1: Aspects of Mary’s maternal experience, resilience, and faith

This Advent, I begin a four-part reflection series focusing on Mary, the mother of Jesus, and her role in the Christmas story. As we light the Advent candles each Sunday, I will explore different aspects of Mary’s maternal experience, resilience, and faith. This Advent reflection lays the foundation for a more extensive article intended for journal publication, where these explorations will be further developed.

1st Sunday of Advent: The First Trimester.

November is drawing to a close, and we are standing on the threshold of Advent. As the first Advent candle is lit this Sunday, I invite you to recall the woman central to the Incarnation narrative, Mary, who prepared to welcome the Light of the world on that first Christmas. But who is Mary, the iconic mother of Jesus? What were her cultural and historical realities?

No more than 12 or 13 years old when she conceived by the power of the Most High, Mary was a devout Jewish woman. Her role as the mother of the infant and child Jesus is an important and inspiring part of the Christmas story. Women today could draw inspiration from the resilient historical Mary, who approached her pregnancy and the birth of her child with faith and courage.  This understanding offers a more realistic model than that of the idealized Virgin Mother of God, whose perpetual virginity has led to conflicting interpretations within Christian tradition. However, we know relatively little about this Mary. We are familiar with her Son’s birth, which is celebrated in crib scenes and nativity plays. The traditional account of the nativity originates from a combination of two Gospel texts – the Matthean and Lucan infancy narratives – which were augmented with details from thirteenth-century Franciscan tradition. Though the biblical accounts differ, they agree that Jesus was unusually conceived, born in Bethlehem, and that his parents were named Mary and Joseph.

Often, the biblical sources do not convey what we think they do. Our twenty-first century reading of the accounts can miss much of the intertextual detail and nuances that were part of the lived reality and cultural heritage of first-century Hebrew society and the early Jesus movement. A more comprehensive exegetical understanding of the texts can be achieved by critically addressing the androcentric gaps within the biblical narrative using nonbiblical texts, supplemented by archaeological, ethnographical, and sociological evidence.

Mt 1:18 (NRSV) tells us that Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but were not yet living together when she was found to be with child. In the Ancient Near East, once girls turned 12, or experienced their first menstrual period, whichever came first, they were considered women and often betrothed soon after. Lk 1:27-29 tells us that she was a virgin and confused by the angel Gabriel’s annunciation of her finding this favour with God. The narrator is making the first-century Israelite process of marriage clear – while the couple are living apart, they are also abstaining from sex. Mary’s pregnancy, therefore, is a violation of the Torah, leaving her exposed to ‘public disgrace’ (Mt 1:19), social shame and ostracism having ‘committed a disgraceful act’ (Deut. 22:20-21).  Apart from her confusion in Luke, there is silence regarding any emotional reaction, saying only that she was the Lord’s servant, obediently accepting to let it be with her. Readers are left to fill in the gaps. The implication is that Mary felt honoured, and courageously trusted in God that all would be well.

Reflecting on the earliest stages of my first pregnancy, my thoughts and emotions were dominated by the awareness of the developing life inside me, even before the physical transformations, which at times felt overwhelming. I wonder how Mary might have coped, given the unique circumstances of the divine conception. We are told that, immediately upon learning of her pregnancy, she made the 130 km, several days journey south, most likely on foot, across three mountain ranges, to her pregnant kinswoman Elizabeth’s home – traditionally understood as Ein Karem.  Given Elizabeth’s own circumstances, perhaps Mary felt she would be more understood by Elizabeth than by her parents.

She remained with Elizabeth and Zechariah for the final three months of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, and the first three of her own. While there, did she experience an almost constant fatigue, a heightened sense of smell or nausea that made her daily chores more difficult? Did she welcome these signs of the growing life within her with joy, or trepidation? Given that Joseph probably visited his betrothed, we can surmise that it was in Ein Karem that Joseph learned Mary’s secret. Did she reveal it to him, knowing that she had to assure him that she had not been unfaithful? Or did her changing body make it evident? There is no record except Matthew’s comment that she was ‘found to be with child’ (1:18). However Joseph came to know, Mary was probably worried about his reaction but also trusted that God would be with her.

Next week, as the second Advent candle is lit, we will reflect on Mary’s journey to Bethlehem, and to motherhood.   

Dr Amelia Fleming is a lecturer in Theology at Carlow College, St. Patricks.