Void of information is enough deformation: March 2012

THE ROLE OF MARY IN OUR CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

INTRODUCTION:

Our society today is highly globalized, dominated by different social, political and economic ideologies, the most current of which is referred to as Post Modernism. The fast advances in science and technology seem to create a false impression that there are no limits to human achievement. The concerted effort reflected in the invention of a global language which gradually came into place beginning with the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the UN conferences of 1990s, reflects this false conviction. The secularist nature of the resultant globalized ethic, as reflected in its language of a deconstructed conscience, represents clearly the false conviction of the contemporary society that man, without limits to what he can do, can go his ways without God, and religious faith – particularly as expressed in organised religion. With relativism dominantly reflected in a consensual ethic of the current Cultural Revolution sadly taking over, humanity is caught at the crossroad in the clash of values, of civilization without a moral norm to objectively evaluate values and rights in other to inform the decisions that safeguard the future of humanity and of the world[1].

In this world of materialism with its accompanied vices, mother Mary becomes more and more relevant to a human society in need of authentic faith in God!

As religious and Legionaries, this reflection offers us the opportunity to realise the relevance of Mary for our lives as Disciples of Christ and to witness to the society the virtues she holds for the security and redemption of our society. She is the perfect model for our journey as Disciples of Christ.

1. Describing Mary

Mary, born of Ann and Joachim, as tradition has always indicated, received a good upbringing from her parents who strictly followed the Jewish law regarding such domestic affairs, as recommended by the Lord. She grew up as a normal child, obedient to her parents. She was a human being, one like us, and like us, she remains a human being assumed into heaven. For the proceedings of this discourse, the resounding warning of St Theresa of the Child Jesus must remain ever fresh in our mind: “we do not know much about Mary”. She then warns: “there is no need saying anything that is impossible or that we have no knowledge of about her. For example, we should be humble not to assume that “when the Blessed Virgin was a very little girl, she went to the temple and offered herself to God with utterly extraordinary sentiments of ardent love. In point of fact, she may have gone simply in obedience to her parents.” She advises that the best sermon on Mary must bring out the real life of Mary, her simple life and not her supposed life. She must not be presented as unapproachable but as imitable in her virtues, in her life lived by faith as indicated by the gospels: “they did not understand what he was saying to them,” (Lk) “His parents were filled with wonder at what they were saying about him,” (Lk).

Her comment is very much in place. And what we are doing here is very much in place. Mary, the faithful woman with a listening heart, a valiant woman with a soul of steel has been a subject of veneration and loving devotion as well as controversy over the years. Lumen Gentium recommends and reaffirms our need to ponder the significance of Mary. The Council Fathers recommended that, “the faithful raise their eyes to Mary who shines forth to the whole community of the elect as the model of virtues.” Encouraging a generous devotion, which is at the same time Christ-cantered and free from exaggeration, the Council Fathers were clear to indicate that “true devotion to Mary proceeds from true faith by which we are led to know the excellence of the mother of God and are moved with filial love towards her.” More recently, in the document Marialis Cultus, 1974, Pope Paul VI called for proper devotion to Mary, so that it does not overshadow “the one triune God.”[2] Despit this passionate appeal, we need to mention that it is generally difficult to keep a balance between scriptural doctrinal notions concerning Mary and the doctrinal affective expressions of piety.

She has been understood in different light down through the ages: in the early years, she was presented as the second Eve. In Constantanian period, she was a model of asceticism – the perfect Egyptian Nun. In the middle ages, she was hailed as our Lady - the symbol of chaste love. Renaissance placed emphasis on her tender love as the spiritual mother of all men. And in our own time she is exalted as mediatrix of all graces, co-redemptrix, mother of the church… [3] These emphasis indicate to us how she had been deemed relevant down the ages and as worthy of devotion. But particularly for us it is her Joy in the Lord the strikes us as relevant for the world today.

Spiritual joy is a dynamic quality in the depths of Mary’s being. Mary as a woman of joy is acclaimed today as a model for rich healthy and creative interiority.[4] As a woman blessed, she sacramentalizes the blessings of God through Christ, becoming a source of blessing for humanity and for the world.[5] Her relevance to us as worthy of devotion lies in her quality of discipleship, which disposes us to closeness to God, affording us the opportunity to be taken over completely for the service of God.[6] We need no syllogistic argument to reach the conclusion that humanity today more than ever is greatly in need of these relevant virtues. Devotion the Mary highlights her relevance in today’s world.

Not too long ago, we witnessed a gradual decline in Marian devotion. In the opinion of Karl Rahner, “this is due to the temptation among Christians to turn central truth of the faith into abstractions. And abstractions have no need of mothers.” This picture, however, in changing and Marian motifs are once again reverberating in the world of scholarship and spirituality.

2. Mary through the Ages

It gives me great joy to know that every generation must make honest effort to rediscover Mary and her relevance to the current society. Mariology as a study of Mary carefully exposes the relevance of Mary to various generations of our Christian society, and of the secular society as well.

2.1.The Evidences of the New Testament

Mary mother of Jesus – preeminent member of the community faith

Throughout the ages, Mary has been deemed relevant particularly in the shadow of the relevance of Jesus to the society. The early christen communities of the New Testament did not spare efforts in discovering the relevance of Mary for their world. In Galatian 4:4, Paul, who seems to have very little concern and teaching on Mary clearly affirms that Mary is the mother of Jesus: “God sent his son born of a woman…” it becomes clear that for the New Testament Pauline community, the seed for zealous devotion to Mary was very much alive.

Marks gospel hints at a very negative estimation of Mary though he openly asserts that Mary is the biological mother of Jesus. In the opinion of Raymond E. Brown, Mark however begins a tradition that distanced Mary form the community of Disciples. He seems to place Mary in his narrative, among those who think low of Jesus and never come to faith in him. To use Raymond’s words, Mark places Mary outside the eschatological family. Simply put, she does not belong to the membership of the disciples (Mk 3:20-35), and Jesus aligns himself more intimately with those who accept his teachings and are disciples.

In the infancy narratives, Matthew makes a bold statement on the virginal conception of Jesus. Mary conceives under the influence of the Holy Spirit. She remains obedient to Joseph and acts to protect the child Jesus.

In Luke’s gospel, we find glaring comments to make on the relevance of Mary in the early ages of Christianity. Luke presents the story of the birth of Jesus from the perspective of the Woman, Mary. He tells us that she is the object of God’s special favour, the obedient handmaid of the Lord, the blessed mother of the Lord. Particularly in the magnificat, she presents herself as the spokesperson of the poor, acknowledging the great things the almighty has done for her; she is the faithful bearer of the word, obedient to the God who alters it. In the Acts of the Apostles, we find Mary at prayer in the upper room. For Luke, Mary was from the first moment, a member of the “eschatological family”, a faithful disciple of Christ.

However, John’s gospel most articulately expressed the relevance of Mary in the New Testament community. Although John begins with a picture of Mary who did not understand that the work the Father has given Jesus takes precedence over and above the claims of his natural family (Jn. 2:4), Mary’s misunderstanding does not rank her among unbelievers as in the case of Jesus’ brothers in Jn. 7:5.

Particularly in the narrative of the crucifixion, Jesus gives Mary to the Disciple, the disciple to Mary: mother to son, son to mother, (Jn. 19:25-27). She is associated with the believing community as the mother of the disciples, a preeminent member of the eschatological family.

In the New Testament, therefore, we find Mary relevant as the virginal mother of the Lord and the mother of the community of Faith. Blessed among women, greatly favored, Mary is the spokesperson of the poor and a beloved disciple of Christ. Perhaps we can say that the most important statement the New Testament leaves us with regarding the relevance of Mary for our world today is that she was a faithful beloved disciple of Christ.

2.2.The Second century

Mary Model of virginity – crown of all virtues

Towards the end of the second Century, Mary became relevant, not only to the community of faith, but also to the human community. In the opinion of St. Ireneaus, she is the new Eve, the mother of the new humanity in Christ. This teaching further made Mary relevant as a person worthy of devotion and honor. Therefore, in the third Century, she became relevant as the Model of consecrated virginity and the model for all virtues as her perpetual virginity was commonly taught and accepted.

2.3.The 5^th Century

Mary Mother of God

When in the 5^th century, the Council of Ephesus sat to deal carefully with the heresy of Nestorius; it affirmed Mary as the Mother of God against the heretic view of Mary as the Mother of Christ. This remains the most fundamental statement made about the relevance of Mary in history. This was a public and authoritative firm teaching of the Christian community on Mary. Though the direct concern of the Council of Ephesus was to clarify and define the nature of Jesus, indirectly, with the position of Ephesus, Marian devotion was to catch fire and spread widely in the church: Before Ephesus, we had one feast of Mary; after, we had: the assumption, the annunciation, the purification of Mary, the nativity, the immaculate conception.

Faith in Mary’s power of intercession with God received a strong push from the growing belief in her assumption. It was believed that she had a maternal influence over God, that she could turn away God’s anger and vengeance. She is our mediatrix with God.

2.4.The middle Ages

Mary: mother of Mercy

The middle ages picked up and popularized the idea that Mary appeases the wrath of God as a theme of Marian Piety and devotion. The belief was that Christ is a stern judge, whose heart can only be softened by Mary, his mother. To the people of this society, Mary became relevant as Star of the sea, mother of mercy, refuge of sinners, redemptrix of captives, mediatrix between man and God…

What we notice here immediately is that theology become divorced from scripture and philosophy took over as a rational deductive argument was introduced into the dialogue: dominantly controlled by the “argument from convenience. “God or Christ can do anything; it was fitting that God will do something; therefore, he did it.” For example, it was argued that Christ can do anything. It was (convenient) fitting that he should assume Mary body and soul to heaven, therefore he assumed Mary to heaven. With this argument invoked and applied: Mariology could only catch fire and develop.

Despite these widely accepted principle and teaching at that time, we notice dissenting Voices: Thomas Aquinas and St Bonaventure for example rejected the doctrine of Immaculate Conception. These voices notwithstanding, Marian devotional forms began to proliferate: the little Office of our Lady; the hail Mary became a basic prayer to be learned by all along with the father and the creed; Saturday was given to devotion to Mary; as Marian antiphons multiplied: Alma redemptorist Mater, Salve Regina, Ave Regina Caerorum, Regina Caeli… By the 12^th century, the rosary was in full use. Mary was believed to have influence over the entire world: heaven, earth, and purgatory and even in hell.

2.5.The Nineteenth Century

Mary: immaculate – persevered immune from Sin

In the nineteenth century, Pope Pius IX courageously decreed the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, giving more steam to Marian Devotion and highlighting her relevance to our world as a model of holiness. The dogma, which holds that, Mary, the mother of Jesus, was free from Original sin from the very moment of her conception, is not to be confused with her virginal conception of Jesus. The first time the insight into the mystery was mention about Mary was in 1439, at the council of Basle. The motion for the decree, which came to effect in 1854, was taken 603 votes against 56.

The Dogma states that “the blessed virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by the singular grace and privilege of almighty God and in view of her merits of Christ Jesus the savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin. (That this) is revealed by God and therefore, firmly and constantly to be believed by all the faithful.” This sums up and expresses the holiness of Mary as an exception to a universal law of sinfulness. The following are the main points of the dogma:

• Mary is completely dependent on Christ.

• Her grace and holiness are God’s gift in Christ.

• The saving powers of Christ acts retroactively in her case:

• The power of his work is anticipated in her grace - to God all human history is now.

• The privilege of Mary was unique; it singled her out from the rest of human race.

Put simply, the dogma makes an authoritative statement on the essential nature of Mary as a holy woman. Scripture testifies eloquently to her holiness.

In Chapter one, Luke refers to Mary as a special recipient of God’s favor, the perfect hearer of God’s word, one who pondered the word of God, kept God’s word and did it. Her fiat – a perfect surrender to the will of God, is a great mark of holiness. The dogma therefore is an affirmation of an ancient reflection of the early Christians community on her unique holiness and divine grace. Images such as “Ark of the Covenant”, God’s Dwelling place made of incorruptible wood; titles like “the all holy one – a name which became almost a personal name for her in Eastern Christianity – God-child… all served to strongly reinforce belief in her unique and perfect holiness.

To the few resenting voices raised in the early church against Mary’s perfect holiness, St Augustine warning was resounding: “Out of respect for the Lord, I do not intend to raise a single question on the subject of sin. After all, how do we know what an abundance of grace was granted her who had the merit to conceive and bring forth him who was unquestionably without sin?[7] The doctrine reflects a serious sensitivity to this warning. Defending the doctrine John Duns Scotus demonstrated that Mary’s Immaculate Conception in no way denies the universal redemption Jesus brought. Mary was equally dependent on Christ, whether Christ’s grace preserved her, or saved her, from sin. Since it is more perfect to preserve than to save, the doctrine is in place with regards to Mary.

To perceive its true role in reflecting the relevance of Mary’s Holiness, one need a strong grip on the meaning of holiness, and as it applies to Mary. First: Holiness is understood as a human growth – it is not about life set apart! Mary was not protected from daily life reality – her holiness is “involved Holiness,” (See the Visitation). Inserted in a sinful world of suffering, Mary, at each moment of her human growth corresponded to God in a free loving dialogue, using her grace to perfectly and faithfully respond to God. Immaculate Conception is best understood dynamically as a growing in grace. The grace of perfect openness to God; the grace of perfect human response to God. Of its nature, this grace turns towards the absolutely total taking over of the person by God’s Spirit. By this grace she opened herself more and more to God’s love and so grew towards his coming. What the Patristic Fathers said about her says it all: “she conceived Christ in her heart before conceiving him in her womb.”[8]

Rowan Williams’ comment on the holiness of Mary endears us with further insights into the mystery. He states that, “a human being is holy not because he or she triumphs by will power over chaos and guilt and leads a flawless life, but because that life shows the victory of God’s faithfulness in the midst of disorder and imperfection… “Humanly speaking, holiness is always like this,” he said, “God’s endurance in the midst of our refusal of him, his capacity to meet every refusal with the gift of himself.” [9]

In summary, the dogma if Immaculate Conception presents Mary as relevant to our world as:

• The ‘triumph of God – through her God reaches and communicate redemption to us.

• Triumph of Man – she broke the firm grip of sin on man and shares in the life of the Trinity as mother of the son, Daughter of the father, spouse of the Holy Spirit

She is as William Wordsworth has said: “our tainted nature’s solitary boast.”

3. The World Today

The deconstruction of conscience

Marguerite A. Peeters in her Book, The Globalization of Western Cultural Revolution[10], raised a fair cry directing her zealous attention to African nations. Her voice reached me in a conference in Abuja, organized by the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria. She was of the opinion that: the cultural revolution of the west, has reached a destructive state in Western Europe and the United States. And having taken religion as an ally rather than an enemy, it has turned its venomous focus on Africa, and the developing world in the hope of destroying the only hope for the recovery of the long preserved values of humanity.

Hers is, as far as I can recall, the most articulate description of our world today. It is a world confronted with severe Cultural Revolution and a subtle effort to disseminate, throughout the world, its new ethic, which is secular in its radical dimension. Essentially, this ethic is the outcome of the twentieth century’s feminist sexual and Cultural Revolution and of the long course taken by the west towards postmodernity. The globalization of this Cultural Revolution has fast undertaken, to a great success, the deconstruction of the Judeo-Christian anthropology and has unleashed a socio-political dysfunction which has become the mark of today’s world governance.

Peeters indicates that it all began with the feminist and sexual revolution of the 19^th century. The founding members of this revolution built on the philosophy Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)[11] This has engineered a cultural framework, which not only accepts, permits, and tolerates, but also celebrates ‘sexual experimentation’ of young people, the succession and multiplication of partners, the diversity of sexual orientations, and the cohabitation outside marriage. It almost deliberately encourages promiscuity and promotes an ethic of free choice, which bypasses the human and moral education of teenagers. The internet and the rapid advances of technology put pornography within reach of an increasing young and large audience. Young people, at home, with an unchecked potential for experimentation... are increasingly coming from broken families, and with an increasing number among them of those no longer having the courage to commit themselves.

Most states in the west have decriminalized abortion or legalized it and promulgated laws allowing artificial fertilization. Some allow genetic manipulation for whatever ends justifiable. Many have granted homosexual couples a juridical status comparable with marriage. Homosexual proselytizing in schools, euthanasia of fetuses and the seriously sick, and legalization of sexual relations at lower and lower ages, homosexual parenting…are becoming citizen’s rights. Aberrations no longer seem to shock mentalities, even when they accentuate an increasing malaise in civilization. The new culture claims the rights to carry out all that is technically possible. Western culture is today governed by an ethic known as consensual, but which is radically ambivalent and devoid of stable content. Peeters unmasks its consensual ethic as the “deconstruction of conscience” in an environment where the majority can no longer distinguished between good and evil, and could be easily manipulated.

Having attacked the very structure of the human person, the revolution has provoked an anthropological cataclysm. The new culture occasions a shift: from family to couples and individuals; from spouses to partners; from marriage to free love; from happiness to wellbeing and quality of life; from parental authority to children’s rights; from self-giving to ownership of one’s body and control over ones destiny; from conscience to free choice; from communion to fusion of nameless and faceless individuals; from complementarity of man and woman to a contract between the sexes; from parents to producers; from procreation to reproduction; from all forms of legitimate authority to individual empowerment and experimentation.

Sadly, the culture of ownership, power and pleasure that the revolutions sought to create has not brought about the expected liberation. Rather, it has left behind fragmentation in the family, loneliness and abandonment of the elderly in society, emotional troubles and suffering of children living in single parents, increased in cases of depression… sadly, deconstruction has already become endemic.

4. Conclusion

The Relevance of Mary in the World Today

The situation of the world today, particularly as eloquently articulated by Peeters, sharpens our questions and clarify our search for answers. Perhaps we may be tempted to reflect familiar answers and point to Mary as the model of family and parental life; the model of sexual purity, a woman of conviction formed by the word of God; a model of dedication and commitment towards an authentic reconstruction of human anthropology that gets the priority of values right. But, Peeters warns that the current situation has taken religion as an ally, not as an enemy. It is bent on using unstable terms most of which are multivalent and ambivalent. The current strategy seeks to slowly overtake us from within using the very tools of our defense against us. She says: “A new and global secularist ethic seeks to eliminate reality, truth, the good and love from culture and to impose itself on all by stealth, taking advantage of the weak or moribund state of our democratic institutions.”[12]

In this serious and urgent battle, what humanity needs now as more than ever is the capacity for discernment, which can only be obtained by what Peeters refers to as a “dint of effort.” Discernment she, affirms, “does not mean uprooting the tares growing alongside the good wheat, but learning to recognize them and to harvest the good wheat.”[13] It is the attitude of the disciple who, obedient to the Lord, is “wise as the serpent,” and who knows he or she lives in this world as “sheep among wolves.” The Christian is called to be the salt of the earth, the light of the nations. Discernment is the primary tool of the disciple of Christ in the currents of the Cultural Revolution that is fast spreading across the global village. And Mary’s discipleship is the model of those who place themselves at the feet of the Lord, hearing his word in a spirit committed to doing it.

The world today is bent on providing joy and achieving the blessing of creation for the fullness of life. Here the Cultural Revolution has assured man of the potential to attain quality life and comfort far beyond the reach any era in the past has afforded humanity. One major difference is that the current comfort and blessing is built on a philosophical orientation that undermines the will of God and his design for humanity and creation. The quality of Mary’s discipleship and her blessing from the Lord brightens the way for a human society back to the father. In understanding the concepts of joy and blessing, we appreciate more the quality of her joyful discipleship and perceive her relevance for us today.

4.1.Mary and the World Today

Disciple Mary: Model of True Joy and Blessing

The word joy attracts several English synonyms such as beatitude, contentment, delight, felicity, wellbeing and elation. The bible also has keywords to express the special character of the human experience of joy and happiness: (1) Agalliaomai – to feel exuberant joy, exultation. This includes an outward demonstration of joy; a basic human emotion, which takes possession of the whole man; a cultic, festive joy; (2) Chairo – to rejoice. This expresses a joy that is related in the measure one participates in it (see Lk 1:14, 28, 40; 13:17; 15:7). It connotes physical comfort and wellbeing as the basis of joy. It stresses an interior and deeply personal happiness of the person. It embraces both the subjective feeling and the definitive cause of joy; (3) Makarior – Blessed, happy, fortunate. This refers to the external conditions that ground interior happiness (Lk. 1:42, 45, 6:20, 11:27; 14:14, 15). The word generally evokes positive feelings, which should result in some positive effects in the life of a person.[14]

John Navone identifies a joyful person as one with a willingness to accept a mission; one who has a sense of belonging to God. Their joy would be in the Holy Spirit (Lk 10:21, Gal 5:22). Such a person’s joy would be in enduring, the result of hearing and doing the will of God. Christian joy is sharing the spirit that was in Christ, and is manifested in a certain detachment from possession.[15] This obviously was the joy of Mary; the joy we must always seek and afford others.

For the evangelists (Luke and John), the mother of Jesus is the typical perfect believer. Her joy assumes a shape and texture, as she is seen making discipleship a lived reality. As a model, her discipleship is rich and powerful enough to provide a vintage from which to view other great truths about her. As a disciple, the mystery of Mary remains part of the mystery of Christ. Her joy is born of her knowledge and acceptance of God’s active presence in her life.

The episode in Lk 8:19-21 is repeated in the synoptic gospels. The crux of this episode is discipleship, the lesson Jesus teaches is that “true discipleship consist primarily in hearing the word of God and keeping it.” Discipleship is not a static term. There is need for divine initiative and human response. Discipleship is a daily commitment: In the episode, Jesus indicates that Mary who is his mother by blood relationship is also a true disciple. She continues to hear and to do the will of God. And this is praised above the privilege to be the mother of the lord, Lk 11:27-28). This how Mary was relevant to Jesus, this is how she remains relevant to us – as a model of true and faithful discipleship.

In the above text, the word Makaria (Blessed) enriches our understanding and enhances our appreciation of the joy present in Mary’s discipleship. In English, the word suggests happiness, contentment, being the object of God’s gift. In the Old Testament, there are two correlative use of the term blessing: first, it describes God’s affective and effective goodness; secondly, the spontaneous response when we recognize God’s goodness – as when we cry out – blessed be God.

The word does not really confer a blessing but recognizes an existing state of happiness, her beatitude, her happiness. Her joy is based on the fact that she has heard, believed and obeyed, kept and pondered the word and continues to do it. “Her joy is not a surface, shallow, transient joy, (the kind the postmodern ethic offers), but a permanent disposition flowing from her rootedness in Christ”.[16] Mary is important for her motherhood but far more important and much more prefers for her quality of discipleship, and her joy is anchored in her being a true disciple. Luke actually accentuates Mary’s quality of discipleship by presenting her as actually hearing the word of God and doing it. In the annunciation Mary hears the word of God and responds in a positive way, unlike Matthew’s gospel’s account of the infancy narrative, where she remained more an instrument of God’s action, her reaction to Gabriel display the unique distinctive mark of the disciple – ‘ I am the handmaid of the Lord…be it done to me! In her beautiful inner ear, the ear of the heart, she hears God’s word; this is the cause of her joy.

The term blessing neatly weaves together the descriptive term of Economy of Salvation. It highlights the fact that God is a God who acts in history, our response to is to acknowledge his deeds. It is here that we discover the meaning of Mary, her role, function and implication for the life of the Church today. Imitating her gives us an edge over the currents in the world today.

“When God blesses, he gives; these gifts belong to the order of creation and to the order of redemption, not just for our wellbeing and egoistic happiness. He blesses creatures not only when he creates them, but in giving them a share in his power to hand on life (Gen. 1:28). God alone is the source of all life. Yet in giving creation not only life, but the power to transmit life, he blesses living things in a special way. His gift is efficacious. Blessing is not merely a wish, but an efficacious will to give a gift, which brings into being a new reality.[17]

In Luke’s gospel, the arrival of Jesus ignites an outburst of blessing in the world – a chord of that blessing is Mary’s blessedness and her magnificat. In the annunciation, Mary is declared a special object of favour. In her, more than in any human person, God’s messianic fulfilment is accomplished. Just as at creation God blessed creatures with his power to give life, so now he blesses Mary, giving her a share in the event, which reunites the world to himself. Here, we can understand and appreciate the meaning of devotion to Mary: “devotion to Mary is simply the acknowledgement of the degree to which she has been blessed. Or putting it in other terms, the degree to which she had been drawn into the drama of salvation, even though this drama, from a purely human view point, seems a tragic one.”[18] To be blessed means to be sacramentalized. To the extent that a person is blessed, to that extent is the person sacramentalized. Her whole being begins to grow with God’s gift in turn this gift reach into the lives of others.” Devotion to Mary is an interior acceptance that commits one to authentic Christian discipleship. It is to accept to be taken over by God, to delights in his will. This is a real Hope for de-hijacking our world as created by God from the new culture.

Peeters, is positively hopeful that if this were to happen it will usher in the civilization of love. For the Holy Spirit is at work in the postmodern culture. Its main paradigms: consensus, choice, people-centeredness, participation, broad bottom –up involvement, equality, empowerment, enablement, inclusion, diversity, flexibility, dynamism, complexity, holism,… are clearly closer to love and the heart than the paradigms of the age of reason. For under modernism, rationality subverted love enthroning reason and science. But Christian are called to serve humanity, giving charity the primacy it deserves and reintroducing in the new culture a common search for what is true, real and good.[19]

This the hope, Mary makes real by the quality of her discipleship. As a faithful disciple of the Lord Mary was the bearer of the good news, bringing the gift of Jesus to others with joy (the visitation). She was the ponderer of the word of God, treasuring it in her heart in the core of her being (Lk 2:19). Open at all times to the call of the Spirit, Mary possesses a discerning heart. She was a woman of prayer, of silence, and of stillness. Treasuring God’s words, she could turn them over, and over perceiving intuitively, the best mode of action directed always to the perfect accomplishment of God’s will. And because she always humbly desired to fulfil that will at any cost, hers was a free, courageous heart ready to run to the hill country, to see the needs of others, to carry them out lightly because of the spirit with in her; or bravely to mount cavalry’s heights to share in Christ’s redemptive mission for the salvation of all. As a witness of the word, always in all things Mary is a sign which points to her son and through her intercession, he is present to us, to the church. We must in turn be a sign of the kingdom in our world today. Her mission is the apostolate of the cross – the apostolate of non-comprehension; for she never fully understood, what God would ask of her. Yet she remained open, ready: faithfully, she pondered, she waited, she trusted.[20]

References

1. Richard McBrien, Catholicism, Geoffrey Chapman Publishers London. 1981 (See Mariology)

2. Marguerite A Peeters, The globalization of Western Cultural revolution: key concepts, Operative Mechanisms, Institute for Intercultural Dialogue Dynamics 2007

3. Rowan Williams, Open to Judgment: Sermons and Addresses Darton Longman and Todd Ltd, London, 1994,

4. Sr. Miriam Louise, IHM, “Mary: Receiver and Witness of the Word”, in Review for Religious, Vol. 31 Number 5 September 1972

5. Barbara Albrecht, “Mary Type and Model of the Church”, in Review for Religious, Vol. 36 Number 4 July 1977,

6. Sr. Mary Columba Offerman, P.B.V.M, Mary, Cause of our Joy: a Bibliography on Mariology”, in Review for religious Vol. 35, Number 5, September 1996.

7. John R. Sheats, SJ., :Blessed Among Women: a Biblical Theology of Mary” in Review for religious Vol. 35, Number 5, September 1996,

[1] Marguerite A. Peeters, The Globalization of the Western Cultural Revolution: Key Concepts, Operational Mechanisms, a publication of Institute for intercultural dialogue Dynamics, 2007.

[2] Richard P. McBrien, et. al, The Harper Collins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, (San Francisco: Harper, 1995), pp. 832-838.

[3] P.J. Bearsley “Mary the perfect example: a paradigm for Mariology, Theological studies, 41, 1989 pp469.

[4] John Sheila Galligan, IHM, “Mary a Mosaic of Joy” in Review for Religious, vol 43 No. 1 Jan/ Feb 1984

[5] John R Sheats, Mary Blessed Among Women: A Biblical Theology of Mary, in Review for Religious

[6] John Sheila Galligan, IHM, “Mary a Mosaic of Joy” in Review for Religious, vol 43 No. 1 Jan/ Feb 1984

[7] De Natura et gratia. C 36

[8] Rowan Williams, Open to Judgment, Darton Longman and Todd 1994, pp

[9] See Open to Judgment, Darton Longman and Todd 1994, pp136

[10] Marguerite A. Peeters, The Globalization of Western cultural Revolution: Key Concepts, Operation Mechanisms, Institute for cultural Dialogue Dynamics, 2007, see chapter one

[11] Spinoza is a psychological and ethical egoist. “All beings naturally seek their own advantage—to preserve their own being—and it is right for them to do so.” This is what virtue consists in. Since we are thinking beings, endowed with intelligence and reason, what is to our greatest advantage is knowledge. Our virtue, therefore, consists in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding, of adequate ideas. The best kind of knowledge is a purely intellectual intuition of the essences of things. This “third kind of knowledge”—beyond both random experience and ratiocination—sees things not in their temporal dimension, not in their duration and in relation to other particular things, but under the aspect of eternity, that is, abstracted from all considerations of time and place and situated in their relationship to God and his attributes. They are apprehended, that is, in their conceptual and causal relationship to the universal essences (thought and extension) and the eternal laws of nature. “We conceive things as actual in two ways: either insofar as we conceive them to exist in relation to a certain time and place, or insofar as we conceive them to be contained in God and to follow from the necessity of the divine nature. But the things we conceive in this second way as true, or real, we conceive under a species of eternity, and to that extent they involve the eternal and infinite essence of God.” (Vp29s)htt://plato.stanfordencyclopedia of philosophy, Dec 1 2008

[12] Peeters, Zenith.org Rome June 2008

[13] Ibid Pp 2

[14] John Sheila Galligan, IHM, “Mary a Mosaic of Joy” in Review for Religious, vol 43 No. 1 Jan/ Feb 1984

[15] John Sheila Galligan, IHM, “Mary a Mosaic of Joy” in Review for Religious, vol 43 No. 1 Jan/ Feb 1984 pp 85

[16] Ibid. p 86.

[17] Ibid. P. 723

[18] Ibid, P727

[19] Peeters, Zenith .org Rome, June 2008

[20] Sr. Miriam Louise, I.H.M, “Mary: Receiver and Witness of the Word”, in Review for religious, Vol 31, No. 15, September 1972. Pp765-768

*Copright* This article was written by Awange Richard CSSp

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