Christian hymns and
perhaps the earliest Marian hymn. Its text is taken directly from the
Gospel of Luke (Luke 1:46-55) where it is spoken by the Virgin Mary upon
the occasion of her Visitation to her cousin Elizabeth.
My soul doth magnify the Lord :
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For he hath regarded :
the lowliness of his handmaiden.
For behold, from henceforth :
all generations shall call me blessed.
For he that is mighty hath magnified me :
and holy is his Name.
And his mercy is on them that fear him :
throughout all generations.
He hath shewed strength with his arm :
he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat :
and hath exalted the humble and meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things : and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel :
as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever.
We see the same paradox in the Magnificat, Mary's song “all generations shall call me blessed”, “he has exalted the lowly”.
Now, it is very rare in the Scriptures for people to prophesy about
themselves, other than in Jesus' case. But that is what Mary does here.
The important thing to note is that her prophecy has been fulfilled.
Note that this word, “blessed”, is the same one Jesus uses in the
Beatitudes. For example, “Blessed are the pure in heart”, “Blessed are
the meek”. Sounds familiar.
It is in her fiat [= let it be done]
then, that we see Mary’s faith that Elisabeth later commends. She knows
God is the doer, and she knows he WILL do it. And, again we see this
attitude repeated in the Magnificat.
Allow
me at this point to recount part of my personal journey. When I
discovered Catholicism through Eastern Orthodoxy at University, a better
understanding and appreciation of the significance of the Mother of God
was how “the penny dropped”. A paper by a theologian named Vladimir
Lossky (Born in Germany, 1903-1958) opened my eyes to the
Scriptural riches concerning Mary. Things I had never seen or noticed
before became clear, and I saw that this was because I was receiving the
benefit of Holy Tradition, the consensual wisdom and insight of the
Church through the ages, guided by God, as promised by our Lord. What
did I find, as I looked further? That though the Biblical references to
our Lady were few in number, they were laden with extraordinary depth of
meaning. I found that, in addition to what I have already explained:
The
earliest Biblical prophecy about the Messiah also refers to his Mother
and associates the two of them in their enmity with the Devil (Genesis
3:15). God says to the Devil-serpent “ I will put
enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he
shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Christ
is called the “seed” in Galatians 3:19, then St Paul notes that he is
“born of a woman” in 4:4. So, Christ was the seed of the woman. But even
to talk about the seed of a woman was unusual in the Bible, which
generally refers only to a man's seed, so the very idea was suggestive
of something unusual. In other words, it was never just a reference to
the human race in general and the Devil's hatred of it. It was never
just a reference to all the children of Eve, but to the one who was
pre-eminently the seed of a woman but not the seed of a man, Jesus. And
that means that “the woman” prophetically refers to Mary as well. Thus,
very significantly, the enmity between Jesus and the Devil is paralleled
by the enmity between Mary and the Devil. They share as humans in this
TOTAL opposition of good versus evil.
Indeed, Mary's “be it unto me according to thy word”
and faith (specifically commended by St Elizabeth, as we saw) is in
perfect opposition to Eve's disobedience and unbelief (Luke 1: 38, 45
cp. Genesis 3:4-6). Remember, Eve not only ate the forbidden fruit, she
did so because she accepted what the Serpent said about God having
supposedly misled her in his words. “Ye shall NOT surely die”. Unbelief
led to disobedience for Eve. Faith meant obedience in Mary. She said yes
to God and his word, boldly and effectively. No wonder the Fathers saw
her as the New Eve, almost the anti-Eve.
Jesus, IN HIS HUMANITY , and Mary are again associated, as similarly “blessed”,
by St Elizabeth in Luke 1:42, from the passage I read earlier.
Elizabeth says to Mary “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is THE FRUIT OF THY WOMB”: the SAME underlying Greek word being applied to both
Mary and Jesus. 5 times in the 2nd chapter of Matthew Jesus and Mary
are referred to as “the child with his mother” or “the child and his
mother”, 4 of these times to do with Joseph’s actions, when we might
have expected reference to “his wife and child”
These examples are:
Matthew 2:11 And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Matthew 2:13 [ The Flight into Egypt ] Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.”
Matthew 2:14 When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt,
Matthew 2:20 saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the young Child’s life are dead.”
Matthew 2:21 Then he arose, took the young Child and His mother, and came into the land of Israel.
Other examples:
Luke 2:34-35 ,Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”
and
Luke 1:48 For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
Luke 1:52 He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly.
compared to
Matthew 11:29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
[Relevance to Immaculate Conception and Perpetual Virginity: Joseph as protector of THEM, not as normal
husband of her. “They” are a “pair” as to human nature, implying her
complete moral purity.]
While
Jesus “corrects” a woman who cries out how blessed is the womb that
bore him by saying “rather blessed are they that hear the word of God
and keep it” in Luke 11:28, we have already been told by then in that
Gospel that this is exactly what his Mother does (Luke 2: 19, 51: “Mary
treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.”). Thus what
seems a diminishing of our Lady, to a superficial reading, actually
reveals her true greatness. The woman who cried out saw the physical
connection between our Lady and our Lord, but not the deeper, spiritual
connection.
Mary
is seen as an effective intercessor in John 2, persuading Jesus to
perform his first sign, and her last words recorded in Scripture here
are “Do whatever he [Jesus] tells you.” Not a bad summary of instruction
for the whole Christian life. Notice how she directs us to Jesus.
Mary
becomes the Mother of the Beloved Disciple, who represents all of us,
at the foot of the Cross, by Jesus decree. (John 19:26-27) “Woman,
behold thy son.” [Relevance to Perpetual Virginity: no natural other son
available. Yet 'brothers' of Jesus soon with the Apostles!]
St
Luke's account from the Annunciation to the Visitation, that is, from
the Angel's announcement of her motherhood to her visit to her cousin,
contains a number of striking parallels with the OT accounts of the Ark
of the Covenant. Luke 1:35 (RSV) And the angel said to her, “The Holy
Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will
overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the
Son of God.” The Greek word for overshadow is episkiasei, which
describes a bright, glorious cloud. It is used with reference to the
cloud of transfiguration of Jesus and also
has a connection to the shekinah glory of God in the Old Testament .
Reference to the
cloud of transfiguration of Jesus
Matthew 17:5 "While he was still
speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice
came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am
well pleased. Hear Him!”
Mark 9:7 "And a cloud came and overshadowed them; and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!”
Luke 9:34 While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were fearful as they entered the cloud.
Reference to the glory of God in the Old Testament
Exodus
24:15-16Then Moses went up into the mountain, and a cloud covered the mountain. Now the glory of the Lord
rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the
seventh day He called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.
1 Kings 8:10 And it came to pass, when the priests came out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the Lord,
Exodus 40:34-38 Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.Whenever the cloud was taken up from above the tabernacle, the children of Israel would go onward in all their journeys.But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not journey till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was
above the tabernacle by day, and fire was over it by night, in the
sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.
The
Greek Septuagint translation uses the same word, episkiasei, in this
passage. Mary is, therefore, in effect, like the new temple and holy of
holies, where God was present in a special fashion.
More direct
parallels occur as well:
2 Samuel 6:9 And David was afraid of the LORD
that day; and he said, “How can the ark of the LORD come to me?”
Luke
1:43 “And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come
to me?”
2 Samuel 6:14,16 “And David danced before the LORD with all his
might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. . . . King David
leaping and dancing before the LORD . . .”
Luke 1:44 “For behold, when
the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped
for joy.”
2 Samuel 6:10-11 “So David was not willing to take the ark of
the LORD into the city of David; ... And the ark of the LORD remained in
the house of O'bed-e'dom the Gittite three months . . .”
Luke 1:39,56
“In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a
city of Judah, . . . And Mary remained with her about three months”.
Then there is the powerful witness of St Athanasius, one of the greatest
theologians of the early Church, speaking of Mary: “You are greater
than them all O [Ark of the] Covenant, clothed with purity instead of
gold! You are the ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the
true manna, that is, the flesh in which divinity resides”. Athanasius
saw the clear connection between the literal Ark containing the word
(stone tablets) and bread (manna) of God and our Lady, who contained in
her womb the One who was declared to be the Word and the Bread in John's
Gospel.
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among
us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the
Father, full of grace and truth.
John 6:33, 35 For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” ...And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.
And
then we are told, quite mysteriously, at the end of Revelation 11 that
the Ark of the Covenant is seen in Heaven, just before ...
The
last Scriptural reference to the Blessed Virgin in the Bible has her
crowned in Heaven at the beginning of Revelation 12. This is the image
of the heavenly woman surrounded by sun, moon and stars. Is this Mary?
John does not spell it out explicitly. Some of the imagery could refer
to redeemed Israel (Genesis 37:9-11 And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.) or to the Church (Revelation
12:17 And the dragon was wroth
with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which
keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. cp. 2 John 13 The children of thy elect sister greet thee. Amen.). But other aspects refer more properly to Mary.
This layering of meaning is paralleled in other prophecies in the Bible.
The Marian reference is hard to ignore because this woman bears a son
who will rule all nations “with a rod of iron”, that is, unquestionable
and unbreakable authority, and who rises up to the throne of God. The
“rod of iron” phrase is taken from Psalm 2 as part of a section the
earliest disciples realised was a prophecy about Christ (Acts 13:33 God hath fulfilled the
same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as
it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I
begotten thee.,
Hebrews 1:5 For
unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day
have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he
shall be to me a Son?). And, of course, the one who John knew to have ascended to
God's seat of authority was Jesus, as he makes clear earlier in this
book (Revelations 5:6 And I beheld, and, lo, in
the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the
elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven
eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.). So, the woman is, at one important level, the very mother of
Jesus, Mary. Indeed, twice in St John's Gospel he simply calls his
mother “Woman” John 2:4 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come., John 19:26 When Jesus therefore saw
his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto
his mother, Woman, behold thy son!. [+ escapes from persecution into
wilderness, as Mary escaped to Egypt.]
And there is more besides, which I cannot go into now.
But,
what we can say from the above is that the ancient belief in Mary's
unique purity and glory, her intercession and her deep connection to her
son, is firmly grounded in the Scriptural narrative, in Biblical
teaching and typology/imagery.
However,
Mary is still a very Evangelical saint. She points to her son, not
herself, knows that all she has is by prevenient GRACE (“my spirit has
rejoiced in God my Saviour … HE has DONE great things FOR me”) and she
lives by FAITH, accepting and pondering and treasuring the words of
Divine Revelation.
Let
us imitate the Blessed Virgin then by a faith that is active yet
entirely reliant on God’s grace, on God as the true “doer”; and by a
humility that is bold because it is pure. And let us, like Mary, be
centred on CHRIST, having Him living inside us, and pointing others to
Him in time of need, as Mary did at Cana.
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