The Importance of Mary
If you subscribe to Netflix, you will be able to watch the newly-produced film Mary (directed by D.J. Caruso) that was released on Friday.
Lucy Lethbridge, writing in The Tablet, says, of this film: ‘Noa Cohen (who plays Mary) has a sweet resilience about her, but this thoroughly modern Mary, with her Instagrammable eyebrows, is as much a woman of our own era as the models for Raphael’s Madonnas were of theirs.’
Over the years, films have been made that try to retell the story of the birth of Jesus. There was The Nativity Story in 2005, and BBC’s 4-part drama The Nativity, written by Tony Jordan, in 2010. In their own way, they help us to imagine the story related in St Luke’s Gospel, but none of these films will give us a theological understanding of the importance of Mary in our life and the life of the church. The two feasts we celebrate this week help us to see the importance of Mary.
On Monday 9th, we keep the feast of The Immaculate Conception (transferred from the Sunday). The Immaculate Conception is a Catholic dogma that states that Mary, whose conception was brought about the normal way, was conceived without original sin or its stain. That’s what “immaculate” means: without stain. Hence Mary was able to give birth to Jesus.
Thursday 12th is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, near Mexico City, is one of the most celebrated places of pilgrimage in North America. On December 9 1531, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to an Indian convert, Juan Diego, and left with him a picture of herself impressed upon his cloak.
These events are strategically placed by Divine Providence at the heart of Advent —not to distract us from the coming of Christ, but to prepare us the better for it. They direct our attention to a beautiful and central truth about Mary (which Venerable Fulton Sheen frequently used to point out): that Mary is always the Advent of Christ.
In reflecting on Mary this week we see that she is showing us her selflessness, her humility. At Lourdes, when appearing to Bernadette, Mary said: I am the immaculate conception. She is saying more than she is without sin; she was declaring she is full of grace, that she is one with her Spouse in grace. Mary’s fiat (‘so be it’) opened herself completely to God, thus she was able to sing, My soul magnifies the Lord. Like Mary, we are called to trust God completely, and thus be transformed and experience an intimacy with God which will enable us to carry Jesus and show Jesus to the world.
