Mary's Month of May

May is the month traditionally associated with devotion to Mary the Mother of God. In many churches (of a catholic nature) devotions to Our Lady are made during public worship. I was speaking with a friend and colleague today whose parish says the Angelus each Sunday in May. It reminded me of a story I love.

Mary tends to make some Christians rather uncomfortable. In the 1960’s, Roman Catholics in Baltimore were in the midst of building an enormous new Cathedral dedicated to ‘Mary Our Queen.’ A youth group of one of the more prominent Presbyterian churches was planning to make a visit to the new building. Consequently a postcard was prepared to be sent to all the young families of the parish inviting them to participate in the visit to the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. The senior pastor of the church, upon spying a copy of said postcard in the church office, was more than a bit perturbed that a publication of his church was about to be mailed out that contained the phrase, “Mary Our Queen.” After a somewhat tense conversation with the youth pastor, the church secretary was instructed to make a revision of the postcard. A few days later, the good Presbyterian children of Baltimore were invited to a tour of what was described in the postcard as, “The Cathedral of Mary Their Queen.”

Mary causes some anxiety among certain Christians, perhaps not because of who she is, but because of who she is not.

Mary is the God-bearer. She was termed Theotokos, God-bearer, by the Greek Fathers of the Church and was given the title officially by the Council of Ephesus in 431. She who was deemed worth to bear the Word-made-Flesh participates in the plan of salvation in a way completely unique to any other human being. Mary is a saint. A saint is a human being who has been grafted into the family of God. There are countless saints living and dead, some in this church even now. Mary is a model for Christians. In her willingness to say ‘yes’ to the divine will, she, physically, brought God into the world. It is the Christian vocation writ large. We are all called, in various ways, to participate in God’s will to bring forth God’s light into the world. Mary is our intercessor. She prays for us. This is where things get sticky between Christians. But we believe that saints, living and dead, are grafted together through the love of God in Christ. We regularly pray for our beloved ones who have departed this life and entered into the next one. And they pray for us. The relationships between saints living and dead is not broken by physical death. We also, sometimes, pray to saints. When I have conversations with my friend Adam who died three years ago, it is a form of prayer. I certainly do not believe that my friend is God, but I believe that our relationship is not broken. So it is also with the great saints of the Church.

So Mary is the God-bearer, a saint, a model for Christians, and an intercessor for us. This is the ancient Christian perspective on Mary, and it is very Anglican in its balance of catholic tradition and reformed thought and reason. She who was termed Theotokos, God-bearer, prays for us to bring her Son more and more into the world which cries out for Him in sighs too deep for words. May we, too, be bearers of God.

Holy Mary, pray for us! Amen.