I just read an amazing blog item in the National Catholic Register. It’s called “Did Mary Write the Bible?” I highly suggest you read it.
It served to confirm my love for the gospels of St. Luke (first) and St. John (second) because of these evangelists’ relationship to our mother Mary. During my past studies at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit (where I actually dabbled in theology before God had other plans for me – believe it or not, women attend this place in droves, studying to work in service to the Church…) I learned it is likely St. Luke received much of the intimate knowledge he had about the early life of Christ at the feet of our Blessed Mother.
We also know that St. John was given the privilege of looking after the welfare of Mary after Jesus died on the cross. St. John of course would have amazing knowledge, as it says in the aforementioned blog, about the truth of the incarnation from the Woman who constantly pondered these things in her heart.
Interesting, isn’t it, that Jesus did not make his mother Mary the first pope? Have you ever considered why? She obviously was the most knowledgeable about everything Christ was trying to teach us. Mary was not even mentioned as one of the apostles, although she was with them. And I don’t believe that was misogynistic, paternalistic editing on the part of the writers of the gospels. If it were, there is NO WAY Mary Magdalene would have been mentioned so prominently as the first witness to the resurrection, when women at that time were not legally recognized as credible witnesses. Scripture even mentions the apostles did not, at first, believe the women who testified to them. (Interesting that the apostles admit their own prejudice against women, but record the stories about Jesus’ lack of it?)
Mary Magdalene has been called the “apostle to the apostles.” The Blessed Mother Mary is called, and rightly so, the Mother of the Church. They were the nurturers of the men who would be given the “leadership” roles in the Church.
As the ones who, by virtue of the fact that they give birth to children, touch the lives of the young so intimately, I assert women’s calling is to be a loving teacher. Women actually are, in a certain sense, the makers of the human beings who will populate our planet and our Church. As we look at our world today and our Church, I would say this role is not being taken up as well as it should be.
“I am the handmaid of the Lord…” Ponder the words of our blessed Mother. Jesus told his apostles that those who want to be great in the Kingdom of Heaven must be humble servants. Not the powerful ones. Not the prominent, most noteworthy ones, and not the ones at the pulpit preaching in front of all, or holding up the host in the place of our Lord at the altar.
I assert those at the front of the table at the heavenly wedding banquet will be the quiet teachers and caregivers for the children (and the elderly and the needy…) in the recesses of the home, the school and in the world wherever nurturing is needed. Those meek, gentle peacemakers that are spiritual mothers.
I wish those who are confused about the role of women in the Church would stop telling our daughters they will eventually have the opportunity to be ordained priests! I wish we would start telling our daughters the truth about who they are — the mothers of the future spiritual mothers and spiritual priests that our Church and world so desperately needs.
