Tad Brain Power

 MARY; MAGICIAN OR MODEL!

SOLEMNITY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, THE MOTHER OF GOD

A man who had a severe heart attack was brought to a hospital where he was declared dead on arrival. Soon, some friends and his priest son Tony arrived on the scene. As they moved the body of the dead man, a wallet fell from his pocket. While picking up the wallet, a photograph fell from it. It was a shot of his son Tony while he was still a seminarian. Later, one of those presents told this story to his son, "A few nights ago," he said, "I was having a few drinks with your father. During our conversation, he took out this photograph of you and showed it to me. He said, 'This photograph made me a different person. Before my son Tony entered the seminary, I was a womanizer. As soon as I saw him in a cassock. I said to myself that I wanted my son to be a priest, and I wanted him to be proud of me, his father. I was often tempted to go back to my old ways. Whenever this happened, I would take out the picture of my son and look at it, and from it, I got the strength to overcome my desires. Since my son entered the seminary until now, I have never touched another woman." His son was dazed for days, not only because of the sudden death of his father but also at hearing of how his father had struggled to be worthy of him as a son - had struggled to love him in a very concrete and real way.

Today, the very first day of the year, the Roman Catholic Church gives us a feast of Mary. This feast brings up a question that is dividing many homes these days. Should we have images? Do Catholics worship Mary? Do they worship images of Mary? I think the answer is in the story of Tony's father. His father carried around a picture of his son, and that picture empowered him to live consistently with his love for his family. If the pictures or images of Christ and the saints do the same for us, then their use is very valid and helpful. If they challenge or empower us to live consistently with our love for Christ, then they are most helpful. But if they are a sort of amulet that we expect to give us magical protection from danger, they may be leading us into religious immaturity. One of the worst things we can do in religion is to ask God to do for us what we should be doing for ourselves.

This brings us to distinguish two attitudes that we can have towards the Blessed Mother or towards the saints. There are two principal ways of looking at them: as intercessors or as models.

In most homes, there is an altar where we keep statues of saints, statues of Mother Mary, Joseph and Infant Jesus. This area is considered the most powerful area.These statues at the Altar are expected to protect us from harm and to help us with difficulties. Sometimes, they are asked to help us even in shady deals. They can be invoked to help a business transaction that is not quite honest or to pass an exam for which we have not studied. Mostly, we turn to the saints as intercessors to act as go-betweens with God to gain favours for us or to protect us from evil happenings.

The Feast of the Solemnity of Mary, the mother of God on January 1, is of recent origin. Its inspiration comes from the document Lumen Gentium of The Second Vatican Council. What is interesting in this document is that Mary is revered not primarily because she was the mother of Jesus but rather because she was his first faithful follower. What is highlighted is her response to God, and she is set before us as a model of how we should be before God.

The opening scene in St Luke's Gospel, where we find Mary encountering the angel, gives us one of the fastest diagnoses and treatments in all of history. "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found grace with God." The visitor, "Doctor Gabriel," notices at once how fearful Mary is, and he immediately gives her the correct prescription. He tells her to trust in a loving, caring God.

Fear is a condition from which none of us are free. If we try to overcome it by our own means, we tend to become more and more insecure. We will become more and more compulsive and addictive in our efforts to control the world around us. But if we can let go of fear - as we do when we try to meditate - and yield to the realization that we are loved by God, our fear will lessen.

In the Gospel stories about Mary, we see her often in fearful situations. She is told that soldiers are going around killing infants and that her baby is their target. Most parents can identify with her panicky feeling when Jesus talks back to her after he has been found in the temple. She is fretful about the embarrassment of the host at Cana when the wine runs short. She says to the servants - as she says to us - "do whatever he tells you to do."

When Jesus was about 30 years old, he left home and the family carpentry business. At first, when he worked a lot of miracles and healed people, he was very popular. Later, he challenged people's behaviour and told parables and stories that drew attention to the hypocrisy of the political and religious leaders of his time. When this happened, the leaders conspired against him and had him tried on false charges and condemned to crucifixion. Mary was on the sideline of many of these happenings. She was at the foot of the cross when Jesus died. She received no instant or magical relief.

Today, too, there are many mothers standing at the foot of the cross. It may be the cross of an unfaithful or cruel husband or of a drug dependent child. There are men carrying the cross of family situations that they cannot handle, and of fretful wives that nag them so much that their homes become hell. Mary is an example to us of someone who neither asked nor got easy magical solutions for her problems from the God with whom she was so close. Yet she lived for him alone and was ever faithful.

It is often easier to light a candle in the church than it is to follow the example of Mary, or of Tony's father, who expressed their faith in deeds rather than in words.