Two reflections on Marian devotion
Reinhard Körner OCD
Let’s assume: there are more beautiful Marian images. But this one here is the oldest that has been preserved; it originates from the first half of the 2nd century and served as an image of devotion for Roman Christians who gathered in the difficult years of persecution at the underground graves of their deceased in the Priscilla catacombs for prayer and Eucharist. And it contains a profound statement that can also provide valuable guidance for us Christians today.
Mary sits on a chair and holds a child in her arms with maternal tenderness, a motif repeated a thousand times over the centuries, aimed at depicting Mary’s ardent relationship with Jesus, her Son and God’s Son. Remarkable, however – and rarely repeated later – is the third person here in the picture: to the left of Mary and the child stands the prophet – art historians guess: Balaam or Isaiah? – who with one hand points to Jesus, and with the other hand to the star above Mary’s head (the star, however, is hardly discernible after centuries). If it is Balaam, his words from the book of Numbers (24:17) are obvious: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.” If it is Isaiah, his joyful exclamation is likely meant: “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you” (Isaiah 60:1). Whichever of them it is, the Roman Christians allow the man of God from the Old Testament to indicate who represents the main person in this image.
The oldest Marian image preserved to us is the image of Christ. When later generations look at the depiction of the Mother of God, they are for centuries tempted to look first or even exclusively at Mary. The child in her arms then becomes, such is the impression we have when we look back, merely a necessary “appendix,” an “attribute” that distinguishes this woman from other holy women and makes her the Mother of God. The reasons for this are certainly many. They can be partly explained by the one-sided, in parts directly incorrect “image of God” that has crept into church proclamation and practiced piety. When God the Father is presented to believers as an “angry” or even “offended” ruler and Christ as a noble “judge of the world,” they turn – in some sense of “inner necessary self-defense” – to the Mother of God, who has more understanding, to plead for mercy through her Son. Even in the pilgrim song from 1948 we hear, “When your prayer pleads with us, your Son cannot close himself off from us.” And when “masculine qualities” of God are emphasized too one-sidedly – only Pope John Paul I had the courage to spontaneously call out across St. Peter’s Square, “God is (also) my Mother!” – they seek “female and maternal qualities” they do not find in God in the “divine Mother.” “Your cloak is a golden tent, woven from maternal love. Spread it over the world, so that no one remains without a mother,” we sing in the same Marian song. To correct this viewpoint, deeply observing shepherds of the church in all times have urged that we go “through Mary to Christ.” However, this valuable instruction of authentic Christian piety quickly served again to confirm a position that was originally to be surpassed by this instruction. Instead of emphasizing the last two words, the first two were highlighted: “through Mary to Christ”… Wolfgang Beinert, professor of Catholic theology in Regensburg and internationally recognized Mariologist, writes: “The soteriological problems of the church from the 12th century to the Reformation … resulted rather in an immediate inclination towards her personality as a great intercessor and mediator. Associated with this were forms and ways of Marian devotion, which today are increasingly perceived as problematic and which also led from the side of the Reformed churches to a turning away from Mary altogether.” The oldest Marian image shows the observer the way to a posture of faith where Jesus Christ stands at the center; he came to bring us the “Light” from God, who is “Love.” Not least, at the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) and in the subsequent pastoral letter of Pope Paul VI on “the true cultivation and development of Marian devotion,” this original view was confirmed as authentically Christian. In retrospect, Wolfgang Beinert can today write: “In summary, it can be said that the attention of Christians was directed from Christ to Mary in the first eleven centuries; between the 12th and the 20th century it led through Mary to the Savior. Now Christians are seeking a way to the common God with Mary, whom the Lord proclaimed to us as Triune Love.”
A Christian would lack the essential if he lived without Mary; this is also expressed in the oldest Marian image. Jesus, the star full of light that has risen over the world, is depicted here together with Mary. We have before us the image of Christ with Mary.
From early times, believers have been aware that Mary has a great significance in the history of God with humanity. The Son of God could come into the world because Miriam of Nazareth relied on the call that was addressed specifically to her. How it happened that God called her and she said yes remains and may remain her secret forever. The Roman Christians of the 3rd century knew, just like us, from this event only the words of the evangelist Luke (1:26–38), which are not an account but rather a meditation and a sermon about the beginning of Mary’s calling story. Johannes Bours, who was a spiritual director at the seminary for many years, writes after meditating on this text: “Is it not something unprecedented that God does not dispose of his Yes from above, but that for God it is something like a conversation with the freedom of man, a message and a question to Mary – what a sign of the dignity of man given by God! God allows his Yes to mature in the Yes of man.” Mary says yes. This yes has oriented people from the first Christian generations to our days. “Let it be to me according to Your word” – these are the words that are initially too great for following, but which become a measure and can overwhelm those who hear them time and again. Only Mary’s yes has made many thousands of yes possible. So many “I am ready” for a completely personal adventure of Christian life, so many “Here I am” for religious vocation or for priestly ordination… have matured in the hours of struggle and prayer on Mary’s words.
Marian images of Christian centuries, images of Christ with Mary, show what faith is: more than mere “worldview” and the maintenance and support of Christian customs, but rather a trusting and intimate community between God and man – like Mary's, and alongside Mary, “Mother of my friend.”
Marian devotion in the spirituality of Carmel*
Whenever the topic arises: in conversations about faith, in discussion groups of the retreat group – the theme “Marian devotion” is a constant discussion question. And not infrequently, positions quickly crystallize: devotees of the Mother of God from Fatima and Medjugorje on one side, critics in the name of “feminism” on the other, in the middle lovers of “beautiful old Marian songs,” quiet and “missionary” representatives of Marian movements and communities, along with all those – in such a circle, the ones who seek a balanced, realizable Marian devotion usually get the least chance to speak – who are still looking for a balanced, realizable Marian devotion. All await the priest, who belongs to the Marian order and will probably find explanatory words. So, while I cannot always provide the anticipated confirmation of Carmelite spiritual tradition, I can offer some guiding aids.
It is primarily, as I tell my discussion partners, two basic features that run through the history of Carmel in this respect. The first can be expressed in the formula:
With Mary as Mary before God
Very early, a legend in our order tells that Mary hastened to the Carmel mountains after the Pentecost experience and joined the Carmelites. Later – especially in Spain – she is often depicted in a brown habit and dressed in a scapular. Mary is one of us, they want to say; we live with her and she lives with us. The first hermits establish a small Marian church in the midst of their hermitages, calling Mary their “Patroness” and “Lady,” soon also their “Sister,” and themselves “Brothers of our dear Lady of Mount Carmel.” From Mary they want to learn how to open themselves to the reality of God and live in permanent connection with him. With Mary as Mary they stand before God. – The scapular that they later wanted to wear also by believers of various vocations and states becomes a sign of this life, something like an “insignia” of those who reveal their lifestyle in Marian thinking.
Elizabeth of Dijon writes in her spiritual testament: “It seems to me that the attitude of the Virgin is a model for interior people, i.e., those whom God has called to dwell in the depths of their soul, in the infinite depth of their soul. How peacefully, how composedly she took up all tasks and kept herself ready for them! How even the most mundane experiences were illuminated by God’s light.”
Teresa of Avila viewed Mary as a model of surrender and humility, John of the Cross found in her the realization of what he had before him as the goal (of earthly!) life: she is the one who is continually and permanently united with the hiddenly present God.
In a time when Marian devotion is blossoming in a special way, Teresa of Lisieux writes: “I would have liked to become a priest in order to preach about the Virgin Mary… First, I would have shown how little the life of the Holy Virgin is known. Nothing improbable should be said about her, things that we do not know precisely.” The real Mary interests her; she does not want to live with a piously idealized figure, but with Mary of Nazareth, as she is brought closer to us by the evangelists. Teresa also wants to say: Mary is one of us. The saint of Lisieux is “well aware that the Holy Virgin is the Queen of heaven and earth. However, she is more a Mother than a Queen.” Critically, she says to preachers and Marian devotees then as now: “Often they represent the Holy Virgin as inaccessible. However, we should show that she is imitable…”
With Mary as Mary before God – in heartfelt love and affection, and yet soberly, without exaggeration and piously presented inconsistencies: this is the way how the Fathers and spiritual models of Carmel want to realize Marian devotion.
The second basic feature of the spiritual tradition of Carmel, which I present in my discussion groups, I would like to formulate – surely for many ears at first somewhat “provocatively” – like this:
Through Christ to Mary
In the saints of our order, an interesting finding can be made: John of the Cross owes his life’s salvation to Mary in early childhood and he never forgets it; Teresa of Avila and Teresa of Lisieux, one at 12, the other at 10 years old, ask Mary to replace their deceased mother, and dedicate their lives to her, from Elizabeth of Dijon we know that she “entrusted herself to her again at every Marian feast and… again threw herself confidence into her arms…” And yet, in the writings of the saints of Carmel, even in their letters and personal records, Mary does not appear! In the six-volume collected works of Teresa of Avila, she is mentioned only in ten places – including two important, three unimportant; in John of the Cross in thirteen, when Mary is only mentioned eleven times; in Teresa of Lisieux, to the cited statements very few more are added; there is also little in Elizabeth and in Edith Stein, apart from short mentions, it is really hard to find. This corresponds to the fact that in the Albertine rule, the oldest spiritual document of Carmel, there is a complete absence of relationship with Mary…
According to my knowledge of the order’s saints, this can only be explained as follows: our Fathers and spiritual models live with a Christocentric and theocentric orientation, i.e., Christ and the Triune God are at the center of their piety. Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are the internal “partners for addressing” their prayers. It does not need to go “through Mary to Christ.” (This well-known formulation originally only wants to say that one must not stay with Mary, but does not say that every way to Christ must lead through Mary!) They have recognized the Incarnate as God, to whom they can entrust themselves directly, without needing mediation by the “Mother full of understanding” (what an image of Christ and God!). This is then appropriately reflected in their spiritual records. And because they want to lead others also to this Christocentric piety, there are relatively sparse and only scant mentions of Mary and Marian devotion in their letters and instructive writings.
However, through their Christocentric and theocentric lives, Carmelite saints also arrive at Mary. Whoever strives for the true, biblical Jesus Christ cannot overlook his Mother!
My confrere P. Ulrich Dobhan OCD, a good connoisseur of Teresa of Avila’s spirituality, summarizes her Marian devotion with the words: Mary is “The Mother of my friend.” Teresa’s “primus intimus,” “first and most own” partner of her deepest self remains Christ, but for that reason, Mary also remains important to her. However, she does not have to be regarded as the “inaccessible Queen of heaven”; she may remain a believer who, like us, had to ask, could be frightened, and often did not understand…; she may then, as second Vaticanum teaches us, walk the “path of the pilgrim of faith,” may be the “archetype of the Church” and the “sister of believers.”
Into my discussion group came a movement: with some a breath of relief and: “After all, I’m not doing so badly!”, with others a serious shaking of heads – and primarily questions, quite honest, previously suppressed questions, which we now dare to express…
* The second reflection is from the recently published book of the author "Ehrlich fromm sein. Geistliches Leben aus den Quellen des Karmel (Being Honorably Devout. Spiritual Life from the Sources of Carmel), BennoVerlag, Leipzig".
From the journal Karmelimpulse II/1993, pp. 16–21
translated by Dr. Vojtěch Pola.
