Our Lady, the Church, and the Workers of the Vineyard
by: Fr. Andrew Younan
 

Mysterious Relationships

Though we neither know nor understand how, since it was the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, we do know and understand that Mary, a virgin, became the mother of the Son of God – we can grasp the relationship between Mary and Christ, though the causality of this relationship is beyond us. In the same way, we know that in every corner of the New Testament Christ is named the Bridegroom, and the Church the Bride. But, just as we cannot grasp the miracle of the Virgin Birth of Christ, we cannot grasp how this Heavenly Marriage takes place, since it is the work of the invisible and indefinable grace of God.

But the mystery is even deeper than that; the more we try to define even the relationships between these holy figures, the more we realize that our definitions are incomplete and unsuitable. Mary is Christ’s mother, making her (somehow) the mother-in-law of the Church; but in another sense, she is a member of the Church. The Church is also somehow his mother, since it is in the baptismal font, the “womb” of the Church, that Christ is born within the souls of the faithful.

Mother & Bride

In the book of Revelation, there is a mysterious woman described as a sign: “And a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery.” (Revelation 12:1-2) Who is this woman? Her child is attacked by a dragon, as well as her other children who are described later: “Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus.” (Revelation 12: 17) The Church is somehow our spiritual mother, and so is Mary; and Mary is therefore a symbol of the Church.

In the midst of such complexity, our Chaldean Church offers a beautiful hymn to describe the relationship between the Church and Mary:

The Church says to Mary, “come, let us go as one

and appease the Son of the Almighty on behalf of the iniquity of the world.

You appease him because you suckled him with milk,

I will appease him because he prepared Blood for my wedding feast.

You appease him as a mother, and I as a bride,

for he heeds his mother, and he answers his betrothed.”

The details of the relationship, which are beyond us, are not the point. The point is that the Lord loves his mother and his bride, and that they return this love in their own ways which are, though distinct, both expressions of pure, spiritual love.



The Workers of the Vineyard


The intense love of a bride and the tender care of a mother are the traits which accompany the ceremony we look forward to on May 15th. On that day, Reem Salman and Rana Raban will make their vows to dedicate themselves as nuns for the next two years. This is the continuation of a formative period in which they will prepare to become, on the day of their final vow, visible symbols of the Church, the bride of Christ. Moreover, they will during this time follow the model given to them by Our Lady, and become spiritual mothers to the faithful of our Diocese, with special attentiveness to our youth. Thus their names will be changed, on that day, to Sr. Miskenta Mariam and Sr. Tarbytha Mariam, names given to them by their superiors in the Church to reflect their goal of sanctity (since the names given to them are those of saints), their Chaldean identity (since the saints are of our own tradition), and the reality of their Marian patronage.


Our Lady of the Fields, pray for us!!