Rediscovering Mary ...... (Holy Week holy reading)

NRO ^ | April 5, 2007

[IrishMike]

Frederica Mathewes-Green: I feel ambivalent about the title — kind of lurid, isn’t it! But my point was that there are many, many ancient Christian texts that are fully orthodox; it’s not only a matter of New Testament versus gnostics. Earlier generations of Christians read the same kind of supplemental and devotional works we do today: biographies, commentaries, letters, sermons, debates with non-believers...pretty much anything you would find in a Christian bookstore today. Except men’s dress socks with little fish and crosses on ‘em.

These works got “lost” mostly because we forgot them — our “family memory” fades after a few decades or centuries. Contemporary Western Christians have a bad case of spiritual amnesia. So I’m hoping to put a few of the more appealing and worthy works back on the shelf. In this book I present three ancient texts concerning the Virgin Mary, with new translations and verse-by-verse commentary. The first is a “gospel,” or narrative biography, of the Virgin Mary’s birth, and early life.

Mary’s suffering faith during our Lord’s last days is a model and inspiration for all believers. But what I found in these three documents was that the greatest interest for early Christians was in her pregnancy. The fact of the Incarnation was something early Christians continually marveled over; also, it was the grounds on which they had to fight most often, defending the real divinity and real humanity of Jesus. And it was Mary whom God called on to provide the physical matrix for Christ’s appearance in the flesh; she was a regular human being, one of us. That means that on one side, Jesus’ grandmother was named Anna, while on the other side...you see how mind-blowing it is.

[CalvaryJohn]

It’s not about Mary; it’s about Jesus.

[siunevada]

One of the things that has surprised me, as I explore early Christian spirituality and the Eastern Church, is that there is so little interest in gender division. There aren’t separate types of prayer or spiritual disciplines for men as opposed to women, or for Greek rather than Arab or Egyptian Christians, or for rich versus poor Christians — none of that seems to matter. In Western Christianity, of course, we hear a great deal about tailor-made spirituality, right down to personality type; it fits the grid of our consumer culture. But in these texts there’s very little interest in Mary’s femininity; all the emphasis is on her humanity. She is the Theotokos, the “God-bearer” in the sense of bearing a child; her example invites all people everywhere to be Theophorus, “God-bearers”in the sense of bearing God’s presence like a candlewick bears a flame.

Good observation.

[IrishMike]

Easter is about Jesus, the post is about a book.

[Aquinasfan]

Interesting article.

One of the things that has surprised me, as I explore early Christian spirituality and the Eastern Church, is that there is so little interest in gender division. There aren’t separate types of prayer or spiritual disciplines for men as opposed to women, or for Greek rather than Arab or Egyptian Christians, or for rich versus poor Christians — none of that seems to matter.

So playing up gender is progress? Reminds me of Chesterton's swipe at modern thought: "chronological snobbery."

[badpacifist]

When you talk about the king of the Davidic line whose kingdom never ends and yet people get hysterical when the “queen mother” is even mentioned. I guess you simply can’t discuss the family without someone getting all pissy. It appears that even 2000 years later on Mothers day you can discuss anyone else in the bible but oh no not her, for heavens sakes.

[massgopguy]

“Hail Mary, full of Grace. The Lord is with Thee.” - Gabriel
“Blessed is the fruit of thy womb” - Elizabeth (mother of John the Baptist)

[narses]

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[D-fendr]