Saint Mary the Virgin, August 15

The honor paid to Mary, the Mother of Jesus Christ, goes back to the earliest days of the Church. Her story is told in the Gospels, most often in connection to Jesus, her Son - in his birth and early life as his mother. During Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, Mary is often listed with the other women who followed Jesus and ministered to his needs, and among those who kept watch at the cross. After the resurrection, she was to be found with the Twelve in the upper room, watching and praying until the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost.

Mary was the person closest to Jesus in his most impressionable years, and the words of the Magnificat, as well as her humble acceptance of the divine will, bear more than an accidental resemblance to the Lord’s Prayer and the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount.

Mary is held in high honor for being in so intimate a relationship with the incarnate Son of God on earth. A paraphrase of an ancient Greek hymn expresses this belief in very familiar words: “O higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim, lead their praises, alleluia!” (paraphrase from Holy Women, Holy Men, 2010)

- Rev. Rachel Gardner