Another Mary

Last night I was watching the rather interesting series - The Medieval Mind - on i-player. There have been two so far - the first was about faith and this one was about sex. What is interesting is that the Church featured very heavily in the program (presumably because the people keeping records at the time were mostly around or in the Churches). Sex is one of those subjects which tends to get people's hackles up, but it was an obsession for the later Medieval Church. But here is what I noticed - when the programme was talking about control and the craze for entering convents and virginity a statue of Mary was often in the background of the picture.

I love the feasts of Mary but it is true that she has been used, ruthlessly, as an instrument of control by the Church over the centuries. Women have been given an impossible time as they are taught to look at her as a paradigm for life. For sure, her obedience and humility cannot be questioned and encourage Christian pilgrims throughout the centuries but when it comes to sex it is a different story. The Virgin Birth may be a little out of fashion in some circles but it is still in the Christian Creeds - and it is a one off. For women to emulate Mary makes sex, somehow, a bad thing.

This is precisely what the medieval church wanted - for sex to be thought of as dirty and evil. Piety became equated to virginity and if you could not manage that then...well....

I don't think the Church has ever really recovered and Mary hasn't either. She is still seen as a symbol, in many quarters, of male patriarchal control (and hypocrisy as those apparently celibate priests often were not really celibate at all).

So whilst Mary is held as holy in both devotion and motherhood - she is not a good emblem of marriage - at least not in her traditional form. She was turned by the Church into the closest thing to a male celibate priest that she could be and has never really recovered. We do not have a good history of marriage and holiness going together in the annals of the Church - although it is obvious for most people they do.

Celebrate Mary in all her holiness - but lets also look at who we really are - who most human beings are - not somehow slightly faulty but exactly as God made us. Let's explore what holiness means to most people - with a great example of self-giving in Mary mixed with our experience of real living.