Memorial of the Most Holy Name of Mary

Aron Mor Island, Eire, July 23, 2019

Lectionary: 442

I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, listens to my words, and acts on them. That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when the flood came, the river burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been well built.

Jesus's mother Mary is named several times in Scripture in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke; and only once in Mark and the Acts of the Apostles. That sole reference in Saint Mark's gospel is not about her but about Jesus: his former neighbors ask, "Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary...? 

Scholars wonder if Joseph was so long dead his name was forgotten and that's why Jesus is "the son of Mary." Or perhaps it's a derogatory reference to him as a "mama's boy." Without challenging either notion, I offer a third: they knew Mary. In her own town, she was a force to be reckoned with. Even as they watched her son grow up, Mary mattered and made a difference. 

We have heard her accept God's mission for her without hesitation, she did not ask permission from her parents or family. Then she set out for Jerusalem to see the sign of her kinswoman's pregnancy. If she asked a man's permission and went with a male escort, the scriptures don't mention it. When he was twelve years old and finally discovered in the temple, it was Mary, not Joseph, who spoke for the two of them. “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”

At Cana, she could not only ask Jesus to do something about the shortage of wine, she could direct the servants to, "Do whatever he tells you." She didn't hesitate, according to Saint John, to follow Jesus to Jerusalem and Calvary. There, like the Maccabean widow, she surrendered  her only begotten Son to death and God's mercy. And finally, she mothered the Church in the Cenacle as it was born of the Holy Spirit. 

This solitary citation in Mark, perhaps, recognizes her as a wise woman of Nazareth, as in Proverbs 31:10. Recent femininist studies find wise women in many small towns and villages; they are midwives, herbal healers, mentors and counselors to other women. 

Saint Luke describes her as the ideal disciple. We are told in today's gospel to listen to God's word and act on it; that is precisely what Mary does. First by her consent to the Angel's message, and then by following his suggestion that she go to Jerusalem. Luke also describes her first "appearance" in history. How many visionaries in these twenty centuries have repeated Elizabeth's astonished question, "Who am I that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?" 

She is a force to be reckoned with still. While Jesus is the mediator of all grace, she is the mediatrix of Jesus, for without her willing consent he could not be born among us. We could not be saved by a god who is not born of woman. 

When we would be disciples of Jesus we do well to turn to Mary. She is very present in our North American history as she insistently reminded Juan Diego, "¿No estoy yo aquí que soy tu madre?" ("Am I not here, I who am your mother?").

As a disciple she provides a model of willing obedience. As mother she tells us to, "Do whatever he tells you." As inspiration she encourages us and as patroness she prays with us. 

O Mary, conceived without sin,
pray for us who have recourse to thee.