Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
I love teaching the capstone for the English major at UD. The course is designed to help seniors reflect on their personal story, how they changed over the course of their years at UD, where they might be headed, and, who they are called to be.
One of my teaching strategies in the course is to put before them powerful examples of vocational journeys. So, for instance, we watch Of Gods and Men, a French film directed by Xavier Beauvois (2010), that tells the true story of seven French Trappist monks at a monastery in Algiers who cultivated deep relationships with their Muslim neighbors. When Muslim radicals turned to violence to achieve their political ends amidst a corrupt civil authority, the monks knew their lives were in danger. And that meant that they had a choice to make: stay in the monastery, continue offering critical services to their Muslim neighbors for free, and jeopardize their lives, or return to their families back in France and abandon their work and their beloved community. After much conversation, prayer, and reflection, they decide to stay. Not long thereafter, they were kidnapped in a failed prisoner exchange attempt and were brutally executed in 1996.
We also watch RGB, a documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her (and her husband’s) determination that both of them would earn law degrees even as they raised a young family and endured his life-threatening struggle with cancer. When Ginsburg graduated from Columbia Law School in 1959 at the top of her class, she discovered the hard way that no law firm in the great city of New York would consider hiring a woman no matter what her qualifications. She and her husband, Marty, were not deterred. And in time she became a law professor, argued (and won) a number of cases before the Supreme Court, joined the bench, and ultimately became a Supreme Court justice herself.
What I love about these stories is that they bring into relief both the power of vocation as a driver in one’s life and the power of history to disrupt our plans. Mary knows all about it. She has an incredible story to tell. And the best part about it is that it doesn’t actually make much sense.
The way that this story tends to get interpreted, whether in words or iconic images, is that Mary was this young teen (probably between 12 and 14 years old) who was quite unexpectedly visited by Gabriel, received the message from him that she had been chosen to give birth to the Messiah, asked a couple of questions, was reassured by the angel, and said she was good to go. We see this version of the story depicted in various icons to the Annunciation. Gabriel is positioned above Mary with his hand over her head. He appears to be blessing her. A shaft of light is coming from Gabriel’s hand that bathes Mary in its light. Mary’s head is typically bowed in submission.
Above my desk in our study, I have an icon that seems to tell a very different story.
That icon depicts Gabriel in motion. He is mid-stride as he approaches her, and his hand is outstretched toward her. His facial expression and stride suggest that he is comes in earnest and has an important word to give her. He also knows that he really needs to succeed in getting this very young adolescent girl to agree to upend her life and give birth to the Messiah.
Mary, by contrast, is sitting on a wooden seat that is elevated by a platform, so she is not positioned below Gabriel. Mary also meets Gabriel’s gesture with her own very different gesture. She is holding her right hand up, palm out toward him as if to block his approach. And her facial expression is hardly inviting. The combination of her tilted head, the concerned look on her face, and the position of her hand suggest that she could do without this visit from Gabriel.
So, how are we to think about this story?
If we consider it from Gabriel’s perspective, it looks like this: he’s got great news for her, she needs to say yes to God’s plan, and she should be joyful! That certainly makes sense from an angel’s point of view.
But, what about Mary? To her credit (challenging an angel is no small thing), Mary points out that this plan seems ill conceived given a rather obvious fact: she is a virgin. That would seem to be an obvious deal breaker. I can imagine Mary turning her head to hide an eyeroll from the angel and thinking, “Do I really have to explain this to you, Gabe?”
Add to that the problem that everyone knew she was still living with her family, though she was wed to Joseph. What would Joseph think when it started to become obvious that she was pregnant? Unwed pregnant moms struggle in our day. Imagine what it was like in hers. What would she say to the family member or neighbor who wants to know who the father is? What is she supposed? “Oh, well, you see one day the angel, Gabriel, showed up at my house and declared that I would give birth to the Messiah. When I asked him how that was going to work seeing as I was a virgin, he told me not to worry. The Holy Spirit would come upon me and make me pregnant.” “Right, Mary,” they would say, if they were feeling generous. And then the gossip (and worse) would ensue.
Mary gets it that Gabriel is all about this miracle. She is the chosen one and, if he can get her to go along with the plan, the Messiah will arrive in just months! But Mary is also looking at this plan from a woman’s perspective. And from her perspective, this plan is nuts.
And she is right, of course! No wonder she appears to have her hand up to keep Gabriel at something like a safe distance, if there is such a thing when an angel shows up.
So, of course, she says “yes”.
What?
In the documentaries I show in my capstone seminar, the main figures think they have a pretty good idea what their calling is and how to live it out. The Trappist monks were certainly purposeful in their journey to join the order and serve in the Algiers. And, of course, RGB (and Marty) knew that her calling was to become a lawyer, then a professor, and then a voice defending both men’s and women’s claims to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
And then they realize that they don’t. The monks most certainly did not enter monastic life thinking that one day they’d be called upon to risk their lives just to keep providing free health care to their local community. And while RGB surely had a good idea of her intellectual gifts, she also knew that lawyers who happened to be men were determined not to work with lawyers who happened to be women. She was incredibly gifted and she and Marty knew it. But did she think she would become the second woman to serve on the US Supreme Court? Probably not.
What these stories and Mary’s story say to me is that, while I may think I know what my calling is and where I’m headed, the truth is I really don’t know. Things change in ways we cannot anticipate. And we and our callings also change. Mary knew all about such contingency. One minute she is just some unremarkable teen girl hanging out at home and the next she’s the future mother of the Messiah.
Gracious, courageous, and surprising Mary, thank you for putting your questions to Gabriel. Thank you for highlighting how nuts God’s plan was. You remind us that, In the same way, God’s Kingdom often sounds pretty nuts—turning the other cheek, loving our enemies, the lion laying down with the lamb.
Every day, we see in our newspapers and news feeds that the world runs on power, greed, and violence, right?
Dear Mary, help us to remember that God’s plans aren’t like ours. God’s plans aren’t limited by the rules of this world. And that makes them strange, terrifying, even impossible. Yet, your story teaches us that there are times when we just have to say “yes” anyway. May we have sufficient faith and courage to do so when called. Amen.