Last year, I ended the Camino with a call from Ceres to wake up. Today, Ceres is part of me like a strong and generous Martha, grounded in Nature and open to the expanse of heaven.
This year, I began the Camino in a different frame of mind.I started with a prayer to Mary of Magdala: Please help me love Jesus the way you loved Him. Looking back on the past months, I realize that someone else answered my prayer: Mary, the mother of Jesus.
Our first encounter was on the way to Roncesvalles, Spain, crossing the Pyrenees. A humble statue stood, alone, in a hair-pin curve, a few feet up from the road, overlooking mountains, clouds and valleys. A pilgrim walked to her, knelt, sang a beautiful prayer, and went his way.
Upon arrival in Roncesvalles, we went to the Cathedral. Last year, like every other pilgrim and tourist, I had admired the statue of the Virgin under the canopy. I had gone no further. This year, as we attended the pilgrim mass, I got lost in contemplation of the 14th c. statue of Mary holding baby Jesus. I fell under the charm of her softness and gentleness. It was as if I could personally experience it. I spent the mass entranced, my eyes fixed on the delightful statue, and felt no desire to move.
We continued our journey. At each stop, each church, I found a statue of Mary that did speak to me and in which I confided my hopes and worries. To help me start the day walking I made up a litany of Saints and dead relatives: I opened with the many Marys I had encountered on the way — Santa Maria de Roncesvalles, de Pamplona, de Eunate, de Villamayor de Monjardin. I always started with Ste Marie of Le Puy, France, an ancient black Virgin that had sent me off on the way to Compostela the previous year.
I should explain that I have been fighting the importance of Mary in the Catholic Church ever since I was a young woman. I resented her monolithic, otherworldly perfection placed on a pedestal high above all other women. She was unreachable and could not be emulated. Virgin and mother! I felt she was a masculine creation, some sort of projection that answered unsatisfied longings for a mother or an ideal feminine companion — beautiful, perfect, forever virginal, and silent.
But I grew older. Life has come with challenges and wounds. I began relating to Mary as the older woman at the foot of her son’s cross. She had suffered and could empathize. I experienced her presence and compassion in moments of tearfulness.
All changed when, late this summer, I felt a silent call to walk into the unknown and encounter Mary. I cannot say she is the Mary of the Miracles, of the apparitions. I don’t have much taste for those stories, even though I am struck that those who meet her are simple folks, just as she was herself. She does not appear to important people: it takes a humble heart to see her.
Not long ago, in a glimpse of understanding, I sensed that over the centuries we have represented her as a queen, an all-powerful and merciful most holy woman, to explain a feminine answer to the Divine that we cannot comprehend. She did not ask to be shown as a queen. I find no regal distance in Mary: just a simple beauty, a quiet humility, an openness to and a trust in Godde. An awesome willingness to do Godde’s will at any cost.
Suddenly I wonder whether this is not the invitation that Mary is sending me, that of simplicity, humility, and complete openness down to the very inner core of my heart, soul and spirit so that I can encounter the Other that I long to love.
Perhaps she wants to take me to her Son: for such an encounter I may have to learn a few things first. As I let her tame me, as the Little Prince tamed the fox, she can then show me the way to silence and solitude in Godde where all is very simple and uncomplicated, safe and beautiful.
A great softness has entered my life. Why is it that I receive when I want to give?
See biographies for all our Judith's Table feature columnists at the Meet Our Columnists page from the left menu.
Copyright 2003-2008 Judith's Table. Content found at Judith's Table may not be copied or reproduced in any way, or by any means, without written permission from the site owner. The artist, designer, or author owns t he copyright on all artwork or creative writing at this website and these may not be copied or reproduced in any way, or by any means, without the written permission of the copyright owner.
