AUGUST 15, 2010: THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY

If Luke hadn’t written his two volume gospel, we’d probably have no parishes dedicated to Mary.

Matthew barely mentions Mary; Mark describes her as being part of a family delegation going to “take charge” of Jesus because they believe he’s gone off the deep end; John places her in two narratives, presuming she converted to “Christianity” between chapters 2 and 19. But from the very beginning of Luke’s writing up until her appearance in Jerusalem’s upper room on Pentecost Sunday, Mary is depicted as the perfect disciple of Jesus: the person all Christians should be imitating. (The bishops at Vatican II employed Luke’s image of Mary when they included her in their document on the church.)

Luke’s definition of the perfect disciple is short and uncomplicated: it’s simply someone who hears God’s word and attempts to carry it out. Not only does the evangelist describe Jesus mother doing these two actions, he also employs others to point out her uniqueness. Notice what Elizabeth says about Mary in today’s pericope: “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” Then turn to chapter 11 and hear the Jerusalem-bound Jesus’ response to the “woman from the crowd” who yells, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.” He yells back, “Rather blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” Mary isn’t to be praised because she’s his mother, but because she’s the perfect disciple...

In his must-read Birth of the Messiah, Ray Brown contends the three major canticles which Luke places on the lips of Mary, Zachariah, and Simeon are actually prayers frequently used by Jewish/Christian “Anawim” (the “poor ones”). Though Luke seems to have used someone else’s prayers, he adds a line to each canticle to make it fit snuggly into its gospel setting.

It’s important to note Brown’s comments on the Anawim. “Although this title,” he writes,” . . . may have originally designated the physically poor (and frequently still included them), it came to refer more widely to those who could not trust in their own strength but had to rely in utter confidence upon God: the lowly, the poor, the sick, the down-trodden, the widows and orphans. The opposite of the Anawim were not simply the rich, but the proud and self-sufficient who showed no need of God or God’s help.”

Luke believes Zachariah, Simeon and Mary fit the category of these Jewish/Christian Anawim. They recognize God as the one force in their lives who can raise them from their state of helplessness and actually bring about the life which God’s word promises. This is how the evangelist presents Mary proclaiming her “Magnificent.” She really is one of us, someone who totally relies on God.

In some sense, Paul, in our I Corinthians passage agrees. If Jesus’ mother has risen from the dead, it’s not because she’s God’s mother. But, like us, as followers of Jesus, she’s made her son’s faith her own. That means whatever happens to him, happens to her - both death and resurrection.

Though the vast majority of Scripture scholars contend that the Book of Revelation’s “woman clothed with the sun” refers more to the church than to Mary, she, as the exemplary member of that community, encourages us not only to give birth to her son daily (the risen Jesus in our midst), but also warns us about the suffering we’ll have to endure for doing so.

There obviously are elements in some of today’s “Mariology” with which we ordinary Anawim can’t identify. Fortunately our biblical authors knew nothing about those elements.