Synthesis and Reflections: the Celestial Mary

Chapter 10. Synthesis and Reflections: The Celestial Mary Chapter 10 Synthesis and Reflections: The Celestial Mary hapter 10 identifies and examines the qualities of the “celestial Mary”: the subject of Chris- tian devotion and doctrine and modern esoteric teachings. Along with Chapter 9 it presents C Mary as Adept, Queen, Mother, Priestess; an expression of the Feminine Aspect of Deity; a role model for our time and all time. The discussion of Mary’s spiritual status continues; this chapter affirms monadic continuity between a human historical Mary and the celestial Mary, and rejects claims that a celestial Mary existed before the historical Mary was born. The chapter con- cludes with some comments on Mary’s influence in the church and the world. Le sacerdoce Madonna de la Vierge of the (“Priesthood of Magnificat the Virgin”). (detail), by School of Sandro Amiens, France. Botticelli, Early fifteenth 1481. century. The Celestial Mary Christian devotion and theological speculation developed an image of Mary, and esoteric teachings added a new dimension to that image, to produce what we have called the “celestial” Mary. Her characteristics differ in important ways from those of the historical Mary, raising questions about the spiritual status of each and the relationship between them. The historical Mary was an assertive Middle Eastern woman steeped in Judaic tradition. The celestial Mary became a “European,” “Christian” woman of high social status and mild manners. She was named Theotokos (translated in the West as “Mother of God”), Queen of Heaven, Star of the Sea, and eventually Mother of the World. We might ask whether the celestial Mary is simply the product of human imagination. But she is revealing more of herself, through apparitions and other communications, reassuring us that she is real. Her communications and modern esoteric teachings have also provided new insights into her relationship with the historical Mary. The Collyridians were criticized for worshipping Mary. Later, Protestants alleged that Roman Catholics did the same, and in the 1960s the Church of Rome became self-conscious about its “Marian cult.” Perhaps at times Mary became a goddess in the mass consciousness, though the medieval church and its Roman and Orthodox successors tried to keep Mary just below the divine level. Copyright © John F. Nash, 2021. 229 Mary: Adept, Queen, Mother, Priestess The celestial Mary has played a major role in Christianity. Why is she so important? Institutional Judaism and Christianity projected masculine characteristics onto their God, leaving people with hunger for an expression of the Feminine Face of God. Contemporary Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee reflected on the unfilled need: The feminine is the matrix of creation.... Out of the substance of her very being life comes forth. She can conceive and give birth, participate in the greatest mystery of bringing a soul into life. And yet we have forgotten, or been denied, the depths of this mystery, of how the divine light of the soul creates a body in the womb of a woman, and how the mother shares in this wonder, giving her own blood, her own body, to what will be born. Our culture’s focus on a disembodied, transcendent God has left women bereft, denying them the sacredness of this simple mystery of divine love.1 Perhaps it has left men similarly bereft. The priests and prophets of pre-Exile Judaism continually confronted an undercurrent of goddess worship among the masses—and sometimes by royalty. In Christianity people turned to Mary. With the spread of Christianity into the pagan world, Mary often took the place of popular god- desses. She became Queen and Mother. Fortunately, Mary was never seen as a war goddess, and emphasis on virginity may have saved her from becoming a fertility goddess. Church leaders eagerly capitalized on Mary’s potential to lure people away from their pagan god- desses. And, from pastoral concerns, they recognized people’s need for a female spiritual role model. They allowed her to be revered as Queen, first in a devotional context and eventually as possible doctrine. As Queen, Mary captured people’s need for a female deity whom they could worship—or come as close to worship as the church would allow. As Mother she served as one to whom they could turn in their troubles and sorrows. Marian devotion may have started at a grassroots level, but it was soon embraced by prominent clergy, from Cyril of Alexandria to Thomas à Kempis, to Louis-Marie de Montfort. The western church struggled to define acceptable limits of devotion. If the Collyridians went too far in one direction, certainly the Protestants went too far in the other. The Eastern churches were less self- conscious, preferring to focus on liturgical elegance; for example, we find Marian titles like “Mother of an unsetting star,” “Dawn of the mystic day,” and “Ray of the spiritual Sun.”2 Medieval art depicted the celestial Mary as an unworldly figure, and the icons of the Eastern churches continue to show her thus. Western artists increasingly presented Mary as a more acces- sible, human figure—albeit of their patrons’ social standing and occasionally resembling mem- bers of patrons’ families. Mary was also presented as a demure, submissive figure, contrasting with the assertive spiritual mother of the Jerusalem church. The church tried to reconcile the submissive image with the theological status it accorded her, like “Mother of God,” by insisting that her status came entirely through the grace of her son. Music added an important dimension to Marian devotion and intercession, as it did to the whole Christian liturgy. Music can express, sometimes better than words, the heights and lows of emo- tion, soaring adoration and bitter lamentation. Not surprisingly, Marian themes—notably the Magnificat and the Ave Maria—inspired much of our sacred musical heritage. Mariology, the branch of theology devoted to Mary, faced some interesting challenges. The church had declared Mary to be the mother of God—perhaps without considering the implica- tions of its decree—but stopped short of affirming her divinity. It was hamstrung by the insistence on a strict metaphysical dichotomy between “divine” and “non-divine.” Had the theologians recognized divinity in the whole of creation, expressed more by some entities than by others, they would have felt more freedom to acknowledge Mary’s divinity. 230 Copyright © John F. Nash, 2021. Chapter 10. Synthesis and Reflections: The Celestial Mary Instead, dogmatic development focused on Mary’s virginity and then, in the Church of Rome, on her Immaculate Conception and Assumption into heaven. Doctrinal discussion also continued on a broad front, below the level of dogma, exploring her role in the Redemption and in the dispen- sation of grace. Another line of inquiry explored the possibility that Mary had been chosen “in the beginning”— predestined—to be the mother of Christ. Mary Revealing Herself The celestial Mary is reaching out to humanity though apparitions, visitations, locutions, and communications with individuals. Chapter 6 studied the apparitions at Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fátima, Zeitoun and Medjugorje. It also studied one-on-one communications with Bridget of Sweden in the fourteenth century and with Geoffrey Hodson and Anna Raimondi in our own time. Mary may also be revealing herself in a more general way through the empowerment of women—where it has been permitted—in public life and in the church. Mary’s physical appearance, in both her historical and her celestial phases, has long been a matter for discussion. She seems to have considerable freedom in how she presents herself in apparitions and visitations. Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) suggested that Mary assumes a form that people will recognize: she “responds to and permits Herself to be mentally molded by our religious con- ceptions, and Who permits Herself to be seen in forms acceptable and helpful to those who are accorded the appropriate vision.”3 Mary herself confirmed that assertion in a communication to Anna Raimondi: I look like what the beholder wants me to look like. If one wants me to be of fair skin and light eyes, so be it. If that brings comfort, so be it.... I am a being now of love and comfort. I have no skin color and all skin colors. I have no distinguishing features and yet carry the beauty of all the world as I embrace your energies and raise your vibrations.4 Evidently Mary approves of representations of herself in any ethnicity, or according to any cul- tural norms, that may inspire viewers or artists. All must understand, however, that the particular ethnicity or culture is not the only appropriate one, or that it might be superior to another. We must also understand that few icons, paintings or statues are intended to resemble the historical Mary.5 Our culture generally demands that religious images look old, but not too old; we want them to display hallowed archaism but to avoid a level of historical accuracy that would make them unrecognizable or disturbing.6 A parallel impulse may explain the popularity of the King James Bible: its language evokes a sense of archaic reverence, but it is still English and not so archaic as to be unintelligible.7 Chapter 3 cited an early-Christian writer’s forty-two “salutations” to the parts of Mary’s body, which included: “Salutation to thine arms, and to thy forearms, and to thy bosom wherewith thou hast embraced Christ, the Pearl of the Godhead, the Hidden One. O Mary, thou chosen one, our Mother of angels and men.”8 Lest we question that writer’s detailed focus, a comparable litany of salutations is attributed to Christ himself. Bridget of Sweden (c.1303–1373) reported a “revelation” in which Christ told his mother: “Your head was like gleaming gold and your hair like sunbeams, because your most pure virginity ..

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