I have found myself wondering about our two images of Mother. Our Lady is, of course, our Mother, but we also have our mother Catholic Church. (CCC 757) How do these two go together? Mary is not the Church, though she is the mother of the Church. (CCC 963)
On page 82, Houselander writes, "In wedding her littleness to the Spirit of Love, she wed all lowliness to the Spirit of Love. In surrendering to the Spirit and becoming the Bride of Life, she wed God to the human race and made the whole world pregnant with the life of Christ" (Reed of God
, pg. 82). Here again are two difficult images- this time of bride. Mary is the bride of the Holy Spirit. The Church is the bride of Christ. How do these fit together? Does Mary represent the Church in both regards?
In a previous post, I wondered about Houselander's comment that "It is in Our Lady, that God fell in love with Humanity" (pg. 32). She seems to go on and explain it a bit more in this chapter. I was reminded of Christopher West's explanation of femininity in Pope John Paul the Great's Theology of the Body. Mary opened her humanity, body, soul, heart and spirit, so totally and completely to the Lord, that she actually Conceived Divine Life within her and was able to bear Him forth to the world. That is what we are all called to do. We are all called to open our hearts and receive the Love of God so that we, too, can conceive divine life, eternal life, within us and bear Him forth to the world. We are called to be Christ to the World!
It is a moment in which the world needs great draughts of supernatural life,
needs the Christ-life to be poured into it, as truly and as urgently as a wounded soldier drained of his bloods needs a blood transfusion.
In many souls, for this very reason, Christ will say: "It was for this hour that I came into the world."
Because only individuals can bear Christ. (emphasis mine)
Only Christ-bearers can restore the world to life and give humanity back the vitality of love. (Reed of God, page 85)
No league or conference or committee or group [or government] can put life into the world: it can only be born into the world, and only individuals can give birth. (my comment added)
We can give birth to Christ only by unity with the Holy Spirit. (Reed of God, page 86)This is what it means to be feminine- to receive the love of Christ and bear it forth to the world. This is what our Lady shows us. His love is the song that we sing. A fugue begins with a single voice or phrase that is echoed throughout the rest of the song in various ways and voices. Click here to hear and see a fugue. Mary begins the song with her fiat, her words of "Let it be done to me according to thy will". And we echo its variations throughout the generations- each individual saying "YES. Let it be done to me."
Yes, Lord. Let your will be done unto me.
11 comments:
LOVE the new signature. I'll have to chime in later today or tomorrow on the book.
Nice touch with the video, Lauren! I must admit, I watched the whole thing. It was a beautiful piece and I loved how you could see the movements. Very cool!
Great post. All this talk of Mary being wedded to the Spirit makes me want to CHART a family tree of Jesus!
I don't find it contradictory that Mary and the Church are seen as mothers. Who is the Bride of Christ? The Church. Who is the Mother of Christ? Mary. It seems to me that the one flows out of the other. I don't mean to say that that distances Mary, but rather puts her in a place of honor in the life of the Church.
My question though- if Mary is wedded by the Spirit, where does Joseph come into play? I know that he is the loving stepfather of Jesus. I wonder if we'll hear more about him. I always feel the need to stick up for Joseph - I mean who else would be okay with their finacee conceiving from another guy? :-)
I really liked the idea of a fugue, and "ever-recurring motif" (p. 79) of how the melodies go on and on. It's cyclical. It reminded me of how every time we go to Mass, it's the SAME sacrifice on Calvary as the one 2000 years ago. It goes back to the beginning (p. 87).
I like how the fugue tied into the Reed, "God had taken His little reed into His hands and the breath of His love sang through it, and this utterance would go on for all generations." (p. 81).
It all ties together!
I still don't get the bride/mother thing. How can Mary AND the Church be both bride and mother? Are they the same- or does Mary represent the Church?
Love how your bought up the Mass, Bern. A variation of the fugue...I like that!!! ANd I also loved how it tied together the Reed of God!!
Joseph- one thing I love about JOseph is that he's an adoptive father- and through him, God shows that adoptive parents are REAL parents. It is through Joseph that Jesus can claim the lineage of David. If Joseph wasn't His "real" dad, He wouldn't be able to do that!
I always felt sorry for Joseph. It must have been hard to be the only one who sinned. If anything went wrong at home, you know Mary and Jesus both looked at Him. :)
Wow-I can't imagine I have anything to add this time! Your reflection is so great and really tied this chapter together for me.
The most "fuguist" line of the chapter to me was "Christ's 'Not my will but thine be done' brings Our Lady's 'Be it done unto me according to they word' to a culminating surrender."
That line was beautiful, but I don't think I understood it until I further reflected on the entire chapter. (And I probably still dont!)
Kaitlin- I do believe you've coined a new term!!! Fuguiest! I love it!
THanks for pointing that out! I missed that somehow and what a HUGE connection!!!
Thanks for the analogy of the fugue. It could not have illustrated the mission that we are now called to now, to echo Mary's "fiat," to receive Christ into our bodies in the Eucharist and, by the power of the Spirit, to bear him forth to the world. We, the Church today, are called to bring Mary's being as the "Christ-bearer" into fruition in the world today...what an enormous responsibility.
I somehow don't think Joseph felt sorry for Joseph. Sure he was a sinner too, but after the dream where the whole plan was revealed to him, I have to think that, being the holy man that he was, he was honored to take on such an enormous responsibility as raising the Son of God into adulthood and providing for and protecting Him and the bride of the Holy Spirit. Wow! If that's not a mission, I don't know what is.
I've always believed that my adopted children have a trinity of mothers, me, the birth mom, and The Blessed. I love to tell them how fortunate they are to have ALL of us!
(leslie/espera here - I can't get my usual account to work....)
There are all these concepts: bride - bridegroom, mother - child, Mystical Body, Church. My impressions from what through the years I have read (- also many of these references are in "Reed") are that Christ is the Bridegroom who seeks union with His beloved, his bride - us. We, as his followers, his bride, are also collectively called "the Church." As a bridegroom and the bride become "one flesh" in the sacrament of marriage, we, the Church, are also referred to as Christ's "Mystical Body." Mary, as the first, perfect, and preeminent Christian, is the Church just as we are, but she is THE model, being the perfect, sinless human being. She was privileged to give birth to Christ physically with her body as well as spiritually with her perfect submission of her life and will to Him. We will not give birth physically to the Man Christ, but, like Mary, we will give birth to Him spiritually to the extent of our surrendering our selves, our lives, our wills to Him. Remember in Mark 3:33, when they told Jesus His Mother and His brothers (kinsmen/cousins) were looking for Him, and He responded: "whoever does the will of God is both mother and brother to me."
Confusing as it may sound, we, like Mary, both are the Church AND give birth 1. to the Church (by the grace of our lives' raising up new Life in other souls), 2. to Christ, Who lives in our souls and in others' who are touched by the grace of our sharing Him by how we live out our lives, and 3. to our own "new selves," reborn "by the Spirit," as Christ in the Gospel told Nicodemus we must be. This "reborn self" (the accomplishment of which I imagine taking a lifetime plus the completing grace of purgatory) is me-wedded (namely intimately joined)-with-Christ.
So, because of this intimate union, we are also His bride, both as the individuals we are and collectively, joined as we are. So Mary is both bride and mother and so are we, only Mary does/did it perfectly and "first." We are her spiritual children and we are each other's spiritual children to the extent we help bring further along to greater completion in each other that intimate, closer union with Jesus.
I've always found kind of puzzling the references to Mary as "the new Eve," and Jesus as "the new Adam," but I think that all has to do with this topic. I also think the way the bride can also be the child, the mother can be the bride, the Son can be the Bridegroom to his mother, etc., is related somehow to the mystery of the Trinity: how God can be somehow one God yet three Persons. The Father is God, yet He is not the Son; the Son is God, yet He is not the Father; the Holy Spirit is God, yet He is not the Father or the Son: and yet "the Father and I" says Jesus, "are one."
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BEAUITIFULLY epxlained, Leslie. I love the reference to the Trinity- that makes sense. Will ponder this...
Well, it is three weeks later and I am posting. Not because I have any huge revelations to add. But becuase I want to stay involved with this topic/book...even if it is late. I didn't really "get it" fully until I read all of your comments. Now it seems so much more clear to me...it isn't about saying "Yes" once, but over and over again. Completely trusting our lives to God and knowing what is in store for us is out of his love for us. Lauren, thanks for the video...I didn't have a clue what a fugue was!
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