We meet today’s liturgy with a grace gifted by God to the prophet Moses, meant to be shared with his family: the familiar “May the Lord bless you and keep you.” As we journey through today’s readings, it is reinforced that God speaks through prophets, who speak to us through our ancestors. The Gospel shares that the Son of God was disclosed to shepherds, who wholly believed that He fulfilled prophecy. Mary responds to what the shepherds reveal to her in the way she is deeply known for: she reflects on it all within her heart.

As Catholics we are taught to look to Mary for clues about how to exist in the world. This is reflected in the following text from The Great Themes of Scripture: Old Testament by Richard Rohr and Joseph Martos:

“The model of the faith to which God calls all of us is a total and unreserved yes to God’s request to be present in and to the world through us. God desires to love others unconditionally in and through us. Those who live with such a faith can truly be called God’s instruments. God wants Light to shine through us, and so our first response to this call is simply to heed it and remain open to divine grace. Mary said her yes to God, and God was able to become incarnate in her. She gave birth to Christ by being so totally open to God’s Spirit that the Christ child could be born” (125–126).

As a child I learned about Mary from my grandmother. It was through her creative life that she revealed her devotion to the Blessed Mother. Her crocheted blankets, home cooked meals, and the Rosary moving through her hands taught me that creativity could be a means of navigating impossible circumstances rooted in oppression. My grandmother made works of art as a way to live through her brokenness. Many Catholic children are given clues for how to move through suffering by those within their ancestral motherlines, as well as what to avoid through lessons learned while contemplating their suffering. Our ancestors’ stories of pain cannot be hidden despite familial attempts to do so, the stories of which are often revealed through the mothers and children of those lines. They are passed down to us as if through mystery, encoded within our very bones. 

The knowledge of truth through suffering is also the case when it comes to the harms enacted by the institutional church. No attempts to mask past and ongoing traumas, imposed by the institutional church, can take away the fact that much damage has been done that is now visible, and their impacts continue to unfold. The church’s feeble attempts to show the world glimpses of change, such as the recent allowances for priests to bless same-sex couples, so long as it does not occur within the sacrament of marriage, exist within a reality that would require massive waves of transformation to enact true repair. 

As a society met with insurmountable suffering and much need for repair, we must shift our ideas of what “living in the likeness of Mary” means, so that we are not solely expected to birth physical children as our ancestors were, but also new realities. The expectations to uphold heterosexually dominant nuclear families that once were a cultural stronghold have radically shifted for those currently in their childbearing years. Many women are faced with the reality of the damage that patriarchy has imposed on men, which leaves many of them incapable of maintaining emotionally mature and responsible partnerships. When this reality is met with the impacts of climate change on future planning and an unforgiving economy, many women are faced with the reality of not having physical children in ways that have not been experienced before. 

“The Lord Bless You and Keep You” is a reminder that we are complete unto ourselves, as Mary is as “virgin.” Whatever we are meant to give birth to through means of our creative expression, we must do so in the way that Mary teaches us: to deeply reflect on it all within our heart, so we may move forward with a contemplatively rooted action. 

I invite you to take some time on this feast day of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God to sit for a contemplative practice. This framework can be explored more in Too Deep for Words by Thelma Hall. We need your reflected, intentional action now more than ever, which begins with stopping and listening. The intention of this time will be to spend less talking, and more listening. 

Begin by finding a way to sit comfortably. Upon closing the eyes and connecting to the breath, meditate on any or all of the following questions, leaving space after each one for reflection:

• What is my heart telling me?
• What gifts am I meant to bring forth right now? 
• How is my voice needed?
• Are there any fears getting in the way of creating what I am being led to create?
• How can I be of service in a world that desperately needs radical transformation? 

After sitting with these questions in meditation, spend some time journaling on what came up within your reflections. After journaling, sit for prayer. Focus this prayer on what is offered to us through 12 step work, “the knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry it out”. After doing so sit quietly, releasing all thoughts. Allow for contemplative prayer to take over, surrendering to the mystery of God residing in the heart. Sit in this way for as long as you are able.

One person I look to for guidance on creative expression, guided by Mary, is St. Hildegard von Bingen. Hildegard was a German Benedictine abbess living in the High Middle Ages who is well known for the fullness of her creative life. Hildegard was an herbalist, painter, composer and writer who experienced suffering regularly through chronic pain. In her book Praying with Hildegard of Bingen, Gloria Durka writes:

“Of all of her many works, Hildegard’s hymns teach us the most about her distinctive devotion to Mary […] To Hildegard, the pre-eminent image of Mary was Mother of God. Through Mary, God became flesh to show the human face of God. All of human history, according to Hildegard, pointed to the Incarnation. Mary’s courage, faith, and love helped bring about this most important event. One of Hildegard’s greatest compositions is the song to Mary, Mother of God: De Sancta Maria (To Mary) (93-94).

Hildegard named the virgin Mary mediatrix and salvatrix, a necessary instrument in the redemption of humankind […] Hildegard saw Mary’s eminence reflect on all womanhood. God made a woman the mirror of God’s beauty and the symbol of all creation” ( 95).

To me, it is no mistake that Hildegard’s prolific creativity was centered around her devotion to Mary as the Mother of God. It’s my hope that we can all look to Mary, as Hildegard did, to learn more about what we are meant to create during this time of global suffering.