BVM

And he came to her and said, “Hail full of grace, the Lord is with you!” -Luke 1:28

I actually think the original Greek word kecharitomene sums it up best. It means so full of grace that you literally can not add another drop. Wow. The first person since Adam and Eve to be created without the stain of Original Sin, the only human being ever to be protected from Actual Sin. (Christ was incapable of Actual Sin, that’s different from being protected from it.) How amazing it must have been to have known the Blessed Mother when she still walked the Earth.

There are many misconceptions about the Blessed Virgin Mary and the attitudes of Catholics toward her. Many Protestants, in their enthusiasm for casting off the remnants of all things Catholic, choose to ignore the place which this unique human being held in all Creation.They find it easier to ignore or denigrate her than to try and come to some sort of personal resolution about this remarkable woman. Other people try to dismiss her as simply another woman who did nothing more than carry a child in her womb; something millions of women have done without meriting any special attention or fanfare. Many of these same people wrongly believe that we, as Catholics, worship her and place her in a space which should be reserved for God alone. We certainly don’t place her on par with God, but we love and revere her and look to her for help and inspiration.

I can remember being a little girl in Church and studying the cool and lovely face of Mary in the statue which stood in its niche. She was beautiful, but aloof, somehow separate from the world. It didn’t seem strange to me at the time, of course the Mother of God would be above the petty concerns of the world, that seemed natural. Now that I am a mother myself I can’t help but wonder about her humanity.

I wonder how she sounded when she laughed. Was it a quiet chuckle, or would her joy flow out from her in rolling peals of laughter, its clear sound filling the space around her? I’ll bet she laughed, hard. How could someone so full of the love of God not spill over with joy until it touched everyone?

Understanding that protected from sin is entirely different from perfection, I wonder about her flaws. Could she sing loud and clear and true, or was her singing voice one of those things that Jesus and Joseph would roll their eyes at and share a laugh over. “Mom’s singing again…or trying to..” Was she clumsy? Did she burn dinner because she was too busy listening to her baby cooing in the cradle and forget that she had put it in the oven? I don’t know the answers, but I like the questions. I love the image of the mother who burns the loaf of bread because she was too busy in prayer to her child’s Father, or even just too busy dancing in the kitchen with the baby.

The statues are lovely, I have several myself which I treasure, but I think their austere beauty is missing something vital. In striving to show the beauty of the woman who was judged as being the only one in history worthy of being chosen to mother God’s only Child, we often forsake that which made her blessedly human. We miss the spark of laughter in her eyes, the glowing pride of a mother over her perfect child, the tears in her eyes when she stubbed her toe, and the woman who could get distracted and scorch the soup.

Blessed Mother of God, who knew what it was to be an imperfect woman, and yet knew the beauty of the fullness of Grace, pray for us who have recourse to thee.