No Room for Mary?
Fr. Donald Macdonald, SMM
NO ROOM FOR MARY?
I have just returned from a Diocesan Pastoral Centre. I was hospitable received, but still felt ill at ease there because, for only the second time in my experience, I found myself in a Catholic chapel with no statue, picture or image of Our Lady there. There was room for me in the chapel but evidently none for her.
A statue, soon to go to a parish, of a saint of marked humility, was placed near the tabernacle. To find the representation of Our Lady, one had to go to the corridor outside past the book stall, notice-board and general purposes table.
When, privately, I asked about this, I was told that as the corridor outside the chapel could be considered as a place of prayer, liturgically it was in order to have the representation (it was rather nondescript) there.
Could my unease in such a place be put down to Montfortian hypersensitivity? The Centre, with its purpose-built chapel had been there for twenty-four years. Could anyone who remarked on the absence of an image of Our Lady there be pastorally or liturgically pedantic?
THE COMPANY OF MARY
Is it unreasonable to expect to see an image of Our Lady in a Catholic church? In a chapel where I can enter without embarrassment, and where each Mass begins with the invitation to the congregation – and no-one is libeled – “let US call to mind OUR sins,” is there any reason, liturgical or otherwise, why Mary should not have a place of honor and welcome? Would the canonized saint have understood the logic of Our Lady in the corridor, whereas he was almost in the sanctuary?
So, “Mary’s motherhood . . . 1s a gift: a gift which Christ himself makes personally to every individual”. This is echoing John 19:26-27, as the Mother of Jesus stood beside the cross. Much of Christian tradition has taken Christ at his word – “Behold your mother” – and taken her into our homes.
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Her nondescript appearance on a wall outside the Diocesan Centre’s state-of-the-art chapel, is already expressing an opinion. Her position indicates her standing in that place. As a resource-center for the Diocese, in one department at least, it seems sadly under-resourced.
If Our Lady is viewed within the authentic teaching and tradition of the Church, as well as in the context of a living faith, perhaps it may suggest that my unease in the Pastoral Centre’s chapel came from something more than Montfortian sensitivity or liturgical ignorance.
PERSONAL GIFT
The Church is never closer to Our Lady than in her motherhood. The Church, like Mary, becomes a mother by faithfully receiving God’s Word. Having the seed of the Word sown in her heart, it is for the Church, like Mary, to bear lasting fruit, chiefly through the living and risen Christ in the hearts of the faithful, who really are the Church. “The Church’s mystery also consists in generating people to a new and immortal life: this is her motherhood in the Holy Spirit. And here Mary is not only the model and figure of the Church; she 1s much more”. (Redemptoris Mater 44).
Pope John Paul points out that motherhood is essentially personal, establishing “a unique and unrepeatable relationship between two people” (RM 45). No matter how large the family there are no identical people. So, “Mary’s motherhood . . . 1s a gift: a gift which Christ himself makes personally to every individual” (RM 45), here echoing John 19:26-27, as the Mother of Jesus stood beside the cross. Much of Christian tradition has taken Christ at his word – “Behold your mother” – and taken her into our homes. Her maternal presence, therefore, lodges in the heart where all that is real to us is found. It is, then, a present ongoing relationship. We are Mary’s contemporaries in the risen Christ.
MARY’S MOTHERHOOD IS A GIFT
To find no place for such a person in the chapel, where daily the Word becomes flesh among us, suggests that we do not know the gift of God (in Mary), or who it is who is giving himself to us there.
At the peak moment of the reception of Holy Communion, for example, “close your eyes and recollect yourself. Then usher Jesus unto the heart of Mary” (True Devotion 270), seems superbly practical advice for a community of sinners. This is where and how it all began. Why not live that pattern all day long? If Our Lady’s Spirit-graced presence was at home in our hearts, fostering the life of her Son in the Spirit, her images around us could only encourage faith as the external expression of an internal reality.
A SENSE OF PRESENCE AND PROTECTION
This has been and is the case at a very deep level of Christian consciousness. This has been caught in the lovely phrase from Redemptoris Mater. “Such a wealth of praise” (RM 34). The Pope there instances the Icons of the Eastern and Orthodox traditions. “Images of the Virgin have a place of honor in churches and houses . . . They . . . witness to the faith and spirit and prayer of that people, who sense the presence and protection of the Mother of God . . . the Virgin shines as the image of divine beauty, the abode of Eternal Wisdom, the figure of the one who prays, the prototype of contemplation, the image of glory. She who even in her earthly life possessed the spiritual knowledge inaccessible to human reasoning and who attained through faith the most sublime knowledge” (RM33).
This Pope John Paul calls, “such a wealth of praise.” It is the result of a personal relationship given external expression. Whatever glimpse of Our
Lady is in the Icon or image, was seen first within the heart. From that center for centuries, people “sense the presence and protection of the Mother of God.”
This is why they warm to the Icon, the statue, the image. Perhaps the Diocesan Pastoral Centre has seen something which this tradition has missed? It is not an assumption that I would readily make.
