Mary, Our Mother

       During September we celebrate two Marian Feasts that highlight the ups and downs of everyone’s life whether outstanding saint or worst of sinner. On September 8, we celebrate the Nativity of Mary. Exactly one week later we encounter Our Lady of Sorrows.

       The entrance antiphon for the Mass of Mary’s nativity sets the tone for our celebration,”Let  us celebrate with joy the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for from her arose the sun of justice, Christ our God.” I smile when I compare these words with what Joachim and Ann may have uttered. Elated as they were, how different our perspective after over two- thousand years. In awe and joy, we can pray,”Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”   

       Many of us at St. Walburg also celebrate Mary’s nativity as the anniversary of the day we entered this Monastery. In the days when a group of young ladies were simultaneously expressing interest in becoming nuns, they were encouraged to enter the same day; namely on Sept. 8. After a period of postulancy and a year as a novice, we received a new name. The name of Mary then took on new significance as the name Mary preceded the new name, which for me was Sr. Mary Victoria. While many of us just use the second part of our title, the name Mary is written in our hearts.

       What a contrast one week later when we celebrate Our Lady of Sorrows!  Almost any reference lists Mary’s sorrows as seven beginning with the prophesy of Simeon that a sword would pierce Mary’s heart and ending with Christ’s entombment. While seven may be obviously Mary’s very worse sorrows, much of her life likely contributed to her title as Our Lady of Sorrows.

       So many of today’s headlines refer to mothers who live with unbearable sorrows: refugee mothers who do not know where their children are, mothers whose children were murdered or kidnapped, mothers who mourn for their children who are addicted or commit suicide. The list could be endless. Our Lady of Sorrows, comfort the hearts of all sorrowful mothers.

          Sr. Victoria Eisenman, OSB

The Nativity of Mary

The New Testament does not give much of a biography of Mary, Mother of God. Seldom does she speak:

• ·         Be it done to me…
• ·         Magnificat (from the Canticle of Hannah)
• ·         Why have you treated us so?
• ·         They have no wine.

For centuries the Church has filled in the gaps in our understanding. What is fitting and suitable and honorable as we choose words for apt praise of Mary? What just has to be true about Mary? e.g., If Jesus grew in wisdom and stature in their Nazareth home, he did so in the midst of a healthy, loving family. A reasonable assumption.

Mary’s life is celebrated in the liturgy, in dogma, in art, music and poetry, and the homilies and writings of men and women. All these means have entailed making reasonable assumptions about the gaps in the scriptural accounts. Mary now has a wealth of titles and roles, and is shown in many cultural forms. All races and nationalities claim her. Through the work of translators, the storehouses of writings about Mary are open to us.

Anscar Vonier, d. 1938

There will always be the danger for our mind to place Mary’s divine role in a totally unearthly sphere of things, to think of her motherhood as of something belonging to quite another world. With Mary’s motherhood closely related to Elizabeth’s motherhood, we see that Mary is truly a mother in the ordinary human, real, created mode of maternity.

Nicholas Cabasilas, d. 1390

            Just as [Mary] had bestowed her flesh and blood on [Jesus] and had received a share of his graces in return, so in like manner she participated in all his pains and sufferings…And so, after our Savior’s death, she was the first to conform herself to the Son who resembled her and hence she shared in his resurrection before all others.

Thomas of Villanova, d. 1555

For a long time I have been at a loss to understand why the evangelists should have…told us so little about the Virgin Mary, who in life and distinction excels them all…The most important fact of her life, that Jesus was born of her, is enough to tell her whole story.

Ronald Knox, d. 1957

Let us ask our blessed Lady to win for us that continual renewal of strength and holiness

which befits our…destiny. Fresh graces, not soiled by the memory of past failure, fresh

enterprise, to meet the conditions of a changing world; fresh hope, to carry our burdens

beyond…this present world into the changeless repose of eternity.

      With Mary’s birth God’s plan for our salvation came closer to fulfillment. We pray that through her intercession, the Church is renewed in holiness and grace, and in the new life of Christ that grows within.

              Sr. Christa Kreinbrink, OSB