How does the faith of Mary, lived two thousand years ago in a
totally different society from our hectic world, is it still
significant for women and men of our time? In fact, the data
reveal several pieces of evangelical faith of the Virgin that
also belong to the multiple experiences of believers who walk
on the streets of today. Mary "lived a life on earth common to
all, filled with family concerns and work," wrote the Second
Vatican Council.[1]
Typical Examples of Mary
The families
The Virgo fidelis, who lived her faith above all in
relations with the Son and with Joseph, has much to say to
those who identify with the family still the only institution
capable of responding to the need for affection and stable
support in each person. The couple, who are called to face
today with the culture of ‘liquid’ relations, which drives
them, in front of the first difficulty, to give up the promise
of fidelity for life, meet in the wife of the carpenter of
Nazareth, a woman able to endure faith in the God of the
Covenant, which in deep crisis caused by her mysterious
pregnancy, prevented them to go into port human designs of
separation from which Joseph was tempted (Mt 1:18-25).
In their role as parents, Christians spouses can
look to Mary, who by faith receives the new life in a situation
of grave insecurity and poverty, and with tenderness "wrapped
in swaddling clothes" (Lk 2:7), the eternal Son of the Father,
which had taken from her the flesh; during the childhood
years of Jesus is still the faith of Mary and Joseph to allow
the Child to grow "in wisdom, age and grace" (Lk 52).
So she is an example to imitate in the educational task in
front of the children who claim their autonomy. The pair of
Nazareth, in the episode of lost and finding of twelve aging
Jesus in Jerusalem (Lk 2.41 to 50), without she was spared the
anguish of the enormous responsibility, has continued to
rely on God and his word, even if she has not fully understood
the mystery that was hidden in the Son (Lk 2:51).
The children, that especially now appear far from one
faith proposed to them with the categories that they do
not pay attention (some people have talked about the young
people of today as the "first disbelief generation"),[2]
can find a fundamental reference in the lived faith in a
responsible and free manner by the girl of Nazareth. She at
the Annunciation, despite the profound "disturbance" (Lk 1:29)
caused by the prospect of an unknown future which involved
completely transforming her projects, has generously and
courageously plunged in the "maverick" adventure that God
proposed.
The Women
Mary, who lives her faith as a woman of the first
Century, continues to be a reference for the world of women of
our time. Without doubt, reading Mary's faith "with the eyes of
woman"[3],
it is retrieve all the elements that the theology and
traditional preaching have neglected.
If in the past the faith of Mary was only proposed as a
model for the woman "the whole house and church",
emphasizing the virtues of silence, obedience, docility,
submissiveness, it is clear that the emancipated women of our
day can accept her as an outdated figure. Instead, the faith of
"anything but timidly submissive woman or one whose piety was
alienated" as Paul VI called Mary,[4]
becomes extremely significant for the faith of women engaged
in social life, which must rely on every day their dignity
and that are called upon to perform by means of their "genius",
the prophetic critique of the world that does not recognize
their particular mission.
Likewise, the contemplation of the female side of the Virgin's
faith allows you to emphasize her "feel maternal," her
particular "visceral" experience of the encounter with the
Son, that formed in her womb. This experience can only be
understood by mothers (women) and is denied to fathers (males),
that then they need to learn from the women to feel intimately
and not just by thought the greatness of the mystery they
believe in. In this way Mary teaches believers the
opportunity to approach the mysteries of the faith by
"aesthetic" (in the double sense of "sensitive" and "for the
beautiful"): it is, that is, to recognize that the revelation
of God enters in the human heart not only through intellectual
understanding of doctrinal truths, but also through the
emotions and feelings that give flavor to the existence and
open the heart to the joyful contemplation of the beauty of the
divine mystery.
Suffering Persons
Even for those who are oppressed by the experience of pain
and fragility of human existence Mary's faith is significant.
The Virgin of Nazareth has continued to rely on God "who takes
care of the poor" in the difficulties that she has encountered
because of relationships with others: she has experienced the
loneliness of those who must decide without human support (Lk
1:38), the incomprehension on the part of Joseph (Mt 1:19), the
anguish of separation from the adolescent Son (Luke 2:44-45),
the frustration of powerlessness in the face unjust death
sentence of Jesus. In the situations of poverty and social
insecurity she continued to believe too: so she did in the
condition of pregnant woman who does not find a place to give
birth (Lk 2:7) or refugee to Egypt to escape Herod's
persecution (Mt 2,13 - 14).
John Paul II dedicated his most important Marian encyclical,
Redemptoris Mater, to the journey of faith of Mary,
which is modeled on the journey of faith of Christians,
particularly emphasizing the presence of pain at that location.
The faith that has gone through all the moments of the life of
the Virgin, in fact, is characterized by the 'heaviness of
heart, "and has led her to the annihilation of self, experience
that unites all believers who decide in their hearts the "holy
journey" toward the triune God.
John Paul II sees, from the beginning of the relationship of
Mary with the Child Jesus, during his hidden life at Nazareth,
"a particular heaviness of heart, combined with a sort of"
night of faith "- using the words of St. John of Cross - and
almost a "veil" through which we must draw near to the
Invisible and live in intimacy with the mystery. And this is
the way that Mary, for many years, lived in intimacy with the
mystery of her Son, and went forward in his journey of faith,
hand to hand that Jesus "increased in wisdom ... and in favor
with God and man "(Lk 2:52)" .[5]
This journey of faith pushed more and more "down", making
faithful companion in the process of humiliation of the Son of
God, who "emptied himself" unto death: "At the foot of the
Cross Mary shares through faith in the shocking mystery of this
dispossession. This is perhaps the deepest kenosis of
faith in human history. Through faith the Mother shares in the
death of her Son, in his redeeming death; but, unlike that of
the disciples who fled, hers was far more enlightened faith"[6]
To this faith can inspire the sick man plagued by incurable
disease, the immigrant humiliated by laws and men, the
homosexual insulted losing friends, lover betrayed, the elderly
living alone, the worker who loses his job and is prostrated in
despair ...
And not only the faith of Mary becomes the model of faith of
the suffering, but accompanied with a mysterious presence to
their stories, revealing how the power of the Cross is able to
transform the pain. It is still John Paul II in his Apostolic
Letter on the Christian meaning of suffering, Salvifici
doloris, pointed out that "the dying Christ conferred upon
the ever Virgin Mary a new kind of motherhood - spiritual and
universal - to all men, so that each, in own pilgrimage of
faith, remain, together with her, closely united to the Cross,
and with the strength of this Cross, all suffering regenerated
become from the weakness of man, the power of God ".[7]
The members
of the Christian community
Mary's faith becomes particularly "prescriptive" for the
baptized who carry out the various ministries in the community.
So an operator of Caritas, or anyone engaged in the
service of others, can look to the charismatic faith (ie, the
result of a "manifestation of the Spirit for the common good":
1 Cor 12,7.9) of the Virgin, which prompts her to visit her
cousin Elizabeth waiting for the son (Lk 1:39) and acts at the
wedding at Cana favoring the helper action of the Son (Jn
2:1-12). Even someone who is deputy to animate the prayer of
the community can share the joyful faith that is released in
praise to the Father of the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55),
or the faith in agreement is manifested in the same
intercession with her Son at Cana. Who, then, is devoted to the
prophetic ministries will be animated by the faith of Mary that
still in the Magnificat proclaims cheering the "great
things" that God has done.
The theologian, called to reflect on the mystery revealed with
the intellectus fidei, can not but embrace the search
with the same existential involvement that has guided Mary who
asked the angel on the way of the fulfillment of the mystery of
the Incarnation ("How can? ": Lk 1:34). And the same Christian
who lives with ardent love manifestations of piety and devotion
reproduces in himself the simple faith of the One who has
recognized the God of her people and loved Him with all his
"spirit" and all his "soul "(Lk 1:45).
Consecrated persons,
and in particular the consecrated women, called to testify in a
different way the feminine charisma that transforms the world,
look to the faith of Jesus' mother. Mary lived her virginity,
poverty and obedience to the Father, not as waiver and closing
in the world, but as openness to humanity and the poors, both
in prayer and in service. The response to the call to chastity,
in fact, is the fruit of welcoming faith that encourages us to
love God above themselves and each other affection. The
acceptance of poverty assimilates to the Virgin poor, that
without the support of the earthly media, she confided only in
God, proclaiming the praises of Him who "has lifted up the
humbles" and "has filled the hungry with good" (Lk 1:52 - 53).
In obedience, finally, you can relive the faith of the Mother
of God who, guided by the Spirit, he decides to do the will of
the Father revealed through His messengers.
Peregrinatio fidei
Following the example of the Virgin, finally, every
Christian lives his faith as a process of maturation within a
community: in his peregrinaio fidei she had to overcome
the relationship of "blood" that united her to the Son to enter
into communion deeper and deeper with him in discipleship and
in the small family of men and women who follow her Son beneath
the Cross (Jn 19:25-27), and after Easter, she has decided to
continue to belong to the new community, together the apostles,
women, and the brothers of Jesus (Acts 1:14). As John Paul II
said, "her exceptional pilgrimage of faith represents a
constant point of reference for the Church, for individuals and
communities, for peoples and nations, in a sense, for the whole
of humanity '.[8]
[1]
SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Decree on the Apostolate of the
Laity Apostolicam Actuositatem (18 November 1965)
[2]
Cf A. MATTEO,
La prima generazione incredula.
Il difficile rapporto tra i giovani e la fede, Rubbettino,
Soveria Mannelli 2010.
[3]
C. MILITELLO,
Maria con occhi di donna,
Piemme, Casale Monferrato (AL) 1999.
[4]
Cf PAUL VI, Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus (2
February 1974), 37.
[5]
JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Mater
(25 March 1987), 17.
[7]
JOHN PAUL II, Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris (11
February 1984), 26.
[8]
John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Mater
(25 March 1987), 6.
Alfonso Langella
Direttore di
Theotokos
Via Barcaiola, 22
80056 Ercolano (Napoli)