Having time for conversation in a queue can be rewarding. As Fr John and I were talking in a queue at the Cathedral for the Holy Oils before Easter we saw we’d a connection with my helping out at Father Wagner’s Church of St Bartholomew, Brighton and his manning Wagner’s former Retreat here at Buxted. I live in retirement nearby in Haywards Heath, former diocesan Mission & Renewal adviser, and, until last year, Rector of Horsted Keynes. Being Priest Associate of England’s Nazareth, the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham restored by our former Curate, Fr Hope Patten gives me another link.
Why magnify Mary?
We do so firstly because God honours her. How sad to see Christian disagreement about Mary! That despite today’s Gospel saying ‘all generations will call [Mary] blessed’ Luke 1:48. Its biblical to magnify Mary because God himself honoured her in making her Mother of his only Son Jesus Christ, God with us. Honour though is less than worship.
Secondly we magnify Mary because Jesus loves her. You can’t love Jesus without loving his Mother. The idea that magnifying Mary diminishes Jesus misses the point. Jesus and Mary aren’t in competition. Jesus is our Saviour. Mary’s love and prayer draws attention to our Saviour as it did especially on Good Friday when Jesus said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” John 19:26-27. She can be our Mother too! ‘Shall we not love thee, Mother dear, whom Jesus loved so well?’
Thirdly The Spirit fills her Art over centuries attempts to capture the radiance of God-bearer Mary. As the Archangel promised; ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God’ Luke 1:35. It is a widely held view, expressed in the Church of England Prayer Book, that the Holy Spirit kept Mary ‘a pure Virgin’ freeing her from sin to be fitting instrument of bringing our Saviour to birth. There’s no better reason for magnifying Mary!
Fourthly we magnify Mary because The Creed acclaims her. Week by week we honour Mary as we profess ‘the only Son of God… for us and for our salvation… came down from heaven, was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and was made man’. Salvation came into the world through the unique partnership of God and Mary. Though the choice of Mary is God’s and her cooperation is inspired by God it remains an astonishing truth that without that cooperation the cosmos would not be redeemed! ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women!’.
I was singing those words last Sunday in the Angelus after High Mass at St Bartholomew's before which I mentioned my visit to Buxted and that I’d bring good wishes from everyone there, which I do now - and hope I can reciprocate. Like you they go on pilgrimage to Walsingham, share a link with the Shrine restorer, Brighton bred Alfred Hope Patten and have pride in the Church of England’s catholic heritage.
We forget sometimes that the Catechism defines the Church of England as ‘the ancient church of this land, catholic and reformed’. When new priests are installed they swear to uphold the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation.
In sharing about the dignity of Mary I’m building on the work of recovery and renewal in full Christian faith Frs Wagner, Roe and Hope Patten were about, as well as Fr Lewis Hollowood whose funeral I conducted 11 years ago at St Richard, Haywards Heath where I still attend daily Eucharist.
I think of Fr Lewis, very brave in suffering a lot of isolation in his last years, as, I recall a fifth quality of Mary: Her perfect obedience In her ‘Yes’ to God given to Gabriel and confirmed in the hardships she bore Mary models to us an unselfish obedience. Simeon prophesied her heart would be ‘pierced with a sword’ in Luke 2:35 and we see this fulfilled in Mary’s presence at the foot of the Cross, obediently following her Son in his sufferings. She is model Christian, one with us, exemplifying obedience to God in sorrow and in joy. At Cana she gives advice to the servants we take for ourselves: ‘Do whatever [Jesus] tells you!’ John 2:5. Fr John was telling me about how St Mary’s is caught up into that obedience, into doing what Jesus tells you to do, through the funding that’s come from Tesco’s for the community garden helping us open the church every more to the community. May God who gave us that leading give us grace to complete it!
Why magnify Mary? Sixthly, in my scheme, for Her perfect prayer. Who on earth or in heaven pleads for us as effectively as the Mother of Jesus? She above all knows what Jesus wants. ‘There is one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus’ we read in 1 Timothy 2:5. Jesus made clear Christians gain a share in that unique mediation so that ‘anything we ask in his name he will give to us’ John 14:13. The only qualification we have as his intercessors is close abiding in him, a quality few would question of Mary. Invoking her prayer undoubtedly furthers God’s will. Our association with that prayer at Buxted and Hadlow Down over the last century has brought blessings to many. The power of prayer is a great resource for us - what better means to shake our community from indifference to God and awaken folk from spiritual apathy?
We magnify Mary in Buxted seventhly on account of Her prophetic role. Over the Christian centuries apparitions of the Virgin Mary have been welcomed including the one at Walsingham to Richeldis in 1061. These apparitions have come with prophetic messages calling for repentance and deeper trust in God in the face of hardship and persecution as well as indifference towards him. Miracles associated with these apparitions amplify Mary’s thanksgiving to God recorded in our Gospel: ‘the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.’ Luke 1:49 On this Patronal Feast Mary is our prophet inviting the Lord to do such great things among us in the coming year as we recommit to sacrificial prayer and seek his possibilities for our villages.
My last reason for magnifying Mary is She’s normal. It’s you and I who’re not as we’re meant to be, not Mary! If trust, obedience and Holy Spirit empowerment flow from Mary’s purity our own distrust, disobedience and spiritual apathy flow from our impurity. Visions of the Virgin Mary show her normality in an infectious display of warmth, joy and radiance. Such displays as at Walsingham draw pilgrims in their thousands to humble themselves before God whose norm is humility, as stated by Mary in today’s Gospel: ‘He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly’. Luke 1:52
May such God-given humility, warmth, joy and radiance be ours on this feast of Mary, Mother of the Lord, and flow out from this Church to the community we serve!
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