ASSUMPTIONTIDE REFLECTIONS WITH MARY
Rowan Williams has said that if we ignore Mary,
if we shrug our shoulders and say it doesn’t really matter
what kind of person she was,
we deny the real humanity of our Lord.
Hers is a "feisty faith"; risky religion.
The "Daily Mail" would hate her -
she is outspoken in mixing politics and religion!
In the Magnificat she sings about the kingdom values,
a vast concept of God’s salvation –
scattering the proud,
bringing down the powerful from their thrones,
filling the hungry with good things.....
This is Mary, the peasant woman,
in a country occupied by the Roman political machine,
articulating the yearnings of the poor and oppressed,
refusing in God’s name to accept injustice.
The Mary who sings with such joy
is the same Mary we encounter in the Gospels
discovering the day to day cost of that vision for her
and for the Son of whom she is so proud.
It is no wonder that Jesus was such a radical,
with a Mum like Mary!
"My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour. For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden, For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For He who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him
from generation to generation. He has shown strength with His arm: He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He has sent empty away. He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy; As He spoke to our forebears,
to Abraham and to His posterity forever."
Each time I pray, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour," I am compelled to ask, with Mary, "How can it be" that salvation has ways of working around all of the obstacles of ignorance and defiance that I place in its path?
"How can it be" that God bothers with me at all when I can be so self-centred, self-absorbed,that I hardly notice he ills and disaffections
that happen around me?
Mary, "Theotokos", "God-Bearer" -
the first to carry Christ,invites me to be, with her, a "Magnificat" Christian.
I am called to be a person whose soul, like Mary's, can be God's earthly sanctuary. I am invited each day to bring Christ into the world,to be, with Mary, an icon of God's love, of God's justice, by my prayers, in my thoughts, and through my actions.
Stephen Glodeck & PHNC
