VIEW FROM THE PEW
Mary is depicted in a stained-glass window at St. Mary Church in Manhasset, N.Y. (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz )
A wonderful time was had by all at a celebration memorializing the death of a woman whose remarkable life was a legacy to Hawaii, to the church and to people who make care of the poor and afflicted their career, vocation or goal in life.
We all belted out a melody that St. Marianne Cope heard sung by the Kalaupapa residents while she worked among them for 30 years. We sang “Makalapua” in a modern adaptation replacing the original words about Hawaii’s beauty and a tribute to Queen Liliuokalani with “O the love of God has gathered us together.” Every time I hear it, I think Mother Marianne would like the song as rendered into a prayer by island composer Robert Mondoy.
About 150 of us filled the hall at Saint Francis School Aug. 9 for the 100th anniversary of the death of the island saint. Bishop Larry Silva presided at the Mass, with a dozen priest concelebrants. Typical of Franciscan hospitality, the festivities included a substantial dinner.
In his homily, the bishop recalled, “There was mourning throughout the islands 100 years ago when the mother of outcasts had died.”
I’ve thought about that during the past couple decades when so much has been written — some of it by me — about Hawaii’s two saints as the Catholic Church followed the process of recognizing that what Father Damien de Veuster and Mother Marianne did by caring for banished leprosy patients, body and soul, was the personification of sainthood.
They didn’t live in times of instant information. They didn’t have public relations networks. Reporters and camera crews didn’t descend the trail from topside for updates. And yet the word got out. Letters made their way out of the remote peninsula.
Father Damien and Mother Marianne left a significant record of their work, their thoughts, prayers and worries, history in their own words. And people who watched it happen and benefitted from their compassion contributed to the chronicles. Great authors such as Robert Louis Stevenson brought their story to the world.
In this era when we celebrate birthdays in a big way, you’d think marking the date of death to be a bit macabre. But death dates are typical for the Catholic Church’s liturgical scrapbook of saints. For example, when we celebrate St. Patrick’s impact as missionary to Ireland, it doesn’t dim our revelry and song to think that March 17, 461, was the date of his death. People who made their mark on the world as saints, secular heroes or sinners are remembered at anniversaries of their death.
Catholics around the world celebrated another death this month for which there is no written chronicle of time and place. Church fathers long ago chose this as the time to remember the end of the earthly life of Jesus’ mother and her assumption into heaven, body as well as soul.
It is also personal
Considering the name my parents gave me, it could be expected that a dutiful Catholic would take note of events celebrating my blessed and glorious namesake. And when I circle Aug.15 and Dec. 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, on my calendar every year it is also personal, my celebration of making Hawaii my home. I landed in Hawaii on that summer day in 1961 and, four months later, began a 50-year adventure as a Honolulu Star-Bulletin reporter. Holy day of obligation or not, I get to Mass with memories and prayers for the people I met along that long timeline.
The Assumption is a holy day of obligation for Catholics in a lot of countries, and some places in Europe celebrate it with gusto. We aren’t always in synch with the Orthodox Church, but this is a holy day we do share. In fact, observant Orthodox Christians fast for 14 days in preparation for the feast which they call the Dormition of the Theotokos, which translates as the falling asleep of the mother of God. Except for the Anglican Church, known as Episcopal Church in America, most Protestants only acknowledge Jesus’ mother in terms of Biblical passages, such as Christ’s birth in Bethlehem and Mary at the foot of the cross when he died.
Poor things, those reformation Christians, bereft of all the musical, poetic, artistic expressions that humans have created to honor the Blessed Mother, all those colorful names for parishes and humorous variations thereof — my favorite is Our Lady of Perpetual Activity. If you didn’t have a grounding in Marian education, aren’t you puzzled by the sports euphemism for an amazing athletic accomplishment; how can you understand a Hail Mary pass?
There is no report of Mary’s death in the New Testament as we all know. Here’s the earliest written report, according to my penetrating and extensive theological research online: The subject came up at the Fourth Ecumenical Council of the ancient church at Chalcedon in 451, according to writings by St. John of Damascus. It seems that Emperor of Rome Marcian requested that the bones of the Blessed Mother be given to him. St. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, responded that there were no relics left on earth.
He said that “Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but her tomb, when opened upon the request of St. Thomas, was found empty wherefrom the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven.”
Catholics took the Assumption of Mary into heaven as a matter of faith for centuries. It is the inspiration for famous and fabulous art works down through the ages. They often show Mary with her feet on the moon wearing a crown of stars using imagery from the Book of Revelation. Exploring the symbolism in that over-interpreted, misunderstood book is beyond the skill set of this simple scribe.
The image in my mind
The responsorial psalm we have been singing this month, “the queen is at your right hand, arrayed in gold.” A pew mate of mine whispered, “What does that mean?” one Sunday when it had nothing to do with that day’s readings. Okay, we talked it through that the words from Psalm 45, written hundreds of years before Christ, are interpreted to refer to Mary. There it was depicted in the brilliant stained glass window across the church from us.
But when I talk to my blessed namesake in that aforementioned athletes’ prayer, as well as my ad lib rambling pleas for help and solace, I am not picturing a luminous queen of heaven. The image in my mind is the Blessed Mother, a serene and compassionate woman, dressed simply and modestly, in the humble circumstances of Nazareth. She hears my ranting and my weeping and comforts me. I’ve needed her this month and wish people I hold dear would know her, too, as we mourn the death of my brother.
If I were to pick the music to celebrate her, it wouldn’t be “O holy queen enthroned above” but the Hail Mary hymn by Carey Landry: “Gentle woman, quiet light, morning star so strong and bright. Gentle mother, peaceful dove, teach us wisdom, teach us love.”
With Mary’s assumption into heaven as a basic church teaching for hundreds of years, I’m not sure what led a modern-day pope to put his foot down with a dogmatic “believe it or be a heretic” approach. In 1950, Pope Pius XII invoked papal infallibility to declare that Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was taken bodily into heaven. He spoke “ex cathedra,” meaning from the chair of Peter.
You may think it was a just one of many times that a pope flexed his theological authority, but no. That was the first and only time any pope has invoked his infallibility.
Actually, the dogma of infallibility was only declared in 1870 by the First Vatican Council.
It says that a pope is protected from error when he promulgates a teaching with the guidance of the Holy Spirit in his role as a successor of St. Peter. We are taught by the popes in their many encyclicals. But even the most authoritarian of them have been circumspect about asserting they speak “ex cathedra.”
Theologians consider that one other non-Biblical point of dogma about Mary was grandfathered in as an infallible teaching. The idea that the human chosen to become the mother of God was conceived without original sin, the Immaculate Conception, was declared a theological fact by Pope Pius IX in 1854. Neither of those official papal decrees was earth-shattering to Catholics who had affirmed their beliefs about Mary in prayer and devotions for centuries.
‘Behold your mother’
The origin of the principle of infallibility came up in a Mass liturgy this month. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples “whatever you bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven.” Orthodox Christians do not read that as giving the Bishop of Rome higher authority than all other bishops, and obviously neither do the Protestants since the Reformation 500 years ago.
The last we hear about Mary in Scriptures is when Jesus, before his death on the cross, told her that his disciple John would take care of her: “Woman, behold your son” and to John, “Behold your mother.” From those few words, theologians interpreted that Jesus intended to share Mary as the mother to all of humanity.
The Gospel reading we heard on the Feast of the Assumption was not about a queen, but about the pregnant Mary of Nazareth traveling to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who recognized her holiness immediately. Throughout our prayer life as Catholics we repeat Elizabeth’s greeting:“Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
Mary’s answer was “one of the greatest prayers ever spoken,” said Father Jack Ryan in his homily. He recommended it as a “great way to begin every day. Especially if you wake up grumpy.” I’d add a postscript to that, make the Magnificat prayer an antidote to the news of the day. What better way to get your day into focus than this:
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord: my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed.
The Almighty has done great things for me and holy is His name.
He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm, and scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel for he has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever.”
