At the Council of Ephesus in 431 she was declared to be the Mother of God. Slowly as Christianity spread, her power became official. She was the humble woman who became a queen through suffering, through loss, the mother who was both mortal and then somehow more than mortal.Ĭolm Toibin says his experience of working on The Testament of Mary may have helped him during Ireland's debate on marriage equality. She could thus be re-created with greater force in the imagination of those who prayed to her and who sought her intercession. It is as though her insistent and mysterious power arose precisely from her shadowy presence it is as though the devotion to her grew from this very absence and silence. It is John alone who registers her presence at the wedding feast of Cana and later at the foot of the cross. Matthew and Luke mention her in their Gospels, but mostly her role as the mother of the infant Jesus. In the Gospel of Luke she recites the Magnificat, but even there she takes account of her own "lowliness" before declaring, "From this day all generations will declare me blessed". She herself, as she is presented in the Gospels, is mostly silent, and, once Jesus leaves her home, she is mostly absent in the New Testament. Mary, the mother of Jesus, comes to us through many images she does not come in words, unless the words are prayers written to her.
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