with East Sheen
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The Parish of Mortlake with East Sheen |
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In the exercises, which Ignatius devised for his newly founded Society of Jesus – the Jesuits – Mary plays a significant role. According to tradition, although not biblical tradition, Jesus appears to his mother before anyone else on the morning of his resurrection and so to imagine her meeting her son risen from the dead and seeing his joy at his rising - was a particularly potent and striking experience in the exercises. The image of Mary has a strong hold on our imagination and it is safe to say that many of the images we have in our minds bear little relation to the reality of who Mary probably was: a teenage Jewish girl from a town called Zippori in 1st century Palestine. Christianity is a religion rich with pictures, images, words and depictions of the events and themes surrounding the extraordinary moment when God came among us and lived as a human person – Jesus of Nazareth. And the images that abound of Mary are persistent not so much because they give us accurate information about the Biblical story, but because they tell us about ourselves. The very ordinary picture of two women meeting to talk about their impending births is given revolutionary meaning by Mary’s song the Magnificat – based on Hannah’s song in the first book of Samuel. I can’t help reflecting that in today’s church we sanitise its meaning. It has banned by repressive governments afraid of its potency when used in worship – most recently in the 1970s and as I hear it, I can’t help calling to mind a Kenyan woman called Wahu Kaara:. She stood on a platform with Kofi Anan and Gordon Brown at St Paul’s Cathedral in front of nearly 3,000 people and spoke from her own experience of the scandal of poverty. The people who are poor or people who are starving are not statistics but members of her family. They are my neighbours she said – I know their names. We could all hear in her passion and determination the cadences of the Magnificat: he has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent empty away. On Boxing Day in 2004, one of the abiding images of the appalling tsunami disaster in South Asia was a man carrying his dead child with immense care and tenderness through the flood waters which were up to his waste. As he waded towards the camera, the pieta statues of Mary cradling Jesus after he was crucified, were brought to life and given new terrible meaning. A young girl received publicity during the same disaster as she had learned in her geography lesson of the early signs of a tsunami. She was on the beach and not only persuaded her family to move back to the hotel but persuaded the hotel to evacuate too and in doing so saved perhaps 100 lives. The note of authority and warning from a young girl again reminiscent of the authority of Mary not only in the Magnificat but at the wedding at Cana when she instructed the servants “Do what he tells you”. These are people who know the meaning of Simeon’s warning to Mary “a sword will pierce your own soul too.” The presence of Mary in our Christian faith is so potent because we recognise her life as our own. Her status as the mother of God sets her apart from other people: she is unique. But the hallmark of her life, a life of courage, suffering, faith is one we can all understand as we make our way through the world. In these days, when we are looking in British society for ways to communicate across the faiths, Mary is a bridge that can help free us and turn us towards each other: Mary is a bridge to Judaism: the literally umbilical link between Judaism and Christianity. The images and links surrounding the interpretation of Mary are Jewish: she is the second Eve and she is the Hebrew character of Wisdom. She is a bridge to Islam: Mary is mentioned 34 times in the Koran. Muslims accept the doctrine of the virgin birth. Only one of the 114 suras or chapters of the Koran is named after a woman; and the name of that sura is Maryam: Mary. Mary appears in the Koran as the last figure of the old testament, someone whose name commemorates Miriam, the prophet, sister of Moses. She is venerated by Islam. We hold her in common. She is also one of the very few Biblical figures and central figures in Christianity to be portrayed regularly as black. The image comes from the association of Mary with the Bride in the OT Song of Songs (1.5) “Black am I and beautiful”. Acculturated black madonnas appear in Asia, Africa (above my desk in my study is a picture of Nigerian Mary with Jesus in her arms); and the most famous depiction of her is in Mexico of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The image of Mary turns us outwards from our own experience and faith, she turns us outward from our own comfort zone and gives us a path to follow that is culturally curious, courageous, faithful. Mary could have said no. In her heart stirred the realisation that her path was to be an extraordinary one, that her life was to take a direction she couldn’t imagine; and that it would bring her pain. There can’t have been any sense of what she was saying yes to: immediate concerns would have been of gossip, of rejection by her fiancée, and of that most powerful of forces: shame. But quietly, mysteriously, perhaps not even saying it out loud. She said yes to God. Let it be with me according to your will. No one who has any sense of the complexities of the human condition: the small miracles, mixed motives and emotional confusions that characterise adult life in the world – no one can remain ignorant of the cost of those moments of saying yes. Whether it is a yes like Mary’s; personal, mysterious, in response to a call from someone surprising. However it comes, the word yes: let it be to me according to your word, not my will but yours: is a prayer that we pray that will shape our spirituality, our attitude, our habits, our outlook on life, our relationships with other people. When like Mary, we seek to align our will with the will of God which is already implanted within us, we learn simply to say yes. A Brazilian poet describes Jesus Christ in an extraordinary way: Jesus he says – is as beautiful as a yes in a room full of nos. (Joao Cabral de Melo Neto) Mary’s path became complex and painful. She did not leave her son during his torture and execution and she stayed at his side until the end. An artist here in London imagined what Mary would have done on the evening of Good Friday. He imagined that she went to visit Judas’ mother. And so he painted the scene – two women talking at the end of a terrible terrible day for both of them. Mary’s path started with a simple, beautiful and yet impossible yes: yes to love and yes to God. I end with a poem written by the German poet Eric Fried which captures for me something of the gift that Mary brings to our tradition and our faith. It is what it is It is madness It is what it is It is unhappiness It is nothing but pain It has no future It is what it is It is ridiculous It is what it is Reference
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