WE ARE DRAWN TO HER BECAUSE SHE IS ACCESSIBLE.

By The Reverend Mother Judith Dunlop

As part of the Celebration at All Saints Church

for the Feast of the Blessed Virgin

Sunday, August 15, 2004

It will Remain a permanent Part of our Website on the Blessed Mother.

Raphael's Madonna of the Goldfinch

With the infant Jesus and infant John the Baptist.

1507, Uffizi Gallery, Florence Italy

To Learn More about This Master Painter click on the Picture

Isaiah 61:10-11
Galatians 4:4-7
Luke 1:46-55
Psalm 34 or 34:1-9

Click on Book to Go to Scripture Readings for Mary

ll my life my mother had this print of the classic painting by Raphael, the Madonna of the Goldfinch. She acquired the print in Florence at the Uffizi, when she was about 13 or 14. Something in the painting - perhaps its classic pyramid composition may have attracted her [mother held aspirations of being a painter] or perhaps it was the maternal spirituality of the Madonna. At the time, my mother was lonely, having been sent off to boarding school in Switzerland while my grandmother was on tour. Mother hated being separated from her mother, and her diary is filled with longing to be home with her mother in Paris. This Mary is a substantial woman, not unlike my mother’s own mother, and there is a gentle, protective and affectionate quality in the Madonna’s gaze. In all the years that followed, the print was always near my mother in her bedroom. It had to be placed where she could see it, and when she could no longer see it, it had to be in the room. From time to time she would ask for it, and run her hands over it. I remember that my stepfather wanted to replace it when they were in Italy for a newer cleaner version, but she refused. I have the print now. Old and dark as it is. It reminds me of mother, and her great gift to her children – her faith in God and love of the church.

This particular painting and all the icons and prints I have of different artistic renditions of Mary are important to me partly because of my mother’s attraction to the Blessed Virgin.  For two thousand years, men and women have been inspired by the Mother of God. We are drawn to her because Mary is accessible. We know her.  Not in a scholarly way, for we know very little from scripture about the historical Mary. She is as obscure as Mary Magdalene and most of the disciples who followed Jesus. In the gospel of John, for example, she is never referred to by name. Jesus addresses her as “woman”. Biblical scholars believe that Luke and Matthew in different ways and for different reasons created the mythic infancy narratives, to protect Jesus reputation as illegitimate and to make sure their readers understood that this Savior alone was uniquely God and man, God’s only Son, unlike the Roman and Greek gods. Luke gave her more participation in the events and painted a deeper picture of her than does Matthew. Mark’s references to her are less flattering, although all four evangelists are careful to place her near the crucifixion.

(Left Raphael's Small Cowper Madonna, Painted 1505, National Gallery Washington, D.C.)

Like all great myths based on oral tradition, there are interwoven truths and wisdom to be gained. In western Christian civilization, Mary became the archetype of both the virgin child / woman, and mother. She was grafted into our consciousness as an ideal, and for women, Mary has been a hard act to follow. The word ‘virgin’ by the way means more than a biological state of sexual purity. It means a state of spiritual emptiness. Emptiness in the sense that when you and I empty ourselves of ego and worldly need, we are more apt to hear God and recognize God’s grace and desire for us.

Feminist theologians have tried to lift up her independence. Independence, in my view, is hard to support given her time in history. The verse sited for this view comes from Luke when she questions:” how can this be, since I am a virgin” along with her trip to visit Elizabeth. Secular feminists have chipped away at her passive willingness to serve the patriarchy. But it isn’t Mary's fault that the patriarchal tradition placed her on a pedestal.
There have been more earthly Virgin Mary appearances from the Middle Ages to the mid 20th century than any other scriptural figure including Jesus. In fact, there have been more reported sightings of her than the Roman church has had the time to investigate. Reformists have had a hard time with these appearances preferring to assign varying scientific explanations to these visions.

This is a post modern world where the structure of society and its values and beliefs are variable, complex, and multiple. A world where men and women can choose and plan to be parents or not, and where self sufficiency and independent success in both genders is highly valued.
How does she fit into this present time? How does she transcend time and speak to us today? Has she become a figure that only the poor, uneducated, and marginalized believe in?  For the post modern young educated man or woman, will she become a distant figure and the subject of thousands of renaissance paintings. I hope not.

I believe that she is important for two major reasons. First, she connects us with our beginnings as human beings. All of us are born of a woman. We’ve all had mothers – and whatever baggage our relationships carry, in terms of good or painful memories – it is a common bond all human beings share. We grew up believing that Mary was both the mother of God, and the mother of all. Mary connects us to our roots, to our sameness as human beings, as one in spirit.
Mary was so very human yet called by God to be something beyond her imagination and aspiration. This is how God calls us - when we are listening - to be something beyond our imagination and aspiration. Her response –“ let it be me” – provides a guide to our own discernment process and eventual response.

Mary was called by God for a unique role in history, thus was of God in a way that is mysterious but unbreakable. This ordinary woman tied to her time and yet transcending time reminds us that we too are called by God and are of God in a connection both mysterious and unbreakable. Our bond with God and God’s bond with us is just as unbreakable as Mary’s. So she becomes like us, and at the same time, extraordinary in her place in history. So much so we can approach her in prayer. “Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us now and at the time of our death”. And mysteriously we hope she hears us.

Secondly, we know her because she lived a hard life. She knew what it was to be poor, to be an outsider, to worry about a child who pursued a dangerous course, and to grieve over the death of her son. She knew suffering. And, because she was human thus not the remote Creator God or perfect like Jesus, we can talk to her about these things. We cannot know God. We can only come to know something of God through scripture, the life of Jesus, and our experience with God in prayer, and our sense of God’s movement in our lives. But Mary seems more tangible because of her humanness.
There are many people who come to pray before a Mary statue in their churches like our own in the Lady Chapel. My late friend, Isabel Romero, told me she always went to her parish church to talk to Mary when she was in despair, grieving, or worried about her children. “She answers too”, Isabel said authoritatively, “in Spanish. She knows Spanish better than American. I feel strong after we talk.”

I think my mother had this battered old print in her room for over seventy years because like Isabel, my mother talked to Mary. I think the end result was the same. Mary made mother feel stronger. Whether Mary spoke to mother in perfect French or English, she was a source of comfort. All my Marian iconography brings me the same comfort. I know her. She makes me feel stronger, more able to cope with the tough things that life brings.
Amen