Mary, in the today of the Church and of the world

Mary in the today of the Church: presence and mission in the contemporary world

Today’s society, besides being global, that is, the events of the world are interconnected instantaneously, is above all plural from the cultural point of view. The myth of the superiority of Western society as a superior culture that ought to organize the today is set aside in favor of a vision that embraces the multiplicity of visions, including the religious one.

This acceleration of the times leads Mariology into a new world governed by the encounter of the diverse. If on the one hand the identification of Mary with Western culture accompanied the various cultures in a unilateral way in the processes of overseas expansion, on the other hand the industrial economic crisis with inflation, unemployment, and moral questions of the global economy make Mary a space of encounter between cultures by her open, comprehensive dimension, which reinforces the longing for the transcendent that gives meaning to life and does justice to liberation from an oppression that is reinforced in social systems which, in confrontation, tend to become homogenized.

The today, in its great majority, can be defined as metropolitan. The great syntheses of the past have liquefied into a relativization of references that seemed secure and that today are no longer so. We can say that one element has remained unaltered and is common to all peoples: feminine piety before ephemeral life.

If a lack of interest in Christianity is noticeable in the various social spaces, in a kind of common ethical creed in which all human beings could dwell in harmony, it remains true that the perfect disciple of the Lord, image and model of the Church, does not cease to inspire the various fields of human culture, such as music, painting, architecture, sculpture, literature, and popular art (Saint John Paul II). It is in this context that new images of Mary arise.

In reality, the world dispenses with the Bible as the Word of God but does not cease to produce volumes about the Virgin Mary. Let us think of novels, feminist anthropologies, all from a secular, nonconfessional perspective, we may even say a lay one. This secular image of Mary spreads as the presence of a universal Mother who enters into dialogue, who is good, true, and beautiful. Mary is then experienced as different from us, completely holy, looking upon a world completely marked by sin.

However, she is far from the history of men, she touches the world through apparitions, true or presumed, she is attested as having an extreme sensitivity to God’s miraculous interventions in history, but insensitive to renewal, even a barrier to any possible change in uses and customs.

On the other hand, in the theological world, we find a difficulty with the understanding of Mary within the circuits of Catholic theology. Perhaps the testimony of Karl Rahner may help us to understand how the perfectly redeemed creature, before the multiple cultural expressions, must be theologically understood:

“I must confess it: I am surprised by the Marian piety of the ‘masses’, in which the devout person places himself at the feet of Our Lady, loves her, addresses to her so many supplications and with such confidence, almost as if it were the most important thing in religion! Yet afterward I ask myself critically whether the cause of my embarrassment may not perhaps be merely my own incapacity to enact, and it is right that it should be so, the total spontaneity of that realism of human intercommunication asked of a Christianity that is truly alive”.

Perhaps in this confession of one of the most significant theological minds of the twentieth century we can see how we move beyond the Enlightenment vision of history. The triumph of reason that was to lead to universal happiness achieved nothing more than a struggle of all against all. I think we must return to the universal roots where the three figures illustrate our life in every age without ideologically spiritualizing anything: the Mother, the Child, and the Dragon (Revelation chapter 12). God’s plan of salvation takes place in every life, in every history, because the Father, blessing the Son, has made us sons and heirs, and in the one blessed among women the curse is transformed into blessing and persecution into glory.

Daniel Afonso

To deepen the presence of Mary in the contemporary Church, consult the encyclical of John Paul II: Redemptoris Mater on Mary in the life of the pilgrim Church.

Deepen your studies: explore Mariology, Marian Theology, Marian apparitions, and the Postgraduate Program in Mariology.