DOM AUGUSTINE ROBERTS, OCSO
Where does Mary fit among the many elements of monastic life? How does the monk or nun live out a relationship with the Mother of Jesus? Who and what is Mary for me?
These are not questions to be answered lightly. In general, it seems to me that Mary will be for each one of us what we let her be. For many, even in monasteries, the reality of Mary may be one of the truths of faith accepted and recited in the Creed but not really lived or appreciated as referring to a person who intervenes directly in daily life. She can be an implicit part of our life but often not an explicit one, apart from routines such as the Angelus, the Rosary, or commemorations in the Liturgy.
Because of such a difficulty, it seems important to base ourselves on both doctrine and experience —Mary’s experience and ours—so as to discover for ourselves just what our relationship with her can be. Experience will make doctrine real for us, and doctrine will let us interpret experience correctly. This is what we will attempt to do in the following pages by looking at the basic patterns of both Mary’s life and the monk’s, pointing out their mutual significance and interaction. Of course, when we refer to the experience of monks, we understand it to include nuns as well. In fact almost all of what follows is applicable to any Christian vocation. The conclusions will be for each reader to draw for him or herself.
Who is Mary?
When Mary prophesied that “All ages to come will call me blessed,” she foresaw the praise which she was going to receive. Above all, however, she was pointing to an intrinsic connaturality between herself and the rest of the human family. She saw how she had become, through the great things God had done for her, the supreme model of what it means to be human. We can understand this when we see that blessedness or happiness, especially in the Bible, refers to the inner vocation of the human person. Thus the Beatitudes are not primarily promises of extrinsic rewards if certain dispositions, such as poverty, gentleness, or purity of heart, are cultivated, but rather they point to truth: to the real perfection of the human person, indirectly condemning the falsehood of worldly standards. Blessedness is ontological.
For the same reason, Simon, son of Jonah, is called “blessed” by the Lord because his deepest identity will be not to pay attention to “flesh and blood” but to proclaim the revelation which comes from the heavenly Father. By doing this he will become “Rock,” his new name. Similarly, all ages will call Mary blessed because her inner vocation, what the Mighty One has done in her, has made her the paradigm of what it means to be human. She is, in union with her Son, the member of the human family in whom our shared identity is most perfectly achieved. God’s promises to us all are first fulfilled in her. We are somehow created or re-created, or both, in her image and likeness. And so our destiny is to be like her.
How can this be? What is this likeness of Mary present in the human heart throughout the ages? In what does the blessedness of Mary consist?
Note: This article was originally published in Word & Spirit, issue 10 (1988), and is reprinted here with permission.
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