There’s Something About Mary

There is likely an inverse relationship between my interest in Mary, Mother of Jesus, and that of the Roman Catholic Church. As a Catholic convert, other people’s interest in Mary was always confounding to me. In my own history as Catholic congregant, chaplain, student, or teacher, I was hard pressed to find a subject I found less interesting. This was a tripping point in my life as professional Catholic, which I was for some time.

Mary, Mother of God, faithful servant. Quiet, somehow continuously in prayer. Oddly always young, also a white, blue-eyed Middle Eastern woman, wearing the colors of royalty – sapphire - over her head, looking up, hands clasped or stretched outward in gentle welcome. Painfully boring on top of being impossible. Adding to my disinterest there’s this doctrine people absolutely love that I always approached with such a theologically critical eye as to not be able to see it at all. Mary was conceived and therefore born without sin, making her ridiculously irrelevant at least in my life.

The doctrine of Mary’s sinlessness is often confused, so let me clarify.

The Catholic Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, celebrated world-wide on December 8th, states that Mary was conceived without sin.

People often confuse this doctrine as having something to do with the conception of Jesus, which it does not. This is all Mary. Or, it doesn’t have to do with Jesus insofar as the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception does not speak to Jesus as born, or have anything to say about him and his life. It speaks to the flawlessness of Mary as a vessel for his birth. She had to be perfect for him to be perfect, so the theory goes. This is her day all the way.

To take a step back, many Christians believe in what’s called Original Sin, the idea that everyone is born in some way broken or guilty, a sin which is washed away at baptism. Some Christians believe baptism has to be done shortly after birth, while others think you have to have at least hit the age of reason. The miracle is that Mary was not victim to Original Sin. She was born pure, sinless. Wholly good. Unlike the rest of us.

The Catholics in particular are serious about this doctrine. It was officially declared in 1854, although for about 400 years before that, it had been discussed and debated. To be clear, though, that’s still only about 25% of the life of the church. I note that because sometimes we get so used to something we forget there was a lot of time before when that thing didn’t exist.

There is another doctrine that says that under certain circumstances the pope is infallible. The doctrine itself is actually quite limited, but declaring the possibility that a human being is absolutely right is quite a leap. It set a whole mood. A vibe, if you will. But, in reality, the doctrine has only been used twice in its 150 years in existence. There are only two doctrines upon which any pope has said they are absolutely sure, without a doubt, that this is true. Twice when they’ve declared themselves Infallible. One is that Mary is in Heaven- the Assumption. The other is that Mary was conceived without sin, the Immaculate Conception.

On the one hand, I don’t care. Doctrines related to Mary have been damaging to women for centuries and I’d prefer to just pretend they don’t exist. They are confusing, misleading, and hold up an image of women as sexless, ageless, limited, suffering servants that most American women are either oppressed by or they dismiss them altogether.

On the other hand, as a UU, I’m very interested in the corners of Truth that the world’s religions offer, and Roman Catholics are telling us there are only two things about which they are absolutely certain, and this is one of them. That makes this worth exploring.

And this is the time. Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which always happens early in Advent as we talk often about birth and Mary’s role in bringing about the new world.

This is the season of Mary. You can tell us to put Christ back in Christmas all you want; Christmas isn’t Jesus’s holiday. It’s all about Mary. Birth is sort of about the baby, but mostly, it’s about the mother. There’s a woman at the center of this story, a story that is fundamentally about a family.

Mary was a teenager, betrothed to a man. For her time, she was not young, even though many of us balk at the idea of a high school sophomore getting engaged. She was from a good, Jewish family. Sometimes people like to say she was poor, but she wasn’t by local standards. She was likely illiterate, as most women were, but since very little was written down, it didn’t matter much.

The story is that before Mary married Joseph, an angel appeared to her to tell her she’d been chosen by God to bear his son, that he would be born in 9 months. When it was discovered she was pregnant, Joseph was going to quietly leave her, but an angel asked him not to. He stayed, they married, and the child was born that spring, as it happens.

According to ancient doctrine and contemporary lore, Mary and Joseph never had sex, she remained a virgin, and Jesus was an only child, but even a cursory reading of the story refutes that version. Scripture talks often of Jesus’s siblings, and the word we translate today to mean, “never had sex” more accurately translates to “young woman”.

As a student of theology, I’ve gone down plenty of rabbit holes to find the story beneath the story, but that no longer seems interesting to me. I mean, I like facts, but once I have them, I put them aside so I can dive into the myth. Mythology is more powerful than facts, for better or for worse. We are people of the story. We need narratives to give our lives meaning. And Mary, Joseph and Jesus are endlessly fascinating as the primary characters of some critical global, historical myths.

So the doctrine a billion people are celebrating today declares Mary to have been born without sin. No mark of Eve on her. No reason to be baptized. Born perfect. Sinless. Immaculate.

She never snapped at her mother. Never lied to her father. Never coveted her neighbor’s husband. Never pretended she wasn’t home when the local gossip came calling. She never got angry at her two year old for hitting her or bored when her 4 year old wanted, again to know why the sky was blue. Mary never had sex, never had even a lustful thought. She never walked by a beggar and pretended she didn’t see her, never told a leper on the dirt path that she didn’t have any bread to offer. Never.

Mary was conceived without sin, born without sin, lived without sin and died a magnificent death, never having had so much as an impure thought.

Or, maybe we need to rethink what Immaculate means. What does it mean to be Pure? What does it mean to be perfect? What does it meant to be Holy?

Is sex unholy? While the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity goes back to the 6th century, meaning that Mary never had sex, even after the birth of Jesus, Scripture actually talks candidly about Jesus’s 4 brothers and at least 2 sisters. Biblical literacy wasn’t a shared value in the 6th century, so doctrine filled in as the primary teacher for the world’s Christians. It was easy to contradict Scripture. Declaring Mary a Perpetual Virgin was a way of setting her apart and holding her up as better than regular women. But, were they saying something of value about Mary, or about how they felt about women?

The only time I ever got in trouble teaching theology in a Catholic college was when I asked my students what the value of this doctrine is. What do we gain from suggesting that Mary was a sexless mother? What do we lose if we say Mary was not a virgin? What we gain is the ability to find all other women through history, and around the world, inferior. What we lose is the concept that sex can be holy.

With my rational, feminist, sex-positive, 21st century brain, it’s easy to dismiss and ignore the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception as anti-woman, anti-reason, anti-historical, and maybe even the foundation for the hyper control of women’s bodies popular throughout history and again gaining ground at mind-boggling speeds. This doctrine is either entirely irrelevant, or it provides the DNA for so many of our contemporary troubles. This is why I actively ignored it for so long, and maybe why you do too.

But.

What if it’s true? What if Mary was conceived and born without sin. Whole and Holy?

And what if she’s not alone?

The Roman Church might be onto something, but maybe they’re just thinking a little too small.

Mary is an icon of human perfection, flawless and magnificent. She was a wife. A mother. She cooked and cleaned. She wiped dirty faces and butts. She washed filthy clothes in the river, gossiping with her friends. She had secrets and told secrets. She felt angry and sad and frightened. She felt love and hope and joy, too. She was human. And she was perfect. They are right. The fullness of her life, of her character, of her humanness, was gorgeous.

And so are you. And so am I. Conceived and born in beauty. You and I and everyone we’ve ever known, everyone who’s ever lived. Stunning. Impeccable. Immaculate. Mary was born to partner with god, to be the mother of god, to become the embodiment of what is possible. And so were we.

She loved her husband and had sex with him. She loved and laughed and made mistakes. She had at least 7 children who made her nuts, whose diapers she changed, whose questions she answered or didn’t answer because it’s been a long day and she still has laundry and has to make dinner and get wood for a fire even though we live in a damn desert. She was sometimes short tempered, sometimes hormonal, sometimes unimaginative, sometimes neglectful. Mary was human.

And she was complete. Born not covered in Original Sin, but enveloped in Original Blessing. Surrounded by Love. An icon of grace. Deeply human, messy, flawed, and, like us all, she was magnificent.