Today, Aug. 15, is the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Catholic tradition holds that the mother of Jesus ascended bodily into heaven at the end of her life, without dying (like Elijah in the Old Testament). While this isn’t an official Episcopalian doctrine, we still celebrate today as the Virgin Mary’s feast day in the saints’ calendar. Here, James Kiefer at The Daily Office explains the significance of the Virgin Birth:
Besides Jesus himself, only two humans are mentioned by name in the Creeds. One is Pontius Pilate, Roman procurator of Judea from 26 to 36 AD. That Jesus was crucified by order of Pontius Pilate pins down the date of his death within a few years, and certifies that we are not talking, like the worshippers of Tammuz or Adonis, about a personification or symbol of the annual death and resurrection of the crops. His death is an event in history, something that really happened. The other name is that of Mary. The Creeds say that Christ was “born of the virgin Mary.” That is to say, they assert on the one hand that he was truly and fully human, born of a woman and not descended from the skies like an angel. On the other hand, by telling us that his mother was a virgin they exclude the theory that he was simply an ordinary man who was so virtuous that he eventually, at his baptism, became filled with the Spirit of God. His virgin birth attests to the fact that he was always more than merely human, always one whose presence among us was in itself a miracle, from the first moment of his earthly existence. In Mary, Virgin and Mother, God gives us a sign that Jesus is both truly God and truly Man.
Marian doctrines and legends can be a sticking point for modern Christians. Personally, I enjoy believing that I live in the kind of universe where a virgin birth could happen, but Mary’s significance for me goes beyond this story. She’s been a personally comforting presence for me when I needed to experience the maternal side of the divine.
Mary is Woman in a complex and uncategorizable way. Nowadays many think of virginity as a stifling ideal (and certainly Mary has been deployed by the church to stigmatize female sexuality), but in Biblical times, when women were men’s property, the power to say “no” to sex was a proto-feminist act. The early female martyrs’ refusal to marry was their way of declaring allegiance to something higher than the social order; their lives, they asserted, had a value beyond the price that their fathers and husbands had set on them. Yet Mary is also a mother, reminding us that the gift of life occurs in the flesh as well as the spirit. By containing contradictory functions within herself, she represents womanhood as not reducible to any one of them.
Enjoy this recording of Joan Baez singing the traditional folk song “Virgin Mary had one son”, from a 1977 concert:
Virgin Mary had a one son,
Oh, glory halleluja,
Oh, pretty little baby,
Glory be to the new born King.
Well, Mary how you call that pretty little baby,
Oh, pretty little baby,
Oh, pretty little baby,
Glory be to the new born King.
Well, some call Him Jesus, think I’ll call Him Savior
Oh, I think I’ll call Him Savior
Oh, I think I’ll call Him Savior,
Glory be to the new born King.
Riding from the East there came three wise man,
Oh, came three wise man,
Oh, came three wise man,
Glory to be the new born King.
Said, Follow that star, you’ll surely find the baby,
Oh, surely find the baby,
Oh, surely find the baby,
Glory be to the new born King.
Well, the Virgin Mary had a one son, etc.
(Lyrics courtesy of UULyrics.com)