I hate being on the stage.
It is literally the place of nightmares for me. To have an unknowable amount of eyes glued directly on me, watching my every move, just waiting for me to make a mistake. These are the things that keep me up at night. Yet, despite this, I found myself front row in a singing and dancing competition at my university known as Sing Song. On the very first night of performance, I felt like I was going to pass out right there on stage. So, naturally, I did what I always do when I begin to feel like I am going to pass out, I started praying. The prayer that I found myself quietly praying to myself was a historically classic one, and that is the “Hail Mary”.
“Hail Mary, full of grace, blessed are thou amongst all women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus Christ. Now in the hour of our death, pray for us, sinners.”
As I prayed these ancient words, I had a sense of calm embrace me that was both loving and familiar at the same time and was able to focus on the show at hand and enjoy one of the best events Abilene Christian University has to offer. I found myself reflecting more and more on why exactly I choose to say a “Hail Mary”.
This article is not going to be a defense of the “Hail Mary” or Mariology, in general (I will leave that to theologians far more eloquent than me). Rather, a reflection on an aspect of God that I found sometimes gets pushed aside; the motherhood in God.
We grow up praying the words “Dear Father” and we speak of “The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” and we should not change these words that were given to us by the Apostles. However, we should not let them allow us to disregard the Mother in the Father, for to do so is to deny the fullness of God.
The author of 1st John declares to us that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Therefore, we must view God through that lens. God’s greatest act of love for mankind was sending his Son, himself, to die up on the cross, and he began that act of love by working through who else? Mary, the mother of God. God is love because God assumes the role of the protective father. God is love because he assumes the role of the caring mother. One of my favorite pieces of art in the world is Michelangelo's Pieta, which is the cover picture of this article. The statue perfectly encompasses the fullness of God’s love. The broken body of Christ is held by the loving arms of Mary. This is the love of God, who is willing to die for you and to hold you when you need it the most. This is peace of God that I felt on the stage. This is the fullness of God that we all must pray for.
