The Anti-Mary Exposed

by Carrie Gress

  As a result of this unique call, the Mother of God has the titles of many ancient goddesses because she was who others had hoped the goddesses would be. They were archetypes of the kind of perfection dreamed of but never made a reality until Mary of Nazareth arrived in the world. Our Lady triumphed over these clay-footed goddesses and was given their misplaced titles because she truly was the only one worthy of them; titles such as Queen of Heaven, Star of the Sea, Seat of Wisdom, the Mother of God, and Madonna, among others. She is not only a well-behaved woman who made history but the best-behaved woman around whom all of history turns.

  Mary Power

  One of the reasons Our Lady is wildly neglected is because her type of empowerment isn’t clothed in the typical garb: she isn’t outspoken, assertive, or intimidating; she isn’t protesting topless in the streets; and she isn’t donning a pink hat to show her power and conformity to feminist fads. Her approach is much different, and it can be a hard sell in the current climate. Our Lady’s virtues are the exact opposite of what the world has been promoting for decades. Few are willing to tell women to be obedient, humble, submissive, and meek, which is probably why we don’t hear it very often. None of these fit very neatly into a sound bite, and even if they did, most women don’t have the moral experience to know how they look in practical life. These virtues smack of a “doormat woman.” And yet these virtues, like Mary’s Son, are “the stone the builders rejected”; they are the virtues we ignore at our own peril. Yes, it all sounds a little crazy to our modern ears and sensibilities, but because of who Mary is, they are most worthy of consideration. Mary’s “vocation is to wait, to suggest and respond, to be, far more than to do,” says Dominican theologian Fr. Gerald Vann. Reviewing Mary’s life, Fr. Vann described Mary’s vocation in more detail:

  So to Mary in her stillness comes the announcement which is to summons to both suffering and glory, and her reply is “So be it”; and her vocation henceforth is to live and work and suffer for the fulfilment of his vocation; and she does not command or urge, she suggests: “they have no wine”; when the time comes for him to “go out into the world” she retires into the background, she waits; and when at the end he needs her comfort and her strength she gives it, not by saying anything or doing anything, but by standing silent at the foot of the cross, by being with him.10

  Ironically, the most powerful woman in the world did very little that people would consider important. Her secret was to unite herself to God in order that she might become more while doing less.

  Mary’s power, then, is in her perfect surrender to God. “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). Gertrud von le Fort, who wrote deeply about what it means to be a woman, said, “Surrender to God is the only absolute power with which the creature is endowed.”11 The world tells us that we are powerful when we are strong, full of vigor and life, and able to conquer or overcome those who are weaker than we are. Mary’s strength is the inverse: “For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). Her strength is in her capacity to get her will out of the way and allow the will of her beloved Father to shine through her. The real power to bring order, love, and a true icon of God is found in the surrender.

  Mary’s capacity to surrender wasn’t because she started off in a place of weakness, von Le Fort explained. Women are not intrinsically weak. Their power, when misused, can wreak havoc on an entire society. If we look at Eve, “the Bible story shows clearly that she was the stronger and had the ascendancy over man.” Man is physically stronger, but women have a different kind of strength. “Whenever woman has been suppressed,” von Le Fort continues, “it was never because she was weak, but because she was recognized and feared as having power, and with reason; for at the moment when the stronger power no longer desires surrender but seeks self-glorification, a catastrophe is bound to ensue.”12 When a woman rejects the authority of men, of her husband, that God has placed above her—as we have seen, to protect women from the abuse of their own power—her refusal carries with it something of the demonic, von Le Fort says, because it brings the “seduction of the self-will.”13 A woman under the spell of her own will is unable to see clearly the will of the Father, or of her husband, or her children, resulting in the upheaval we see in our own culture, and it is particularly children who are on the chopping block in sacrifice to the will of the mother.

  Surrender in the right sense can only happen when a woman knows the person she is surrendering to is trustworthy, loves her unconditionally, and always does what is best for her. This is why parents are so vitally important to the faith of children if they are to grow into healthy adults. If children do not get these gifts from parents, then their capacity to understand how much the Father loves them will be deeply damaged. Parents are the bridge between a child and God; they are the first icon of his unconditional love. Without good parents, faith in an all-loving, benevolent father is very challenging. And vice versa, as Cardinal Mindszenty pointed out, “For when men no longer understand the infinite charity of God, they will no longer prize the most striking revelation of that charity, the love of mothers.”14 This helps explain why the women behind the feminist movement, who had troubled relationships with their mothers, also had little faith. And when we lose faith in an all loving and benevolent God, we feel the need to make ourselves gods, to protect ourselves from vulnerabilities at the hands of others who might wound us, even those who claim to love us. Self-willing, controlling others, and the myriad of other ways women reject surrendering to God’s will are deeply rooted in the damaged faith that misunderstands how wide and deep God’s love is for each one of us. Mary’s surrender is based upon the reality that she knows she is loved, and she has no shame, no fear, no emptiness in her soul, no wounds of rejection or abandonment that compel her to keep something for herself the way that the rest of humanity does.

  Of course, those who had bad parents are not left orphans. God can overcome any wound of the heart. Mary, our mother in the order of grace, along with the Father, will never leave us orphans. As one theologian wrote, “Mary helps Christians understand with what tenderness they are embraced by God.”15 And so among Mary’s titles is Mother of Orphans.

  She Fights Like a Mom

  Mary’s power is truly that of a mother, but a perfect mother whose will is directly aligned with God’s perfect will. Our Lady, Pope John Paul II wrote, “participates maternally in the tough fight against the powers of darkness that unfold during the whole of human history.”16 How would a mother do this? Through fierce protection of her children, but also through order, discipline, education, love, assistance, and particularly by being present to them and suffering with them.

  There is a unique testimony to Mary’s witness at Calvary to which every maternal heart can relate. It came from an unusual source: a demon commanded to tell the truth about Mary by a priest during an exorcism (which is why some of the grammar is odd). Speaking of what he saw at Calvary, the demon said:

  That One was always there with tears that flowed without stopping and with eyes turned toward the face of her son to collect every little, every little, every little suffering. She lived his passion in her heart. The sword was piercing her Heaaaart! The blood of the Son and the heart of the Mamma flowed. She was always there, tormented by pain but most beautiful in her suffering. Ahhh! She shone with pain and prayer: ‘May your will be done. May your will be done.’ Never did she lower her face. Only when He died [did she lower it] when the whole world moved. She [in that moment] was firm. She did not move. She knew what was happening. She knew that it would happen that God would feel her pain for her son. Her eyes were fixed on those of the Son, fixed. And she looked at him, looked at all his wounds, looked at the blood that was flowing from his head. And she wanted to clean his face, caress his hair, kiss his wounds, that broken nose, that swollen face. And she said, ‘What have they done to you, my dear!? You who love everyone! May your will be done, Father! Your will, Father! Father, the nails! Those mo
st beautiful hands have prayed, have healed, have blessed. Father, those holy hands! Poor hands! And the arms … See Father, what pain! He who is your son, Sooooon … Father, may your will be done! Those feet that have walked so much, those feet that have walked so much, walked so much, how they were beautiful when they were so little! How many times I kissed them! How many times I kissed them! Make me kiss them also as they are! Full of blood, Father! Tell him that I am here! Tell him that I love him! That I understand him! That I am with him, that I suffer with him!17

  What mother can’t relate to kissing her son’s beautiful feet when he was little? What mother doesn’t want her son to know that she is with him through every suffering?

  And yet, Mary is not just another mother. The demons tell us much more: “There is no tongue to praise the Mother of God as she merits. There is no creature who can understand her greatness, her goodness, her power. Mary has more power herself than all the angels, all the creatures, all the saints together. There is nothing comparable to Mary.”18

  Such a testimony lines up with what others have said about her. Hildegard von Bingen, the eleventh-century nun, polymath, and a doctor of the Church, wrote of Mary, “She is so bright and glorious that you cannot look at her face or her garments for the splendor with which she shines. For she is terrible with the terror of the avenging lightning, and gentle with the goodness of the bright sun; and both her terror and her gentleness are incomprehensible to humans. … But she is with everyone and in everyone, and so beautiful is her secret that no person can know the sweetness with which she sustains people, and spares them in inscrutable mercy.19

  Despite her splendor, Our Lady does not make herself a celebrity, she does not draw attention to herself, but is always saying, “Do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5). She isn’t seeking to be worshipped, but only to bring her spiritual children to her Son.

  The saddest reality about the women’s movement, particularly many of the founders of it, is that Our Lady is the true mother they needed. Instead, they chose terrible counterfeits that could never bring the love, affection, healing—the mothering—for which their hearts longed.

  ____________________

  1Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (W.W. Norton and Company, 2013), Kindle Edition, chapter 1.

  2Gertrud von le Fort, The Eternal Woman (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), 56.

  3Maureen Orth, “How the Virgin Mary Became the World’s Most Powerful Woman,” National Geographic, December 8, 2015, http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/12/virgin-mary-text.

  4Josef Cardinal Mindszenty, The Face of the Heavenly Mother (New York: Philosophical Library, 1951), 85.

  5Carrie Gress, The Marian Option (Charlotte: TAN Books, 2016), 27.

  6John Henry Cardinal Newman, “The Glories of Mary for the Sake of Her Son,” The Newman Reader: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/discourses/discourse17.html.

  7Warren H. Carroll, The Building of Christendom, vol. 2 (Front Royal: Christendom College Press, 1987), 94.

  8Quoted in Bamonte, Virgin Mary and Exorcism, 66.

  9Bamonte, Virgin Mary and Exorcism, 122.

  10Gerald Vann, The Water and the Fire (Sheed & Ward, 1954), 137.

  11von le Fort, Eternal Woman, xv.

  12Ibid., 13.

  13Ibid., 14.

  14Mindszenty, The Face of the Heavenly Mother, 103.

  15André Feuillet, Jesus and His Mother (Petersham, MA: St. Bede’s Publication, 1984), 209.

  16John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, no. 47.

  17Bamonte, Virgin Mary and Exorcism, 122.

  18Ibid., 42.

  19Hildegard of Bingen’s vision of the Feminine Divine, from Scivias, III, 4.15, translated by Mother Columba Hart, O.S.B. and Jane Bishop.

  CHAPTER 8

  Fruit and Content

  “The tree that is beside the running water

  is fresher and gives more fruit.”

  —St. Teresa of Avila

  Three women were recently featured in a secular magazine. They were, by most standards, normal, well-adjusted secular women—they had exciting and adventurous jobs, plenty of money in the bank, and men at their disposal. They seemed to be living the feminist dream. And yet, they all said there was something missing. One said she felt the urge to just bake bread, another wanted to grow a garden, a third said she felt like quitting her job and raising a bunch of children. There was something deeper that these women wanted to grow, make, nurture, and love. No one had told them, however, that this wasn’t the way the feminist playbook was supposed to go—their human nature, their “existential slip,” was showing right there among the glossy pages.

  A recurrent thread in this book is the contempt directed at virginity and motherhood by the anti-Marian spirit of our age. After fifty years of watching the sterility of feminism destroy the culture, there is plenty of evidence that purity, virginity, and motherhood are important not just to women but to families and societies. It is precisely these things that the women’s movement has trampled upon in the name of progress and liberation. Women’s strength or power, our surrender, doesn’t mean being inactive or idle. It is another one of the deep mysteries of God that women are simultaneously receptive and actively bringing about the good in the lives of others. Women were made to be fruitful.

  As we saw in chapter 5, fertility is something from which women simply cannot run away; those who try end up abusing it instead of honoring it. But what does it look like to actually honor our fertility? What does it look like to understand that at the core of every woman’s heart—though it may be buried under abuse, contempt, ignorance, or misunderstanding—is the desire to be fruitful, to be a vessel, spiritually and physically, for others to find strength, care, affirmation, charity, nurturing, and home. Fertility is the desire to do good things. Edith Stein said that women “fulfill themselves by giving something of their own life so that others may live.”1

  Nobel laureate William Golding, author of The Lord of the Flies, has a tight but colorful description of just what women are able to do when they understand their own fertility, their own fruitfulness, and how it creates or improves the lives of others. He says, “I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been. Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she’ll give you a baby. If you give her a house, she’ll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she’ll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she’ll give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her.”2

  Golding’s insight is rich and beautiful. As we saw earlier, women are called to “contain” others, not just to hold onto them, but to improve them and let them go again, now healthier, stronger, and better prepared for the journey. The time-honored symbols of women—vessels, ovens, ships, and so on—represent containing something, transforming it, bringing people to safety. These are not unimportant things, but truly the elements that help people grow into their full potential.

  The Lesson of the Farmer

  More than two thousand years ago, Roman senator and famed orator Cicero first coined the term cultura anima, or “cultivating the soul.” What he meant by it was “to foster what nature grants”; that is, to acknowledge that by nature there is a certain way things will grow best and certain ways to guarantee that something won’t grow at all.

  Joel Salatin is a man that knows a lot about farming. Called the world’s most innovative farmer by Time magazine, Salatin has been featured in books and films like The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Food, Inc. for his practices that are changing the way people think about food. While his approach may seem radical (no antibiotics, no growth hormones), his farming practices are fundamentally about working with nature instead of against it. And it all starts with soil. Salatin, like most farmers, knows that soil health is crucial. “Stimulating soil biota is our first priority,” says Salatin. “Soil health creates healthy food.”3 Farmers like him are relearning how “to foster what nature grants.”

&nb
sp; A priest raised on a farm wanted to help promote vocations to the priesthood. He knew, like Salatin, how to grow things, and the first place to start was with the soil. If seeds didn’t have good soil, nothing could grow properly. When it came to vocations, then, what exactly was the soil?

  Mothers.

  So he got to work, beginning with the soil. He first started a women’s Bible study. Then he started a couple’s Bible study. Then he moved on to the men, then fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and finally, he started a group for the young people. The farmer priest knew that vocations were the fruit of good families, but particularly of good mothers supported by strong husbands. All of these pieces are integral.

  What, then, does the enemy do? He steals the heart of the woman, steals the goodness from the soil and poisons it. He whispers, “Contraception will make you free. You don’t need to have children. Children are a luxury you cannot afford.” He continues, “Children just get in the way of happiness. Let someone else take care of them.” And on and on. And women have listened. We have been listening intently and telling others, while ignoring the misery that plagues us. The farmer priest’s wisdom isn’t unique to him. Archbishop Fulton Sheen wrote, “When a man loves a woman, it follows that the nobler the woman, the nobler the love; the higher the demands made by the woman, the more worthy a man must be. That is why woman is the measure of the level of our civilization.”4 Truly, the level to which women aspire is the level that men will reach for, but if women don’t aspire to anything, the men won’t either. As Mae West said, “Whenever women go wrong, men go right after them.”

  This general idea is not unique to Western civilization; even Confucius is known to have said, “Where the woman is faithful, no evil can befall. The woman is the root and the man is the tree. The tree grows only as high as the root is strong.”5