In the Eastern churches today is marked as the dormition of the Theotokos. In the Roman calendar today is the feast of the assumption of Mary. In the Anglican calendar this day is traditionally marked as the “falling asleep of the blessed virgin Mary,” although there are more than a few Anglicans who hold to some view of physical assumption for our lady.
As such she is one of the few biblical characters who by tradition do not die.
As someone at the margins of the Christian tradition (my confession is to have a physiology of faith, with a Buddhist brain, a Christian heart and a humanist stomach: all resolved rather messily for me within Unitarian Universalism) I have many although mixed feelings about Mary.
On the one hand I have difficulties with separating her from the commonality of our humanity. But then I have the same problem with normative Christianity doing the same with Jesus.
On the other hand she carries some powerful archetypes. that touch my life, and many lives, I believe…
I mean, she is the mother. Perhaps best written The Mother.
And I’m absolutely taken with the fact that some iconic images of her appear indistinguishable from icons of Quanyin, who occupies some cross over places in Buddhist and East Asian hearts.
And, there is something about the liberation theological take on Mary that I find myself particularly thinking of today. Here, again, my interest is less in her death, real or imaginal, and more in what she stood for in life.
I find it all starts with the Magnificat, that amazing poem in Luke.
No doubt there is a revolution in those words.
No doubt…
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