The Collect for the Feast of Saint Mary the Virgin
O God, you have taken to yourself the blessed Virgin Mary, mother of your incarnate Son: Grant that we, who have been redeemed by his blood, may share with her the glory of your eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. BCP p.243
Hello St. Paul’s,
The Episcopal Church celebrates Mary, mother of our Lord, as a major feast day on August 15. Other than the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke, Scripture doesn’t tell us very much about Mary, other than the story of the wedding at Cana in John’s Gospel, and some references to Jesus’ mother and siblings being in the neighborhood during his itinerant ministry. We see Mary grieving at the foot of the cross during the Crucifixion, and in John’s Gospel, Jesus commends her to the care of the beloved disciple.
The Roman Catholic church has built a major cult around Mary, naming her the Queen of Heaven and developing special devotions centered on her and often asking for her intercession on behalf of sinners. There are eight official feasts of Mary in the Roman Catholic calendar, including her birth, her assumption into heaven, and various seasonal celebrations.
In the Episcopal Church Mary is one of our most beloved saints, but while we revere the saints, we do not pray to them. She has always been a major figure in the western Church: in the Church of England, it seems that about every other parish church is dedicated to St. Mary. That is less common in the Episcopal church, reflecting our denomination’s Protestant roots.
As a Northern Irish “low church” Anglican I had not focused closely on St Mary until, early in my priesthood, I heard a talk by the Rt Rev. Mark Dyer at Virginia Seminary. He described St Mary as the first Christian priest, because she was the first person to carry the body and blood of Christ on behalf of the world. That description made a deep impression on me and I have held it close ever since, as a powerful argument for ordaining women.
In our tradition we celebrate St. Mary every time we offer the service of Evening Prayer or Evensong, as we say or sing her hymn, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). On August 17 we will celebrate the feast of St Mary at the 5 pm Choral Evensong service. As they do every week, our choir will offer a beautiful musical setting of the Magnificat, along with the Nunc Dimittis. There will be special music honoring Mary and a simple reception following the service. I hope to see you there.
Your sister in Christ,
Penny
Judging from the last paragraph especially, it seems the Episcopal Church does, in its grain- of-salt, moderating way, incorporate Mary into its worship of God. And that’s a good thing. Anybody who believes in the “Son of God” concept of Jesus would do well by women and by the world to acknowledge her indispensably feminine participation in the Incarnation as the original human host of Christ in the world, not just after his resurrection but in his very gestation. If we can take Christ seriously as a metaphorical “Son of God,” we can take Mary seriously as the feminine creative consort chosen by the Holy One to show humanity its divine birthright and its ultimate, incarnate source of creative and redemptive love.
Of course, praying to Jesus is itself a form of idolatry that the historical Jesus, a Jew, never would have promoted. But that didn’t stop the Church from developing “a major cult around” Jesus, which is exactly what the Jesus movement was as it spread and eventually adopted the foundationless metaphysics of Trinitarianism. Mythologizing is inevitable in religion. But rather than always trying to strip away myth with assurances to the critical mind that it really isn’t to be taken literally, why not let it play in the imagination so it can embody truth that more pared down, prosaic forms of religion can only talk about?