n e w c h u r c h l i f e : m ay / j u n e 2 0 1 4
Yet the answer is very simple. The Lord’s true Father, as we know, was
God Himself, the Divine Love that formed the Lord’s soul, gave Him life and
motivation. But in order to live in this world, the Lord took on from Mary all
the elements of humanity that made it possible for Him to live in this world.
Chief among these were the inclinations toward evils that plague each one of
us. To acknowledge Mary as His mother would have meant that He accepted
these things as a part of Himself.
And yet the Lord never accepts evil. Evil is a barrier between Himself and
people. Think of the nature of evil: it is selfish, cruel and unkind. It is the cause
of hurt and pain. The Lord came to bring love, peace and kindness. He came to
bind up hurts and heal pain. Evil is the enemy of the Lord.
Now the Lord did not reject Mary as a person in her own right, but rather
the heredity that He received through her. And herein lies the complexity of
motherhood. On the one hand there is always a bond between mother and
child; on the other that bond has to be loosened so that the child can mature
into an adult. Motherhood is holding close and letting go at the same time.
In the Word we see this paradox in the relationship of the Lord and Mary.
At the wedding at Cana, which Jesus attended with His mother, she says, “They
have no wine.” The Lord’s answer seems problematic: “Woman, what have I to
do with you? My hour is not yet come.” (John 2:3,4) It seems like He is rejecting
her. But of course the Lord never rejected anyone in his or her own right.
It is interesting to speculate that if the Lord had called her “Mother” at
that point, and so it would seem, if He had embraced the heredity she had
passed to Him, then He would not have been able to turn water into wine. The
Lord could only perform miracles when in a state of union with the Divine
within Himself, and that could only happen as He let go of the human He had
received from Mary.
This highlights the paradox of motherhood: to cling tight and let go at the
same time. Yet in the literal sense of the Word the Lord does not reject Mary.
As He hung on the cross, Mary was one of the women standing at His feet. Was
it filial duty that led the Lord to speak to her: “Woman, behold thy Son”? He
was, at that moment, in the final act of letting go of all the inheritance from
Mary, all the earthbound weaknesses that bedevil us all. In a few moments
He would let go completely and be united to His Father, that Divine within
Himself.
Yet at that moment He did not forget Mary. Those very weaknesses He
received from her formed the basis of His humanity. It had allowed Him to
enter this world and live among us. It had made it possible for Him to engage
the power of hell itself, and, drawing from His Divine soul, to defeat hell.
Without the human from Mary the Lord would not have been able to save the
human race from damnation.
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