The Silence of Mary

Last updated on: December 31, 2014 at 1:29 pm by Mark Shea

The Silence of Mary 2014-12-31T13:29:28-07:00 Mark Shea

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A reader writes:

I am a big fan of yours and own your Mary trilogy – wonderful, wonderful books.

Could you apply your super, evil genius brain power to this? During my daily rosary yesterday, the thought occurred to me that the authors of the Gospels probably all knew Mary personally and would likely have interviewed her directly. That thought, coupled with the scarcity of verses in the Gospels that deal directly with Mary, indicates to me that Mary likely intentionally downplayed her role when interviewed. I believe she was likely asked many questions (just human nature!) like “What was He like as a child?” “How did you deal with Him when He was misbehaving?” “Was He helpful around the house?” “What was it like being the Mother of God?” “How did it feel seeing Him up on the cross?” etc. I can just picture Mary smiling gently and steering the discussion back to Jesus and His purpose in coming – our salvation! I think this thought makes the few times we see her portrayed in the Gospels as that much more powerful. There are Big Reasons for her appearances in each case, which of course you make clear in your books. Just thought of more supporting evidence perhaps – or at least another argument. At any rate, thought these ideas might spark a column or blog post from you.

I think you are probably right, generally speaking, about the relative quiet with which the gospels treat Mary and her corresponding modesty. They show her great reverence and they, in their subtle way, accord her colossal and even cosmic significance (how many people do *you* know who get compared to the Ark of the Covenant?). But yes, the gospels don’t go in for much chat.

This is also true of their treatment of Jesus. There is, in fact, nothing quite like the gospels in world literature. The attempts to make them much of a muchness with other documents always fails because they are their own thing. They have no interest in the sorts of things modern biographers care about. They give us, for instance, no physical description of their main subject. There is no psychological analysis of Jesus (nor, curiously, of Judas). Sometimes the character of a certain personality (most notably, impetuous Peter) will bleed through, but typically the gospels mean to tell us a sort of theologically informed story whose focal point is, overwhelmingly, a 72 hour period in the life of their hero. Everything else in the tale is, for the evangelists, focused on that 72 period and derives its significance from the events of that weekend. Without it, you do not get a story purified of it mythological elements. You get a jumble of sayings and anecdotes with no point whatever.

Mary’s part in that tale, like everything else, orbits around that hub. She is holy because her Son is the Holy One who did not see corruption. She is the New Ark because the Crucified God who is priest and victim dwelt in her and received his blood (which he shed for us) from her. His miracle at Cana matters because it foreshadows the Eucharistic sacrifice he accomplishes during the 72 period. Everything–absolutely everything–about Mary is referred to her Son. And the gospels are only there to elucidate all that, not to give us yarns about what it was like to toilet train the Son of God or whether Jesus had acne as a teenager, or what it was like to watch him play with his childhood friends. (I don’t think we can speak of Jesus “misbehaving”, by the way since he was without sin from conception. We can, of course, speak of him having to learn and grow in his human nature–needing to be taught to stay away from fire, or not pet strange dogs lest they bite him, etc. But we cannot speak of him acting sinfully with defiance, or greed, or temper tantrums at having his will crossed. But I suspect that’s not what you mean by “misbehaving”.)

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