Sister Jennifer Clarke, Australia, shares about the journey of her discovery of Mary and how Marists live Mary’s spirit.
Her name was Mary
Meeting the SMSM in Jamaica led to a wonderful journey of discovery of myself and the SMSM. My experience of SMSM was that they had a familiarity with Mary which I had never previously encountered and it was for me the essence of the Marist spirit. Even at that stage, I understood that the Marist spirit is not taught but caught.
Who is this Mary?
When I was growing up, Our Lady was the paragon of all virtues, impossible to imitate, sweet and meek, and so wholly other that there was no chance of a personal relationship. The Mary I have come to discover is a woman who took risks, proclaimed a radical new order, was faithful to her inner truth and worked quietly in the background.
My experience in Bangladesh gave me a whole new appreciation of what a huge leap in faith and what a tremendous risk Mary took in saying her Yes to what God asked. Within the context of Bangladesh I had read about the dangers of becoming pregnant out of wedlock and of how early in life girls are taught to protect the family honour. From this I was able to understand more of both Mary’s risk and her faith.
Trudging miles on foot is what is asked of many people in Bangladesh. Mary set off with haste to the hill country. Yet another risk, a journey to what? Was Mary setting off to help or to share her news with someone else in an amazing situation or was this a dramatic representation of how far she was moving out of her comfort zone for the sake of us all? Her song of praise really points to her hope that God’s coming would lead to a new world order, a situation of justice for the poor and that her own position is one of handmaid, a willing servant of God.
One of the Gospel stories I particularly love is the marriage feast at Cana. Mary’s last recorded words in the Gospel are “Do whatever he tells you”. What a tremendous risk she took! This indicates to me a level of communication between Jesus and Mary which surely grew during those years in Nazareth. Jesus is the one who told us that by its fruits you will know if a tree is good or bad; Jesus the fruit of her womb. As we know from the losing of Jesus in the Temple, Mary knew that Jesus had his own ideas. Even so she risked being embarrassed by Jesus’ decision that his hour had not yet come and his keeping to this. She was surely speaking from her own truth, a deep connection with the Spirit within, when she said “Let it be done unto me according to your word”.
The Mary I am coming to know is the older woman who prayed with the disciples as they struggled to understand the meaning of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension and the promise of the Spirit. What would happen next? Mary was simply there as they struggled, attuned to her God and waiting yet again for God’s will to become clear.
Love of God
Mary’s love of God underpins all else. We too are called to open our hearts to receive God’s love for us so that we may bring forth the Word of God’s love in our world. The desire for intimacy with God is a response to God’s call and leads us to prayer which both nourishes us and challenges us.
This prayerfulness is both in extended times of prayer but also in those moments of awareness of God’s presence. Surrendering to God’s love means looking at all around us with the eyes of love. One of my own graced moments occurred at a busy intersection in Dhaka city when I experienced God’s love for us all in this chaos and grime, far from any mountain top quiet.
Living the Marist spirit is a call to conversion. We are asked to absorb the spirit of the one who so graciously chose us. Father Colin told us that “the spirit of Mary is something very delicate and profound, which can only be grasped by sustained meditation and prayer”. This is what I discovered when I tried to learn about the Marist spirit. It is not a spirit of devotions, keeping Mary on her pedestal. Rather it is the journey of a relationship, of coming to know more about Mary from meditating on the Gospels. The relationship is sustained as I try to get to know how she thinks and acts, by turning to her for guidance and by letting her take care of our works.
In conclusion, this article has helped me to reflect on my own lived experience of the Marist spirit as an SMSM. I hope that this sharing will contribute to your invitation from Mary to learn to “think, to speak, to act like her, and to live, as it were, her life”. |
