How does Mary of Nazareth relate to God's promise

Not long ago, I had been receiving emails and text messages of a particular nature from a close friend who was recently ordained a priest, Fr. Casimir Bello. He was ordained for the Catholic Diocese of Mamfe, Cameroon. Initially, the meaning of these mails in which Fr. Casimir repeatedly and forcefully exhorted me to pray the rosary daily was kind of obscure.

I knew I had a devotion to Mary from the early days of my childhood, having learnt to pray the rosary from my mother. However, Fr. Casimir succeeded in reigniting in a new way, the devotion to Our Blessed Mother, with the aid of the rosary. With this “new” experience came the need to understand, perhaps with the aid of Scripture, the theological foundation of the place of Mary in the life of the people of God.

Gradually, the realization that the question about Mary is, quintessentially the question about God and God’s power and work in the history of the world, became dominant in my thought process. Thinking this through, three theological images emerged that set the stage from the Old Testament in understanding the place of Mary of Nazareth in the New Testament and the life of Jesus Christ’s followers in the community called the Church.

The first dominant image is that of Mary as the new Eve, who compliments Adam, making humanity complete: “Then the Lord God said, ‘it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gen. 2:18). It is significant that we get the name Eve only after the Fall, after the Lord’s judgment has been pronounced. Eve therefore becomes the mother of all the living, the one who preserves the mystery of life (Gen. 320). The woman, Eve, becomes the symbol of that living God, the God from whom all life comes.

To the Church Fathers, Mary is the new Eve who, by her obedience, repairs the damage of the first Eve’s disobedience. St. John Chrysostom writes: “But behold again a Virgin and a tree and a death, those symbols of defeat, become the symbols of his victory. For in place of Eve there is Mary; in place of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of the Cross; in place of the death of Adam, the death of Christ” (Homily: On the burial place and the Cross2). The hermeneutic at play here is one of contrast and analogy.

The second image is that of the matriarchs of Israel’s history, the holy women whose praises are sung in the Scriptures. The theological thread that runs across these women is the drama between fertility and infertility. Sarah/Hagar, Rachel/Leah, Hannah/Penina, reflect Israel’s understanding of YHWH as an encounter of a reversal of values, in which those who are infertile and discarded, those at the margins of Jewish society, are those on whom YHWH conveys his favours, the truly blessed.

This image of the downtrodden lifted up by YHWH finds an explicit formulation in Mary’s Magnificat, developed from the song of Hannah: “Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who are hungry have ceased to hunger (…) He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts up the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honour” (1 Sam. 5 & 8).

Joseph Ratzinger describes this thought pattern of the blessed/unblessed, high/low, the reversal of values as a leitmotif that links Mary and the matriarchs of the Old Testament, as the mystery of the last place, the reversal of earthly values (Cf. Daughter Zion, Meditations on the Church’s Marian Belief, p. 19). Centuries earlier, Origen had placed these words on the lips of Mary: “God has looked upon me, says Mary, because I am humble, and because I seek the virtue of meekness and to pass unnoticed” (In LucamHomiliae, 8, 1-7). Deeply spiritual words!

The third image from the Old Testament is that of the woman as a saviour. We spontaneously think of figures like Esther, Judith and Deborah. In the stories of these women, we encounter an Israel that is under intense trial of defeat, humiliation and exile, under the domination of worldly powers. The activities of these women are pointers to Israel’s hope. How often do we feel that even today, the Church, like the Israel of old, is widowed, exiled and enslaved within arbitrary desires of corruption, moral decay and spiritual bankruptcy! It is significant that these women appeared in Israel’s history, not as priestesses, but as prophetess and judge-saviours. Maybe the Church today needs more prophets than priests!

With these active images in mind, it is hopeful to see Mary as that symbol of God’s intervention in the history of the world. From the perspective of Lumen Gentium (Vatican II’s dogmatic constitution on the Church), in which Mary is a part of the Church and not some Mediterranean goddess, she holds out that possibility of God’s power that is capable of intervening in human history, in the Church’s life. God is not weak in the face of evil. Through the biblical images of Eve, of the matriarchs and the saviour figures of Israel, Mary embodies the hope for genuine liberation and new life, a beginning in which God’s life finds new soil in a post-modern society and a Church that leaves many visibly confused today.

My friend’s exhortation that I pray the rosary daily, takes up a decisive and new meaning in this context. It becomes a cry to the God who has power to once more lead humanity and the Church out of the barrenness of evil and death, out of spiritual widowhood and the exile of a monstrous mendacity that is increasingly corrosive and lethal.

In the final analysis, the humble maid from Nazareth leaves the window of God open, more so to the meek and humble of heart, to the suffering poor who are waiting on the Lord, who suffer on account of the patience of God, and yet, are filled with the hope that God is powerful and does intervene in human history.

In August when we celebrate the bodily Assumption of Mary into heaven, an act of the power of God, these are lessons worth remembering, as we pray, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen!