The person who visits the modern city of Athens for the first time can expect a serious disappointment. Gone is the classical city of marble columns and temples, of white-robed philosophers and sculptors. Gone is the ancient cradle of civilisation, the home of all that we value most in our heritage. In its place is a great, noisy, dirty city, crammed with people, clogged with traffic.
But there is one solitary sign of the glory which once was Athens. In its very centre, perched high on a flat-topped hill, the Acropolis, stands a magnificent Greek temple, a great structure of marble columns and friezes of perfect proportions and elegance. Alone amongst the unsightly modern sprawl, it is a reminder of the place of beauty, culture and learning which Athens once was. That building is the Parthenon. Its name comes from the Greek word for virgin, and amidst the ugliness in which it stands, it has lost none of its ancient beauty. It stands for all the world to see, a reminder of what Athens once was, and what it has long since lost.
In today's gospel we encounter the word “parthenos” as we read: “In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to Nazareth, to a virgin...and the name of the virgin was Mary.” Like the Parthenon in Athens, Mary stood out in God's eyes above the broken wreckage of humanity, created once in the His image but marred and disfigured by sin. Because God reckoned her to be worthy, she was found to be in a relationship of grace with him. “Rejoice, you who have been filled with grace, the Lord is with you,” says the angel Gabriel to her, and “You have found grace before God.”
Twice in quick succession Mary is referred to as being in a relationship of grace with God. God has found made her worthy for the most important task to which he has ever called a human being; to be the bearer of his only begotten Son. And she is to do this so that God can send a Saviour into the world, Jesus, whose very name means “Saviour.”
It would be easy to see the grace of the mother of Jesus in terms of itself; that is, to see her simply as a spotless human being, without any reference to God. We could then speak on endlessly about her physical beauty – inasmuch as we could, for we know nothing of her looks – her moral purity, and so on. We could make her the focus of our attention. And in doing so, we would miss the point almost entirely. For the key to Mary's grace in God's eyes lies in her faithfulness and in obedience to his will.
Her two best known statements, preserved for us in Scripture, make this clear. “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let whatever will, happen to me according to his word.” Mary chooses to see herself as a slave before her master, bound to God who has the power of life and death over her. Confronted with a demand that must have taken her breath away, her only concern is to be utterly obedient to God's will. She was also faithful to God in his call to bear witness to all that he does and is. This we see in her other recorded statement, made at the wedding at Cana, when she tells the servants to “Do whatever He tells you.” Here, she draws attention away from herself and towards Jesus, who then works the first of his miraculous signs.
Total obedience to God, and pointing the way towards Jesus, his Son; these are the greatest things that can be asked of us. Mary is the perfect example of how we should attain this. As we conclude our Advent preparations and look forward to the joyful season of Christmas, may she be an inspiration to us to do whatever God tells us.
Fr Phillip.
