The Virgin Mary: Spiritual Sister

Scared child.

Proud parent.

Beloved icon.

Soul sister.

In her startlingly beautiful new book, Full of Grace: Encountering Mary in Faith, Art and Life, author Judith Dupre uses each of these phrases to describe the Virgin Mary.

It is the last -- "soul sister" -- that sparked my imagination.

The Mother of God as friend had never occurred to me. Not in the human sense, at least.

Surely Mary is a spiritual companion and, in that sense, "friend," but when she walked among us, Mary was and had friends.

She also had a soul sister -- her older cousin, Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. When Mary realized the truth of her pregnancy, she "made haste" to the welcoming, non-judgmental, grace-filled friendship of her loving (and also pregnant) cousin's arms.

Perhaps because I'm a new mother myself, as we enter this Advent season, I find myself looking at Mary the woman -- the girl, really -- with new eyes.

She must have been completely freaked out. I mean, come on. She was what? Thirteen, maybe, 14 years old?

At that age, an unexpected zit would have sent me into a dither of despair. I cannot fathom what an unexpected pregnancy -- especially one of the divinely and immaculately conceived variety -- would have done to my young soul. I do know the first thing I would have done was call my best friend.

Mary turned to her soul sister. Eons before telephones and text messages, she did the next best thing. She ran to Elizabeth.

"Who better to go to when you're a frightened teenager, pregnant, unmarried with the risk of death by stoning?" Dupre writes. "[Mary's] encounter with Elizabeth radiates the great warmth and energy that is generated when two kindred spirits meet ... Both women are pregnant, unexpectedly, miraculously, outside convention."

In the company of Elizabeth and the go-between God who is as powerfully present between people as in them, Mary experiences metanoia -- a transformation of the heart, Dupre explains.

Spiritual traveling companions, such as Mary and Elizabeth, are the catalysts for change, for sacred step-taking in our lives.

"Someone believes in us, shows us the light, and on we go until the next leap of faith," Dupre says. "There's a name for these beacons of light and belief. They are called friends."

Reflecting on Mary and Elizabeth's friendship, I thought about the soul-friend who helped me make terrifying leaps of faith that brought me motherhood's fathomless blessings.

Her name is Jennifer Grant.

We are not related by blood, but that's just a technicality. She is family.

A couple of years ago, Jen took me by the hand and waltzed me into parenthood. An adoptive parent herself, when surprise motherhood presented itself to me in the person of a 9-year-old orphan boy, Jen stood with me -- joyful, expectant, laughing.

At the airport when Vasco arrived from Africa.

At the end of his hospital bed as my not-yet-son recovered from heart surgery.

And by my side in prayer (because there is no distance in the Spirit) when a Malawian judge made Vasco our legal and forever child earlier this year.

Jen had faith in and for me long before anyone ever called me "Mom."

In her forthcoming memoir, Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter, Jen recalls the birth of her eldest child, Theo, and a period of "post-partum elation" that followed.

"I remember looking out the window on the ride home from the hospital," she writes. "I thought the streets should be lined with people, not only to mark his homecoming, but to celebrate every new life who exited the hospital driveway. The hope, potential and love that could grow from this tiny person felt almost overwhelming to me."

I asked Jen about Mary and her enduring appeal for so many of us -- especially those of us for whom motherhood was a divine surprise.

"Maybe Mary felt that way about the world," Jen said, "like she had just brought the most wonderful gift to everyone in it. When she saw people passing by, behind the stable, maybe she had a little excited shiver or led out a giddy little laugh.

"Maybe Joseph heard it. Maybe he dismissed it as the giggle of a teenager. 'Oh Mary. Geez,' he said with a sigh. 'Can you keep it down? I'm trying to get a little sleep. Not everyone got to ride a donkey all the way here.'

"But Mary was smiling," Jen said. "'Just you wait,' she thought. 'Just you wait.'"

 

 

 

Follow Cathleen Falsani on Twitter: www.twitter.com/godgrrl

Comments

[Seaniebhoy]

04:21 PM on 12/15/2010

To the author I would like to say...well done and a very lovely article about how your faith has brightened your life - and good luck to you raising the child. My wife and I have also reached a point where adoption looks more likely than conception.....most posters seem to have not taken any notice about the actual story you wrote and are far more focused on who's right and who's wrong. It is a shame that nobody can live and let live anymore.

[thrillsnswills]

01:33 PM on 12/14/2010

MARY WASN'T A VIRGIN FOREVER! Jesus has siblings!

[HawaiianLady]

05:19 PM on 12/14/2010

No siblings. The word in Hebrew means "kinsmen." Mary is a virgin still, as she was through her whole life.

[John Camp]

05:58 PM on 12/15/2010

The NT is written in Greek and "adelphos" means brothers not kinsmen. The early church fathers are also unanimous that James, the head of the Jerusalem church was the bother of Jesus, and that his other brothers were part of the Jerusalem church when it fled in A.D. 70

[HawaiianLady]

01:36 AM on 12/14/2010

When we arrive in her presence, we'll know her. She's our mother, holy, immaculate, completely without sin throughout her life. She works for us every day, all day. She has said at Medjugorje that she works all the time to make sure we get to heaven "because I do not want to be deprived of the company of even one of my children in heaven." That's enough for me. All the putdowns and lies about her throughout the centuries can't touch this holiest of women. She's God's mother. She's our mother, given to us by Jesus from the cross. Hail, Mary ...

[alterego55]

12:04 PM on 12/13/2010

Usually by the age of 9 or 10 we give up our imaginary friends.

[HawaiianLady]

12:50 PM on 12/14/2010

Mary is far from imaginary. She's a real, living human being, who has continually appeared since her assumption into heaven, to saints and others whose lives were changed or enhanced by her presence. In our time she's appeared at least twice, at Fatima and now at Medjugorje, where she has appeared every day for the past 29 years. She works patiently to save those who are too ignorant or obtuse to save themselves. We are all her charges and she refuses to give up on us. She warns that terrible things are going to happen in the near future, and she's preparing us for them by urging us to prayer, penance and fasting to avert them. You ignore her at your peril. Her predictions at Fatima all came true. These will as well. There is no financial gain made by anyone connected with this miraculous intervention. Our Lady is here for our benefit, and that's all.

[ButImNotSureAboutU]

05:38 PM on 12/11/2010

You must realize that the term "virgin" was a mistranslation by the writers of the gospels of Mathew and Luke. They didn't know how to read Hebrew and mistook the word "young" for the word "virgin". Your "imagining" what she must have been going through is similar to what the writers of those two gospels did when they wrote them. There were already "messiahs" born of virgins by the time the gospels were written so Christians needed to keep up.

It's a wonderful sentiment but all myth.

[John Camp]

07:51 PM on 12/11/2010

The assertion that two educated (a tax collector and a physician) first century Jews who lived in the holy land couldn't read Hebrew is laughable. It is also a canard that "almah" in Isaiah 7:14 means young woman not virgin. It means virgin or marriageable young woman which in that cultural context was always a virgin. The word for young woman w/o comment on virginity or marriageability is "naharaw" which is far more common. Hebrew is a very precise language, even if people who don't read it want to say otherwise. (Sorry for the poor transliterations no Hebrew font for HP comments)

[wm1066]

03:10 PM on 12/12/2010

You misunderstand, they called the Gospels by the names of the Apostes, these men didn't write the books, they were written by Greeks years later and named FOR the Apostles.all the Apostles where dead by this time. Historians figure only parts of the book of James was actually written by James, the rest..not so.

[thunk]

01:43 PM on 12/13/2010

Your correctors are probably right, if for the only reason that almost every revered prophet would get virgin birth status in those days. But I do agree with you that it's all myth. In fact the Christmas story is recognized by most scholars as the most fabricated and latest addition to the mythology; a hole to fill in the ritual year. It's a wonderful story and wonderful myth. What I don't get is why people get diverted with all this Mary thing. It's not the point of the story. I have my own little adopted guy (15 now) who lights up my life and keeps me young. But not being either Christian or female I don't need to make him into the second coming, or play the what-did-Mary-feel game.

[genrel1248]

05:25 PM on 12/11/2010

If I was a pregnant Jewish teenage girl in the Bronze age, I would go with the virgin birth story too.

[french queen13]

07:05 PM on 12/11/2010

Iron Age, not Bronze. Roman Empire. :)

[genrel1248]

08:14 AM on 12/12/2010

I stand corrected. I must have been in an old testament state of mind.

[Macready]

11:32 AM on 12/13/2010

definitely Iron age

[Macready]

11:31 AM on 12/13/2010

definitely Iron age . . . yup she was pregnant and most definitely not married

[Seaniebhoy]

04:10 PM on 12/15/2010

But was engaged at the time.

[ThePaxRomana]

03:56 PM on 12/11/2010

The Immaculate Conception does indeed refer to the Immaculate Conception of Mary. The Immaculate Conception and the Annunciation of Mary are two totally different dogmas. On this matter, all of you are correct. However, some of you have given into the common mistake made by people either reading or "studying" Catholicism. They try to make sense of something that doesn't make sense from the onset. They fail to see the inherent divinity in the teaching or belief. For a non-believer this is nonsense. However, for the believer, Faith is a choice. Faith is not a mandate, nor is it a right. It is a choice. So, for this who believe, we simply choose to take these stories at face value, believe in them, and allow them to become for us the tools for spiritual salvation. Nobody says you have to. Pointing out the logical fallacies of the teachings is both redundant and terribly foolish on your part.

[ruth606]

03:13 PM on 12/12/2010

Indeed.

[alterego55]

12:09 PM on 12/13/2010

Not respecting and applying logical fallacies to your thinking process is terribly foolish on your part.

[HawaiianLady]

11:46 AM on 12/11/2010

A lovely article about Mary, our friend and mother. She works for us incessantly, quietly but with tremendous effect.

[New Yorker]

08:58 AM on 12/11/2010

The authors use of the term "Immacualtely Conceived" is incorrect. Mary herself was "Immaculately Conceived", a term that means she was without the stain of Adam & Eve's Original sin, that every other person bears on their soul at conception, at her Conception. Thus Mary the Virgin mother of God was herself "The Immaculate Conception" because she was to carry within her God himself," The Way, The truth, and the Light" making Mary The New Ark of the Covenant. It was not possible for her role in that to expose her son to any blemish of sin, which is why she alone among humans was Concieved without Sin, She Alone among Humans,Remains, "The Immaculate Conception"

[HawaiianLady]

11:48 AM on 12/11/2010

Very true. (Some call the confusion between the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth "the immaculate misconception.")

[TheFriendlyAtheist]

11:55 AM on 12/11/2010

If God could free Mary from original sin without the sacrifice of Christ, then why can't he do the same for all? The immaculate conception wasn't even thought of until hundreds of years after the birth of Jesus and neither was original sin. Are you saying Mary was not included in the teaching of St. Paul, "all" have sinned and come short of the glory of God"? How could Mary be born without sin unless her mother also was born without sin? None of this makes a lick of sense.

[MathIsTruth]

02:15 PM on 12/11/2010

Yes, very little sense is to be found in this mythology.

Personally, I find the concept of "original sin" to be one of the most heinous and offensive teachings of Christianity.  The idea that sin is inherited is really perverse.  Of course, it's a necessary part of the con.  How can I sell you a product you don't need (salvation), and which you can only buy from me,  unless I convince you that you need it?

[SouthernCelt]

06:06 PM on 12/11/2010

That would be called Baptism, which frees us from Original Sin. Since nothing perfect can come from something corrupt, Mary had to be sin free from the moment of her conception so she could be the vessel from which came man's salvation. Logically that was evident at the Resurrection, witnessed by the Apostles and written down in their letters which became the books of the New Testament, not "hundreds of years after" His Birth. Logic existed at the moment the world came into existence, or don't you believe in Logic either?