On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
Today is the commemoration of Mary, or as some refer to her, the Blessed Virgin Mary. I am neither Catholic, nor a Marion worshipper. But I do appreciate Mary. A lot.
To be clear, I don’t think she’s God. And I don’t think prayers to her are more effective than prayers to God the Father, Son or Holy Spirit. And sometimes, I find myself more drawn to God the Father. Or sometimes Jesus. Or sometimes the Holy Spirit. God is in all. And sometimes one connects with me more, or maybe sometimes I connect with one more.
Also, sometimes, I throw up a prayer and think fondly of my parents. My mom, the ever practical and loving one. My dad, even more practical. Before we got rid of my dad’s ashes, we put them on a shelf, along with all of the broken and mismatched electronic cords and devices. As an electrical engineer, we thought he’d have liked that. Do I genuinely believe he smiled down because he sat amidst a pile of cords? I don’t know. But if he did look down, he definitely smiled.
Sometimes I think about deeply spiritual people I’ve known, and think about what their life was like. How they were connected to God, or to Jesus in their daily life. Sometimes I aspire to be more like that.
Mary falls into all of these categories for me. She clearly was connected to Jesus, God the Son. This reading from John is the story of the wedding at Cana, where at one point, Mother Mary tells Jesus they’ve run out of wine, like any good mother might. Jesus looks at her and says, “Woman, what business is that of ours?” How many times have I tried to prompt my kids to do something because I think it’s a great idea, and they effectively say (or by their inaction imply), “Woman, what business is that of ours?”
Mary was deeply spiritual. She said yes, to Gabriel to a mighty big ask. What would life have been like to be that trusting? What was it like to be the mother of Jesus? What would Mary say if she looked down at my actions? Would she smile? I don’t know if she does, but I want to behave as if she would.
Mary was also a mother. In our tradition, we pray the stations of the cross on the Friday before Easter. These stations, or moments in Jesus life and death, are a way to connect with his humanity, and the reality of the actions of the ugly humanity around him. One of those stations is when Jesus passes his mother, and she looks at him. I cannot read that without weeping. As it turns out, I cannot write about it, without tearing up. As the mother of a young man, I cannot imagine what it would have been like to live through and see what Mary did.
Where Jesus was fully human and fully divine, Mary was intimately involved in this story, and she was fully human. Period. I can connect to God viscerally through Mary, fully woman, fully human, fully mother, fully trusting.
Finally, through Mary, I find my own song to God. On a retreat, I was asked to read Mary’s song, “My soul magnifies the Lord”, that bit where Mary talks about the rich being scattered, and the lowly being lifted up. What would I do, how would I respond if asked by God to do something? In fact, what am I doing, how do I respond to what God is asking? I took out my colored pencils and drew and wrote, and doodled. Hours later, I had my own song. It was perfect for that time. It was inspired by Mary’s response to God’s call. Given all that’s happened in my world, it’s time to throw up a prayer to Mary, and write my own Song again. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with you…
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