Meeting Mary and the Mystery of Motherhood

Part 1 is devoted to finding Mary as a more human being. There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of painted or sculpted images of Mary. Most are beautiful works of art but rarely do they depict or capture the reality of Mary’s heritage and human life.
For most of us in the west, the images of Mary have been fashioned from the Greco-Roman artists. They have been primarily of a young Caucasian woman with sharp facial features, light brown to golden hair, and sporting a blue cape over a white flowing dress. Sometimes she is holding the infant; other times she is wearing a crown; still other times she is floating on clouds or crushing the head of a serpent. While these images are intended to portray a very special woman in our faith journey, they either deny or, at best, diminish the real beauty of Mary. These images make Mary almost unreal and unreachable.
But Mary is not unreachable. She lived, laughed, cried, felt both joy and sorrow as any one of us. Her true story is that of a human girl who grew to be an extraordinary woman who endured human hardship, pain and suffering. It is a story of a woman who risked execution to follow God’s will; who became a widow, a single parent, a heart-broken mother who helplessly watched as her son was crushed and executed. She is real, tangible, and credible rather than some nearly deified being floating on a distant cloud, too perfect, too remote, too out of touch and too holy to ever replicate.

In Part 2, we will examine the title of Mother of God in hopes of bringing that title to life. This section is scriptural as well but is based on the concept that being mother is much more than one who gives physical birth. Mystic and theologian Meister Eckhart states, “We are all meant to be Mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.” In this section, we will encounter Jesus teaching us all to be Mothers of God by allowing God to be born in the hearts of others through our selfless service and love.