Dear Group Leaders and Friends in Christian Meditation,
As I write this letter, it is August 15th. I had wanted to send this out sooner in the month and July flew by without even noticing, but here we are on this day when many of us remember St Mary of Nazareth. When I was a Catholic priest, I would celebrate today as the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Now, as an Episcopalian I honor Mary as the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ. Both are lovely traditional ways of experiencing the gift of Mary of Nazareth.
Some of us might have significant Marian devotions in our lives, some of us might not think of Mary at all and many might be somewhere in between. Truthfully, I haven’t always had a huge “relationship” with Mary. It came overtime and I am still learning what that means for me and my own spiritual life. I don’t really pray the rosary very often, but I think of my mom who prayed this devotion on a rosary ring she wore while working as a crossing guard, praying for the children she encountered and their families.
As a hospice chaplain, I find myself praying the Hail Mary, and other traditional prayers, often with Catholic patients especially when they can no longer speak for themselves. When I think of St. Mary, I don’t imagine a weak woman. My mind comes up with images of a spicy person, who would walk about 100 miles to see her cousin, Elizabeth. We find this in Luke 1:39-56. In this passage, we have a young woman acclaiming God’s mercy and God’s tender care for those on the margins. God, through Mary, was toppling down the social structure and calling us to something new — the Kingdom of God. With the message of an angel and the care of shepherds, Mary’s life would never be the same.
Maybe when we found the gift of meditation, in some small way, we can relate to Mary’s experience. We haven’t given birth physically to the Lord, but every day when we awake, we are given a new opportunity to birth the Christ in the world. This happens when we act with love, compassion and mercy and each time we sit down to meditate in silence, stillness and simplicity and say our mantra, maranatha. In Luke 2:19, the evangelist tells us that ”. . . Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Maybe this was Mary’s experience of the prayer of the heart. This sounds more like Christmas than the Assumption. However, the truth for me is this . . . God’s call and Mary’s response gave our human family, Christ in the flesh, God’s bodily compassion for us. In Thomas Merton’s words, “mercy within mercy, within mercy.” Our world, our nation, our very lives need mercy, compassion and our God, who is love. For that, yes, from spicy Mary, whose “yes” led to the foot of the cross and into the fullness of God in her Assumption, I thank God. St. Mary mother of contemplatives pray for us.
I thank God for the gift of our meditation. I know the treasure that Christian meditation has been in my own life. Something that I have appreciated is the friendships that I have known in our community. Sitting together in meditation builds up our care for one another, just as it helps us to become the people we were created to be as beloveds of God, and it helps us incarnate and enflesh God’s Kingdom in the present moment. This October we have an opportunity to be together to share community, friendship in Christ and the gift of meditation. We are coming together for a national gathering in Cleveland on October 10-12. More information is here.
For those of us who are able, it will be a gift to be together again.
Warmly,
Kevin Maksym
