Mary the Evangelist
by Fr. David A. Fisher
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? - Luke 1:41-43
The Theological Significance of the Virgin Mary
Mariology is the title given to the theological discipline concerning the Holy Theotokos, Mary the Virgin Mother of Our Lord Jesus. Mary never ceases to enlighten us about the gift of salvation that is given to the world in her Son and Savior, Jesus the Christ. In the same way, her life was a constant affirmation of what the power of faith in Christ can accomplish in a human life. The theological reflections of Mariology give us moral, dogmatic, and spiritual insight into the great gift of salvation bestowed on us by the Father, through his Son and Holy Spirit.
The spiritual devotion given to the Holy Virgin, along with the doctrinal and theological reflections on Mary, also reveal to us the beauty of the ancient Church. The Council of Ephesus in 431 declared the Catholic belief that Mary is the Theotokos, the Mother of God. Devotion to Mary as the Mother of God and acknowledgment of her perpetual virginity remained a common element in the faith of the Catholic, Oriental Orthodox and Orthodox Churches despite the other disagreements over other aspects of Church belief.
Mary is the symbol of human single-mindedness at the service of God. The Church never ceases to gain strength from those words of Mary in response to the Angel Gabriel, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38) These words of Mary are spoken for the Church, and with the Church, that the People of God will have total trust (faith), and total devotion towards God our Father.
The theology of the Syriac Fathers was often expressed in poetic form and Mary was often the person used by them to express the beauty of God’s creation and its redemption in Christ. St. Ephrem the Syrian, the “Harp of the Holy Spirit,” is possibly the greatest example of the poet-theologians of the Syriac tradition. Due to his verses on the interior beauty of the Holy Virgin, many theologians have come to see him as the first expositor of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception:
The eye is clear if united to the sun. By its light it conquers armies. It shines with its light, gleams with its brilliance, is adorned by its beauty.
As though on an eye, the light dwelt in Mary and purified her spirit; it cleansed her thoughts, sanctified her conscience and perfected her virginity.
The river in which He was baptized conceived Him symbolically. The moist womb of the water conceived Him in purity, bore Him in splendor and made Him ascend in glory.
In the chaste womb of the river recognize the Daughter of man, who conceived without knowing man and gave birth without the seed of man. By grace she formed the Lord of grace.
Light in the river, splendor in the tomb. He skipped over the mountain, shone in the maternal womb, was resplendent in His rising, was radiant as He rose to the heavens. (“Hymn on the Church,” 26:1-5: Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, 199:87-88).
St. Ephrem beautifully writes of how Eve led Adam to clothe himself in the stain of sin, while Mary brings to him the clothes of salvation which is Christ himself. Adam therefore becomes a type of the Church, clothed in redemption.
Adam had been naked and fair, but his diligent wife labored and made for him a garment covered with stains. The Garden, seeing him thus vile, drove him forth.
Through Mary, Adam had another robe which adorned the thief (Luke 23:43); and when he became resplendent at Christ’s promise, the Garden, looking on, embraced him in Adam’s place. (“Hymn on Paradise,” 4:5 Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, 137:69)
We see the same poetic beauty in the Liturgies of the Syriac Churches today, and even in translation this dynamic aspect is retained:
“O holy Virgin Mary, O Beautiful Lily and Fragrant Rose, the fragrance of your holiness has filled the whole universe. Pray for us that we may become the sweet fragrance of Christ that spreads throughout the world.” (Book of Offering, According to the Rite of the Antiochene Syriac Maronite Church, 458)
The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth
After her holy Annunciation in which the Angel Gabriel revealed to her that she would be the Mother of the Savior of the World, Mary goes to see her older cousin Elizabeth; the Visitation:
Mary then travelled the nearly hundred miles from Nazareth to the little town in the hills of Judea where Zachary and Elizabeth lived. According to tradition this town was Ain Karim, which then was five miles from Jerusalem, but is today incorporated in that city’s municipal boundaries. (“Blessed Are You Among Women,” Melkite Eparchy of Newton, 2016)
Saint Paul reminds us in his first epistle to the Corinthians that Jesus fulfills the plan of salvation “…according to the Scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:3) It was revealed to the New Testament Church and further elaborated upon in the thought of the Fathers, that the Jewish Scriptures/Old Testament was about the Messiah who was to come, Jesus, the Word made Flesh. Therefore, as the Church sees the “types” of Christ in the Old Testament, it also sees “types” of the Holy Virgin. One of the most powerful images of the Theotokos in the Jewish Scriptures is found in Second Samuel:
Then David and all the people who were with him set out… to bring up from there the ark of God, … and he said, “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?”… The ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite for three months, …David went to bring up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the City of David with joy… Then David came dancing before the Lord with abandon, girt with a linen ephod. David and all the house of Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouts of joy and sound of horn. (2 Samuel 6:2-15)
Mary is the New Ark of the New and Eternal Covenant, whom she carried in her womb. Completing the theological reflection of this passage from Samuel; David is a “type” of Jesus, bringing in his person the dynamic presence of God among his chosen people, who are a “type” or “image” of the Church.
The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth is also the awakening of grace in the life of Saint John the Forerunner; the one who will be called the Baptizer is baptized by his Lord while in the womb of Elizabeth, his mother. Saint Ambrose of Milan in his treatise on the Gospel of Luke, describes the encounter.
Notice the contrast and the choice of words. Elizabeth is the first to hear Mary’s voice, but John is the first to be aware of grace. She hears with the ears of the body, but he leaps for joy at the meaning of the mystery. She is aware of Mary’s presence, but he is aware of the Lord’s: a woman aware of a woman’s presence, the Forerunner aware of the pledge of our salvation. The women speak of the grace they have received while the children are active in secret, unfolding the mystery of love with the help of their mothers, who prophesy by the spirit of their sons. “The child leaps in the womb; the mother is filled with the Holy Spirit, but not before her son. Once the son has been filled with the Holy Spirit, he fills his mother with the same Spirit. John leaps for joy, and the spirit of Mary rejoices in her turn. (St. Ambrose, Commentary on Luke)
In many ways the Visitation represents the bridge from the Old Law to the New Law in Christ, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, from the sacrifice of the Temple to the sacrifice of Christ, from the Church of the Israelites to The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Mary the Evangelist
An Evangelist is one who proclaims and shares the Good News of salvation in Christ. The Church has especially given this title to the Four Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Church itself is always evangelical in the sense of calling all men and women to itself; to become members of the community of faith, which is the Church. The first “evangelist” of the New and Final Covenant is the Holy Virgin Mary.
In being chosen to be the Mother of the Messiah, she who is full of grace is the example of faith (total trust), “And Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.’” (Luke 1:38) Mary as evangelist, calls others to this same faith in her Son, as seen at the Wedding at Cana when she addresses those who are confused and unsure by saying to them, “Do whatever he tells you.” (John 2:5)
Mary is the greatest of evangelists, for she alone gives birth to the object of faith, Jesus. She whose heart was pierced as if by a sword witnessed the crucifixion of her Son and Lord, and with his Holy Apostlesreceived the gift of the Spirit of Truth from the Father at Pentecost. It was certainly she who gave insights into the life of Jesus to the first disciples, insights that only she would have known, so that the New Testament Church could fulfill its mission as the Evangelizing Church. As Saint Ambrose wrote:
Let Mary’s soul be in each of you to proclaim the greatness of the Lord. Let her spirit be in each to rejoice in the Lord. Christ has only one mother in the flesh, but we all bring forth Christ in faith. Every soul receives the Word of God if only it keeps chaste, remaining pure and free from sin, its modesty undefiled. The soul that succeeds in this proclaims the greatness of the Lord, just as Mary’s soul magnified the Lord and her spirit rejoiced in God her Savior. (St. Ambrose, Commentary on Luke)
The Church, like Mary, never ceases to point towards the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ. She is the grace-filled example, of how the grace-filled People of God must share their faith with others who do not yet know Christ, or who have lost total trust in the God who loves them. Mary as evangelist shows us that the strongest proclamation of faith is by the example of how one lives. How has Mary over the centuries drawn so many peoples, races, and cultures to faith in her Son; by the example of her life of faith, “Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.’” (Luke 1:38)
Father Fisher, a Maronite priest and Adjunct Professor of Theology at the Byzantine Catholic Seminary of Ss. Cyril and Methodius, is a regular contributor to The Maronite Voice.