Mary I

Mary and Dogma and Us:

Most dogma is about Jesus. Even dogmatic statements about Mary are really statements about Jesus. But all dogma is also really a statement about humanity. A dogma says we MUST say this because to deny it would be to say something untrue about Jesus and untrue about humanity. In the next four posts I intend to test this in relation to the key things that we say about Mary: that they are really statements about Jesus and the whole of humanity. I will examine four dogmatic claims: that Mary is a Virgin; that she is the Mother of God, that she was conceived without the guilt of original sin and that she has been assumed body and soul into heaven. In each case I will ask what the statement says about the person of Jesus and or the nature of God on the one hand and what each statement says about the nature and destiny of human persons on the other.

Mary ever Virgin:

Recall that image of the feet disappearing into the clouds. It was a bad picture of the Ascension because it was not informed by proper doctrine. It was a bad picture because it was bad theology. We must be careful that our minds don’t paint a similarly naïve picture of the virginal conception of Jesus.

Jenkins’ mocking, “God doesn’t do that sort of thing” is blatantly untrue when we look at the virgin birth in the light of Holy Scripture. Firstly, God is always intervening all over the place in the events of human history and most especially in the history of His people. Secondly, and much more importantly, the Virgin birth is entirely consistent with the Biblical claim that God is creator. The Virgin Birth must be seen in the light of the Genesis story: as Eve was taken from Man so now the Son of Man is taken from the woman. Here is a new creation.

So the doctrine of the Virgin birth in the first place is about God as Creator. This, (with apologies to David Jenkins) is exactly the sort of thing God does. And here, in the conception of Jesus, man is being re-created. The creation of Jesus in the womb of Mary is no mere continuation of the old created order subject to decay; here, by God’s direct intervention, that old creation of sin and death is being made new. Yes, Jesus is the child of Mary and therefore as fully human as you or I. But, Jesus is the child of God: unique amongst men. The story of the Virgin Birth turns out not to be about the absence of a human father but about the presence of God.

The doctrine of the Virgin birth is about God as creator; it tells us that in Jesus, God has brought about a new creation. It is, therefore a statement about us and the possibilities for the rest of humanity. Jesus is the beginning of a new creation not a one-off event in history.   In the ARCIC Agreed Statement “Mary Grace and Hope in Christ” the Commission says of the virginal conception that it “points to the new birth of every Christian as an adopted child of God”.  If Jesus is a new creation then we who belong to him also have the possibility being made new, of being re-created in his image. “Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new”. (II Corinthians 5: 17)

We are not trapped in the vicious cycle of birth and death which characterises the old creation. As Christians we have been “born again from above” (John 3: 3-5) and so the “miracle” of the new birth of Jesus turns out not to be a unique event at all: we are all born again into the new creation as our Baptismal regeneration places us firmly in the new paradise.  The Church speaks of Mary as “Ever Virgin” because, just as with the Grace of Baptism, that new Creation can never be undone. This new thing is not subject to decay.

So, just as when we look at the disappearing feet of Jesus we are totally distorting the doctrine of the Ascension, so too, if our understanding of the virginal conception is nothing more than the absence of Joseph we are totally missing the point!

© Peter Bolton

Dogma and Religious Language

I did promise something on the Blessed Virgin Mary – and that piece will be forthcoming – but as I was struggling to write it I realised that there was still a bit more to be said about Dogma. The very word will send a shiver down the spine of the intellectual liberal (even though she has one overriding dogma she adheres to) and it usually appears in the form of an adjective describing one who is less than open minded. Though, as I have already suggested, the whole point of Christian Dogma is to insist on a sort of open-mindedness; to preserve the Catholic “and”.

Today, Christians are in love with poetry and imagery, art and iconography but far les comfortable with Dogma. I want to suggest that they are two sides of the same coin and that the Dogma preserves the iconography and imagery and purifies it. (At the same time, the art and image prevent the Dogma from becoming merely dry, empty intellectualism).

You can, perhaps, already see how I might be thinking about Mary here but I am going to put her on one side for now and look briefly at another idea in Christianity which presents itself to us as a Creedal statement and very frequently in art, iconography, music and poetry and so on. As I write I am looking at an icon representing the Ascension of Jesus into heaven. In the top half of the picture Jesus is seated in the heavens (blue circle) which are held up by an angel on either side. The bottom half depicts Mary and the Eleven. Mary too is accompanied by two angels and whilst she looks directly at us whilst pointing upwards to her Son, the eleven are looking all over the place, still in utter confusion before they receive the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Mary and Jesus have halos the Eleven do not. Mary is dressed in the blue of heaven and the red of martyrdom.

It is a powerful picture but it is not my favourite depiction of the Ascension. My favourite representation is that over the Altar of the Mystery of the Ascension in the Shrine Church of Our Lady in Walsingham. There, the feet of Jesus are seen simply disappearing into the clouds. Perhaps slightly less theologically informed – and I have to say that it is my favourite because it makes me laugh not because it is a good art or good theology!

But the truth is the second image could be hugely misleading. It is too literal, certainly, but in its literalism it depicts the Absence of Jesus and not his presence. In the first picture, the icon, there is no doubt about Jesus presence in the picture. He dominates the picture. And although the Eleven cannot see him there is a serenity in the posture of Mary who seeks to assure us who also cannot see that her Son is indeed present always.

I want to suggest that the first picture is of more use to us precisely because it is faithful to the Church’s understanding of the meaning of the Mystery. The icon needs the dogma. Without sound teaching our religious representations (like the disappearing feet of Jesus) become nothing more than misleading cartoons.

So,what are the Dogmas that inform the image? Well, obviously the statement in the Creed: “And Ascended into heaven.” But who ascended?  And it is the dogmatic answer to this question which is crucial. It is He whom the creed has already affirmed as the Eternal Son of the Father and who had taken human flesh and was crucified. The Jesus sat in the blue circle is the eternal Son of God who had assumed human flesh. The picture depicts the destiny of humanity. This picture is precisely about the destiny of those confused men who are looking all over the place in the icon. Mary’s steady gaze reminds us that although we, like the Eleven, cannot see Him we must trust. Look, she says, he is only there!

The Dogmas that the picture draws on are Dogmas concerning the Incarnation and the Church. The picture is about the destiny of human flesh; it is about the fate of the poor; and here the Eleven - that is us - can be reassured that where he has gone we shall surely follow.   We are reminded of what the Eastern Churches know so well, that the heart of this picture is heaven where all women and men can call home.

So something odd happens in the promulgation of Dogma. If we were asked we would probably say that Christian Dogma is about God. But actually there is not much dogma which is directly about God. Most dogma is about Jesus but even then the dogma is really about the human beings at the bottom of the picture. Why do we want to insist that Jesus, true God and true man ascended body and soul into heaven? Why does it matter? It matters because the Eleven – us – matter.  Dogma says we MUST say THIS about Jesus because to deny it would be to say something untrue about human beings. To deny that Jesus has ascended body and soul into heaven is to deny the destiny of humanity.

Interestingly, when we come to talk about dogmas concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary, we are usually doubly under-scoring, for dogmas about Mary are usually affirming a truth about the rest of humanity (we say it about Mary because it is true of all Christians) but we are usually also affirming something about the person of Jesus. Dogma about Mary has, in this sense become a double check: if we say this, what are we saying about the rest of humanity and what are we saying about Jesus? (And if we are saying this about Jesus, what are we saying about humanity?)

So, when we say what we shall say about Mary it will matter. It will matter because really it is about us and about the fact that we matter.

© Peter Polton