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| Image of a woodcut by Ben Wildflower. |
Cast Down the Mighty
Piety
“I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my request. Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD; as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the LORD.” She left Samuel there. 1 Samuel 1:27-28
The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his Name. He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm and has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. Luke 1:49-53
Study
This Advent, we have readings from Luke, the Gospel of Contra-indications. Things look one way and turn out the other. Mary’s prayer with her cousin Elizabeth revels in the opposites. In fact, it takes out a loupe and “magnifies” these differences.
For Catholics, we probably hear songs of Mary so often that the real meaning might not sink in. Instead, we have the image of the blue-and-white-robed “Mary mother, meek and mild” ingrained in our brains.
There are no less than 12 feasts and solemnities about Mary and her family and life events in the liturgical calendar. Outside Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter, on Saturdays which have no commemoration having the rank of Obligatory Memorial or higher, a Mass in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary may be celebrated.
Last year, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments inscribed yet another a new obligatory Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, into the General Roman Calendar. This memorial is celebrated every year on the Monday after Pentecost.
Through all this, have you come to realize or misread the revolutionary nature of her life and message? No longer a Jewish woman waiting for the Messiah, she picks up her cross of unwed pregnancy and carries it proudly and willingly and defiantly of the powers that be in her era. Ultimately, when she delivers the baby, the King realizes the threat the Baby poses to the powerful and sends soldiers to find him and kill him. Yes, Mary knew the hand she was playing was fraught with danger. Yet she played it willingly.
We have heard, read and sung the passages (too) many times. In Advent, Easter, and throughout Mary’s month of May. The Mighty God lifts up his lowly servant-girl, a powerless teenager in Palestine. However, those who are mighty and powerful, he casts down from their pedestals. When you are on a pedestal, the only place to go is down. The hungry are fed while the rich get nothing.
These themes will re-occur throughout Luke’s gospel of contradictions. But our immediate concern is not what will be happening in thirty years with the Rich Man and Lazarus. It is right here and right now with Mary, who did not pray for this child, who did not ask to be the Mother of the Son of God but said “Yes” anyway. And her cousin. And the two babies they are carrying inside – two people even more power-LESS than Mary and Elizabeth.
With Mary’s faith, she could not NOT say yes to the angel and to her God.
But that “Yes” is not the affirmation of a meek and mild teenager. After all, what teenage girl do you know who is meek or mild? Not my two daughters (nor their friends) when they were growing up (or now either in their thirties). In a recent essay in the Washington Post, D.L. Mayfield [i]says that Mary of the Magnificat[ii] “comes across less like a scared and obedient 15-year-old and more like a rebel intent on reorienting unjust systems.”
Mary, Mary, quite contrary defies the stereotypes of a meek, mild-mannered mother. Instead, she magnifies the “liberating and revolutionary message of a passionate, prophetic woman.”
Action
The Mighty One has done great things for us as well. So how do we respond? What is Mary’s significance in the light of Christian faith in the gracious mystery of God? What difference does remembering “The Magnificat” make in our life?
Will the imminent coming of Emmanuel the promise of ages destroy the cause and effects of oppression in your life and the lives around you? Oppression like that felt by the opioid addict, the undocumented laborer cleaning your house or cutting your grass, or the asylum-seeker walking up to the altar of our borders to share in the promise and security of independence? They share in the radical love and hope that Mary represents. Do you?
Note: You can get products with the image at Ben’s Etsy store.
[ii] The Magnificat is the longest set of words spoken by a woman in the New Testament (and a poor, young unmarried pregnant woman at that!) explained Mayfield.
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