December 8th is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in the Western church. The “Immaculata” emerged early in the history of the Church.
Among certain ancient Christian sects, the “Mother of God” was, from the outset, given a very high spiritual station, as there are arguably none more intimate with a son’s soul than his mother.
So great was the Spirit of Christ, that she who bore the Anointed One would naturally be set apart as especially blessed. The universe brought forth a soter (or savior) from the womb of a common woman of Jewish faith.
She bore him, bathed him with unconditional regard and support, and, in the end, bore the unimaginable pain of his passing.
In the Orthodox tradition, they refer to her Ascension as “the Dormition of the Virgin,” or the “Going to Sleep”. The Divine Mother archetype is the soft blue image of infinite patience, attention, and conscious silence. She is eternally alive within us.
Lutheran theologian Rudolf Bultmann revealed that the sacred mysteries documented in the Gospels are in no way diminished when we cut away the mythic story-telling appended by later writers.
He insisted that instead of the super-naturalizing that was grafted onto the texts, an existential reading, in the way of philosopher Martin Heidegger, was truer to the essential kernel of the teaching.
In doing so, the intersections of the teachings with those of other Eastern religious systems become more visible. In both Buddhism and Christianity, at a mystical level, there is an androgynous quality in experiencing the Divine Presence.
There is an implicit marriage of male and female forming a new alchemical union (e.g., the trinity and the rise of Mariology, yin and yang, Buddha & Kwan Yin).
Where Bultmann erred was in failing to see the significance of the full mythic image for the psyche. To contemplate the Immaculate Conception is to open up to what cannot be fathomed by discursive intellect and reasoning.
In effect, the mysteries of the Rosary are also koans that cause us to recognize, in moments of luminous insight, the true depth and inconceivable beauty of the mystery of being.
Since we are persons, we can only experience personally. Our devotional lives need divine persona to represent the sacred entanglement, the cosmic dance, from which all life and meaning derive. Theology gets me to the edge of mystery, then I come to a point at which I need to leap off into the chasm of unknowing.
I experience the mystery of the “Immaculate Conception” in this way:
She who was clothed in the Sun is the one who knew the nature of Christ from Within. She is the emblematic Christic, aglow with the Light of Christ. She offers us a powerful manifestation of the Gospel teaching in action.
As is the case with all good mothers, Mary and her son have an inseparable bond. Mother is the ground, the earth, the tie to the real and the moment.
Mother calls us to quiet reflection and kenosis, or emptying (in the way of the Magnificat) to see that we are truly great in our meekness. The good mother teaches us to open our arms in the spirit of radical love, and to do what is right without self-consciousness. Her commitment knows no frustration or turning away.
The good father, the heavens, calls us to aspire, and feeds our quest for meaning in action. But without mother, our spirituality is about works without a solid grounding in prayer, contemplation, and mysticism.
Looked at in terms of a physical metaphor: mother is centripetal force, causing us to move toward the center, where Father is the centrifugal force that calls us out of our depths to the circumference, where life’s chores and assignments, conflicts and complexes arise to be managed.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was deeply troubled, and he was terrifyingly alone. Yet, at the same time, he was in touch with the fullness of His Priesthood. He was consoled by the tenderness in the moment also, by the unconscious echo of his Mother reciting deeply in his consciousness: “Be it unto me according to Thy will.”
And so, the son finds his mother in the depths of his own Spirit, as the Mother, too, later consoles the disciples on the death of their master, and emboldens their message with transcendent caring.
In entering the silent space and timeliness of the recitation of the Rosary, meditating on the emblematic mysteries of the Church, we find the “Mysterium Tremendum” awaiting us. “In Christ there is no male or female.”
Yet, in this life, while we contemplate a unity beyond appearances, we do commerce with the customary, the appearances, and the day-to-day. Contemplation of the Immaculate Conception brings our thoughts and senses to attention around the great Sophia, or Wisdom, that is all around us.
Sophia’s presence is often drowned out by the noise and distractions of activities at the circumference, where the masculine takes on an unbalanced and pre-eminent status in our consciousness.
It is a wonderful conundrum that numbs the mind; the mind that must keep seeking after clarity while, at the same time, recognizing that the “Cloud of Unknowing” is a veil through which we will forever be gazing as we live in this state.
© Brother Anton and The Harried Mystic, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
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