CATECHESIS/ CATECHETICS

Catechesis on the Faith of Mary

And the Use of Art in Catechesis

by Douglas Bushman, S.T.L.

The Truth about Mary is Part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Passing on the faith concerning Mary is as old as the Christian faith itself. This is seen in St. Luke's Gospel, the first two chapters of which contain the richest material on the Blessed Virgin Mary. Luke wrote these chapters so that Theophilus ("one who loves God") could know the truth concerning the matters of faith about which he had been instructed (see Luke 1:4). The Gospel of Luke is, of course, about Jesus, but the full truth about Jesus includes the truth about His Mother, Mary.

St. Luke was compelled to include what he did about Mary, and his own words convey the reason why. He wanted to present an "orderly account" of what had been fulfilled in Jesus Christ based on a "careful investigation from the beginning" and faithful to the testimony of "those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word" (Luke 1:3). Luke's goal precludes any addition or subtraction that would compromise his fidelity to his sources. At the time of his writing, there was already an authoritative tradition to which he must be faithful.

From his travels with St. Paul, Luke knew from experience the vehemence and various kinds of resistance to the extraordinary message of the Gospel. He knew that the Gospel of God becoming man and saving His people through an ignominious death was scandal to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. If he had allowed merely human motives to guide his choice of material, he would have had every reason to excise the data on Mary, especially the miraculous virginal conception of the Christ. Thinking in merely human terms, Luke might have calculated that there is challenge enough to faith in the Incarnation and Resurrection. Why, then, multiply the difficulties? Why not make it easier for people to come to faith in Christ and leave out problematic material?

The Holy Spirit does not calculate in this fashion, and His grace is sufficient to surmount all the difficulties in coming to the Faith. Mary belongs here, beside Jesus, even in an important sense before Jesus Christ. In this article I would like to reflect on God's mysterious wisdom in bringing salvation to us through a woman. Before getting to that, the subject of catechesis about the Blessed Mother presents an irresistible occasion to make some comments on the use of Christian art in catechesis.

The Use of Christian Art in Catechesis

A significant innovation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), in comparison to the Roman Catechism, is its use of works of Christian art. The CCC employs five images: the logo on the cover, and four pictures, two of frescos, one of a sculpture, and one of a painting, each introducing one of the four main sections or "pillars."

According to Archbishop Christoph Schoenborn, the CCC's chief editor, this "represents an encouragement to catechize with images."1 This invitation can be readily accepted when it comes to catechesis about Mary, since the Catholic tradition is so rich in this non-verbal expression of the Church's faith regarding the Mother of God.

The use of images makes it possible to begin catechesis earlier than one might think possible. One of the earliest stages of mental development is naming: attaching a name to a person, place, or thing. If young children can distinguish hippos from giraffes and zebras from lions, then they can just as readily identify angels and shepherds and kings, Mary and Joseph and Elizabeth, and of course, Baby Jesus. (Incidentally, they can also point out donkeys and perhaps cows and camels depicted in some paintings of the Nativity and the Epiphany!)

Naming events, which are more complex, comes later in a child's development. Familiarity with the characters of the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Epiphany, journey to Egypt, Presentation, Finding in the Temple and Wedding at Cana can be followed by learning their names. As children grow they can discover the biblical witness to the stories contained in the works of art. At that time they will discover, as they must, that the Scriptures measure the art, not vice versa.

The role of images in catechesis is based on an understanding of the human person. Normally we experience a reality before we name it. Christian art facilitates this experience by engaging our senses and imagination, and thus more fully engaging our very person. The dogmas of faith regarding Mary's motherhood and the Incarnation are truths which are independent of details about weather, precise time of day, or the color of Mary's clothes. However, Christ's birth did occur with all the specific details that any historical event entails. Artistic depiction is not an attempt to recover the precise details of these circumstances, but an effort to convey the singular and unrepeatable reality and meaning of the event.

The use of art in catechesis teaches the catholicity of our faith in time. We can learn from and be inspired by the expressions of faith from earlier times and other cultures because our faith is essentially the same as theirs. In iconography, for example, the color red is a symbol for humanity and blue for divinity. In icons of Christ, the Lord is often depicted wearing a both a red and a blue garment, with the red one under the blue one, that is, closer to Him. This teaches that though Jesus is both true God and true man, He is a Divine Person by nature. In contrast, Mary, who is a human person by nature, is portrayed wearing blue, since she participates in divine life by grace.

It is not an accident that Christian art is associated with places of prayer: burial sites, churches, houses of prayer, shrines. Catechesis cannot be separated from prayer and liturgy. Since both prayer and liturgy are based on faith, it is appropriate that places of prayer and worship be rich with signs that evoke acts of faith. Sacred art "draws man to adoration, to prayer, and to the love of God" (CCC, no. 2502).

The habit of making sacred art an occasion for catechesis can transform visits to well constructed and decorated churches into pilgrimages of faith - educational and spiritual events. Stain glass windows, paintings and sculptures, as well as architecture itself, portray many biblical stories and events and lives of saints, and convey important truths of the faith.

Mary and Christ

All the Marian events of Christ's life contain the fundamental principle of catechesis on Mary. The principle is: What the Church believes about the Blessed Virgin Mary is based on her relation to Christ. Christ, as the CCC teaches, is the one, simple and complete Word of the Father (no. 65). In Him everything that God has to say is revealed. He is the Truth which contains all truths; He is the Light which is the source of every reflection, including that most resplendent of all, Mary.

A Christ-centered approach to catechesis on Mary might take inspiration from the words of St. Paul: "It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2:20). If Christ lives in us, then we should experience the same relationships that Christ experienced: first and foremost, His relationship with the Father and Spirit, but also His relationship with His Mother.

What was that relationship? A first (and superficial) look might focus on a glaring dissimilarity between Christ's relationship with Mary and our own. He never addressed a prayer to her, while we do, at least 53 times with every Rosary! On reflection, this difference only underscores the uniqueness of the Son of God, and draws our attention to what is essential about Christ's relationship with Mary, and ours as well. As Son and unique Mediator and Source of all grace, Christ could not receive from any creature anything that could add to the fullness which was His from the beginning with the Father.

With respect to all of us, including His Mother, it is proper to Christ to command rather than to seek intercession. Nevertheless, though our Lord's will is properly expressed in commandments, He also always respects our free will. Here we confront the mystery of God's own freedom and love. God possesses freedom in infinite perfection, to the point that He is Freedom, and He is able to create free beings. At the same time, His love and power are such that they really communicate the goodness of being and the goodness of His own life (grace) to these free creatures, without in any way violating their freedom.

This regard for our free will is seen in the fact that God calls us and invites us, but never coerces us (see CCC, no. 160). The CCC does not hesitate to speak of the hidden source of God's love and respect for our freedom as a thirst: "God thirsts that we may thirst for Him" (no. 2560). In other words, God ardently desires that we desire aright, and we desire aright when we desire Him above all else. The CCC employs another expression in commenting on the call of Moses. After describing God's desire that Moses freely accept to be His associate in the work of liberating Israel from slavery, the Catechism states: "there is something of a divine plea in this" (no. 2575).

This "divine plea" to Moses foreshadows the plea God would make to Mary over a millennium later. As God responded to Israel's prayers for deliverance by the cooperation of Moses, so He willed that salvation should come to all through the cooperation of Mary.

To return now to the Lord's relationship with Mary, while Christ never needed or sought Mary's intercession for Himself, it remains true that as the Son of the Father He too "pleaded" for her cooperation; that is, He desired her free consent to God's will for her. This is where our own prayer to Mary Immaculate is very exactly Christ-like. The Christ who prays in us (CCC no. 2616) addresses to Mary our desire, our plea, that she be everything God wills her to be. And we know that God wills her to be an intercessor for us. In other words, we know that Mary is, by God's will, associated with every coming of Christ into the world, after the pattern of her role in the Incarnation. Christ made it possible for Mary to fulfill her role as His Mother by gaining for her the grace of the Immaculate Conception, while we make it possible for Mary to fulfill her role for us by accepting her maternal mediation in our behalf.

Mary and Existential Faith

Pope John Paul II's encyclical on Mary, Redemptoris Mater, is a profound meditation on Mary's faith. In that, it is simultaneously a reflection on our faith, since Mary is the model of faith.

The Pope sees in Mary's faith the perfect fulfillment of Vatican II's description of faith:

"The obedience of faith" (Rom 16:26; see 1:5; 2 Cor 10:5-6) is to be given to God who reveals, an obedience by which man entrusts his whole self freely to God, offering "the full submission of intellect and will to God who reveals" (Vatican I, Dei Filius, Chap. 3), and freely assenting to the truth revealed by Him (Dei Verbum, no. 5).

Mary Immaculate shows us what it means to entrust ourselves to God and how this emphasis on entrusting allows for growth in faith. One of the more interesting of the Pope's insights comes in his meditation on Mary's faith at the Presentation in the Temple. The words of Simeon, he teaches, simultaneously confirm the words of the Annunciation and shed new light on them. Gabriel had spoken of an unending Kingdom, while Simeon made known of the actual circumstances of this kingdom's coming: Christ was to be a sign of contradiction, and Mary was to suffer too.

A Kingdom on the one hand, rejection and suffering on the other. These two messages seem difficult to reconcile. Surely Simeon was mistaken? The Blessed Virgin Mary did not feel the need to choose between the one or the other. By faith she perceived that these two words were compatible because they both came from God. Simeon's words cast new light on the words of Gabriel. When Mary learned that her Son's kingdom would entail rejection and suffering, she embraced this new revelation as something she had already said YES to. This YES was implicit in her YES at the Annunciation.

In saying YES to Gabriel, Mary said YES to everything God willed about, for and through His Son. She said YES to her Son, and in this YES she embraced His mission as well. Though she did not know all the details and circumstances of His mission, she entrusted herself to God and made herself its servant. In this Mary's faith is similar to the faith of Abraham who set off for an unknown land full of trust in the One Who called him, having not yet seen what he had said YES to in his trust.

This excellent quality of Mary's faith is a model for our own. Each tomorrow will reveal something we have already said YES to, not necessarily in terms of the doctrinal content of faith (though growth can take place here as well), but in terms of the concrete working out of our vocation. Seeing God's will fulfilled in the duties and events of our daily lives is what gives faith its existential quality, that is, its ability to give meaning to our lives. Since God is the source of that meaning, faith is existential to the extent that it discerns the presence and activity of God in the daily events of our lives.

Such existential faith makes it much easier to discern God's will and to accept it. At the foot of the Cross Mary finally learned the concrete meaning of Simeon's words about rejection and suffering. Having said YES to Simeon's words a first time at the moment of hearing them, she now said YES to them again by the faith that could see in the Cross the exact fulfillment of those words. And she was able to do this despite the fact that "standing at the foot of the Cross, Mary is the witness, humanly speaking, of the complete negation of these words,"2 that is, the words of Gabriel about a Kingdom without end.

In this we see that catechesis on Mary concerns a great deal more than information about the primary Marian truths: the Immaculate Conception, perpetual virginity, Divine Motherhood, and Assumption of Mary. While it cannot dispense with these, neither can it be reduced to them. Catechesis on Mary means instruction in a Marian faith which, in its existential dimension, is able to overcome the rift between faith and life,3 the divorce between doctrinal assent and daily living.

Existential faith turns life into a journey, an unending process of discovering what in fact we have already said yes to. Take marriage, for example. I did not know, when I said yes to God in marrying my wife, that I had in fact said yes to our first six children. Perhaps one day I will discover that I have already said yes to a seventh child. God will make this known through the many circumstances and events of the many tomorrows of our faith.

Such Marian faith is especially valuable during times of suffering. Suffering tends to make us feel that God is somehow distant, uninvolved. In the midst of suffering we can react with indignation, with an attitude of "I didn't sign up for this." Yet, at the foot of the Cross, Mary realized she had "signed up" for it, precisely in her YES to her Son's conception and mission. The same God who revealed His word to her through Gabriel and Simeon was now speaking to her through the mystery of Christ's crucifixion, and by her faith she remained in unbroken communion with Him. Existential faith is able to recognize God's closeness to us in suffering, and holds steadfastly that "all things work together for the good of those who love God" (Rom 8:28) and that nothing "will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 8:39).

When faith is conceived as a complete and total entrusting of oneself to a Person, to Christ, then there is less of a risk that we will put conditions on discipleship. If faith is reduced to an assent to a set of propositions, then one can bristle against things in life which do not contradict those propositions. I can claim that the terms of agreement were violated and cry "Unfair!" if something is asked of me which I did not expect. But, does anyone from the outset sufficiently understand God's mysterious ways to be able to place perimeters on His wisdom? Mary's journey of faith shows us that "God's words are not immediately comprehensible and intelligible" and that "whoever demands that the Christian message be as immediately understandable as the banal is obstructing God's way."4 Marian faith is living, existential faith, and as the law of life is growth, so faith must daily grow in its embrace and understanding of the mystery of God.

Douglas Bushman holds a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He is Director of the Institute for Religious and Pastoral Studies, University of Dallas.

End Notes

1. Schoenborn, Catechism of the Catholic Church, Introduction, pp. 63-64.

2. Redemptoris Mater, no. 16.

3. Called by Vatican II, Paul VI and John Paul II the drama of our time. See Gaudium et spes, no. 43; Evangelii nuntiandi, nos. 18-20; Christifideles laici, nos. 44, 59.

4. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Communio, 1989, p. 62.