'She suckled him': Jeremy Taylor on the Motherhood of Mary

Our  Advent series of Marian reflections from Jeremy Taylor's The Great Exemplar concludes with the Nativity. Taylor draws us to behold the intimacy of Nativity, implied in Saint Luke's words, "And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn":

She had no ministers to attend but angels, and neither her poverty nor her piety would permit her to provide other nurses; but herself did the offices of a tender and pious parent. She kissed him, and worshipped him, and thanked him that he would be born of her, and she suckled him, and bound him in her arms and swaddling bands; and when she had represented to God her first scene of joy and eucharist, she softly laid him in the manger, till her desires and his own necessities called her to take him, and to rock him softly in her arms. And from this deportment she read a lecture of piety and maternal care, which mothers should perform toward their children when they are born, not to neglect any of that duty which nature and maternal piety requires.

The Maiden is the Mother. Confessing the virginal conception and birth of Our Lord draws us to, rather than away from, the reality of Mary's role in salvation history as the Mother of the Lord: "thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son". A particular type of Counter-Reformation piety has a somewhat obsessive focus on the virginity of Mary (sometimes indulging in rather prurient speculation), too frequently obscuring the full flesh-and-blood reality of her motherhood. By contrast, Taylor beautifully celebrates Mary's Motherhood in this meditation.

The flesh-and-blood reality of the Motherhood of Mary - "She kissed him ... and she suckled him, and bound him in her arms and swaddling bands; and ... she softly laid him in the manger, till her desires and his own necessities called her to take him, and to rock him softly in her arms" - witnesses to Christological truth. That Mary held, kissed, rocked, and breast fed the Infant Christ proclaims the fullness of the assumption of humanity by the Eternal Word. "And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary" - this saving reality is set before us in the true motherhood of Mary, nursing the Christ Child.

Mary's Motherhood also demonstrates the humility of the Incarnation. As Augustine declared in a Nativity sermon:

Him whom the heavens cannot contain, the womb of one woman bore. She ruled our Ruler; she carried Him in whom we are; she gave milk to our Bread.

Such is the saving, redeeming love the Everlasting Word. "For us men and for our salvation", He, "By whom all things were made", was born of a Woman and fed on His Mother's milk, entirely reliant upon her and her loving care. 

It is a matter of deep joy at this season that this Motherhood of Mary is celebrated in our carols: 

where a mother laid her baby ... Mary was that mother mild, Jesus Christ her little Child;

a breastful of milk ... but only his mother, in her maiden bliss, worshiped the Beloved with a kiss;

round yon virgin, mother and child.

The very domesticity of this scene, the love and devotion which it embodies, manifests how the Incarnation draws humanity to dwell in the communion of love with the Word of the Father. When we behold the Christ Child held, loved, fed, rocked to sleep by His Blessed Mother, we behold the redeeming grace of the Incarnation, bringing the sons and daughters of Adam back to the communion of life and love.

May the tender love of the Infant Christ and His Mother move us this Christmastide to adore Him and, with her, abide in the grace and light of His love.