The last time I met with him, my spiritual director observed, “you seem very drawn to Mary; what is it about her that attracts you?” I stumbled around some trying to answer that question but don’t think I did a very satisfactory job, so I thought it might be worth some reflection today. I’ve mentioned, in an earlier blog post, that as I was beginning to learn the Rosary using non-Marian prayers, I found myself drawn to Mary in a way that I could not explain. At the time I talked to Fr. Nick, my spiritual director, and after some discussion he affirmed this as something God was doing in my life. And now, more than 20 years later, I am still drawn to her.
I was interested to read Pope John Paul II on this subject, saying that early in his life he was concerned that Marian devotion would draw him away from Jesus but what he found, over time, was that Jesus actually pointed him to Mary. Some of my fellow pastors around the time of his death dismissed him as a “Mary worshiper,” but that perception was formed with no knowledge of the man himself, from a perspective that sees any attention to Mary as necessarily detracting from Jesus.
This month I’ve been reading Sally Read, who grew up in a determinedly atheistic family and says that Mary’s “was the hand that would lead me slowly to her son” (The Mary Pages, p. 4). In her experience Mary led her to Jesus, not away from Him. All in a very unexpected way, through seeing pictures of Mary in her grandmother’s home. “But that was how Mary got in—not through statues or cute Christmas cards, not through prayers or teaching or through a historic wheel, but through these pictures. Mary got into my head against all likelihood, against the mighty determination of my father that our lives would be devoid of anything religious. She got into my head, just as a door that’s slammed and locked and the chain pulled across cannot keep out air.”
My first inclination, at this point, is to turn to some historical works on Mary, like The Mystical Rose, by St. John Henry Newman, which is sitting on the table next to my computer, or to outline Marian doctrines in The Catechism of the Catholic Church; and I think those things are worthwhile and helpful. But Sally Read’s comments point to something different, to Mary as a living presence in the Church, not just a theological idea to be explained and defended. She describes Mary leading her to Jesus, though she herself was unaware of what was happening. She sees Mary getting into her head “against all likelihood.” She sees Mary being involved in her life in a very real way over time, bringing her into the Church when everything within her being was pulling in the opposite direction. She doesn’t see Mary as God—there’s never any confusion about that—but as a living person in the Church who is able to cooperate with her Son in the lives of people on earth.
To understand and reflect on this requires, I think, that we put aside our assumption that the saints are far removed from us, that heaven is “somewhere out there,” and that although God, through the Holy Spirit, can intervene in our lives, we are otherwise cut off, separated, from the life of heaven. Sally Read’s understanding is that Mary, the mother of the Church, the New Eve, has access to us and is able to be involved in our lives, drawing us to her Son. She’s thinking in a way consistent with both Orthodox and Catholic perspectives on the communion of the saints.
Why, then, am I drawn to Mary? I find her immensely attractive as a model of Christian discipleship, one who from the moment of the annunciation was immersed in things she couldn’t possibly grasp but persistently held all these things in her heart, becoming the great model of contemplation and who humbled herself, becoming the Queen Mother who intercedes with her Son. "She is continually involved in mysteries the sense and meaning of which tower over her, but instead of resigning herself to bafflement she gives them space in her heart in order continually to mull over them there (the Greek word Luke uses at 2:19, symballein, really means to throw together, to compare and hence to consider from all possible angles)" (Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Mary for Today, p. 36).
I find all these things compelling, but I believe there is more than this, which is why I say that years ago I found myself drawn to Mary in ways I could not understand or explain. It didn’t make sense, given my position as a Protestant pastor where Marian devotion was anathema. But I couldn’t get away from it, and I believe Fr. Nick was right in affirming that this was something from God and that Jesus Himself was leading me to cultivate a relationship with His mother.
Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical on Mary: “Mary can be said to continue to say to each individual the words she spoke at Cana in Galilee: ‘Do whatever he tells you’ (John 2:5). For he, Christ, is the one mediator between God and mankind…. The Virgin of Nazareth became the first ‘witness’ of this saving love of the Father, and she also wishes to remain its humble handmaid always and everywhere. For every Christian for every human being, Mary is the one who first ‘believed’ and precisely with her faith as spouse and mother she wishes to act upon all those who entrust themselves to her as her children” (Mother of the Redeemer). My experience, like that of Pope John Paul II, has been that, not only does Mary not lead me away from Jesus, but that Jesus Himself leads me to His mother.
