At this time of year memory returns me to Kinesa al-Saa’ – the Church of the Clock – priory church of our Iraqi Dominican brothers in Mosul for more than 200 years. My first encounter with this historically complex edifice was 24 years ago. Over a series of visits, I was privileged to spend many hours there, some in liturgy, some in quiet contemplation.
So this week, as the Christmas feast draws near and we observe two Marian feasts – The solemnity of the Immaculate Conception on Dec. 8 and the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Dec. 12 – I’m thinking of Kinesa al-Saa’ and a statue of Mary that once resided in the courtyard there.
Before laying eyes on the statue, I’d heard multiple stories from the Iraqi Dominicans about Muslim women who were granted the blessing of a child after praying before this statue. It was a cause of great joy for them that before this Marian image their neighbors in Old Mosul found such fulfillment through their prayer.
My first visit to the church was in 2001, while the building was undergoing major restoration. The foundation needed to be repaired and then, after that, came a complete renovation of the church. It was a yearslong project, nearing completion in 2001 but so much was still to be done that there wasn’t much to see, including that famous Mary statue, kept in a crate somewhere until it could be restored to the church.
By the time I’d got a peek at it on my next visit a year later, I had, without realizing it, developed high expectations. During my travels around Iraq I’d encountered so much beautiful ancient Mesopotamian, Syriac and Chaldean art that what I saw, when I finally did see the famous Mary, required me to suppress a little chuckle, lest I offend.
Through the slats of a wooden crate I could see the statue, which was, for all its renown and reported miraculous power, well, let’s just say, underwhelming. You know this statue. You may worship in a church that has one just like it: Mary has blond hair and blue eyes; her blue gown falls to her ankles, and around the globe on which she stands, there is a snake under her feet.
But that next trip – for Christmas 2003 – this time, Mary was a revelation! The statue, gleaming with new paint, still looked too European for the context. She was, however, standing in a magnificent grotto that seemed much too fine for such pedestrian art. Above her head and beneath her feet were cruciform mirrors. The one at her feet reflected heaven to earth; the one over her head, earth to heaven. I stood there long enough that the effect was disorienting: Mary’s image, from different perspectives, placidly reflected between earth and heaven bouncing back and forth. One scarcely knew where to rest one’s gaze.
I believe that was the point. This is what Mary was born to do for us: bring heaven to earth and earth to heaven. Among her many titles are Mediatrix and Theotokos. Latin and Greek. The first, meaning mediator, the second, Mother of God. Those mirrors in the grotto can tell us something about each.
A mediatrix is a female mediator – one who stands-between and advocates for, hoping, most of all, to bring two parties together as one. We see Mary fulfilling this purpose at the wedding in Cana, when – apparently without the knowledge or permission of her son – she says to the waiters who have run out of wine, “Do whatever he tells you.” At his mother’s insistence Jesus floods the wedding feast with an embarrassing amount of wine, announcing the coming of God to Earth, the long-promised fulfillment of the covenant made after a very different kind of flood in Genesis. There, the world apparently overwhelmed by human sinfulness, Earth is destroyed by flood, all save Noah and company. This time, Jesus brings a party. No vengeance, just joy. And “wine to gladden their hearts” as the psalmist says.
I love that story. But perhaps I love this one more. Theotokos. mother of God. It took the church four centuries to finally assent to this title for Mary, formally recognized at the Council of Ephesus in 431. The title acknowledges that Mary did not just give birth to the human Jesus, but to his divine self as well.
Modern Christians take this for granted. But understanding Jesus as God-in-the-flesh, fully human and fully divine was not a foregone conclusion in the early days of the church. The implications of this are far-reaching, reverberating throughout our theology and our understanding of Jesus as word of God “born in the flesh” and living among us. This great scandal of Incarnation is a stumbling block to many, but essential to all we say and believe as Christians.
This is what we are waiting for during these last few days of Advent: the time to celebrate, we hope with an abundance of joy, and perhaps a little wine, the thing that Mary, mother of God, is meant to help us recall: the in her son Jesus, God has come to earth, becoming what we are that we might become what he is. May it be so.
Sister Beth Murphy, OP, is the communication director for the Dominican Sisters of Springfield.
This article appears in Asking the public for help.
