Two Reflections on Marian Devotion
Reinhard Körner OCD
Let’s assume: there are more beautiful Marian images. But this one here is the oldest that has been preserved; it dates from the first half of the 2nd century and served as an image of devotion for Roman Christians who gathered in the tough years of persecution at the underground graves of their deceased in Priscilla's catacombs for prayer and Eucharist. It contains a profound testimony that can give us Christians today valuable orientation.
Mary sits in a chair and holds the child in her arms with maternal tenderness, a motif repeated a thousand times over the centuries, which seeks to depict Mary's fervent relationship with Jesus, her Son and the Son of God. Remarkable, however – rarely repeated later – is the presence of a third person in this painting: to the left of Mary and the child stands a prophet – art historians guess: Balaam or Isaiah? – pointing with one hand to Jesus and with the other hand to the star above Mary's head (the star has become barely discernible after centuries). If it is Balaam, his words from the book of Numbers (24:17) make the theological significance of this gesture clear: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.” If it is Isaiah, maybe it refers to his joyful proclamation: “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you” (Isaiah 60:1). Whichever it may be, the Roman Christians allow the man of God from the Old Testament to indicate who represents the main figure in this painting.
The oldest preserved Marian image is the image of Christ. When later generations look at depictions of the Mother of God, they are tempted time and again for centuries to look first or exclusively at Mary. The child in her arms then becomes, as we have the impression in hindsight, merely a necessary “appendage,” an “attribute” that distinguishes this woman from other holy women and makes her the Mother of God. The reasons for this are certainly many. They can be explained partly by a one-sided, in some respects directly incorrect “image of God,” which has crept into church proclamation and practiced piety. When God the Father is represented to the faithful as an “angry” or even “offended” ruler and Christ as a noble “judge of the world,” they turn – directly in some sort of “internal necessary self-defense” – to the Mother of God, who has more understanding, to implore mercy through her Son. Even in the pilgrimage song from 1948, we hear “When your plea prays with us, your Son cannot close himself to us.” And when “masculine attributes” of God are too one-sidedly emphasized – it was only Pope John Paul I who had the courage to call out spontaneously across St. Peter's Square “God is (also) my Mother!” – they seek “feminine and maternal attributes” they do not find in God in the “divine Mother.” “Your cloak is a golden tent, woven from maternal love. Spread it over the world, that no one may be without a mother,” we sing in the same Marian song. To correct this view, deeply observant shepherds of the church throughout the ages have urged that one should go “through Mary to Christ.” However, this valuable instruction of authentic Christian piety has quickly served again to confirm an attitude that was originally intended to be overcome by this instruction. Instead of emphasizing the latter two words, the first two were highlighted: “through Mary to Christ”… Wolfgang Beinert, professor of Catholic theology in Regensburg and internationally recognized Mariologist, writes: “The soteriological problems of the church from the 12th century to the Reformation… resulted more in an immediate inclination towards her personality as a great intercessor and mediatrix. This was then associated with forms and ways of Marian devotion, increasingly perceived as problematic, which also led to a divergence from Mary on the part of the Reformed churches.” The oldest Marian image shows the observer the way to a position of faith, where Jesus Christ stands at the center; he came to bring us “Light” from God, who is “Love.” Not least, this original view was confirmed as authentically Christian at the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) and in the subsequent pastoral letter of Pope Paul VI on “true cultivation and development of Marian devotion.” In hindsight, Wolfgang Beinert can write: “In a summary phrase, it can be said that the attention of Christians in the first eleven centuries was directed from Christ to Mary; between the 12th and the 20th centuries, it led through Mary to the Savior. Now Christians seek with Mary the way to the common God, whom the Lord proclaimed to us as the Triune Love.”
A Christian would lack the essential if he lived without Mary; this is also expressed by the oldest Marian image. Jesus, the star full of light that has risen over the world, is depicted here together with Mary. We have before us an image of Christ with Mary.
From early times, the faithful were aware that Mary has great significance in God's history with humanity. The Son of God could come into the world because Miriam from Nazareth relied on the call that was addressed specifically to her. How it happened that God called her and she said Yes remains and may remain forever her mystery. Roman Christians of the 3rd century knew, just as we do, only the words of the evangelist Luke (1:26–38) from this event, which are not a report, but rather a meditation and a sermon on the beginning of Mary's calling story. Johannes Bours, a longtime spiritual director of a seminary, writes after meditating on this text: “Is it not something unprecedented that God does not dispose of his Yes from above, but that for God it is something like a conversation with the freedom of man, a message and inquiry to Mary – what a sign of the dignity of man given by God! God allows his Yes to mature in the Yes of man.” Mary says Yes. This Yes has oriented people from the first Christian generations to our days. “Let it be to me according to your word” – these are words that initially seem too great for following, yet they become a measure, and those who hear them can still be overcome by them again and again. Only Mary's Yes enabled many thousands of Yeses. So many “I am ready” for the completely personal adventure of Christian life, so many “Here I am” for religious vocation or priestly ordination… have matured in the hours of struggle and supplication on Mary's words.
Marian images of Christian centuries, images of Christ with Mary, show what faith is: more than a mere “worldview” and the maintenance and upholding of Christian customs, but a trusting and intimate community between God and man – like Mary's and with Mary, “Mother of my friend.”
Marian Devotion in the Spirituality of Carmel*
Whenever the subject arises: in a discussion about faith, in a discussion group of an exercise group – the topic of “Marian devotion” is a constant discussion question. And it is not infrequently that positions crystallize quickly: devotees of the Mother of God from Fatima and Medjugorje on one side, critics in the name of “feminism” on the other, in the middle, lovers of “beautiful old Marian songs,” quiet and “missionary” representatives of Marian-themed movements and communities, along with all those – in such a circle, the least often get to speak – who are still seeking a balanced, realizable Marian devotion. Then everyone, full of expectations, looks at the Father, who belongs to a Marian order and should find explanatory words. Therefore, I cannot always provide the long-awaited confirmation of the spiritual tradition of Carmel, but a few guiding tools – yes.
There are primarily, I tell my discussion partners, two basic traits that run through the history of Carmel in this regard. The first can be expressed as follows:
With Mary as Mary before God
Very early, a legend is told in our order that Mary rushed to the Carmelites after the experience of Pentecost. Later – especially in Spain – she is often depicted in a brown habit and dressed in a scapular. Maria is one of us, they want to say; we live with her and she lives with us. The first hermits establish a small Marian chapel in the midst of their hermitages, call Mary their “Patron” and “Mistress,” but soon also their “Sister,” and themselves “brothers of our dear Lady from Mount Carmel.” From Mary, they want to learn how to open up to the reality of God and live with Him in a lasting connection. With Mary as Mary, they stand before God. – The scapular they later wanted to wear, even believers of various vocations and states, becomes a sign of this life, something like a “badge” of those who in Marian thinking reveal their lifestyle.
Elizabeth of Dijon writes in her spiritual testament: “It seems to me that the attitude of the Virgin is a model for the inner people, i.e. those whom God has called to dwell in the depth of their soul. How peacefully, how attentively she took on all her tasks and kept herself ready for them! How even the most ordinary experiences were illuminated by God's light.”
Teresa of Avila saw in Mary a model of surrender and humility, while John of the Cross found in her what he had before his eyes as the goal (of earthly!) life: she is the one who is constantly and permanently united with the God who is hiddenly present.
In an era when Marian devotion is blooming especially, Teresa of Lisieux writes: “How I would have loved to be a priest to preach about the Virgin Mary… At first, I would have shown how little the life of the Holy Virgin is known. No improbable things should be said about her, things of which we are not precisely informed.” The true Mary interests her; she does not want to live with the piously depicted ideal figure, but with the Mary of Nazareth, as the evangelists present her to us. Teresa also wants to say: Mary is one of us. The saint from Lisieux is “well aware that the Holy Virgin is the Queen of heaven and earth. However, she is more a Mother than a Queen.” She critically tells preachers and Marian devotees then and today: “They often present the Holy Virgin to us as inaccessible. However, we should show that she is imitable…”
With Mary as Mary before God – in heartfelt love and affection, and yet soberly, without exaggeration and piously presented inconsistencies: this is how the Fathers and spiritual models of Carmel want to realize Marian devotion.
The second basic trait of the spiritual tradition of Carmel, which I present in my discussion groups, I would like to formulate – surely somewhat “provocatively” for many ears – as follows:
Through Christ to Mary
In the saints of our order, an interesting finding can be made: John of the Cross owes his life’s salvation in early childhood to Mary and never forgets it; Teresa of Avila and Teresa of Lisieux, one at 12, the other at 10 years of age, ask Mary to replace their early deceased mother and dedicate their lives to her; from Elizabeth of Dijon, we know that she “once again entrusted herself to her on every Marian feast and… threw herself again with unwavering trust into her arms…” And yet, in the writings of the saints of Carmel, indeed even in their letters and personal records, Mary does not appear! In the six-volume collected works of Teresa of Avila, she is mentioned only at ten places – including two important, three unimportant; in John of the Cross at thirteen, with eleven mentions only; with the sentences of Teresa of Lisieux, only a few additional instances are credited; with Elizabeth there are also not many, and in Edith Stein one looks in vain, regardless of brief mentions. This coincides with the fact that in the rule of Albert, the oldest spiritual document of Carmel, the relationship to Mary is completely lacking...
According to my knowledge of our order’s saints, this can only be explained as follows: our Fathers and spiritual models live Christocentrically and Theocentrically, i.e., Christ and the triune God are at the center of their devotion. Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are their inner “partners in conversation” in their prayers. They do not need to go “through Mary to Christ.” (This well-known formulation originally wants to say only that one must not remain standing with Mary, not that every path to Christ must lead through Mary!) They have recognized the Incarnate as God to whom they can confide directly without the need for mediation by “the Mother with greater understanding” (what an image of Christ and God!). This is then appropriately reflected in their spiritual records. And because they also wish to lead others to this Christocentric devotion, they have relatively sparse and only scant mentions of Mary and Marian devotion in their letters and instructional writings.
However, through their Christocentric and Theocentric life, the Carmelite saints also reach Mary. Whoever strives for the true, biblical Jesus Christ cannot overlook his Mother!
My confrere P. Ulrich Dobhan OCD, a good connoisseur of Teresa of Avila's spirituality, summarizes her Marian devotion with the words: Mary is “The Mother of my friend.” Teresa's “primus intimus,” “first and innermost” partner of her deepest soul remains Christ, but just for that reason, Mary also remains important to her. However, she need not be regarded as the “inaccessible Queen of Heaven”; she may remain a believer who, like us, had to question, could be afraid, and often did not understand…; she may then, as the Second Vatican Council teaches us, walk “on the pilgrim path of faith,” may be “the archetype of the Church” and “the sister of believers.”
A movement entered my discussion circle: A breath of air from some: “But I don’t stand so badly!”; from others, a significant nodding of heads – and above all questions, quite honest, previously withheld questions, which we now dare to voice…
* The second reflection is from the recently published book of the author “Ehrlich fromm sein. Geistliches Leben aus den Quellen des Karmel (Being Honestly Devout. Spiritual Life from the Sources of Carmel), BennoVerlag, Leipzig”.
From the magazine Karmelimpulse II/1993, pp. 16–21
Translated by Dr. Vojtěch Pola.
