Mary the Mother of Jesus

From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Mary the Mother of Jesus - Assumption, August 15th 2010

• Psalm 45: 10-17
• Revelation 11:19-12:6, 10
• Galatians 4:4-7
• Luke 1:46-55

Dr Kathleen Rushton, RSM

http://wellingtoncathedral.org.nz/index.php/Sermons

On this feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it seems fitting that I, a Roman Catholic give the sermon in your Anglican Cathedral, for teaching on Mary, and particularly the Catholic dogma of Assumption (1950), were identified as problems in Anglican-Catholic unity.

After years of study, ARCIC (Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission)’s “Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ” (2004) found this teaching consonant with Scripture and part of the ancient common tradition of the Church. Those involved speak of “the ARCIC method” of going behind entrenched positions to find again what was held in common. It was often when they breathed, as theologian Yves Congar describes, with two lungs: the lung of the East, the Eastern Church, with its insights into spirituality, icons, contemplation and liturgy, that the lung of the divided West, the Western Church, was able to re-receive the place of Mary in the Christian faith. I stress the word re-receive for both Anglicans and Roman Catholics.

“Mary: Hope and Grace in Christ,” the ARCIC document (28 pages, available on the internet (http://www.ecumenism.net/archive/arcic/mary_en.htm) gives a wonderful distilled summary of Mary in Scripture and in the Christian Tradition which I shall draw on.

Two scenes from Luke invite reflection on Mary in the life of the Church: the annunciation and the visitation. These “emphasise that Mary is in a unique way the recipient of God’s election and grace … At the visitation Mary’s song, (Magnificat) mirrors the song of Hannah (1 Samuel 2:1-10), broadening its scope so that Mary becomes the one who speaks for all the poor and oppressed who long for God’s reign of justice to be established. Just as in Elizabeth’s salutation the mother receives a blessing of her own, distinct from that of her child (1:42) [Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb”], so also in the Magnificat Mary predicts that “all generations will call me blessed” (1:48). This text provides the scriptural basis for an appropriate devotion to Mary, though never in separation from her role as mother of the Messiah.” (15)

Let us place the woman of Revelation 12 within the Book of Revelation which has its roots in the prophets and in the Jewish-Christian literature of apocalypses. Its first word Apocalypsis, means “unveiling.” The writer, known as John, mediates visions “unveiled” by a heavenly being. Biblical apocalypses and prophets are concerned with the present and with particular historical situations.

So what is the historical situation of Revelation and how does the writer address this? At that time, it was most unlikely that Christians faced any systematic Roman persecution. Rather, the writer’s concern was that Christians then – people living ordinary lives as we are today - would be tempted to succumb to the values of the Empire. Rather than living God’s way, they would make compromises. The writer asserts again and again that God rules this world (11:15). Yet, this world is still ruled by evil powers. There is an interplay of three words. One “affliction” (thlipsis), belongs to the domain of trouble, hardship, pain and suffering (2:22). Another “reign” (basileia) belongs to the domain of power or rule. The third is “consistent resistance” (huyomone) or endurance, is for John the active quality of standing up to evil and one of the works of the faithful.

In highly symbolic language, full of scriptural imagery, John describes the vision of a sign in heaven - a woman, her child and a dragon - which assures us of the ultimate victory of God’s faithful ones. This symbol of the woman has had many interpretations. The primary meaning of the woman is corporate: the people of God, whether OT Israel, the Church of Christ, or both. In the narrative of Revelation, the complete picture of the woman is found at the end of the book when Christ’s Church becomes the New Jerusalem (21:1-3).

The actual afflictions of the author’s community are placed within the frame of cosmic history as a whole which is an ongoing struggle between God’s faithful ones and those who oppose them, between good and evil. Ch.12 is the first vision of hope and assurance.

Given the interpretation of the woman as an image of the Church, is it still possible to see it as a reference to Mary? The woman is described as the mother of the “male child who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron,” a citation from Psalm 2 which is applied elsewhere in Scripture to the Messiah as well as to the faithful people of God. Early Church writers link this vision with the mother of Jesus. Both interpretations illuminate the role of Mary and the Church in the ultimate victory of the Messiah.

We have heard how in the Magnificat Mary speaks for all the poor and oppressed who long for God’s reign of justice. We have seen too how the woman of Rev. 12 is an image of the people of God who in the afflictions of life struggle to live according to values of the reign of God rather than to succumb to the values of the empire. In this situation “consistent resistance” is the work of the faithful, the people of God, us.

I offer now an example of the plight of the poor and oppressed which calls us, the faithful to the work of “consistent resistance.”

On 28 July, the 3rd Commission of the 64th General Assembly of the United Nations adopted overwhelmingly the draft resolution proclaiming the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation by the recorded vote of 122 in favour with none against and 41 abstentions. New Zealand abstained along with USA, Canada, UK and Australia. Most likely you have not heard about this ground breaking vote and New Zealand’s abstention. I learned about in a weekly e-news because my religious order, the Sisters of Mercy has a desk at the UNO as NGO status (as has the Anglican Church, with Observer Hellen Wangusa from Uganda).

The only media coverage I heard was very brief the next day on Radio NZ. While abstention is better than a vote against, New Zealanders deserve to know about the vote and why their Government did not support an historic UN resolution which affirms the human right of an estimated billion of the earth’s poorest people whose supplies of water currently are not safe to drink.

If everyone is entitled as of right to water, would this restrict global corporations taking control of water? Does privatization of water and free trade deals come into this decision? Where do the huge profits from bottled water fit in here? What values is New Zealand following – those of God’s reign or those of the empire? The writer of the Revelation calls us, the people of God to “consistent resistance,” the active quality of standing up to evil. In this matter surely, we, the Christian faithful are called to the work of “consistent resistance”?

Mary who in her Magnificat speaks for all the poor and oppressed who long for God’s reign of justice is pictured in your bulletin as a mature older woman. This sculpture in St. Mary’s Catholic Church, New Brighton was created in 1983-84, by a parishioner, the Christchurch artist Ria Bancroft. Mary points to the open Bible while she faces towards the altar of the church. Her gestures highlight the Word and Sacrament of her Son in which we participate this morning for strength to live God’s values and to live “consistent resistance” to the values of the empire. The sculpture too symbolises a call for unity of the Church of the divided West for it is a composite of materials, basically Oamaru stone, collected from the restoration of Christchurch’s two cathedrals, Anglican and Catholic.