Posts Tagged ‘Blessed Virgin Mary’
The Mystery of Loving Providence – Br. Jack Crowley
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Br. Jack Crowley
The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
In April 1892, an illiterate dairy farmer from Ireland named Patrick Crowley boarded a steamship with his wife, Catherine, his father-in-law, Thomas, and their six children. One of their children, John Crowley, is my great-grandfather. He was nine years old when he boarded that ship, probably holding on to his mother’s hand.
One of my favorite moments in my family’s three-thousand-mile journey across the Atlantic to Boston came about halfway through the ten-day trip. My great-great-grandmother, Catherine Crowley, celebrated her forty-fifth birthday. I always try to get inside her head as she turned forty-five in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, with her father, husband, and six children by her side. Catherine had been born in 1847, a year many Irish historians call Black ’47, as it was the worst year of the Great Hunger, also known as the potato famine. I wonder how she felt in the middle of the Atlantic, most likely the farthest away from home she had ever been, dreaming of a better life for her children in these United States. Read More
The Lady on the Hill – Br. Jamie Nelson
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Br. Jamie Nelson
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Today we celebrate the Blessed Virgin Mary’s appearance near Mexico City in the year 1531 as Our Lady of Guadalupe.
As the story goes, an Indigenous Nahua farmer named Juan Diego was walking alone at dawn on his way to mass at the nearest church. As he passed a hill, he heard music and birdsong coming from the summit. When he went to the top of the hill to find out what was going on, he saw a beautiful lady surrounded by light.
The lady spoke to him in Nahuatl, his native language, and identified herself as the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the True God. She told Juan Diego to go to the bishop in Mexico City to ask for a church to be built on top of the hill.
So Juan Diego humbly and faithfully presented himself at the bishop’s office, but the bishop didn’t believe him. Juan Diego returned to the hill and reported his mission’s failure. Undaunted, the Lady told him to go back to the bishop the next day and to ask again. Read More
Child of Hope and Promise – Br. Lain Wilson
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Br. Lain Wilson
The Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Luke 1:26-38
Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12
A couple, diligent in their prayers and service, humble in their relationships, faithful to their God. Long denied their one desire: a child of their own. Fervently praying, they are brought tidings of good news by a messenger from God: they will have a child
Anne and Joachim’s story, although not found in scripture, more than echoes other scriptural accounts. Sarah and Abraham, Hannah and Elkanah, Elizabeth and Zechariah: all couples whose joy in children had been withheld, and who eventually were able to conceive following fervent prayer. Anne and Joachim fit into this tradition.
This story, and the feast of the conception of Mary, are thus, from one perspective, standard scriptural fare on the power of God to intervene in the lives of the faithful. But, from another perspective, something new is happening here. Read More
A Whole-Self Response – Br. Lain Wilson
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Commemoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, God-bearer
Our reading from today’s Gospel passage had me casting my mind back to high school English.
We naturally read the woman in the crowd’s statement, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!” (Lk 11:27), as an example of synecdoche, a figure of speech that substitutes a part for the whole: “womb and breasts” stands in for “woman,” or, more specifically, “mother.” I’m sure you’ve heard versions of this: hungry mouths, a pair of shoulders, a willing hand.
But even if these only stand in or point to the whole, they nevertheless overemphasize a specific function relative to everything else. If the mother is only identified as the parts of her body necessary for giving birth and sustenance to a baby, then what about the rest of her? What about those infinite permutations of histories and emotions and motivations that make each of us who we are, that make each woman, each mother, who she is? We are each more than our parts, more than our biological functions.
Jesus’s response may on first hearing seem overly harsh: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!” (Lk 11:28). But he doesn’t deny his mother Mary blessedness; rather, he affirms that she finds blessing in her whole-self offering. “All generations will call me blessed” (Lk 1:48)—not because Mary just happened to have a womb, but because she heard the words of God through the angel, because she pondered and questioned and ultimately said yes: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). Read More
The Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Godbearer – Br. Curtis Almquist
Br. Curtis Almquist
The Dormition of Saint Mary the Virgin, Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ
We find nothing in the Bible about the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom we celebrate today. The word “dormition” is from the Latin, dormitio, from which comes the English word “dormitory.” Dormitio is the act of sleeping.[i] Since the early centuries, this is how the church has remembered the death of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She simply “fell asleep” and was miraculously taken up into heaven. Mary has been heralded the saint of the saints: her death as mysterious as the birth she gave to Jesus.
If you were raised in an Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic tradition, today’s celebration will likely be familiar and comforting. If you come from a Protestant tradition, or no church tradition, today’s celebration may be quite foreign, perhaps quite inviting. There is an “assumption” of meaning around Mary which has grown through the centuries, where many have found Mary’s life story worthy of veneration, and a channel of help and hope. Over the centuries the Blessed Virgin Mary’s importance has grown for two reasons: because of recollection and because of revelation.
The church’s recollection traces back to the ancient predictions about the long-awaited Messiah. Centuries prior to Jesus’ birth, Isaiah had prophesied: “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”[ii] But this does not fit Jesus’ pedigree. Jesus was born without title. Neither were his mother Mary nor his “stepfather,” Joseph, of noble lineage. Jesus’ birth to Mary would not only have been a disappointment to some, she could have been a scandal. Mary is a peasant, and she is unmarried. Mary clearly knows this. When she received the announcement from the angel Gabriel that she was to bear the Christ child, Mary was both afraid and incredulous. “How can this be?” she cries out. Read More
And God Waits – Br. James Koester
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Today is a perfect day for me! I love this feast for all sorts of different reasons.
I love it because it is slightly quirky. Nowhere in scripture is anything at all mentioned about the birth of Mary. All we can really say, unless we believe that Jesus arrived on earth via space ship, is that it happened.
I love it, because who could not love something whose source is a second century document entitled the Protoevangelium of James.[1] While the feast itself may not date to the second century, the very human desire to know more about the people we love, and honour is as real desire. Read More
Choosing and Being Chosen – Br. Curtis Almquist
Br. Curtis Almquist
This was not Mary’s first choice. I mean that in two ways. Firstly, Mary is old enough to have made many choices before this. She has obviously committed to the love of her life, Joseph. And she is old enough to have made endless smaller, daily choices like we all make as we navigate our way through the day: decisions about where we go and what we do, the people with whom we communicate, and how; decisions about the work of our hands, our rest, our diet, our dress; our thoughts, our prayer. Lots of choosing this or choosing that, each and every day. When the angel Gabriel calls on Mary with an invitation, this is not her first choice, not her first time of choosing something for her life. She has plenty of experience.
And secondly, this also is not Mary’s first choice, given the impossible plan the angel Gabriel is proposing: that Mary become pregnant in an unimaginable and culturally inadmissible way, prior to being married to Joseph. That is not Mary’s first choice. I infer this because her immediate reaction is fear, and her second reaction is incredulity: “How can this be?” Then, for reasons we are not explicitly told, she ultimately says “yes” to Gabriel’s announcement.[i] Read More