Mary's Sorrow

With Mothering Sunday on the horizon I have been thinking about motherhood and more especially the way we often see Our Lady. The reading from Luke for this Sunday is short and stark – in the middle of the celebration of Jesus, of His presentation to God in the Temple, Simeon tells Mary exactly what that Presentation and dedication will mean to her – a sword will pierce her own heart – this child of greatness will cause her great sorrow.

From this point I want to jump to the Via Dolorosa – that final walk of Jesus, carrying His cross. Traditionally he is said to have met his mother on the road and it is that moment of meeting which I find both disturbing and fascinating.

If you look at artistic depiction of Mary as she meets her son she seems either to be swooning at the horror of it all or meekly onlooking – there are exceptions, of course, but our general iconography of that moment is of weakness or submission.

I would argue that this is damaging in two ways – firstly I do not think Mary was weak and although I believe she submitted to God’s will I am not sure she would have let the horror of that moment pass by with little reaction – even if she had managed to grasp that this was God’s plan. Secondly, Mary is often seen as a paradigm for all mothers, and this weak and disembodied iconography is not reflective of what most mothers experience at all. There is a disconnect then, between the holy icon of motherhood and the reality of what can be a confusing and painful process of human experience.

Simeon’s imagery seems much more realistic – swords are violent and brutal. Would Mary’s experience of motherhood as her son walks past carrying the most vile instrument of human destruction and torture have been passive or detached. At the least I imagine she would have cried out in sheer grief and pain – but I find myself thinking that it is not unlikely that she expressed both the anger and abandonment which she must have felt to God.

Jesus himself calls out to God from the cross in the words of Psalm 22 – My God, My God why have you forsaken me…? The Psalm is one of abandonment to suffering, but even in his pain and distress the psalmist has not lost hope – time and again he returns to the theme of God’s greatness and mercy. If to put these words on Jesus lips is not some blasphemy then why do we assume that Mary followed in silent assignation. Surely in that moment, Mary should be expressing the outrage both of God and humanity – she is not incarnate, but witnesses first hand and in her heart of hearts the tearing asunder of the incarnate. This is not, it seems to me, a quiet or emotion free role.

It would be easy to edit Psalm 22 down to praise but the real truth and honesty of it is that the Psalmist can in one breath say he is poured out like water, he is laying in the dist of death and call out to God who seems so far from the voice of his complaint and still proclaim the God who rescues and feeds and saves. It seems contradictory to be sitting in a slough of misery and still to say God is good, and yet this is what countless Christians experience year by year. Great tragedy, great suffering, inexplicable wanderings and yet above and below and round about that somewhere, somehow there is God.

Did Mary somehow understand the purpose of all of this? I suspect we have turned her into a bit of a plaster cast saint rather than a vibrant and passionate mother and follower of Christ. Some may argue that to give her the emotions of rage and thoughts of confusion at the moment where she watches her son going to his death is to make her less holy – but i would say the opposite – to allow her to be human allows God to be working in her as God works in us – allows God to be there still in the raging sea of Roman Empire and Jewish anger.

Jesus himself in the Garden prays for this cup to be removed – whatever he means exactly by this is is clear that this in a prayer of a man anguished beyond what most people experience. Why not then Mary, why does she not plead and argue and rage at God. Why will we not allow her fear and holiness hand in hand.

To me that allowing gives hope to all of us – that we are all called to holiness but that holiness is not something which denies the reality of a painful life but we have a God who allows us to express ourselves, positively and negatively, and yet, somehow, is still just as real as ever.

I once joined a group of other people painting and sculpting the Stations of the Cross – I was given Jesus meets His Blessed Mother. The image is disturbing, the model, from a newspaper, a palestinian woman shrieking with pain and anger at the death of her son. But it is real and God is definitely still holding on.