Full of Grace

Obviously, the minute we start heading off into the subject of mariology, we are in deep theological waters. And I think of those early thinkers who, by trying too hard to understand other theological mysteries, ended up declared to be heretics - consider Arius, Nestorius or even Origen. While other people who, if they ever thought that hard would get a headache, remained orthodox and un-condemned by simple virtue of not trying so hard.

And ever hanging over theological endeavour of this kind is the threat of the Beaker Dogma Committee. Anyone found propounding beliefs that are at odds with the Basic Beaker Dogma are subject to numerous penalties, including the Splurge Gun Firing Squad, the confiscation of tea lights and the loss of druidical privileges. Thankfully, the Beaker Folk don't actually have any dogmas. Which means that the Dogma committee is mostly an excuse to have a decent meal on expenses once a month.

Because in Mary we have the chance to get into the most almighty theological row if we want it. The Immaculate Conception, who Jesus's brothers were the sons of, what exactly the Assumption (or Dormition) is all about - it's all a chance for Drayton Parslow to go all Protestant, and Catholics to stand firm in the defence of ex cathedra, and the Orthodox to carry on looking all mysterious and knowing with their 2,000 years of doing things properly. Yet what is interesting, when you read a testimony as profound as Stuart's moment of illumination, is that he doesn't refer to any of those issues. He just accepts a beautiful revelation of who Mary is.

So what can I add (subject to the awful strictures of the Dogma Committee)?

That Mary is in a mythic sense a Second Eve. Where Eve provoked a man into saying "No" to God, Mary's "yes" brings into the world the Man who said "Yes". I'll go with that.

That Mary is the God-bearer - the one who brings God into the world. The one who carried the one who encompasses the whole Universe for nine months.

That Mary is not the token female who makes up for an all-male godhead. Because the godhead is not all-male, whatever the pictures show. But being in the image of God herself - distorted as it was even in her, she reflects  God as truly as any other human being. And in physically bearing God into the world, she enters into God's re-creation of the world in a unique way. The rest of us will just have to put up with being metaphorical and spiritual when we bring God into the world. Mary got to be literal and physical in doing it.

That, having plenty of time in heaven, and being a good Jewish Mother, she's a good ear to catch if we want someone to bring something to her son's attention. Let's face it, she got him to change the water into wine, didn't she?

That she's the one who provides our human unity with Jesus - his human nature he inherited through her. Her blood flowed in his veins. Her DNA was his DNA. His eyes, his hands, his flesh, his looks - all came from her.

That she suffered along with her son, and knew a rising to new life with him. Who suffers like a parent losing a child? If he felt forsaken, how bereft was she?

Pieta - Jean Malouel

That she said "Yes". Whatever the fear of the future, whatever the trouble now, whatever her mum & day (the grandparents of God?) thought, whatever the dumb, hopeless look in Joseph's eyes for the next nine months. She said "Yes".

I'd better leave it at that. When I said that the Beaker Dogma Committee don't actually have any dogma, I forgot the one dogma that they enforce with ferocity and righteous zealotry - that Beaker People don't have any dogma, is itself a dogma. It's how we keep everyone liberal and smiling. So I'd better say that if you don't agree with anything I've written above, that's fine. I'll light a tea light for you anyway.