Alright. I'm not going to talk about Christ is the reason for the season-- per say. Though I do firmly believe that, but let's go a little deeper. I feel as if there is something I need to expound on. Mary-- You know the Mother of God-- And if you believe Jesus is God in the flesh then that is her title. But let me talk about her from a different perspective-- no matter you're faith persuasion. Unless you just don't believe Jesus is the son of God-- then I can't help you because that is one fact I am sure of-- more than I can put into words.
Even though I was not raised in a religious home we had lots of talks about Jesus. And I knew the basics as I think most people do. I had a religious grandma and great aunt who showed me God pretty nicely and I had a dad that though of no affiliation or conviction was the best evidence for God. At seventeen I decided to pursue God in the form of Christianity. There was never a thought that God wasn't real. It was more a choice to bring him fully into my life and choose to follow his ways instead of my very worldly ways. Very honest my family had taught me well how to be selfish and put my needs first, and a few very abusive relationships had done the rest. My perspective was skewed to say the best, and at worst I was angry, self destructive, super selfish, and could not see the nose on my face even to save my own life or anyone else's. So at seventeen-- still not seeing my faults I somehow did see that God was my answer. But I did not understand at that time what he was my answer to. Mary was unknown to me. Catholics were from the devil in my skewed view and Christianity was not real unless you professed to be 'saved'. The question in my mind even as I searched was-- 'saved' from what? No one answered that well. --Saved from the devil? Even then I knew no one was really. Saved from the hole in my heart? That wasn't working. My hole consumed me and caused me to do things that no good Christian should. Saved from condemnation? No one could see my darkness it seemed. They thought I was so innocent. Saved from death? My life was a daily death. Hence all the answer that could be given me really after consideration didn't hold water. Yet it took me fifteen years to outrightly ask the question-- and that answer is what took me from being Protestant to Eastern Rite Catholic. Funny thing is I asked it of a Baptist minister not a Catholic priest.
But at this time I was about to have my first introduction to Mary at a Christian convention. I was eighteen and half and was really starting to realize I had more problems than I had solutions, and it wasn't getting better. I sat down in a chair in the middle of the room with about a thousand other young adults and listened to a woman talk about Mary's interaction with the Archangel Gabriel, and listened to her response to him for the first time. 'I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it to me as you have said.' I stewed on those words for almost two years. They were part of my prayers. I read them again and again in scripture. I prayed for God to help me be his handmaid. But my life was spiraling downward and I couldn't seem to turn it back. I felt alone and by now so unworthy. More than anger I was full of unresolved grief that I couldn't make better, and no one could help me out of my pit. Christians talked about how when they came to God all their problems disappeared, but that wasn't what happened with me. Why did I feel so alone? Why did I not receive victory like the others I knew? Why was I so confused? Why did I keep making the same mistakes over and over and over? Then the next morning I would ask for forgiveness and mean it just to do it again? Why did the people in my church see me as so damned pure? Couldn't they see the puss that oozed like a fountain from the lesions in my soul? Now I hated Christmas, and wanted to avoid it like the plague. I saw all the people just overflowing with joy and happiness when I was alone in a crowd with no one I felt like I could share anything with. But this Christmas season was about to be altered universally.
Back at the beginning of November right before I turned twenty I made an astronomical mistake that was about to reorder my life. The day after I came to church and cried through the service. At the end of the service I ran into the singles minister, and for the first time he-- someone-- could see I wasn't doing so well. I told him how black my life seemed while everyone thought I was so perfect. How could God just accept me when I kept disappointing him? He drew a triangle.
The bottom angle represented where I was standing, but God was at the top angle and he could see where I was going to be, and he loved me because he understood what was really going on. I kept the little drawing in my bible for years because that day he changed my life. He gave me hope. I don't know if he realized it or not, but he caused me to make a very important choice that day. But something bigger was happening and I didn't have a clue that day. It was something that would bring me in direct contact and understanding of Mother Mary and my first hook into Eastern Catholism.
Four weeks to the day from that day I took a test and it was positive. At barely twenty, alone, unmarried, confused, and deeply hurt I found I was pregnant. It was the beginning of December just two weeks after my birthday in 1989. The day I found out I was going to a play at my church where again I was presented with Mary. They showed her as a young confused woman-- alone. Fighting for what she believed, but vulnerable and in danger of being stoned. I was already being stoned by my family. My mother was enraged. My aunt wanted me to abort. The father I hadn't told because we barely knew each other, and he was a different nationality than I was. When my family found out I knew they would devour me. My family was not to considerate of other races.
Mary resonated with me, and realizing her dilemmas helped me grip mine. It gave me an inkling of a like for the Christmas season. It also sealed something God had been working in me. It was 'Catherine, I chose her to raise my Son. I trusted her. I trust you too with this child you are carrying.' That thought, or instinct-- I would have not dared called it the voice of God then-- though now I most certainly know it was-- changed me. My response was-- 'God then I have to change because I don't want my baby to be like I am. Please help me.' I didn't realize then that Mary was there with me, and praying for me. I did not see her as the Mother of God then only a woman who carried God's Son. Yet she was.
It would be eight years until my next introduction to Mother Mary, yet in that time I wondered about her, thought about her, and yet felt very odd when I thought to much about her. I was told Catholics worshiped Mary, and so they were idolaters. So each time I thought to much about her it would scare me. I didn't want to anger God. He'd done so much healing in my life, and though I still lived in pain it was different now. I had a husband who loved me and our family. By now I had three children-- all girls. Each of their names had been chosen by God-- that somewhat frustrated me-- I always thought I would chose their names. But He had other plans. I had just met a new friend and had just begun a journey that was almost bigger than my original journey with God. I had begun homeschooling my girls. My friend was Catholic. It was very evident to me as I got to know her that she was not an idolater. In fact she loved God like I did, and she knew him in some ways even better than I did. Ironically her name was Mary.
Mary's kids and my kids were best friends. Mary and I fastly became best friends. We would talk about so many things, but during this time I was searching for the truth. I just could not accept most of what was being preached at me because when I would search scriptures I would find the errors, and when I would go back to the minister with the problems either they would ignore what I was showing them, or would say something like-- 'Yes that is what the bible says, but what it really means is...' and I just could not accept God would not be plain with us and mean what he said. Mary would laugh when I told her, and tell me what she saw, and somehow it would always line up with what I was understanding too. This sparked great questions and debates. That would lead to more questions for both the 'teachers' around me and study of scripture. Which would again lead to Mary and I discussing for some times weeks at a time some point. Finally this led to me just reading the whole book of Acts and crying. "God! This is the church I want to go to." It was a soul cry. I wanted what the apostles had. I wanted truth, and I really wanted preachers to stop telling me what scripture 'really' meant. Why couldn't they just read a passage of scripture in context and not skip around to make it say what they wanted it to? Mary must have been laughing hysterically inside of herself because that was what she received every week-- little did I know. Mary though gently listened and every once in a while infused what the Catholic Church taught, which I would insist was not biblical, and then as I researched --always in context by the way, I was a stickler for this-- I would find it was completely biblical. How was this possible? Her church taught exactly what had been driving me batty that the church did not teach-- yet hers did.
Finally we got into the discussion of Mary- by this time we had known each other for a few years, and I had begun a study of biblical Mary. Who was she really? How important was she? Because I was tired of accepting the old myths of Catholics not being Christians and only worshippers of Mary.
What I discovered was beautiful and frightening and it left me breathless and unsure of what to do. Mary and her family had moved to Chicago as my family had moved an hour further west into the interior of Iowa. Mary and I were still the best of friends, and spent time visiting by either meeting for a retreat, or me driving to her house over a weekend. We were both natural health fanatics and so there were alternative treatments we would decide to try together, and during these times I would stay with her and would go to what would later become my own church home. I didn't know it then. During one of these times Mary taught me the rosary, and as my curious nature demanded I had to understand the origins of this prayer. I found that it was biblical. In fact the words spoken in the Hail Mary came from three sources and two of those under the direction of the Holy Spirit. The third source was the Archangel Gabriel. I was aghast. Everything I realized that had been said about Catholics was not true. This was not worship, but love. And how could I not love the one who carried my Savior? I began to pray. For forgiveness for my brothers and sisters that were deceiving so many. For truth to know this woman that is the Savior's mother. For truth where I had been lied to. For courage because I knew what was being asked of me. I knew the condemnation that Catholics came under. I'd seen it first hand many times. I didn't want to be Catholic. I was a conservative Protestant-- At that moment Baptist. But I kept asking questions, and I kept searching out answers. The final question-- though I didn't realize it at the time was to our pastor at our church minutes from our home. "What do you mean when you ask if someone is saved? Do you mean redeemed, because I realize Jesus does redeem us when we come to him, but salvation is a work that is not complete until we finally reach heaven. So what do you mean?" I thought of a verse-- work out your salvation with fear and trembling. I thought of all the places I had looked in scripture for the answer myself, and I asked Mother Mary to help me understand what her Son was showing me.
The question turned into a battle of sorts, because he thought of 'saved' as redeemed, but then could not give explanation to the verse I mentioned above. Which finally turned into 'Well scripture means saved when it says redeemed'. In that moment I realized he didn't know the answer, but I did. Saved was short for salvation, and an error. Because salvation scripture made very clear was a lifetime work. It was not a one time work. God is not that small, and we are not that perfect. I knew I could not give up the wonderful woman that raised my Savior from an infant to a man, and I could not give up the scriptures and I could not give up all the truth I had found. As the years after this went on I came to rely on Mary as a mother to me. When my mother moved two thousand miles away-- I cried into Mother Mary's tenderness. When my biological mother died it was to Mother Mary I went to once more. Because I am adopted as a child of God that makes Mary my mother. I love her so much, and I trust her with my heart and tears. But I love her most because she was open to being mother to Jesus who has saved me-- Saved me from myself, my mistakes, my selfishness, the lies that sought to entrap me, but most of all from being forlorn. He not only gave me himself on the cross so I could come to God in eternity, but also could come to Him on a momently basis. He is working salvation in me and cleansing me daily so that I will one day be able to enter heaven. I was forlorn because I was alone, but he gave me his mother to teach me how to seek her son. He handed me to her so I would have a mother even when I don't. He handed me to his mother so I would know how to be a good mother to my own children. He handed me to his mother so she would help me pray and hand my prayers to him in the way he wants me to.
We celebrate a baby's coming that redeemed us and at the end of things will completely save us. But he came by a vulnerable woman who was willing to be called blessed. She was only a girl really, and if not for His intervention she would have been stoned. Yet he made her to be Ark of the Covenant-- He made her to be the Mother of God. He made her to be my mother-- The mother of the motherless. I cannot worship her. She did not make herself. I worship Jesus, but I dearly love his mother. When I celebrate this season I celebrate His birth, but part of his birth is the making of a mother. So I celebrate his redemption even in his own mother. I celebrate him taking a broken woman and making her blessed. I cannot separate what he did and what he did in her-- as he has done in me. I am too grateful. May you have a blessed season. I am planning to. May you also understand that the Son is the most important part of this season, but he is very intertwined with his blessed mother-- Mary.
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