Ave Maria
Tara Cooke’s Holy Mother
Until fairly recently I’d never considered quite why Mary the mother of Christ has such an important role to play within the church, and in particular why in the Catholic church she has always been seen to have such a high place within the denomination, perhaps more so than in others. Several non- Catholics that I have spoken to have often wrongly suggested that we ‘worship Mary’ and have often implied that the Catholic church puts more emphasis on her than other aspects of our religion. I am by no stretch of the imagination any sort of theologian and cannot quote the Catechism off the top of my head but I feel that from my own experiences and those of people I know, I can express why maybe she does have a strong role to play in everyday life and brings comfort to so many people.
At a fairly recent faith discussion group meeting at my local church, we were talking about the importance of Mary and one lady in the group said that she felt that Mary was important to her faith and that she often found it useful to pray to Mary as she could connect with her motherly nature. The lady said that she had a son who was severely disabled and that she was always afraid that he may suffer an epileptic seizure in their kitchen, which had a hard stone floor that would have been dangerous should he have ever fallen on it. She said it helped her to get through this fear by asking for Mary’s help before entering the kitchen with her son. She said that throughout his life — sadly he died young — he suffered seizures in every room in the house except the kitchen and she had drawn spiritual strength from this.
My own mum too, has often said that with eight children for each of whom she wants the best, she often finds it easier to ask Mary for help in guiding and supporting us in the right direction, just as Mary did for her own son. She asks for Mary to pray for support with this, particularly if perhaps it’s not what she would like us to do at a particular time, again, just like Mary did for her own son.
Women are some of the most significant characters in the Bible. It was women who were the first witnesses to the resurrection and throughout the Passion (particularly depicted in the recent film), the women and Mary the mother of Christ were amongst the few who stuck by Jesus to the end — a lot of the men ran away when it became tough.
The Virgin Mary is the most sinless and holy woman of all and therefore deserves more respect than I often feel that she gets. She saw her own beloved son tortured and crucified yet had the courage to stick by him. She wouldn’t have wanted him to go through what he did but because she believed in him as the Son of God, she let God’s will be carried out and supported him all the way.
Interestingly, there isn’t an account of Jesus appearing to her at the resurrection, but maybe there was no need as she had so much faith. She believed completely and without doubt that God’s way was the right one and knew where Jesus was. She had the power to perhaps push Jesus in a safer direction, yet as all good mothers do, she let her son follow God’s plan for him and supported him completely.
She did this because she had this courage, not a suddenly found courage but as the only sinless woman ever to have lived, she devoted her life to God no matter what the consequences. She said yes to being the mother of God’s son and never gave in to the temptation of evil. If you ask me, that’s a pretty strong faith to have. Despite the implications of being pregnant without being married to Joseph in a Jewish land at such a young age and with little money, she didn’t hesitate to say yes to God. Everyone can learn a lesson from her. She most definitely is someone important and not a ‘nobody’ yet one thing that makes her so special is that she was a remarkable ‘nobody’ chosen by God. If she can only pray for me at the hour of my death it’s a huge honour!
I thought it appropriate to write a few words about our mother particularly in her month of May because I get offended when people dismiss her, just as I would if anyone were to do that about my Mum!