Mary, Symbol of Hope

MARY, A SYMBOL OF HOPE

Do you ever feel small and of no importance? Do you ever feel overlooked in the crowd? Do you ever feel weak and powerless to change things?

Well, don't give up. Take a break and recall the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Although she is the centre of so much devotion within the Christian tradition we know very little about her outside the birth and childhood narratives concerning Jesus.

There are only four direct references to her in the Bible. She is recorded as having attended a wedding in Canaan of Galilee; to have searched for Jesus together with the rest of the family; to have stood at the foot of the cross at the crucifixion; and to have been present with the disciples in the Upper Room after the Ascension. And that is all we know about her from the Bible.'

True, there are other stories recorded about her in the writings of her stepson, James, but these are not included in the Bible.

For instance, we know nothing about her home and family background; nothing about her hopes and ambitions; and nothing about her education and interests. As far as I know, there are no references to her in any of the secular literature of the time.

A11 we can say, with any degree of certainty, is that she was just an ordinary Jewish girl who lived in Roman occupied Palestine about 2000 years ago and, like her contemporaries, looked forward to the coming of the Messiah.

-0-0-0-

And yet today, if you step outside the luxury hotels or seedy nightclubs of Manila in the Philippines, and travel to the rubbish tips on the outskirts of that city as I have, you will find in the poverty of that area, men, women and children clinging tenaciously to their Rosary beads night after night as they recite the prayer of Mary in their overcrowded shacks which they call homes.

In fact you don’t have to go as far as Manila. I can recall similar devotion towards Mary being practised in the 1960s when I worked in the inner city of Liverpool. Here in small, overcrowded terraced homes, families would kneel every night to recite the Rosary.

I am told by a friend recently returned from South America, similar scenes can be seen amongst the poor of the cities of that continent.

Why then is Mary such a popular figure of devotion in these predominantly Roman Catholic communities when so little is known about her? Why do people, often living in extreme poverty, turn to her in prayer for comfort and encouragement? Why do people, who often appear to have been overlooked when God bestowed his gifts, continue to put their faith in him and especially to offer their prayers to him, through the Blessed Virgin Mary? What is the secret of her attractiveness?

0-0-0-

I would suggest that such people identify with her because of her anonymity. It is precisely because she was herself small and of no importance; she was a person overlooked in the crowd of young Jewish girls of her day; and she was weak and powerless to change things - it is precisely because of these qualities that Mary appeals to such people in their anonymity and poverty.

She is a symbol of hope from which they can draw strength and courage because, whilst she may have been overlooked by the writers of her time, she was not overlooked by God. God saw her. God knew her. God chose her. And God used her to be the bearer of his son, Jesus.

It is as a symbol of hope that Mary enables the downtrodden of this world to walk tall whilst those in positions of power and influence seek to trample them down.

It is as a symbol of hope, that she enables such people not to lose heart and become enveloped in a cloud of despair. She gives them a sense of worth.

Her life reveals that great truth which she proclaims in the words of her song to her cousin Elizabeth, namely, that God "has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty”.

These words of the Magnificat speak of empowering by God the powerless people of life. They are not words of a submissive Mary but rather of one whose own life bears testimony to the power of God within her.

As Pope Paul VI once wrote in his encyclical "Marialis Cultus" - the cult of Mary: "The modern woman will note with a pleasant surprise that Mary of Nazareth......was far from being a timidly submissive woman. On the contrary, she was a woman who did not hesitate to proclaim that God vindicates the humble and oppressed and removes the powerful people of the world from their privileged positions".

The same image of Mary, as a sort of freedom fighter has been echoed more recently by the present Pope in Latin America, when he said, "From Mary, who in the Magnificat proclaims that salvation has to do with justice, there flows the authentic commitment to the rest of humanity, our brothers and sisters, especially for the poorest and the most needy, and the transformation of society".

Yes, Mary stands as a symbol of hope in a world of today. And let’s face it, no one in Biblical times was more looked down upon than a virgin, who had to suffer the daily humiliation of her failure to conceive a child. She was despised for her emptiness and her waste. And yet it was through such a person that God chose to reveal himself to us 2000 years ago.

-0-0-0-

And so I say to you again, if you ever feel small and of no importance; if you ever feel overlooked, and if you ever feel weak and powerless, recall to mind the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She who has probably had more lasting influence, and attracted more admiration and devotion, than any other woman in history because she remains for all time an everlasting symbol of hope. Amen.