Mary, the serpent crusher
Immaculate Heart of Mary (detail), Pietro Annigoni - Source
If ever I converted to Roman Catholicism it would be because of Mary. It’s not that I wish to worship her, per se. I just want more female pronouns in our worship liturgies. I want to be able to imagine a woman’s face and figure in the same space that I lift up my heart in spirit and truth.
When our church’s reading group read Carolyn Custis James’s Half the Church this fall, the men in our discussion generously admitted their discomfort with owning the metaphor of the Bride of Christ for themselves. I felt their awkwardness and leaned toward them in empathy. At some point, though, I caught myself: Why should it be harder for men to code-switch to the rare female personification in Scripture than for the continual linguistic gymnastics women do with male pronouns and examples?
I don’t know, but it is.
“Advent is the best liturgical season to amplify women’s voices,” I boldly assert. I think I wanted to offer an invitation to the men in the room to settle into the joy and beauty a woman’s God-reflecting perspective offers rather than the tropes that disguise women as caricatures of femininity only.
And that is when I said if I ever converted it would be for Mary. She astounds me. In the past few Advents, I’ve gravitated to the imagery of her strength on display more prominently than her culturally-praised serenity. Last year I meditated “Let it be to me”. This year I’m meditating “He lifts up the lowly.”
More than her submission and virginity, the icons capturing my imagination highlight the prophecies about her crushing the serpent’s head under her heel.
After my awkward confession in our book discussion, I added a quick disclaimer, “It’s not like the Catholics have a better track record for honoring women in leadership than the Protestants.”
Having reassured my friends the pastor’s wife wasn’t jumping the denominational ship, we returned to Carolyn Custis James’s compelling (commanding, even) call to women of the Church:
“Every morning, as the light of dawn breaks over the planet, countless ezers — women and girls — are waking up all over the world. . . . the potential force for kingdom good and the storehouse of gifts and ability that reside in the church’s ezer population is simply staggering. God’s global vision for women unlocks that potency, unleashing an unparalleled message of hope and an endless array of kingdom possibilities that ripple out from home, family, and community to reach untouched places where human suffering and female oppression sink to unimagined lows. . . . One hundred years from now may it never be said of this generation of ezers that we folded our hands and left God’s kingdom work to others. May it never be said that we ignored the cries of the helpless and focused on ourselves. Let it instead be said that God used those cries to awaken a sleeping giantess and filled her with a terrible resolve — half the church, angered and outraged at the unchecked forces of evil in God’s world. That we made up our minds to do something, that our efforts forced the darkness to recede, and that we left the world better off than we found it. May we be remembered as a generation who caught God’s vision, faced our fears, and rose up to serve his cause.”
Awake, o sleeping giantess. Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
There’s still plenty of time to enjoy this year’s
Advent & Christmastide Daybook Meditations!
No other season in the liturgical year has formed me more than Advent and no other practice than slowly - day by day - walking through the lectionary with the aid of art, music, prayer, and simple practices. It's my profound joy to curate this Daybook collection each year and to share it with those who share the same hope to be formed in prayerful expectation.
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Advent peace,
Tamara