mARY’S aDVENT

I want to try to write something about Mary of Nazareth’s experience during the third trimester of her pregnancy. I imagine her visiting her cousin Elizabeth during the second trimester when moving around would have been easier. Then during her third trimester she’d have been confined to home while awaiting the birth of her baby.

I come to this writing having experienced a rebirth of sorts in my devotion to Mary, the Blessed and Holy Mother, not just of Jesus but of us all.

I’ve always had what we Catholics call a “devotion” to Mary. When I was young my family prayed the rosary every evening. It’s a series of prayers counted on beads which repeats the Ave Maria or “Hail Mary”. I went to Catholic schools where statues of Mary were featured on the grounds. There typically are statues of Mary in the front of Catholic churches. Eventually I joined a religious order of brothers and priests called the Society of Mary or Marianists who run high schools and universities throughout the U.S. and around the world.

The renewal or rebirth of this devotion came this Fall because of long covid. It was like a long dark tunnel of listlessness, coughing, and so on. In that tunnel I found myself calling on this Mother for comfort, praying the Hail Mary when unable to sleep.

Which, as I’ve said, led to wondering what she had experienced during her last trimester, during this period of waiting for the birth of Jesus which Christians celebrate during the four weeks of Advent or waiting for Christmas.

I typically avoid thinking much about how Mary got pregnant. I believe, without understanding, in what my ancestors and my church call the virginal conception of Jesus – that Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit without the involvement of her husband Joseph. I’ve also come to believe, as most Protestants do, that Jesus soon had brothers and sisters conceived in the normal or natural way.

At any rate, what was Mary’s third trimester of waiting like? Of course, it’s impossible to know since the Gospel stories say nothing about this. So I return to what, according to Luke’s Gospel, she was inspired to say in response to her cousin Elizabeth’s greeting. It’s the proclamation or song of praise typically referred to by its Latin name, the Magnificat. “My soul glorifies the Lord and my Spirit rejoices in God my savior because he has done great things for me.”

Repeating words from Hebrew psalms, Mary continues saying “He has put down the mighty from their thrones and has exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to help his servant Israel, for he remembered the promise [covenant] made to our fathers….”

These words have recently come to great prominence because of what’s called “Liberation Theology” or the theology of prophetic protest against the oppressive structures of global capitalism.

Did she actually say these words? It’s certainly possible since she was an observant Jew who would know the psalms and songs of her people. Just as her son Jesus would continually repeat these words in his preaching and embody them in his actions. Most notably, perhaps, in his attack on the money-changers in the temple just before his capture and crucifixion.

More to the point of this reflection, I’m guessing she thought about these words and repeated this prayer during her third trimester confinement. Wondering about the birth and life of her child.

Luke tells us that the birth happened in the squalid conditions of poverty, and soon thereafter had to flee to escape Herod’s slaughter of the innocents. A millennium later it was St. Francis who popularized the scene of Jesus born in a manger, now represented in many homes and churches and even (if controversially) in many public squares.
Yet even before that humble birth and that flight in fear, she must have wondered about what those words meant for herself and her child.

So this Advent I wait with Mary, wondering about her words to Elizabeth, noting as she soon did that the powerful remain powerful, the hungry still sent away empty, the homeless on our streets, refugees continue to flee, and the covenant with Israel is in tatters. And I will silently sing from memory the Latin words of the Magnificat which I regularly sang during my years in the Marianists.

I will also remember the time in Viet Nam when I stood before the beautiful statue of Mary in the square before the Catholic cathedral in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). And several days later, when I stood in awe and prayer, in a light tropical rain, before a magnificent statue of Quan Am, the Buddhist Mother of Compassion, in a monastery on the hills above Da Nang harbor where we had one of our largest military bases during the war. (Google “Buddhist Monastery Da Nang” for images of this statue.)

I prayed before both statues, of Mary and of Quan Am, and knew no difference. For she is the Mother of Compassion to whom I called during my long dark tunnel. And she is the mother in waiting who will accompany me during these coming weeks of Advent.