OMPH celebration

A monthly column

Mary, our future hope in the work of evangelization

June–July 2015

By Father Philip Dabney, C.Ss.R.

The Ark of the Covenant, as we know, was the box that contained the remnants of the Ten Commandments. It was the reason why the temple was built, to house the Ark of the Covenant. It was the object that was placed in the Holy of Holies, in the very heart of the temple. It bore God’s presence and power.

When Israel lost the Ark, which happened on several occasions, Israel lost its way. When it was completely lost in the battle of the Babylonian invasion, it broke Israel’s heart.

In the Book of Revelation, Chapter 11, we find the ark is back in its proper place. It’s now in the heavenly temple. But here’s the difference. It’s associated with a woman who is about to give birth.

How come? The early Church saw Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as the new and definitive Ark. Why? Because she carried within her, in the most vivid way, not just the remnants of the Ten Commandments: she carried within her the very personal presence of God. Notice something too. The new Ark, Mary, is, like the old Ark, associated with battle.

As she is about to give birth, a dragon confronts the woman. This is not a sentimental image at all. This is a pretty hard-edged image.

Here’s a woman, associated with the Ark, the bearer of the divine presence, but from the moment she’s about to give birth, she’s confronted by a terrible enemy.

What’s the dragon stand for? Well, perhaps Rome: people say the seven heads are evocative of the Seven Hills of Rome. At the time the Book of Revelation was written, Rome was the great earthly power.

I think it stands for all forms of worldly power that rule through violence and oppression. Isn’t that often the way it works? The powers of the world, from ancient times to the present day, rely upon oppression and the threat of violence.

But here’s the message of the Book of Revelation. This fearsome dragon—imagine it for a second—the seven heads and the horns and the crowns and so on.

Imagine now if you’re the father of a child, and your wife’s about to give birth, and outside the hospital room is this terrible beast. That’s the image we’re meant to have.

But this dragon is powerless against the woman and child. We hear: “She gave birth to a son, a male child destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod; her child was caught up to God and his throne” (Revelation 12:5-6).

This little baby and his mother are more powerful than the most powerful of all the world’s armies, all of its political might. This little baby and his mother are stronger than any forces of evil, more powerful than any horrible problems which distress us and imprison us.

What’s the point? The Ark of the Covenant—Mary, the new Ark—is still effective in battle as it was in ancient Israel.

With all this in mind, all these powerful images and associations, we turn to the Gospel, which takes us not to the heavenly court and its cosmic struggle, but to Calvary, with Mary standing beneath the cross.

It’s interesting that there is no mention of Mary bewailing and lamenting beneath the cross as there is of the other women who accompanied Jesus along the way to Calvary. Only her silence is transmitted to us. Mary was silent at the moment of the birth of Jesus, and in John’s Gospel she is silent at the moment of the death of Jesus.

But to interpret her silence under the cross as the language of one who is only “sad, afflicted, and sorrowful” would be incorrect.

Even though Mary grieved deeply the death of her son, she stood under the cross in hope. On Calvary she was not just the Mother of Sorrows but also the Mother of Hope.

St. Paul in his letter to the Romans tells us that Abraham “in hope believed against hope.”

We can say the same about Mary beneath the cross: in hope she believed against hope.

Do you know what to hope against hope means?

It means that without having any reason whatsoever for hope, in a situation that, humanly speaking, is entirely hopeless, one never ceases to hope, one believes more in God than in the evidence of facts.

It means constantly acknowledging that God is faithful and trusting that no matter what, God is always there for us. It means that even when in vain we have done everything we can to change a difficult situation, we still have something greater to do that will keep us occupied and prevent us from falling into despair, and that is to patiently endure to the end.

This is the great thing Mary did as she hoped beneath the cross, and she is ready to help us do the same.

Underneath the icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C., are inscribed the words our life, our sweetness, and our hope. Although the text refers to who Mary is for all believers, it also speaks to us as Redemptorists and to all those who know her and love.

I believe that the icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help is the sign of hope we need for the future. She is a sign given to us to make known throughout the world, in order that the world might come to know that living presence of God among us.

Despite our decreasing numbers and our median age, regardless of the signs of the times, she invites to trust that, no matter, God is always with us.

As Pope Benedict has written, “she is holy text written to read,” first and foremost by us in order that Mary may work with us and through us and for us.

She is the new Ark that we carry to confront the world of darkness, a world whose power can only conquered with love. In short, the icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help is a letter “written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God.”

She is a letter for all of us, whether we are learned or not, saying to each one who prays before her what the apostle Paul said to his followers in Corinth: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”

[Click the links below to read past columns.]