Living Our Baptism: Part VI: Our Lady
Fr. Donald Macdonald, SMM
I remember a little girl dancing at a Legion of Mary concert in India. Dressed in costume, her whole being was obviously in the story she was telling. Eyes, fingertips, toes, told of her delight and absorption, as an older girl qquietly hummed a melody and kept time with her fingers. Rarely had I seen anyone whose whole being expressed itself in what she wished say. Dance was the medium through which every inch of the small child spoke. What she tried to say was at one with her person.
REAL NOT NOTIONAL
Those who are baptized into Christ are meant to reflect that reality in the way they live: “. . . if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation . . . everything has become new! All this is from God … through Christ … “ (2 Cor. 5:17-18). ‘New creation’ implies radical change. It never came from a stock cupboard/or an assembly line.
That perspective and reality will be ours, said St. Paul, in so far as God giving himself in Christ is real to us. The effect will be overwhelming as the wonder at what is happening takes hold of us. Our outlook will be transformed, as those who glimpse this, “ ,,, live no longer for themselves but for him (Jesus) who died and was raised for them” (2 Cor. 5:15). The once crucified and now risen Christ is dynamic motivating us as we become wrapped in the reassurance of the gift.
LIKE THE CREATION OF LIGHT
If we want to take those words from the Gospel page and lodge them within ourselves, it helps if we can see them in a person. We are baptized into a community – “for in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,.. .” (I Cor. 12:13) – and around us, in the past and present of the Church, we have people who can do this for us. Chief among them, in the experience of centuries, is Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
We are one with her in Christ. She, above all, lives not for herself but for Jesus, who died and was raised for her also. “Supremely, she is a new creation, as through her, the new covenant was ushered in as the Word became flesh among us. This is because Mary gave herself wholly to God, first giving herself in Christ through the Spirit: “here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Lk 1:38).
Because of this gift of herself as a woman living each day, in faith, as we try to do, her person is so encouraging. She is what we read of in St. Paul. The name of Mary does for so many now, what even the sound of her voice in greeting once did for Elizabeth: “when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child “leapt” in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled by the Holy Spirit (Lk I:41).
The Baptism of Christ: Italian painter: Paris Paschalinus Bordone: 1535-1540
The painting resides at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
This is the last of six articles on Living Our Baptism. The first article in this series may be found using this link.
People can and will help our personal growth, not least Our Lady if we place ourselves under her care.
In her attractive person, we warm to what the Gospel asks of us. She draws us to what she has made her own. All that we glimpsed earlier in this series of the make-up of the baptized person – Temple of God; New creation; Living sacrifice . . . – is supremely true of Mary.
And the reason is clear: “for it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). If this is true of St Paul, who compares the coming of Christ into his life to the creation of light, what do those words say of Mary! What might they say of us too, incidentally, as we try to open ourselves in wonder to what is ours in baptism? Mary above all is held by the glory of God reflected in her son’s face, and as Paul says will happen to us, she has become like what she sees.
Like the Indian child living her dance as she tries to express what she sees, Mary’s person reflects the wonder of the gift of God in her Sun. The Spirit lodged in Mary’s heart is then free to express so much, “for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). Now assumed into heaven, the wonder of what she now sees can only overflow into anyone open to her influence. Our Lady, is effective under God, because of who and where she is. The relationship is personal now in baptism, “. . . there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). As with Elisabeth, so it is with us, in Mary’s company.
IT LOGICALLY FOLLOWS
Precisely because of her God-given place at the heart of the Church, she can only help. Far from being a peripheral distraction claiming for herself a role which is not hers, Our Lady, in the experience of so many, is found to be a sensitive, encouraging presence, through whom the Spirit chooses to reach and bless her brothers and sisters for whom her Son died. Her own spirit is creative because she is herself a new creation of God, at one with His will.
The logic of St. Louis Marie echoes this as he speaks to Jesus: “Lord, you are always with Mary and Mary is always with you. She can never be without you because then she would cease to be who she is … so completely transformed into you by grace … (that) if ”we knew the glory and love given to you by this wonderful creature, our feelings for you and for her would be far different ’from those we have now” (TD 63). He concludes that, for him, given who Our Lady is, devotion to her is necessary “. . . simply and solely because it is a way of reaching Jesus perfectly, loving him tenderly, and serving him faithfully” (TD 62).
“There is a need not only for instruction after Baptism, but also for the necessary flowering of baptismal grace in personal growth” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1231). Whether we mature or not will depend on what we see life to be, and the type of people we allow to influence us. The support of St Paul, for example, as sketched in this series on baptism, will really help us grow in wonder as, through his eyes, we come to glimpse what we have been given in Christ through the Spirit. People can and will help our personal growth, not least Our Lady if we place ourselves under her care. Both she and Paul are “God’s servants working together … ” (1 Cor. 3:9), to help us come alive to God.
