We are nearing the end of October, a traditional month for honoring Mary, particularly as Our Lady of the Rosary. I am in the 2nd week of Michael E. Gaitley's 33 Days to Morning Glory: A Do-It-Yourself Retreat In Preparation for Marian Consecration. I recently began a Facebook fellowship group for those doing the retreat and anyone interested in Marian devotion, using the same name as this blog, "True Marian Devotion". I have been working for some time on writing a book about the sacred feminine in Christianity, and all of these things have converged, as is often the case, to bring about renewed contemplation on certain themes.
So I am here once again, in the hopes of fleshing out some ideas and perhaps going a bit deeper into the relationship between the Virgin Mary and the biblical Lady Wisdom. Fr. Gaitley's focus in 33 Days to Morning Glory hinges upon the idea of Mary as the "spouse" of the Holy Spirit. He contends that at the Annunciation, "the deep bond between Mary and the Holy Spirit...was revealed as nothing less than a two-become-one marital union (see Gen 2:24)." St. Maximilian Kolbe, whose theology is being contemplated this week of the retreat, takes the notion further, calling Mary the "quasi-incarnation" of the Holy Spirit.
I don't want to declare that both of these men are wrong, but I do wish to express why these views make me uncomfortable. First, Mary had a human spouse, who we know as St. Joseph. Referring to Mary as the spouse of the Holy Spirit is not to suggest that Mary had two husbands, but rather to present an analogy of a mystical, spiritual unity, in which the two retain their individual natures yet work together toward a common purpose; that of the sanctification of humanity. Mary gives the Holy Spirit a face, thus the "quasi-incarnation" status.
Nevertheless, Joseph's instrumental role as Mary's spouse is seriously obscured, and Mary, a woman, is made the personal embodiment of the Holy Spirit, who is traditionally spoken about in masculine terms. All three members of the Holy Trinity are designated using masculine pronouns, despite the teaching of the Church that God is neither male nor female, but pure spirit, and regardless of the many feminine images found in the Bible for God. The masculine language is said to reflect the transcendent nature of God, and I don't doubt that teaching's validity.
Such poetic renderings as "spouse" and "quasi-incarnation" endeavor to explain a great mystery, and Fr. Gaitley and St. Kolbe have not said anything contrary to Catholic faith or morals in this regard. But could we, perhaps, unearth a more fitting theology for our times? It is relevant at this point to consider that, historically speaking, references in Christianity to the divine in feminine terms have been rare and have been a cause for fear and grave concern among those who view God as exclusively male. The backlash from Scott Hahn's theology, in First Comes Love, which describes the Holy Spirit as being the particularly "bridal-maternal" person of the Trinity, caused the author to move this material from chapter 10 to an appendix at the back of the book.
Yet the Church certainly supports the notion that God has not only a transcendent nature, but an immanent one; and that the Church herself (Ecclesia in Latin) and the Blessed Virgin Mary reflect God's feminine, receptive, immanent qualities. The Holy Spirit indwells the members of the Body of Christ, even being called the "soul" of the Church. In such a way, the Holy Spirit also reflects God's immanence, as does Jesus' Real Presence in the Eucharist.
How can all of these conflicts potentially be resolved? One path is to explore the way of Wisdom. I will expound upon such a theology in Part 2 of this article.
