INBOX INSPIRATIONS
December 4, 2024
Some Thoughts about Mary – 1
Dear Friends,
Every year on December 8, our Church celebrates The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In anticipation of this liturgical holyday, I am sharing some thoughts (by no means all that could be said) about Mary. These are the result of some of my reading.
A feature of Mary’s life that we can overlook is that she was poor. The society in Israel in her day was basically agrarian and was divided into two classes: an upper class (about 10% of the population) and a lower class (about 90% of the population). Mary was the wife of a carpenter, Joseph, and thus belonged to the lower class. In fact, carpenters and other artisans were less well off than the peasants who worked the land and did the farming. Remember the incident where some in the upper class put down Jesus because he was just the son of a carpenter (Matthew 13:55).
Mary as a wife and mother must have worked hard at home. She and other women in her class stayed at home to raise the children – in her case, Jesus. She was probably also responsible for tending a garden to grow herbs, vegetables and maybe grapes. Then, she would preserve some of this food so that it would last through winter months. Mary would regularly, maybe several times a week make bread from available grain and flour. This was a staple of the family diet. As a wife and mother, she was also responsible for making clothing for the family. Mary was doing all of this while also raising and watching over Jesus until he could work with Joseph as a woodworker or carpenter.
The point of all the above is that Mary worked hard, probably long days. She did this as part of a family that lived at subsistence level – working just to get by, day by day. After she was widowed (we assume that Joseph had died since he is never mentioned in the accounts of Jesus’ public ministry), Mary’s situation would have been even more difficult. Women in that culture had few rights and no right of inheritance. Maybe this is one factor behind the touching scene where Jesus, dying on the cross, entrusts Mary to John as his mother and entrusts John to Mary as her son (John 19:26-27).
Next week’s column will continue these reflections.
Fr. Michael Schleupner
December 11, 2024
Some Thoughts about Mary – 2
Dear Friends,
If you have not had the opportunity to read last week’s issue of Inbox, I recommend that you do so before reading today’s. Today’s reflections are built upon those of December 4. You can access that column through the link given below. Having said that, here goes.
It is probably correct to picture Mary as a poor, hard-working, perhaps physically strong woman. She probably had Mediterranean dark hair and dark eyes. She would have dressed in very simple, homemade clothing.
In contrast to this, some and perhaps much of our Christian art has depicted Mary as dressed in rather beautiful robes, usually with the color blue, often mixed with white or red. For example, there is the Annunciation by Sandro Botticelli ((1445-1510), the Madonna and Child by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), and the Immaculate Conception by Bartolome Murillo (1617-1682). These are paintings which I find inspiring and beautiful.
Nevertheless, the question is: why did these and many other artists of medieval, renaissance, and more modern times depict Mary or at least her clothing in a way that is probably not historically accurate? I wonder if the artists did this as a way to convey in external garb the inner spirit, beauty, and holiness of Mary. The rich, beautiful colors bring to us Mary’s clear, singular, and complete response to the calling of God. These externals convey what is internal and lived by Mary. That is what we celebrate on our December 8 feast in honor of The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
One more idea! Our doctrine of the Immaculate Conception means that Mary was conceived without original sin. She was free from this from the first moment of her existence in her mother’s womb.
Some of our Catholic theologians add that, while our doctrine speaks of the absence of sin, it also proclaims the presence of grace. The Immaculate Conception means that Mary was uniquely blessed with the gift of God’s grace from the first moment of her life. Additionally, this gift to Mary anticipates the gift of grace that God wills for all of humanity in the incarnation. God, in the birth of Jesus the Christ, seeks to gift all human beings with the divine, redemptive love and invites our positive response to this grace.
Fr. Michael Schleupner
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