The story of Mary in the Gospels moves me by her sheer silence. When she and her husband take the baby to be blessed she is told that her heart will be broken. The next we know is that when Jesus is taken to Jerusalem for his bar mitzvah he is found talking theology with the scribes and, when rebuked by his mother, makes the enigmatic remark that he is about his Father’s business. We read how ‘Mary bore all these things in silence.’ For thirty years Jesus lived at home, as far as we know, until he discovered his vocation – why so late? – and left home to fulfill it. His mother then has to suffer being publicly rejected by him, ‘Woman, what have I to do with you?’
Thereafter silence. At the end, when Jesus, weak from the loss of blood, is hoisted onto the cross, his feet and hands nailed to the wood, his cries of pain echoing those of the hundreds of other crucified Jews around him, there she is, at the foot of his cross, silently keeping watch over his last hours.
It is not surprising that subsequent generations projected onto Mary the archetype of the Eternal Mother, and that she has commanded such devotion over the centuries. As St Bernard of Clairvaux wrote, ‘In danger, in doubt, or difficulties , think of Mary, call upon Mary.’
