Mary - Advent 4

“Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.”

Luke 1.28

What is the connection between macaroni and the Virgin Mary?

Give up? It’s Christmas Carols.

I’m sure over the next few days we will be listening to lots of carols like ‘In Dulci Jubilo – Let us our homage show’ and ‘A Hymn to the Virgin’- Of one that is so fair and bright,
Velut maris stella, which both date back to the 14^th century.

And like many other mediaeval carols, they are macaronic. That is, partly in English and partly in Latin.

The adjective ‘macaronic’, is used to describe any text which is a jumbled mixture of the vernacular – English or German or whatever - and Latin or Latinized words; or indeed words from any other languages.

In the secular world this mixture of languages was often used in burlesque or satire.

The word comes from the New Latin ‘macaronicus’, literally, resembling macaroni: presumably, suggesting lack of sophistication or simple rustic wisdom.

And this is one of the hallmarks of these mediaeval carols, which makes them so attractive, and at the same time rather annoying.

They are often full of homespun devotion to Our Lady and theological naivety.

The Latin is perhaps supposed to give them a bit more weight.

But rather like putting on a posh accent while still using appalling grammar, the overall effect is one of lovable, and even laughable, simplicity.

And it is perhaps hardly surprising then that these macaronic carols were often used to depict Our Lady and the birth of Jesus. For the event is both simply profound and yet profoundly simple.

So there is something deeply mysterious and theological about Mary the Theotokos, the God-bearer, who is the focus of the readings and prayers on this fourth Sunday in Advent.

Yet, at the same time, there is something slightly risqué and ‘common’ about a pregnant teenager who claims to be a virgin. There is something of the barrack-room joke about it. We’ve all heard them and laughed at them. It is the human way to laugh at great mystery.

What does this tell us about the Christian attitude to Mary and her place in our salvation and daily living?

It was music that first began to give me an inkling of devotion to Our Lady, back in my teens.

Not surprisingly, my good puritan Baptist church had no images of any kind in the building - not even a cross until the swinging 60s.

So Mary only featured in Christmas Carols. And even then some of the words had to be changed to protect theological sensibilities.

Remember that line in Adam lay y bounden: ‘Ne had the apple taken been, the apple taken been, ne had never Our Lady a-been heavene queen’.

Well you can’t have that! So it was changed to ‘Ne had never Christ’s glory on earth ever been seen.’ A not-so-subtle Christological shift there from Our Lady to Our Lord.

But despite all this, as a teenager exploring passion and fallings in love, it was hymns and carols that often inspired my devotion. I recognised that just as Jesus was the most lovable man; the man from God; the second Adam; the man who was God;

so Mary was the most loveable woman, the woman chosen by God, the second Eve; the perfect Mother of Our Lord; a friend, a comforter, who like any good mother, understands and cares.

Here again is an earthiness that the common man understands. Here in this straightforward peasant girl is a mystery almost too great for us to bear.

In today’s Gospel we read of the Visitation, when Mary visits her older cousin Elizabeth, already six months gone with John the Baptist, to talk about pregnancy and birth, and pain and Joseph and hopes and fears.

She had gone because of the Annunciation (depicted in Arthur Hacker's wonderful painting on the front cover of the service sheet – it looks better in the Tate)

– when the angel Gabriel visited Mary to tell her she was to be the bearer of the Word made flesh – Jesus.

Whatever happened between Mary and God, between this Angel and Mary; it was such an exceptional happening that no other human being has ever experienced such, before or since.

And the words of these mediaeval, macaronic poems pile up epithets and allegories to draw us out in love of God, and love of this simple woman who became such a channel of grace. Deep, unfathomable mystery and simple, animal, mother-love, for Jesus - and for us.

So what is our response to this remarkable woman who is at the heart of the unfolding Christmas story?

It should surely be the same as hers – astonishment at God’s intervention, complete lack of comprehension – how could this happen? And yet complete trust that God is working his purposes out in our lives and in our world – ‘be it unto me according to thy word’.

Rainer Maria Rilke in his poem on The Annunciation from Das Marienleben, catches the cosmic significance of this pregnant young woman. He suggests that even the Angel Gabriel cannot believe the message he is to deliver to this young Israeli woman. He is astonished.

When the angel stepped in,

he did not take her by surprise,

It was as though a ray of sunlight or moonlight

had entered her room,

No, she did not even blink!

But when he bent close his youthful face

she looked into eyes that looked into hers,

their gaze so powerful that the world outside

was suddenly empty

and the multitudes' visions, their deeds

and their burdens

all were crowded into them: just she and he;

this girl, this angel, this spot.

And they were both astonished.

Then the angel sang his melody.

“Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” Luke 1.28

(Rainer Maria Rilke, from Das Marienleben

translated & adapted by Alice Van Buren and Russell Walden)