'Mary is for life, not just for Christmas': An Old High affirmation

'Mary is for life, not just for Christmas'

It was an Anglo-catholic response on 'X' to an evangelical asking, when about to address a gathering of pastors on the theme of preparation for Christmas, "what would be the most helpful thing for me to say to the pastors?".

After smiling at the online ecclesiastical humour, the phrase did strike me as a very good description of the Marian piety of Prayer Book Anglicanism. This day on which we commemorate the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a particularly appropriate occasion to deliver an Old High affirmation of 'Mary is for life, not just for Christmas'.

The role of the blessed Virgin - the title for Mary used in Article II of the Thirty-nine - in the mystery of the Incarnation is confessed twice daily, morning and evening, in Prayer Book Matins and Evensong.  Every day of the year, we confess in the Creed "born of the Virgin Mary", a recognition that our redemption in and through the Lord's Cross and Resurrection flows from and is dependent upon taking flesh in the womb of Mary. This is also a cause for praise in the Te Deum at Matins:

When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man: thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb.

The Magnificat at Evensong is a daily meditation on the faith of the Daughter of Sion, as shown in Bede's words:

Therefore it is an excellent and fruitful custom of holy Church that we should sing Mary’s hymn at the time of evening prayer. By meditating upon the incarnation, our devotion is kindled, and by remembering the example of God’s Mother, we are encouraged to lead a life of virtue.

When we turn to the BCP Holy Communion, it might be thought that there is an absence of reference to the blessed Virgin.  However, not so. The 1662 rite requires that the Nicene Creed is said at each celebration, ensuring that at each celebration of the Eucharist we share in the the patristic and conciliar confession: 

And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man ...

Each and every celebration of the holy Eucharist according to the 1662 rite, therefore, proclaims the role of the Blessed Virgin in the mystery of our redemption. What is more, as Cranmer himself stated, this confession is also inherent to the Eucharist:

we receive in the sacrament ... the selfsame body of Christ that was born of the Virgin Mary, that was crucified and buried, that rose again, ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

The two Marian feasts in the 1662 Kalendar, the Purification and the Annunciation, are significant means of celebrating the flesh and blood reality of the Incarnation and the Passion. As the titles of these feasts indicate - 'The Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin' and 'The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary' (and in the Lessons Proper for Holy Days, 'Annunciation of our Lady') - they affirm the reality of the Incarnation and Passion by affirming that the Eternal Word took flesh in Mary's womb: thus was the Incarnate Lord "presented in the temple in substance of our flesh"; thus the truth of "his cross and passion", by which we are "brought unto the glory of his resurrection".

Other Marian feasts are now also authorised in contemporary Books of Common Prayer. The Church of Ireland BCP 2004 provides for the Visitation and the Nativity, with collects which further enrich Prayer Book Marian piety:

Almighty God, by whose grace Elizabeth rejoiced with Mary and greeted her as the Mother of the Lord (Visitation); 

Grant that we who are redeemed by his blood may share with her in the glory of thine eternal kingdom (Nativity).

Anglican iconography is a further means of celebrating the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the mystery of salvation. Mary is often seen in stained glass in cathedrals and parish churches, a visible reminder of the creedal confession. Icons of the blessed Virgin and Christ Child are now also not uncommon (as, for example, in Westminster Abbey). Likewise statues of Virgin and Child, after the example of the Blessed Virgin and Christ Child installed over the porch of Saint Mary the Virgin Oxford in 1637 (removed under the Commonwealth in 1651, and restored in 1673), are now also to be found. Very fine contemporary examples are Our Lady of the Undercroft in Canterbury Cathedral and the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln in Lincoln Cathedral (created by Orthodox iconographer Aidan Hart). 

Such stained glass windows, icons, and statues reflect James I's insistence "I quarrel not the making of Images", with a well-developed theology and piety evident in the Jacobean and Caroline ecclesia Anglicana, a profound decoration (not, as in Tridentine teaching, objects of veneration) encouraging the heart to contemplate the mysteries of salvation

Nor should we forget the number of Anglican parish churches and cathedrals with Saint Mary in their title: as Hooker said of such churches, "of the blessed Virgin not a few". Hooker went on to state that such naming of churches gave "occasion of mentioning" Mary and the other saints "often, to the end that the naminge of theire persons might cause inquirie to be made and meditation to he had of theire virtues" (LEP V.13.3).

Mary is for life, not just for Christmas: the statement can receive a robust, confident Old High affirmation. It is a saying which reflects the Marian piety of the Prayer Book tradition, rooted in the patristic witnesses and the catholic creeds, and properly attentive to the Reformation protest against late medieval Latin devotions. In other words, it is a saying which does not require devotions or doctrines incompatible with the reformed catholic nature of the Book of Common Prayer and the doctrinal commitments of the Articles of Religion.

It is perhaps appropriate to conclude with two sources which demonstrate this.  Firstly, Jewel - the great apologist of the reformed ecclesia Anglicana - proclaiming to the role of "that blessed and pure Virgin" in the economy of salvation:

We believe that Jesus Christ, the only Son of the eternal Father (as long before it was determined before all beginnings), when the fulness of time was come, did take of that blessed and pure Virgin both flesh and all the nature of man, that He might declare to the world the secret and hid will of His Father; which will had been laid up from before all ages and generations; and that He might full finish in His human body the mystery of our redemption; and might fasten our sins to the cross, and also that handwriting which was made against us.

Secondly, the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of Ireland, in their 1950 pastoral statement rejecting the papal pronouncement of the Assumption as dogma:

Her place and function in relation to the taking of flesh by the Eternal Word are unique. She stands solitary in the mysterious privilege with which she was favoured. It can be shared by no other. High honour is due, and rendered, to one so chosen as to give Him birth and to pass some thirty years in His company in the life of the home.

Both statements point to why the Prayer Book daily holds before us and celebrates the place of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, to use a phrase we will soon again be hearing, "the tale of the loving purposes of God". Yes, for Prayer Book Anglicans, Mary is for life, not just for Christmas.

(The first picture of is Our Lady in the Undercroft, Canterbury Cathedral. The second is the icon of the Theotokos in Westminster Abbey. The third is the Annunciation Window in Belfast Cathedral. The fourth is of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln.)