A story of Mary

September is the feast day of the Blessed Virgin Mary, one of the most famous women in history. She is the Mother of God. However, very little is actually known about her personal life. I have read detailed biographies of other famous men and women. But in the case of Mary, there are aspects and periods of her personal life wherein very little is known. 

The Gospels tell very little about Mary at the time of Jesus’ childhood. In the Gospel of Thomas, there is a story of Mary doing household chores. She asked Jesus “to draw water and bear it into the house. “ But as the six-year-old went out carrying a clay jug, others jostled him and his clay jug broke. And when the boy arrived at the well,  he “spread out the garment which was upon him” and filled the cloth with water. When Jesus returned, Mary kissed him and wondered why the water did not leak through the garment. She “ kept within herself the mysteries which she saw him do.” This is possibly the first miracle that Jesus performed. 

There is the famous story that when Jesus was 12, Mary, Joseph and Jesus travelled to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. When the couple headed home, Jesus was missing. They searched and found him still in the Temple sitting with scholars in a discussion about the Torah. 

There is a time gap in the Gospels between their visit to Jerusalem and when Jesus was finally grown and ready to do his work. Mary’s story is central to the story of Jesus’ birth and childhood, very little is written about her during the three years her son travelled, preached and performed miracles. Joseph also practically disappears from the narrative after the Jerusalem visit. 

Mary reappears in the Gospels during the time the Roman soldier crucified Jesus. It has been theorized that by the time Jesus became 30 years old, Mary was already a widow. After all, Joseph was much older than her. We can imagine how hard life must have been for Mary without Joseph and Jesus to help her. One interesting story is that Mary was the one who encouraged Jesus to perform his first miracle at the wedding in Cana. The wine had ran out and Mary asked Jesus for help. He was reluctant and said: “ Woman how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.’ But then Jesus instructed the servants to fill six large stone jars with water and out came wine. It seems Mary was already fulfilling her role as the person who is capable of intercession with Jesus.

In the Story of Mary, in the National Geographic magazine, it says: “Throughout, Mary cared for, followed and loved her son. To such a woman is owed special respect and many have elevated her above all other humans. She is seen as the seminal mother, the nurturing parent, the patient guardian, the paragon of virtue, the symbol of human sacrifice, suffering and love. Mary is the Great Mediatrix, the mediator between humans and Christ, first witnessed during the wedding at Cana. 

The Catholic Church accords cultus latria, adoration solely to God. Saints and angels received a form of veneration called cultus dulia. Mary, though, has earned hyperdulia, the highest form of veneration as the holiest of creatures. Even so the Church has long wrestled with how to fully honor her, and over the past 16 centuries it has approved four dogmas: the belief in the Theotokos, that Mary is the Mother of God; the Immaculate Conception; the Assumption into Heaven; and her Perpetual Virginity.”

Council of Ephesus

In the year 431, 250 bishops gathered in Ephesus to resolve Mary’s position and Jesus’ divine nature. Cyril, the bishop of Alexandria, Pope Celestine I and others insisted that Mary be proclaimed as the Theotokos – the Mother of God. In 1931, on the 1500th anniversary of the Council of Ephesus, Pope Pius XI set October as the Feast of the Divine Maternity of Our Lady.

Council of Lateran

The Catholic Church has always maintained that Jesus was uniquely conceived with the aid of the Holy Spirit and that Mary was a virgin before the visit of the Angel Gabriel and stayed that way after her child, Jesus, arrived. In October 649, a council of 105 bishops gathered at Rome’s Lateran Church and under the leadership of Pope Martin I, it presented 20 canons. One of the canons holds that Mary was a virgin before, during and after Jesus’ birth.

In the 1992 conference, Pope John Paul II said: “The church proclaims as factually true that Mary...truly and virginally gave birth to her Son, for Whom she remained a virgin after birth; a virgin – according to the holy Fathers and councils which expressly dealt with the question.”

Immaculate Conception

As Jesus’ mother, the belief holds that Mary had a special holiness, a quality affirmed in the Council of Ephesus. In 1854, in front of 170 bishops, Pope Pius IX declared “...that the doctrine which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the first instance of conception by a singular privilege and grace of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the savior of mankind was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God and therefore should firmly and constantly be believed by all the faithful.”

Assumption

There is a story – centuries old – that the apostles all gathered around Mary’s death bed and Jesus and the angels descended from heaven and took her soul. After three days, Jesus visited her burial site, when he returned her soul to her body and brought her alive into heaven.

In 1950, at the 8th International Marian Congress, Pope Pius XII proclaimed: “That the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”

For all those who revere Mary, she is the one who helps those lost become found.

Creative writing class for adults

Fiction writing with Sarge Lacuesta on Sept. 22 (1:30-4:30 pm) at Fully Booked BGC.  For details and registration,  email [email protected].

 September is the feast day of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

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Email: [email protected]