Thoughts on the Annunciation....

Happy Feast of the Annunciation!

Part of the text addresses the spiritual motherhood of Mary, and how it is related to the physical motherhood of millions of women. In particular, it addresses what it may mean that Mary received the news of her motherhood with love, not fear, and that resistance to fear may well be a witness not only to her love and trust in God, but her immaculate conception....

The book is scheduled to be released at Easter.  More news as I know it!  Meanwhile, from the text:

...[W]e do know how Mary received the conception and birth of the Son of God: and this gives us all the insight we have about her as a person, and her call to motherhood. That is, she did not give in to fear, and lived out her vocation in utter fearlessness. At the annunciation, being approached by an angel and the Holy Spirit, she asks a simple clarifying question (How can this be…?) and then responds “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word.” No flash, no drama, only humble assent. In an age of historical-cultural criticism, we know that the stakes were high for her personally, in her culture: she was betrothed to Joseph but not living with him, and this seemingly illicit pregnancy could result in being stoned to death. Additionally, if it is true that she was dedicated as a child to the Temple as a virgin (as some legends offer), this pregnancy would look to the world like another grievously broken vow. It’s hard to see how anyone in such circumstances would have received this “good news” well.

But the encounter with the Holy Spirit may have assured her and strengthened her to travel 50 miles to tell the other person mentioned in the annunciation, a cousin with another miraculous pregnancy, Elizabeth. And her words are not “I’m afraid,” “I’m so worried,” or even “I’m confused” but:

...My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

for the Mighty One has done great things for me,

and holy is his name (Lk 1:46-49).

That is, her response to Elizabeth’s awe-filled “you had faith” was to redirect Elizabeth’s awe to God: “Look! Look at the goodness of God! Look at what God has done! In me, in Israel, in all the small ones of this world!”

Mary’s acceptance of the pregnancy, the child, and her vocation to motherhood is rooted in a fearlessness that comes from a harmony of body and spirit, and total trust in God. If she was indeed without fear—that psychological consequence of dissociation—then perhaps she saw the birth of her son (whatever that would look like) as work, as effort, as cooperation with the Holy Spirit, but not pain. That is, perhaps she did not anticipate or experience pain because she did not give in to fear, from her acceptance of the annunciation onward. Perfect love cast out all fear.

For Mary, accepting motherhood meant to focus her energy and attention—in her case quite literally and directly—on God, fearlessly and without reserve. This was her untarnished experience of motherhood....

Being pregnant during advent, and hospitality

From the book:

Many people are familiar with the story of Servant of God Dorothy Day (1897-1980), co-founder of the Catholic Worker, a radical movement dedicated to serving the needs of the homeless and vulnerable through depending on God’s providence. As a young adult, Dorothy-- a strong-willed young woman in love and living with a man named Forster Batterham, writing for socialist and communist papers in New York City, and joining marches for women’s suffrage and worker’s rights--found herself pregnant. In fact, she was pregnant for the second time; she had an abortion of an earlier pregnancy by another man. This pregnancy, wholly unexpected since she had thought she was barren after the earlier abortion, she was determined to bear--despite Forster’s objections and her own precarious financial situation. While pregnant, she decided that the baby must be baptized in a faith she wished she could fully embrace herself. She was attracted to Catholicism, sitting in the backs of churches full of people she was trying to stand in solidarity with, the working immigrant poor of New York City--but she hesitated to become Catholic, in significant part because it would mean the end of her relationship with Forster. When recounting this story, Jim Forest, a friend of Dorothy Day as well as her biographer, said “And this birth, the birth of Tamar Teresa, was a turning point, the beginning of her ministry of hospitality. It all began with the hospitality of the womb.”^[1]

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[1] Jim Forest lecture, March 2002, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota (Winona, MN). Forest’s most recent biography of Dorothy Day is All Is Grace: A Biography Of Dorothy Day, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 2011.

Three of my five children were held in my womb during advent. It's a common experience for pregnant women--a nine month pregnancy does cover most of the year, and the chance of hitting advent is high.  But it's a privileged time to be pregnant and to hear of another pregnancy, Mary's childbearing of Jesus.

So much of pregnancy can be just uncomfortable.  Even painful., sometimes scary.  But there is also something like holding a great secret.  And  the real sense that you are able to nurture and care for your child by doing so little, really--eat, a little exercise, sleep.  It may be the one time in life that living out your vocation given by God doesn't require any real thought or deliberation: at this point, it's simply about providing the other room to be and grow.

This is a note that Dorothy Day's biographer Jim Forest highlights beautifully: Dorothy made a decision to offer her child the hospitality of the womb, and all of her hospitality to the most vulnerable in society began in a concrete way with that experience of making room for a child of God.

So much of the Gospel of Matthew's nativity story is about a lack of room: no room (initially) in Joseph's heart for a miracle child, no room at the Inn, no room in Bethlehem thanks to Herod and a hurried flight to Egypt.  But Mary made room, and we all make room when we embrace a pregnancy as God's work.  And soon enough it will be work: the labor, the raising.  But for a few more days, we get to practice hospitality by simply breathing, eating, drinking, and resting as needed.  This end of advent, let us remember Mary's hospitality, and our own call to hospitality as we understand it in our state of life.  And I wish all of you a blessed Christmas.

Childbirth as hospitality: "The beginning of her ministry of hospitality was the hospitality of the womb."

As we observe the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade: a section from the second chapter on childbirth.

Hospitality. Many people are familiar with the story of Servant of God Dorothy Day (1897-1980), co-founder of the Catholic Worker, a radical movement dedicated to serving the needs of the homeless and vulnerable through depending on God’s providence.  As a young adult Dorothy-- a strong-willed young woman in love and living with a man named Forster Battingham, writing for socialist and communist papers in New York City, and joining marches for women’s suffrage and worker’s rights--found herself pregnant.  In fact, she was pregnant for the second time; she had an abortion of an earlier pregnancy by another man.  This pregnancy, wholly unexpected since she had thought she was barren after the earlier abortion, she was determined to bear--despite Forster’s objections and her own precarious financial situation.  While pregnant, she decided that the baby must be baptized in a faith she wished she could fully embrace herself.  She was attracted to Catholicism—sitting in the backs of churches full of people she was trying to stand in solidarity with, the working poor of New York City—but she hesitated to become Catholic, in significant part because it would mean the end of her relationship with Forster.  When recounting this story, Jim Forest, a friend of Dorothy Day as well as her biographer, said “And this birth, the birth of Tamar Teresa, was a turning point, the beginning of her ministry of hospitality.  It all began with the hospitality of the womb.”^[1]

The striking beauty of this insight--that the radical hospitality of the Catholic Worker began with the hospitality of the womb--is also a sad comment on modern realities.  More than any time in history, we can deny children the hospitality of the womb.  Much of the first trimester, in many clinics, is spent determining whether to extend the hospitality of the womb or not to any given child.  At this writing, a new noninvasive prenatal test for Down Syndrome has been developed, which detects Down Syndrome with accuracy at nine weeks gestation, and is planned to be available at relatively low costs in 2012.^[2]  While some will take the test, receive a “positive” for Down syndrome, and use the remaining months to prepare for a child with special needs, it is likely than most will choose to abort the child.^[3]  It is a new and fearsome control, and one that denies not only the dignity of the child, but also the spiritually formative powers of maternal hospitality: the crucible of otherness.

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[1] Jim Forest lecture, March 2002, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota (Winona, MN).  Forest’s most recent biography of Dorothy Day is All Is Grace: A Biography Of Dorothy Day, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 2011.

[2] Rupert Shepherd, “New Blood Test for Down Syndrome – During Early Pregnancy,” Medical News Today, http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/236256.php.

[3] The current abortion rate of women whose unborn children test positive for DS through amniocentesis and CVS is approximately over 90%.  See Amy Harmon, “Prenatal Test Puts Down Syndrome in Hard Focus,” The New York Times, May 9, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/us/09down.html

Family as model of Church and as sign

I was listening today to a National Public Radio interview with Joel Kotkin, who recently co-authored a study called The Rise of Post-Familialism: Humanity's Future?  I must say, it was a depressing hour.  Kotkin struck me as a statistician and was without bias, but the numbers, the impact, the reasons people gave for not only choosing to be childless but to be family-less: he said at minimum it should give people cause for pause.  Listen to the whole thing, but the upshot was: imagine a society with no aunts, no uncles, no siblings, no cousins, few if any kids to play with nearby, and littered with people who have been so damaged by their experience of family they choose to opt out.  We're all singles together, sort of.  And he points out: we don't need to imagine this: we can see it in Japan, in China, and increasingly in Europe.

The hour focused on the economic impact of such an impending reality, but I immediately thought of the theological impact.  If the family serves, even very imperfectly in this fallen world, as a sign that points to God's desired union with humanity, what happens when we lose yet another sign given us by God?  Do we lose a window, another opportunity to perceive God? 

The understanding of Church as God's Family is indeed part of the text:

Edith Stein, also known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, wrote in her Essays on Woman that every human being has a threefold vocation: a universal vocation as a beloved child of God; a gendered vocation as a son or daughter of God; and an individual vocation (which begins with a call to a state of life, and moves from there: marriage, or consecrated life, or deaconate/priesthood; then perhaps to mother or father, activist, teacher, or other possibilities).^[1]  We are all born to God’s family, and called to be family to each other.

The ancient call to be brothers and sisters to each other sounds like a wooden bell in a culture where families are, by definition, broken.  Many have written of the challenge of accepting the Fatherhood of God, in the experience of children with an abusive father.  Or the motherhood of Mary, given all the mixed messages we receive about the value of motherhood.  Part of the prophetism of the body, as John Paul sometimes called it,^[2] is the message of the spiritual value of fatherhood and motherhood.  How beautifully we have, body and soul, been created for this gift.  How we are called to participate in the mystery of creation, the intensity of labor, the joy of new life.  When we participate with our vocational call, the path is not made perfectly straight: but there is nothing ultimately to fear. 

One embodiment of the Church that explicitly names the call to be God’s family is the Church in Africa.  John Paul II’s Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa notes the work of the African bishops over four weeks in 1989, and underlines with enthusiasm the synod’s call to image the Church as God’s family: a way of understanding Church and relationships which is culturally derived, but also scriptural and universal.  The Church as God’s family could be profoundly compatible with the purpose behind the images of Church asserted by the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium:   "By her relationship with Christ, the Church is a kind of sacrament or sign of intimate union with God, and of the unity of all mankind."^[3]

 Not only did the Synod speak of inculturation, but it also made use of it, taking the Church as God's Family as its guiding idea for the evangelization of Africa. The Synod Fathers acknowledged it as an expression of the Church's nature particularly appropriate for Africa. For this image emphasizes care for others, solidarity, warmth in human relationships, acceptance, dialogue and trust. The new evangelization will thus aim at building up the Church as Family, avoiding all ethnocentrism and excessive particularism, trying instead to encourage reconciliation and true communion…. "It is earnestly to be hoped that theologians in Africa will work out the theology of the Church as Family with all the riches contained in this concept, showing its complementarity with other images of the Church.”^[4]

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[1] Edith Stein, The Collected Works of Edith Stein, Vol II, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Discalced Carmelite, trans. Freda Mary Oben (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1987), ch. 2 (especially 57-59).

[2] Man and Woman He Created Them #104.

[3] Lumen Gentium 1.1, cited in Ecclesia in Africa #63.

[4] Ecclesia in Africa #63