Blessed Mary
The blessed Mary was, in fact, truly blessed, if we are to take the words attributed to her seriously. She was blessed with humility, faith, and vision.
She dwells only briefly on herself and that only to appreciate her good fortune. She is also in tune with my definition of humility which is simply to know who we are. She was well aware of her own lowly status as she puts it. Two aspects of true humility are here−gratitude and an unassuming nature. There is no sense of entitlement here. She is genuinely surprised and delighted by God's favor.
Did anyone notice the verb tense used in the description of what God has done?
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
If so, does it not strike you as odd that in fact none of these things have actually happened then or now? If anything the gap between the rich and the poor is greater, the proud and arrogant are ruling the world and the lowly are still lowly. The hungry are still hungry and the rich are doing just fine. Of course these are all generalizations but there is a point to be made here. Mary's vision of justice is definitely about a better world where the poor are safe and have hope and the rich do not oppress but serve the common good, a world at peace, the only peace that matters, where there is justice and dignity for all people, where none are left out or abused. And the fact that she states this vision in the past tense is her faith talking..
She is not saying that this is in fact the way it is right now but she is saying that this is what it will be and that what it will be, what God has promised is the same thing as done. In other words the people of faith are to live as if the promised future is a done deal and we live as if these things have already happened and in doing so to make them happen. Faith does not mean pretending that everything is all right when it clearly is not. Faith is living with the confidence that what we do to make things right when everything is wrong is not only worth doing but is what God requires of us. To live faithfully means to live into God's promise of peace on earth.
In our cynical times, it seems, peace, like so many words has been used to call itself what it is not. I remember the peacekeeper missiles for example. Weapons of mass destruction (as we call them now) are
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built and aimed at each other to keep the peace. We have peacekeeping forces now that go everywhere there is trouble and the result of all of this is that there is no peace. There is everything but peace on earth.
Now there are some who think this is what peace is, the suppression of violence, law and order, peace by force which implies of course that the only peace we can ever have as human beings is that which can protect itself from violence by more violence and contain the forces of evil that are always present implying further that our true nature as human beings is to destroy each other rather to live in peace and so we have to control our natural tendencies and thus the only peace we can ever know is the peace we force into submission but is this true? Is this who we are, really? Granted this is an open question but there is at least one view of things that begs to differ. According to the Holy Word humans are good. (And God said of all that God had made: It is good .) It is good. This is not just a description but a definition, a theological argument with legs, a promise, even, of what is truly possible, of what is real. Whether we see evidence or not of human goodness it is possible to be good because that is what we truly are, what we were meant to be. In other words, it is not impossible that we might all just get along.
The peace of Mary's vision, of God's promise is not this peace that we have settled for in a world that is so far from peace that we are in danger of forgetting even what peace is or could be. Fear is winning this game.
This idea that calls itself peace is not shalom, the harmony of all living things seeing each other as partners in continually creating a world where people can live abundantly together unafraid and open to each other and becoming more and more fully alive. This is the vision of God's love but we are so deep into fear and revenge and self-defense that we may have lost sight of what love can do as well.
It is significant that Mary is apparently not afraid. Dillard's description of the incarnation is telling of the rest of us: So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between the two worlds, and we were all afraid.
Mary, in her innocence, was not afraid of love. It was only later that she would receive another vision, this one of a sword piercing her heart and then she would know why love might be feared.
Nevertheless she chose love. She went through with it. She delivered a baby. As with any birth, love came into the world again but this was different, too, because this love was sent to save the world from itself once and for all. The blessed Mary had blessed the world with and by the grace of God and the world can never be the same again. Even in the absence of peace on earth there is peace on earth and we have all been blessed.
This old world has come a long way from the prophet Micah and from the little town of Bethlehem. I have been to Bethlehem and I can tell you from my personal experience that it is not obvious that peace abides anywhere there but there is hope and there is love and there are those who still believe in the goodness of
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God and in the promises of God and who live everyday as if peace on earth has already happened. This does not mean that there is peace on earth but it does mean that there is peace on earth. It is not impossible.
At the very least, Mary offers a new take on what is possible with God. If nothing else Christmas might open us all to the possibilities for peace on earth and what love can do and even if peace is not immediately obvious, it is what we could be doing with our lives.
Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain,
Spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my cry come unto Thee.
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