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Mary, the "believer" in the ecclesial journey
 

  by ALFONSO LANGELLA
 

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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.

[6] Ibid., 18.

[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)

 

 

 

 

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