Saint Mary the Virgin

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.


In the Anglican Church here in Canada, we have a book called For All the Saints. It lists all of those saints that we recognize and celebrate during the church year. In our tradition, we translate or shift most of these saints’ days off of Sundays. We do this because Sunday is the Lord’s Day and that comes first.

Since we usually don’t come together on weekdays anymore, this means that we don’t celebrate many saints’ days, with a very few notable exceptions.

There is one time when we are allowed to shift a saint’s day onto a Sunday. We can do this with our patronal saint; the saint that our church is named for. I missed doing that this year but I will try to remember for next year.

Then there are nine feast days that we celebrate on Sundays when they happen to fall on a Sunday. Five of these nine days help us to remember particular events in Jesus’ life.

The other four days we celebrate saints who are particularly important to the Christian tradition. We celebrate the birth of Saint John the Baptist. We celebrate Saint Peter and Saint Paul. We celebrate Saint Mary the Virgin. And we celebrate Saint Michael and All Angels.

Today we celebrate the Feast of Saint Mary the Virgin. I am going to read to you what For All the Saints has to say about Saint Mary the Virgin.


Saint Mary the Virgin 15 August
Holy Day
August
Mary is honoured because she was the Mother of Jesus Christ, the Son of God — and because the Gospels testify that she was a virgin when she conceived and gave him birth. Their witness to such a wonder has generated much of the devotion that is paid to her. But it is not the only reason, for the evangelists also portray her as the archetype of all the people of God and the person who leads their praises of the Almighty.

In Luke’s account of the Annunciation, Mary was perplexed by the meaning of God’s word to her and yet chose to accept the wondrous service which it ordained her to accomplish. After the birth of her son, Mary continued to be puzzled whenever she met with a further sign of his divine origin or with hints of what he was meant to do. But she was always patient in her puzzlement; in Luke’s words, “Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.” The fruit of her pondering may be reflected in the fact that all the evangelists say that she followed her son from Galilee to Jerusalem and stood with the small company of women who witnessed his crucifixion. The Book of Acts adds that, after the resurrection, she shared in the disciples’ community of prayer and watched with them for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

An ancient tradition testifies that Mary was taken up in glory as soon as she died, and Christian devotion has never begrudged her the place of highest honour in the presence of God. It has delighted in the conviction that she who responded to God’s perplexing call with praise must already enjoy the reward of faith — and that she who gave the Son of God his human life has received all the fullness of the eternal life which he was born to give.


Mary has been important to our understanding of Christ from the very birth of our church. She shows us again and again what it means to adore God.

She is always a little bit confused when she sees signs of God’s presence in her son and in the world around her. She doesn’t understand quite what it is all about.

This is very important. God is more than we can imagine. God is different than we can imagine. We can hope to understand something about our relationship with God, but we will never fully understand God.

Mary’s response to her puzzlement is just as important. She doesn’t get frustrated. She doesn’t turn away or deny what she sees.

She brings her experience into her heart and lives with it. She thinks about it. She tries to make sense of it.

But most of all, she loves it. She treasures every contact she has with God.

By the grace of God, may we do the same.

Thanks be to God.