It is Advent. The season of waiting. The season that ends with Christmas, literally “Christ-coming”, with a baby in a manger and a star and the poor shepherds and the rich kings. With the end of a journey traveled and the beginning of a bigger journey on which to embark.
It also is the season of the people who, when they said “Yes”, made Christmas possible: Mary and Joseph. The Parents.
There is a lot to be said about Joseph, and my favorite thing I have ever heard about him is, “For someone who says no words in Scripture, he’s a pretty important person.” His absolute humbleness, his courage, his listening heart, his willing actions…these are all things that inspire me deeply, and it’s something that I will very likely explore in a future post. At this moment, however, I’m drawn to Mary.
I’m always drawn to Mary, if I’m honest. And I hope, in this post, to tell you why. If there is anyone who can help me, a struggling mother, wife, and helper of souls, it is she, who has always tried to do just that.
This post, what follows from here, is a talk I gave in front of the school. I was asked to talk about Mary…and this is what came out.
I am Christina Barry and I’m going to talk to you about Mary… and about being a mom.
Before I became a mother, I was good at almost everything. I was good at school as a student and then as a teacher, I was good at leading retreats, I was good at talking to people. I was good at athletics, at making a house a home, at arguing and then making up from arguments. I took being good at things for granted: I was accomplished, I was capable, and I was used to that.
As I write this in my kitchen the night before it is due, my baby is crying in his crib. My oldest son is at baseball and I am terrified that he has had another meltdown, as he did at chess club earlier today, because he is tired from going to bed too late. My middle son is outside playing by himself, and I worry again that he doesn’t get enough parental attention because he seems so self-sufficient. When I became a mother, all at once, I was not so good at things. From the very night we brought our oldest home from the hospital, I realized that my strength was not enough. I was not strong enough to handle a baby who would cry for 4 hours straight, no matter what I did. I was not strong enough to handle two very busy little boys who sometimes hit each other with shovels and landed us in the emergency room. I was not strong enough to navigate my marriage while trying to help a child with significant learning differences. Simply put, I was not strong enough. That made me terrified.
When the angel told Mary that she was going to have a baby, she was terrified. She knew that she was not strong enough. She was not strong enough to have a baby out of wedlock in first century Palestine, when the Law said she would be stoned to death for being pregnant without a husband. She was not strong enough to be the mother of the Son of God—what did that even mean?? She was not strong enough to make her fiancé, Joseph, understand that she was going to be a mother, but that she had not cheated on him.
But God knew that. God knew what Mary was, and he chose her, even though she couldn’t do it all on her own. The most oft-repeated phrase in the entire Bible is this: DO NOT BE AFRAID. In the face of Mary’s fear, in her assuredness that she was not enough, the angel said to her, DO NOT BE AFRAID. Mary did not need to be afraid because God’s deal with us is simple: Give God what you have, and it will never be enough…but God will take it and MAKE IT ENOUGH. Mary gave God what she had. She said to God, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord: do with me what you will.”
So many times have I said such words. So many times since I have become “Mommy” have I not known what to do, have I cried out to God, “I am here. Please show me what to do.” Mary was also Mommy. She was Mommy to Jesus, to her little boy. When Jesus was 8 days old, an old man who had waited a lifetime for the Messiah lifted up her tiny baby and was overjoyed at him, then looked Mary dead in the eye and said, “A sword will pierce your heart.” The Scriptures tell us that Mary kept this, and so many other small, strange things, and pondered them in her heart. With all the strange, small things that come to me in motherhood, I try to keep them and ponder them in my heart, like Mary, trusting God to reveal them as I go.
There is a song called, “Breath of Heaven” by Amy Grant. I listen to it every Christmas. It is about Mary, saying yes to God, saying yes to having Jesus, and knowing 100% that she is not enough. In one of the lines, Mary asks God, “Do you wonder as you watch my face, If a wiser one should have had my place?
But I offer all I am
For the mercy of your plan
Help me be strong
Help me be
Help me.”
Mary knows she is not enough, but she also knows that she will do whatever God asks of her, and especially whatever her tiny, growing son needs, because that is what a mother’s love demands. It demands giving all of yourself, at every hour, so as to perhaps give enough to the tiny people who have come into the world through you. It means never giving up, never copping out, never not showing up.
A long time ago, in 2003 when I taught my first year ever, my principal talked to us about cura personalis, a Latin phrase that means, “care of the person” and a cornerstone of my old school. He told us that the first step of cura personalis is SHOWING UP. You gotta SHOW UP if you want to effect any good. As I have talked to Mary, have cried out to God throughout my motherhood, the biggest thing that God has led me to repeatedly is showing up. I show up at bedtime, after lights out, by lying in bed silently with my boys, until they finally start to unwind, talking about all their worries, thoughts, difficulties, failings, fears that fill their minds. I show up at baseball, after months of my boy worrying that he is not enough, that he will never get a hit, never get to pitch, never get to be celebrated…and so I’m there when he finally gets a stand-up double and a chance to pitch. I show up when my middle one is raging at me, angry at everyone and no one, needing to talk out his feelings. I go back into my baby’s room when he has been crying while I write this, and I hold him for a full 55 minutes, so that he knows he is loved and valued, and he can finally fall asleep.
I do this because I take my cues from Mary. She showed up. She showed up when God asked her to have a baby, braving social failure and having her baby when everybody knew she’d been pregnant when she wasn’t married. She showed up when her adolescent boy ditched her in Jerusalem because he knew better—She took his sass and loved him through it. She showed up when her baby was a man, being tortured, ridiculed, marched through the streets in humiliation, and finally cruelly killed. She stood there and watched her baby die. That is really hard for me to imagine. But Mary showed up, so I do, too.
Mary was Mommy, Mary was a wife. Mary helps me as I try to do what I’m called to do, as I try to love well, being a wife and a mother. Mary helps me know that it’s okay that I’m not enough. That God will take what I have and make it enough.
When I would walk into school every day, I came from a parking lot called the flagpole, from the west. I was usually nervous, because I struggle with some anxiety. My walk to my classroom took me past a path called Mary’s Way, which is dedicated to Fr. Masterson, who was a Jesuit priest who understood all this and helped me to be brave when I was a high school student myself. When I think of walking down Mary’s way towards the Mary plaza, the place I was standing in when I first gave this talk, I know that Mary has been afraid, that Mary has done things that were hard for her, that Mary has continually offered up everything she has…and that she knew it was not enough. But, because she offered it in love, God always made it enough, and I know he will do the same with me.
Questions for Reflection:
- Where do you feel that you are not enough? Upon reflection, do you find that, if you offer what you have, it becomes enough?
- Where do you offer up who you really are, your truest self? Do you sense any place or relationship in which you feel called to offer yourself more freely? (Remember: in vulnerability, there is strength.) What might happen if you did so?
- When have you said “Yes” to something that scared you, to something that society might ridicule, and it turned out to be a very good thing? What life has come out of your “Yes”?
- Who do you show up for? When do you show up unselfishly, without seeking reciprocity, as a parent shows up for a child? When do you show up only to see how much you can give, how much you can love?
Reflection Songs:
- Breath of Heaven, Amy Grant
- You Say, Lauren Daigle
- You’re Here, Francesca Battistelli
- The Stable Song, Gregory Alan Isakov
May God bless you in these questions, in living the questions, as Rilke says, and in pondering them in your heart, like Mary. Write on them if you can. Let them lead you into uncomfortable places, grounding yourself always in the One who loves you and carries you gently through them and through life. Grow in these questions, in your heart, in your offering of yourself…and do not be afraid.
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