Mary, did you know?

This season gets hyped as a happy time filled with holiday delights, but many of us experience it as stressful, melancholy, and even depressing. Thankfully, the message of Advent addresses the psychological and emotional challenges of the pre-Christmas craziness. A major theme of the message invites us back to Mother Mary, where we can acknowledge our longings for comfort, understanding, and unconditional acceptance.

Mysteriously, as Jesus awaits his birth from inside his mother’s womb, we are united with him in his precarious yet potentially fruitful condition. As he is completely dependent on his mother for life, so are we, in the sense that Mary is our spiritual mother. The phrase “in Christ” appears at least 164 times in the New Testament. Being in Christ means that his experiences are our experiences, and our experiences are his. This is where the mystery lies. In Christ, we are spiritually one with Mary, as Jesus is. 

We often miss this truth because it’s too mysterious and mystical to fathom. And yet, if we rediscover and meditate on what it means to be in Christ in Mary’s womb, we will find a wellspring of wonder to sustain us through our darkest days. At the heart of the wonder is the unity between the masculine and feminine divine in Mary’s carrying of Jesus. 

The Gospel of John describes Jesus as the Word made flesh, but the Advent readings also emphasize how Mary conceived him by the Holy Spirit. Historically, some strange and arcane doctrines grew up around this biblical declaration, focused on defining the meaning of the Virgin Birth. But attempting to explain and even codify a miracle steeped in the mysteries of sexuality and spirituality, both human and divine, descends a slippery slope into a minefield of problems. 

Without going into detail about these difficulties here, let’s focus on how Advent can be a time for experiencing the symbolic richness of the Virgin Birth in a way that unveils many previously hidden meanings of the story. A powerful subtext of Advent is how masculinity and femininity intersect with the divine in order to provide a means of salvation for humanity. That’s a lot to ponder, but simply stated, we need to be saved from more than just sin and death. We also need deliverance from lust and longing, addiction and shame, anxiety and depression and despair. Could it be that Advent addresses these conditions as well? I believe so, but we don’t hear this good news in the way the story is traditionally told. 

I find great hope in a mostly ignored part of the narrative. Read as a multilayered parable, Mary’s union with the Holy Spirit and her oneness with Jesus in her womb make her a reflection of the divine feminine. This is highly significant because in the Christian tradition, there has been a lack of balance between the masculine and feminine, to the detriment not only of women and men but also of the ministry of the church. 

By re-establishing a relationship with our spiritual mother during Advent, we can restore our lost balance, and from this restoration comes the possibility of both personal and collective healing and fullness of life. We begin to receive these gifts when we encounter the profound oneness and interdependence of the masculine and feminine in God and ourselves. Succinctly stated, the masculine and feminine need each other as much as the earth needs both the sun and moon and cannot survive, let alone thrive, without either of them. 

This year, I am especially aware of this spiritual dependency because my own mother is one-hundred years and seven months old. I’m very aware that this may be my last Christmas with my mom in the world. For decades, I have not been dependent on my mother physically, financially, or even emotionally, but I have always been, and always will be, dependent on her spiritually. What I mean is that my mother is my primary earthly example of unconditional love–a love I have experienced every day of my sixty-six years. Inevitably, at some future point, I will no longer have direct access to this love, and yet the comfort, assurance, stability, and peace it brings me will always be part of my life. It’s just that, after my mother is gone, I will need to reflect intentionally on what her love meant to me in order to keep it alive in my heart. 

I think this is how our relationship with Mary, our spiritual mother, works. Mary is not physically with us, and yet by meditating on how we have access to her in and through Christ, we can receive her gifts of unconditional love through the feminine face of God, which she reflects. This is a profound mystery, intimately related to our being with Jesus, in Christ, in her womb. As we ponder these mystical themes, Advent reminds us how dependent we are on the feminine for our life and health not only physically and emotionally but also psychologically and spiritually. In fact, like Jesus, we cannot be born into the world, let alone live and thrive in it, without a profound and ongoing connection to the feminine. 

I know this is a lot to ponder during such a busy season, but as the Advent story suggests, the rewards of doing so are great on earth as it is in heaven.