An iconostasis in a Greek Orthodox cathedral in Florida has a small adornment symbolizing the Trinity. It consists of a front-profile dove in flight (signifying the Holy Spirit) with suffering Jesus over its left wing and a downward-reaching hand (signifying the Father) over its right. The hand's index finger is extended to touch the head of the dove.
A more-common representation shows a dove (again, Holy Spirit) in the lower right corner and lamb (Jesus) in the lower left with a hand raised in benediction (Father) centered above them. Often, as in the linked example, this triangular arrangement is accentuated by an upside-down triangle in the background to evoke the Star of David.
I am not aware of any representation of the Trinity that contains a figure of human womanhood. Some may wave that off by observing that God is neither man nor woman and thus there is no reason for us to focus on imagery, or by pointing out that there is something suggestively feminine about a dove, but let's be honest: Such hand-waving falls a bit short when contemplating the creator of all.
God crafted humanity in his "likeness" (Genesis 5:1), and in so doing created "male and female" (5:2) to complement one another. Broadly speaking, just as humanity cannot biologically survive without male and female acting reciprocally, so it cannot flourish when the masculine and feminine regard themselves as separate wholes rather than complementary halves. So, with God having chosen to take human form as "the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5, emphasis added) it is reasonable to wonder what gives... and this is where the significance of Mother Mary comes to the fore.
Describing "a magnificent statue of Our Lady" in this D.C. cathedral, Catholic author Carrie Gress writes: "She is not standing serenely; instead, her posture is one of action frozen in time - it captures the very act of her bridging the gap between heaven and earth. She is bending down, her right hand extended as if she is reaching for humanity, while her left hand is reaching up to heaven...it concretizes what Mary wants to do for us every second of the day - connect us with God, whether it is through our prayers, our sacrifices, or even our brokenness."
Her participatory role in salvation should not be underestimated by those of us who hail from Protestant or non-denominational precincts. Like I already detailed in the first four posts of this series, Scripture itself presents Jesus and Mary as a kind of package deal without blurring the line between his divinity and her lack of it, thus the early Church was right to emphasize her venerability, and I believe we children of the Reformation are wrong to de-emphasize it.
* * * * *
Many of Christianity's modern critics accuse it of denigrating or suppressing women, although, to the contrary, it does the exact opposite. That so-called feminists refuse to acknowledge this is, shall we say, curious.
From the dawn of time, around the globe and across cultures, women were for all practical purposes treated as subordinate and/or inferior to men. Even in the small number of matrilineal societies that based clan membership on the mother's lineage, men were the chiefs and rulers; and pantheistic faiths, which believed in actual goddesses, viewed them as creatures replete with human flaws, not creators replete with true love.
When Jesus arrived on the dusty road between Galilee and Jerusalem, he overturned the apple cart by accepting women as disciples and treating them no differently that he treated men. He engaged with the woman at the well, intervened for the adulteress, and publicly praised the faith of the woman with the hemorrhage. After the Resurrection he chose to appear to women before he appeared to men, and after the Ascension women were present when the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost - including Mary, who is mentioned by name in Acts 1:14, as depicted in this painting:
The elevation of respect for women occurred only in the wake of Mary being revered by Christians and their faith proliferating. This is no small thing, and, given how intricately God understands humanity, it is not kookiness to suggest that her having this effect was part of God's plan.
* * * * *
As stated by William Lecky, the great historian from Dublin, in his 1865 book History of Rationalism: "No longer the slave or toy of man, no longer associated only with ideas of degradation and of sensuality, woman rose, in the person of the Virgin Mother, into a new sphere, and became the object of reverential homage, of which antiquity has no conception...a new kind of admiration was fostered."
Since I already quoted Carrie Gress in the first section of this post, I might as well quote her again: "If one were to ask where the radical notion that women are equal to men came from, where do you suppose we would find our answer? It didn't come from the Greeks: Aristotle and others called us 'deformed males.' It didn't come from Judaism: though given some status, a broad movement to promote the dignity of women never materialized, and the practice of polygamy remained. Asian religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism, didn't start it. And it certainly hasn't come from Islam."
To which I would add: It also certainly hasn't come from the inherently cold shoulder of atheism.
Now, back to Gress: "It might seem that equality among women and men is obvious, a simple intuition any thinking person would have. But if so, why didn't any other religious movement see it? Because it was Mary who turned the sins of Eve upside down and allowed this now-commonplace notion to take root. Christianity, though largely abandoned by secular culture, remains the source for this profound insight."
This overall arc of history is so clear that, once it is pointed out, even devout atheists cannot deny it. What they do deny, however, is that there was any divine hand or divine will behind it. Instead they chalk it up to human superstition and gullibility having accidentally produced a good result.
Perhaps it would be easy to accept that contention if there were not so many credible, well-attested instances of Mary herself engaging with humanity and interceding on its behalf down through the centuries, but there are many such instances. There are so many that they're practically innumerable, and for the atheist contention to be true, literally every single one of them must be either a hoax, hallucination, or colossal misunderstanding. It takes only one being true to disprove the entire opposition.
* * * * *
Forget atheism, however: More relevant to this series is that it takes only one instance of Marian intervention to wash away the foundation of Protestant arguments against Mariology, and since we children of the Reformation are supposed to be Christians first, not Protestants first, we should keep this in mind and take it very seriously.
To reject the Catholic (and Orthodox) view of Mary's role in salvation history is to:
Assert that every inexplicable healing involving water from Lourdes over the past 167 years has a purely material explanation that all of humanity is too dumb to figure out.
Deny that anything remarkable occurred in Fatima in 1917, Pontmain in 1871, Zeitoun in 1968... or in any of the other places where visions of Mary and wonders associated with her have been affirmed.
Claim that every individual who has ever reported an intercessory prayer to Mary being answered is either a loon or liar.
Irrationally deny that God could or would use Mary to draw people to him... even when a feminine figure is precisely what the task calls for.
See Donald Calloway's Christian testimony, one of the best ever, and pronounce him a fraud.
Look at the string of bewilderingly improbable events that have happened adjacent to the Black Madonna, and claim that crazy coincidence is the only non-crazy explanation.
Cite the warning in 1 John 4:1 as a reason to automatically believe appearances of Mary are actually demons pretending to be her... while simultaneously ignoring the instructions in 1 John 4:2 that tell us how to discern if an appearance is true.
Ignore that there has never, in all of history, been a single report of a Marian event having a less than stellar outcome - an already extraordinary fact that would be exponentially more extraordinary if any of those Marys were, as the "1 John 4:1 Onlyists" claim, demons in drag.
There is only so much denying that can happen before you have to ask yourself if the denying is being done by reflex rather than because of reflection.
Note #1: The prior posts in this series are as follows:
Part I: Introduction
Part II: The New Eve
Part III: Genesis to Revelation
Part III-b: The Ark of the New Covenant
Part IV: Historical Perspective
Part V: Perpetual Virginity
Part VI: Prayer
Part VI-b: Worship
Note #2: The photo at the beginning of this post, and the one in the middle, were taken at St. Mary & St. Mina Coptic Orthdox Church in Clearwater, Florida.
