Читать книгу The Drama of Jesus - Peter Milward - Страница 8

“Please tell us about Christmas,” requested Mariko, as soon as we gathered again after dinner. “I mean, the first Christmas night in the stable of Bethlehem.”

“Oh, please do,” echoed her friend Chieko.

“First, you must wait a little,” I answered. “What you want will come in due time, but we have to begin at the beginning, and that beginning isn’t at Bethlehem.”

“Then where is it?” asked Chieko in surprise.

“At Nazareth,” I answered, “in the hill country to the North of Judea, not far from the inland sea or lake of Galilee. For we have to begin the story of Jesus not with Jesus himself but with Mary his mother, and how she came to be his mother.”

“Then how did she come to be his mother?” This time the question came from Iwao, as I paused before continuing.

“Let me put it like this,” I said. “You know the famous painting of the Annunciation by Fra Angelico, don’t you? The virgin’s house is represented in the style of a Renaissance palace in fifteenth-century Italy, but that doesn’t matter. On one side you see the virgin Mary in prayer, and on the other you see the angel coming to greet her. Above her, you see the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, from whom descends a ray of light that penetrates her chaste womb. It is such a simple painting, yet so charming in its simplicity.”

“But what does it mean?” asked Hiroshi. “Are we expected to believe it happened as the artist has shown in his painting, or in so far as he is following the gospel account?”

“Its meaning,” I said, “is, as you suggest, to be found in the opening chapter of Luke’s Gospel, and I have no doubt that Luke was in turn simply repeating what he had been told by Mary herself. There’s an old tradition in the Church that she spent her last days on earth with John at Ephesus, and there Luke could easily have consulted her. As for the account in Luke’s Gospel, I’d like to explain it in terms of a prayer in honour of Mary known as the Angelus. Do you know it?”

“Do you mean the bell that rings three times at midday from the church of St.Ignatius?” asked Mariko. “Then it rings again for a longer time. It sounds very romantic, when I’m sitting in class with Chieko. I imagine I’m in a mediaeval monastery, and the bell is ringing not only for the monks but for all the people working in the fields. Then I recall the lovely painting of ‘The Angelus’ by the French impressionist painter Millet. These are in fact two of my favourite paintings, this by Millet and the other one you’ve mentioned, by Fra Angelico.”

“But do you know why it rings three times?” I asked her. “And then a longer time?”

“No,” admitted Mariko. “I haven’t ever thought of that. I’m just impressed by the romantic sound of the bell inviting people to prayer. Isn’t that enough?”

“Well,” I explained, “there’s a special meaning and a special prayer connected with each time the bell rings. The first time it rings we say, ‘The angel of the Lord declared to Mary, and she conceived by the Holy Spirit.’ In its Latin form the first word we say is ‘Angelus’, and the whole prayer is named after this word. Then we go on to say the ‘Hail Mary’, the prayer in honour of Mary which begins with the words used by the angel to greet her on that occasion. It’s called in Latin, ‘Ave Maria’.”

“I know the ‘Ave Maria’,” exclaimed Chieko. “At least, I know its musical setting by Schubert and Gounod. They’re such beautiful and inspiring melodies. I myself prefer the one by Schubert, as Gounod’s is too operatic for my taste. From the music I can feel something of the meaning in the words, though I don’t know any Latin.”

“How about the angel?” interrupted Iwao. “Who’s he supposed to be? Why couldn’t God have appeared directly to Mary, as we see the Holy Spirit appearing under the form of a dove in Fra Angelico’s painting?”

“The angel,” I answered, “is supposed to be a messenger of God, appearing to men in the place of God. For God himself is too bright to be seen by human eyes, and in any case he has no distinct form. As to whether the angel appeared to Mary in visible form, or was just a projection of her sub-conscious mind, as a modern psychologist might say, I don’t think it really matters. Anyhow, the words he spoke on that occasion as recorded by Luke come straight out of the Old Testament. They almost sound like an anthology of texts from the prophets referring to the coming of the Messiah, the expected king of Israel. In this case, however, their reference is not future but present, pointing to Mary as mother of the Messiah. So the angel greets her, as no woman in the Old Testament was ever greeted, as ‘full of grace’. In this annunciation we seem to be hearing the word of God himself coming down not only from heaven above but also from the past ages of prophecy till it reaches the fullness of time and its own fulfillment in the virgin Mary. And so, as the prayer continues, ‘she conceived by the Holy Spirit’.”

“What does that mean?” asked Hiroshi. “Didn’t Joseph have anything to do with it? Wasn’t he the husband of Mary?”

“He is indeed betrothed to Mary,” I answered. “And so he remains, for the protection of her virginity. But God has other plans for her, as Luke tells us. For the angel goes on to tell Mary, ‘The Spirit of the Lord will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and the Holy One to be born of you will be called the Son of God.’ This was a tremendous thing for an angel to say to a simple village girl. Mary must have been quite overwhelmed by the message. It sounds as if all three persons of the Holy Trinity were involved in this great event, the heavenly Father from above, the divine Son from within, and the Holy Spirit bringing Father and Son together. And all is centred on Mary, as destined to be mother of the Holy One. She must have been quite speechless at the news!”

“I’m sure,” exclaimed Mariko, “I’d have been quite speechless if I’d been in her place.”

“And I, too,” added Chieko. “The very thought of it makes me speechless with emotion.”

“Perhaps,” I suggested, “that’s why the angel doesn’t stop there. He no doubt feels it necessary to smooth over the situation and to distract Mary’s attention from herself to someone else. So he tells her of a similar favour that has just been granted by God to her cousin Elizabeth, who is to become mother of Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist. Then at last Mary recovers her power of speech and gives her answer, in words that form the second prayer of the Angelus, ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word’.”

“What do those words mean?” asked Iwao. “They seem to my mind a rather formal way of saying ‘Yes’. The opening words, in particular, sound like the formal way of ending a business letter, ‘I am, sir, your humble servant.’”

“You may well be right,” I agreed. “In such a moment of deep emotion Mary can only fall back on some formal expression she recalls from the Old Testament. It is no empty formality she is using, but one charged with a deeper meaning than it has ever contained before. On such a solemn occasion we feel ordinary, informal words are too weak to express our feelings of joy or sorrow, and so we take refuge from our speechlessness in some such formal expression.”

“What do you mean,” asked Nobuo, “by saying that Mary recalled words from the Old Testament? Were there any similar occasions like this in the Old Testament?”

“Yes,” I answered, “we find many similar occasions, though none quite like it. The very origin of the people of Israel comes out of such an occasion, when Abraham is called by God, and he replies, ‘Here I am.’ The origin also of the kingdom of Israel can be dated from such an occasion, when the boy Samuel is called by God and he replies, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’ The call of the great prophet Isaiah, who foretells both the birth and the subsequent sufferings of the Messiah, also comes about in such a manner, when he sees a vision in the temple and hears a divine voice, ‘Whom shall I send?’ and he answers, ‘Here I am, send me!” But I think Mary is specially thinking of the mother of Samuel, Anna, who also speaks of herself as ‘the handmaid of the Lord’. Anyhow, allowing for the formality of her words, what they come down to is, as Iwao says, a simple ‘Yes’. It reminds me of the similar ‘Yes’ which every bride utters on the occasion of her wedding. It’s such a simple word, and yet it determines her whole future, as from now on she is no longer alone but one with her husband. In this one word Mary accepts the Word of God and becomes at once bride of the Holy Spirit and mother of the Word incarnate.”

“Do you mean to say,” asked Hiroshi, “that Mary was bride and mother in no ordinary human way in relation to Joseph, but in a miraculous way by the power of God? Or may we also understand the gospel account as a metaphorical or allegorical explanation of the divine origin of Jesus, while his human origin comes from Joseph and Mary?”

“That isn’t how the Church has always understood this passage,” I corrected him. “Such an allegorical explanation would look like a deliberate deceit on the part either of Luke or of Mary herself. But when it is accepted in its literal meaning, as a miraculous intervention by God in human history, it is indeed wonderful, both for Mary herself and for all who receive the account in a spirit of faith. It shows her as mother of Jesus in time, while he is also Son of God in eternity. It shows her as at once virgin and mother, and so we call her Blessed Virgin and Mother of God. It shows in her the twin ideals of simple innocence, as virgin, and profound experience, as mother. So she is at once representative of all women and unique in herself. She is at once a simple maiden, the simplest of all maidens, and, as her cousin Elizabeth goes on to greet her, ‘blessed among all women’, because of the child in her womb. She utters a simple human word, and so she becomes mother of the divine Word.”

“It’s really wonderful,” exclaimed Mariko. “I’m sure it happened in the very way it’s described in the gospel. And I feel so happy my name is Mariko, like Mary. Perhaps if Mary had been a Japanese girl, she’d have been named Mariko, like me.”

“Either that,” I responded with a smile, “or Chieko. For Mary is also called Seat of Wisdom, in becoming mother of the Word, who is also the wisdom of the Father. And Chieko means child of wisdom. But now I must turn to the third prayer of the Angelus, which is based on the words of John in the famous prologue to his gospel, ‘And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.’ This shows the practical outcome of Mary’s consent, when she conceives the divine Word by the Holy Spirit, in what theologians call the Incarnation.”

“What does that word, ‘Incarnation’, mean?” asked Nobuo. “It sounds so difficult and abstract, the sort of word that fills the mind of Iwao with problems.”

“It only sounds abstract,” I replied. “But its meaning is the opposite of abstract. It refers to the way God has become man, the divine Word has assumed human nature, the infinite has become finite, and the eternal has entered our world of space and time. It is the heart of every paradox and can only be stated in paradoxical form. We think of the eternity of God as extending endlessly from the remote past into the remote future, but here we find it restricted to a moment in time. We think of the infinity of God as extending without limit in all directions, but here we find it contracted to a point in the womb of a virgin. We think of God as the all-powerful, all-knowing Creator, but here we find his power reduced to the weakness and speechlessness of an infant. We think of the Father as above all, but here we find the Son within and beneath all, humbling himself, as Paul says, to the form of a servant. All this he does to show us how much he loves us, and how much he wants to be with us, as one of us, even in our poverty and suffering.”

“What you say,” commented Iwao, “sounds like a poem, or a hymn. What most impresses me is the thought of the Father as God above all and the Son as man within and beneath all. Somehow I feel myself included in the Son, and so the love of the Father reaches down to me as well.”

“That’s precisely what Christians believe,” I affirmed. “It isn’t for himself but for the salvation of mankind that the Word is made flesh. So his name, as announced by the angel, is Jesus, which means Saviour. Finally, to bring this discussion to an end, after having made these three prayers of the Angelus, with three verses of Scripture and three repetitions of the ‘Hail Mary’, we go on to pray that God may pour forth his grace into our hearts, that we also, to whom the mystery of the Incarnation has been made known by the message of the angel, may by the passion and cross of Jesus be brought to the glory of his resurrection. It is while we are saying this final prayer in our hearts that the bell continues ringing in our ears. And this is how we pray the Angelus not only at midday but also in the morning when we wake up and at evening before we go to bed. So it might be a good idea for us to say this prayer before going to bed tonight.”