Feast of the Immaculate Conception: 8 December
The Korean picture of Mary shows her as imagined by a artist of a particular time and culture. Devotion to Mary seems to have developed from the third century AD and would have increased after the Council of Ephesus in 431 where she was proclaimed "Theotikos", Mother of God. Since then she has become the inspiration for art, music and poetry, and numerous churches are dedicated to her. Many places became sites of pilgrimage following apparitions of Mary. Her appearance to Bernadette at Lourdes is particularly linked with this feastday as she described herself then as the Immaculate Conception. Mary has become an archetypal figure, sometimes taking on the mantle of the Great Mother or even possibly mediating the feminine side of God in a church where the masculine predominates.
The Gospel of Mark is the earliest account and there are only two references to Mary (Mk 3:31-36 and Mk 6:1-6 ). She is seen as part of Jesus' family and - in the second reference - as an ordinary village woman who is well known in the neighbourhood. In the first reference, however, Jesus' words in which he described those around him as his family could also imply that, though ordinary, Mary was the kind of mother that his followers should imitate.
In Matthew's account Joseph takes centre stage. Only two gospels, Matthew and Luke, have infancy narratives; they differ from the other gospels in that they are not recounting events witnessed by the apostles but are mini gospels in themselves whose main purpose is to establish the identity of Jesus. They are also the link between the Old Testament and the New. Matthew in particular tells his story using motifs from Israel's past. Joseph, who was of the House of David, accepted Jesus as his son after a dream and - as instructed - named him Jesus. He paralleled the first Joseph in leading his family safely to Egypt, having been forced to flee from Bethlehem; Herod replicated the wicked Pharoah who enslaved the Israelites. Joseph then led his family safely back to Nazareth. Mary has a seemingly a background role. However through Joseph’s geneology we are shown how God’s plan worked through Israel’s history. That same geneology shows how five women's initiative in becoming pregnant in ways that were often unusual and sometimes shocking achieved God’s purpose. Mary,whose pregnancy would in Jewish eyes have been scandalous, was the means God chose to bring about the birth of the Saviour. In the geneology Matthew departs from his usual pattern of listing the father in the following words: "...and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah." (Mt 16) When the Magi come from the east, "they saw the child with Mary his mother." (Mt 2:11) Mary’s last appearances in Matthews’s gospel are almost identical to those in Mark. Mary was an ordinary Jewish mother, concerned about her son, and is seen as just another neighbour.
It is in Luke’s gospel that Mary finds a voice. Luke was traditionally an artist and certainly his portrait of Mary is painted with delicate strokes. In a male world, the first chapter of Luke has two leading ladies, Mary and Elizabeth, though Zachary too has an important role. What Luke wants to establish is Mary’s obedience to God’s will that she become mother of His son. The Annuciation of Luke is to Mary as in Matthew it is Joseph. There are also links to the Old Testament. The angel Gabriel who appeared to Daniel in the last book of the Old Testament to be written, appeared to Mary in the New. Mary, who is the embodiment of the faithful daughter of Sion, repeats a canticle like Hannah’s in the old Testament. Hannah was one of the many Old Testament women including Sarah, Ruth, Judith, Esther and Susanna who were singled out in scripture because of their faithfulness to God. Mary completes that line. When she gave the angel her reply she spoke of herself as a handmaid, which would have indicated the condition of a slave: henceforth she was enslaved to God. There are other echoes of the Old Testament; Zachary and Elizabeth, like Sarah and Abraham, longed for a child, and he was given to them in a miraculous way. It would seem that Luke, like Matthew, composed his infancy story with many memories of how God worked throughout Israel’s history to bring about salvation.
Mary, on being told of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, set out for the hill country of Judaea - a journey about the same distance as from Galway to Castlebar - probably on foot. In visiting Elizabeth she received reassurance and affirmation that she was indeed "Mother of my Lord." Luke then contrived to bring Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem as ordered by the census, so that the child, Son of David, would be born in David's city. After the birth Mary went to be purified and the child was presented in the temple; Mary and Joseph are shown as obedient Jews, fulfilling the religious duties required of them.
The last story before Jesus' adulthood seems to be of a different genre. Mary and Joseph are portrayed as ordinary Jewish parents who seem unaware of the identity of their son. Mary takes the leading role in reprimanding her son for getting lost. His reply astonished them but Mary is shown as a woman who is constantly thinks things over. When the shepherds left Bethlehem, “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart” (Lk 2:19-20), and she did so again on this occasion. Mary’s road to discipleship came with this constant reflecting. We are told that Jesus went back to Nazareth and grew up as an ordinary boy, obedient to his parents. The only gospel references after this to Mary are of a mother concerned about her son as in Matthew and Mark (Lk 8:19-21), and the praise of the woman who cried out from the crowd: “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!” (Lk 11:27-28)
The last Lucan reference to Mary is in the upper room where she prayed with the disciples and the other women before Pentecost (Acts 1:12-14). It was fitting that she who had brought Jesus into the world would be there when the fruit of his sacrifice, the Church, was being born.
The first appearance of Mary in the gospel of John is at Cana in Galilee. She is referred to as the mother of Jesus and was invited to a wedding there together with Jesus and his disciples. Mary is portrayed as one who is sensitive to the needs of other people. She asked her son to help when she realised the wine was running out. Jesus was reluctant to intervene, for he said that his hour had not yet come. We can wonder whether Jesus knew that when he performed this miracle his ordinary life with Mary in Nazareth would be over and his public life begun. Mary possibly realised that Jesus would have the greatest difficulty in leaving her, especially as she was now almost certainly a widow and, courageously, she gave him a gentle nudge.
"After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers and his disciples and they remained there for a few days." (Jn 2:12) It would seem that this is where Jesus’ public ministry started and his mother’s road to Calvary also began. It is here that she next appears: “Meanwhile standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” (Jn 19:25-26) Jesus’ mother followed him faithfully to the cross. She who gave birth to him watched him die in agony .Before Jesus died he united his two faithful disciples: "...he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold your son.' Then he said to the disciple, 'Here is your mother.' And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home." (Jn 19:26-27)
John’s account gives the deepest and most poignant picture of Mary, though she is never mentioned by name. Mark and Matthew give an account of Mary as a Jewish mother, Matthew adding how God's plan is worked out through Joseph's obedience to his dream in taking the pregnant Mary to his home and giving her son his name and lineage. Luke portrays the young woman obedient to God’s will with an extraordinary insight into her character as though she has told him her story. John speaks of the mature woman who lets her son go and follows him to his death on the cross. The mosaic is complete.
In 1854 Pope Pius IX defined the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. The meaning of this feast is that in Mary came the full flowering of faithfulness to the Covenant exemplified both in her forebears and especially in her. This ordinary Jewish woman was the means by which the promised Messiah came into the world and she was made worthy to bear him.
Mary of Nazareth, daughter of Sion, pray for us.