Mary: The True Face of Woman

When we speak of woman in the context of Western culture, it is common to refer to the feminine by drawing it close to Mary; however, as Saint Paul VI states: “The Church, when she considers the long history of Marian piety, rejoices to see the continuity of the cultic fact. But she does not bind herself to the representative schemes of the various cultural epochs, nor to the particular anthropological conceptions that underlie them. Moreover, she understands well that some expressions of such cult, perfectly valid in themselves, are less suited to people who belong to different ages and civilizations. Finally, we wish to emphasize that our own age, no differently from those that preceded it, is called to weigh its own knowledge of reality against the word of God and, to keep to the subject we are dealing with, to compare its anthropological conceptions and the problems that derive from them with the figure of the Virgin Mary as she is presented in the Gospel. In this way, the reading of the divine Scriptures, carried out under the influence of the Holy Spirit and bearing in mind the discoveries of the human sciences and the various situations of the contemporary world, will lead to the discovery that Mary can well be taken as a model of what the people of our time long for” (Marialis Cultus nos. 36-37). Therefore, only by looking at the face that most resembles the face of God will we be able to see in the Virgin of the Gospel the mirror of what it means to be a woman for our culture. 

Mary, a Hebrew woman who is an integral part of a people dominated by the Roman Empire, stands today as the most influential woman in the world, both within and outside Christianity. In contemporary Christianity we witness a condensation of expressions for speaking of Mary’s femininity, such as “the archetypal essence of woman” (Ratzinger), and in her feminine form we recognize the “feminine of faith” and even the “personal synthesis of the Woman principle.” We pose the question: can we speak of Mariology without speaking of the feminine, and vice versa? To be able to answer in the negative, we must resist a current tendency: the elimination of the feminine element from the Christian message. Contemporary global culture is marked by a masculine activism in which, with the abolition of the barrier of space, the global planning of manufacture cancels out the possibility of creation, even reducing choices for the common good to the “mathematics of reality.” In this context, the Western masculine principle is countered by the feminine principle that draws its inspiration from the Marian mystery. 

In the Catholic Mariological vision, the reciprocity between woman and faith is revealed when we affirm Mary as the first disciple, the mystagogue, the Teacher of the Apostles. However, the title of “emancipated woman” has been gaining ground as people seek to assert that the Mother of Jesus freely and consciously opposes a culture dominated by men. Let us allow ourselves to be struck by this assertion and lay the foundations that may possibly lead us to deeper conclusions. The feminine vision of Mary is based on difference and relation. When we read Gen 2:24-25, we encounter the sexual difference that guides our conception of creation as the will of the Creator. This imperative affirms for us diversity in the active and reciprocal collaboration between man and woman. The duality of the sexes as creation clearly contrasts with the elimination of diversity, because women cannot be understood as subjects equal to men and yet be treated as inferior. Or again, it contrasts with an emphasis on the subordinate condition of woman so strong as to create a protest in which the antagonist, the opposite of the feminine, is man. This vision makes men, masculinity, the target of the protest instead of making structural social sin the oppressing subject. Woman is not the opposite of man but his reciprocal collaborator. When we stand alongside Saint Paul, as in Gal 3:27ff., we find an overcoming of rivalry, opposition, and enmity in Christ, and not an annulment of masculinity or femininity. The Mariological culture of difference and cooperation has offered a more balanced horizon in a world of contrasts. The criterion of woman is not opposition to man but a collaboration that leaves no room for the dissolution of specific characteristics into equality.

Another of the elements that disturb the balance between man and woman is the attempt at liberation from biological conditioning, which tends to remove the differences between the sexes so as to present them as “mere” effects of historical and cultural conditioning. To reduce man and woman to a uniform mass in which biological difference would mean nothing of consequence is an ideology that distorts even the “feminine genius.” Man and Woman are ontologically, psychologically, and physically different in a relational “uni-duality.” We must stress that we are speaking of the feminine and the masculine not as watertight compartments but as a relationship of bridges, a reciprocal contribution that is not dissolved into homogeneity but contributes to the common good of God’s first commandment: be fruitful and multiply (Gen 1:28).

Without wishing to call into question the free development of the feminine presence in the world, including the theological world, complementarity finds its concrete realization in the mystery of Mary, which goes beyond motherhood. Mary’s maternal care, within the Mariological universe, is reflected in the law of the humble woman who bears within her the fruit of the Word. The implications of this law are later developed in the assertion of the Fathers of the Church when they speak of the maternal mystery of the earth. This vision of Mary, very important today in the perspective of our common home, directs us toward a feminine vision that allows itself to be consumed so that the earth may bear fruit. However much this may clash with certain claims, it is nonetheless an element to be taken into consideration when we speak of the construction of the feminine personality. Without wishing to reduce woman to a question of motherhood, we cannot deny that the feminine potential for motherhood structures the feminine personality in depth. This almost innate capacity to “be for the other” is rooted, in biblical Mariology, in the vision of woman as “man’s companion.” The masculine principle of activity and self-determination is balanced by the passive renunciation of herself in favor of the other. We are not pointing here to an annulment of feminine possibilities but to complementarity in unity, for only in this way is an annulment through servile subordination avoided. The feminine and masculine question runs throughout the history of Christianity. It is neither entirely new nor devoid of conceptual history: ratio and emotio. These elements look to Mary as a heavenly Mother, as the heart of heaven, and, however anachronistic this may seem at first, today they stand in contrast with the rationalizing and puritanical activism that pervades social media. If these two concepts arose to elevate the rationalization of Christianity by stripping its center of emotion, today we witness, in the opposite direction, the rejection of the radical Enlightenment rationalization that tries to dominate Western culture by stripping the Christian social fabric of its unity between faith and reason, for a one-sided vision does not allow for balance. 

Being-a-woman is not the opposite of not-being-a-man. The biblical complementarity that has been affirmed is found in the mediation that woman carries out, as a mother, between the world and the child. Feminine authority is deduced from the relationship between the various members of the family and its center of unity, which tends to be the woman. The Mariological vision of the difference between man and woman and of their complementarity is necessarily all-encompassing. By this we mean that only a vision of broader relationships can illustrate a feminine vision that is not deprived, in typically solipsistic fashion, of a horizon of totality. 

Can a woman from first-century Galilee be considered a model of femininity today? The affirmative answer will come through the Mariological anthropological vision proposed for the third millennium: Mary gave an active and responsible consent to the divine plan, which is decisive for the history of humanity. In this sense, the Christian woman has in Mary a model of participation in community decisions. Mary made the courageous choice (Lk 1:38), which entailed an openness to marital values that remained a paradox in view of her Virginity but belonged to God’s call. In this sense, consecrated religious life finds its balance. Mary, proclaiming the Magnificat, recalls the God who casts down the mighty from their thrones and who glorifies the oppressed and the humiliated. For this reason, Mary is completely opposed to submissive passivity and religious alienation. The experience of dispossession (poverty) and of suffering stands in contrast with the vision of weakness, above all psychological weakness, covered up with medication, for it sets forth as a model the strong woman who does not give up on fulfilling her calling. The extension of Mary’s motherhood (Jn 19:25-27) to the disciples makes her a secure point of support amid incomprehension and, at the same time, a point of support for the feminine capacity to welcome those who are different from her Son (Acts 1:14). In short, Mary is Woman, Virgin, Spouse, and Mother, in whom lies the archetype of the personal dignity of woman, and who, by her life in the light of faith, regenerates the view of woman as weak, submissive, dominated, and servile. The anthropological density of the figure of Mary continues to bear fruit and to re-create generations of women who, in every century, on their pilgrimage of faith, find understanding in the one whom the disciples called Mother.