Mary of Nazareth is the uniting factor between God and the human race.
The medieval lyricists - such as Friar William Herebert [d 1333] - had exquisite ways of expressing the link between God and His servant, the Lady Mary of Nazareth.
From stall to rood
Later poets, such as Robert Southwell [d 1594] and John Donne [1573-1631] - had their own ways of describing Mary of Nazareth.
In the nineteenth century, Robert Stephen Hawker [1804-1875] and the Pre-Raphaelite painter poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti
[1828-1882] followed this great tradition.
Rossetti calls Mary of Nazareth a daughter born to God, mother of Christ from stall to rood [meaning cross].
Sistine Madonna
The twentieth century American writer of poetry and prose, Cornelia Otis Skinner, wrote a poignant little verse after a visit to Italy;
TO THE SISTINE MADONNA
Mary, most serenely fair
Hear an unbeliever's prayer
Nurtured in an austere creed
Sweetest Lady, she has need
Of the solace of thy grace:
See the tears that stain her face
As she kneels to beg thy love.
You whom no one told her of.
Eternal into temporal
What was Mary doing during those last few weeks leading up to the birth of Christ?
She must have simply been doing at all pregnant women do in their final stages of pregnancy; meditating upon the miracle of human growth taking place within them.
In this case this was even more of a miracle because she was a virgin and her Baby was the Son of God.
The metaphysical poet Mother Mary Frances calls Mary - during the time of Advent of her Son - the Queen of Craftsmen.
She itemises the elements of construction of the human body of Jesus reaching completion within His mother's womb.
Note the time imagery inherent in the allusion to the crystal hammers moving to the beat of Mary's heart as well as the metaphor describing the heart of the developing infant Jesus as a clock.
This latter image incorporates the movement of God the Eternal into the temporal sphere of humanity.
Queen of Craftsmen
Blow by exquisite blow
The crystal hammers of her love
Fasten the careful joinings of His bones
Prophets have sung this craft: how men may number
These bones, but never break an one of them
What blueprint guides you, Queen of architects
To trace sure paths for wandering veins
That run Redemption's wine?
Who dipped your brush, young artist, so to tint
The eyes and lips of God? Where did you learn
To spin such silk of hair, and expertly
Pull sinew, wind this heart to tick our mercy?
Thrones, Powers fall down, worshipping your crafts
Whom we, for want of a better word, shall call
Most beautiful of all the sons of men.
Worker in motherhood, take our splintery songs
Who witness what you make, in litanies:
O, Queen of craftsmen, pray for us who wait.
Advent - Annunciation
The Advent period began with the Annunciation.
What was Mary doing when the Angel appeared to her?
Mary was aware of the prophecies regarding the coming of the Messiah, and was well versed in the sacred Torah.
That this is in fact the case becomes evident to us when we compare Mary's Mary's own ode of praise to God, the Magnificat, with the words of Hannah, the mother of Samuel.
Renaissance poets show Mary pondering over the words of a book.
But she might have been cleaning for all we know.
What we can be sure of is that when she spoke the word:
'Behold the handmaid of the Lord.
Be it done to me according to Thy Word',
a radiance came over her as God overshadowed her and the mystery of the Incarnation took place.
Dr Luky Whittle
Mary did you know?
Image by Rev Catherine
With thanks to Youtube
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