By the Rev. Joanne Davies, SSJD Oblate
A woman clothed with the sun. One of my favourite places to “just be” is the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Los Angeles. Our Lady of the Angels. A golden building. Blended into the California sun, a sun that is never-ending and glorious. The scent of orange trees and roses fill an outdoor courtyard. And visions of Mary surround everyone in building art and statues….Imagine… being there, just breathing, is a time of being drawn into liberating love and the heavenly home of Mary.
Mary loved Jesus and Jesus loved Mary. Take a moment to see and feel this in your heart and soul. Mary holds the alchemy of all this love, the inner transformation, to God and to us, in a time and space that is the infinity of the Trinity.
It is Mary’s cherished life, her wisdom, her sorrows, her peace, her death journey and her heavenly joy that we are celebrating today. Perhaps we are also celebrating Mary’s presence in our life and devotions today. Of her comforting hope that is everlasting and of her challenging us to be of courage, spirit-filled, faith-filled, obedient, awake to God and strong.
All-in-all she pondered in her heart. I too ponder all that this day means, through many traditions in my own heart. Take this moment, see the angel with Mary, then joy, fear, birth, worry, quiet, anxiety mixed with pride and happiness, death, transformation and grief and a return home.
Today we celebrate Mary. Her willingness to listen to God, and to journey in life knowing the love of God with her. To make use of her intelligence and her imagination together. She gave to God’s realm by loving her baby. She lived life with eyes open. She led and followed her son, as her beloved, and beloved with God. She encouraged Jesus. Yet did not interfere. She let go of her son to a magnificent love. A love she knew was present, would arrive and would remain always. Knowing this before he was born. A love she declared in her song of praise. A love she lived her life from. She says, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour.
Mary shares with us her vision of God that is not limited to individuals – it extends universally to the poor, the hungry, the humbled and the lost. She gives us a stark challenge. God’s favour is for people who need because other people have turned away, or succeeded in not noticing. Mary calls us to never escape the tension, the difficulties of living with inequality and injustice in our world. To know we can be part of oppression when we fail to glimpse the nature of God’s loving hope. God, who in Mary, reverses the order of power and powerlessness; a God who breaks the power of the mighty and gives strength to the weak, or the ones supposedly left to be lowly.
Mary shows us how love is received. She shows us we all have a birth washed in God’s Love. She shows us how to open ourselves to the leading of the Spirit in the face of any objection that our stubborn thoughts might contain. She shows us that even in difficulty life can be about, is about, the joy and transformation, the alchemy, of knowing God within, around and ahead of us. And singing with the giving, generous life of God. She is our story of how salvation is received.
Jesus leads us to be Christ in life, to lift that veil, to live God’s heaven in our midst. But it was in the gestation, if you will, and transforming journey of his own developing realization of his mission, as Mary’s child, Jesus saw the pondering, reflective, strong and willing surrender of Mary to God. As do we. This joins the new life she brings to us in her son. Let us celebrate being held in her loving compassionate radical faith.
