I realised on sending off another job application today, whose word count was over 4000 words in total, that in the last few months I have written far more for job applications than anything except for essay feedback. While I would ask anyone reading to pray for my job prospects, I wanted to do some happier writing and thought it was time to revive my blog, which I neglected through the final stages of finishing my DPhil and my first terms of full-time teaching. Although I handed in my thesis just under a year ago, various administrative hoops meant that I only graduated a few weeks ago. Given today is the Feast of the Annunciation, I thought I would use this time to reflect on one way in which my DPhil affected and developed my faith in relation to the Virgin Mary by giving me a more profound understanding of the consequences of Mary's sinlessness.
Many of the poems I studied during my research were on the theme of the Immaculate Conception, namely the idea that the Virgin Mary was conceived without the stain of sin. While this is firmly Catholic doctrine today (indeed, one of only two 'ex cathedra', or infallible papal statements was the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception in 1854) it was a hotly debated issue in the Middle Ages and not accepted by everyone, with some arguing that this was too great a privilege to ascribe to the Virgin, and that the stain of original sin was removed at the moment of or immediately after conception. It was a controversial topic, and accusations of heresy were thrown around, with the issue being debated at universities and church councils. The Council of Basel in 1439 declared that it was an acceptable pious belief, and while Pope Sixtus IV adopted the feast in 1476, there was evidently still a raging debate since in 1483 he was forced to declare excommunication for anyone of either side of the debate who called their opponents heretics. The poets I studied were devotees of the Immaculate Conception, using their poetry to advocate the doctrine in this contested period.
I have long loved the Immaculate Conception myself, having fallen in love with Lourdes when I first went as an 18 year old. There, Our Lady revealed herself to St Bernadette with the words 'Que soy era Immaculada Conceptiou', using Bernadette's native patois to announce 'I am the Immaculate Conception'. For the clergy who had doubted in the apparitions, this counted as proof that they were real, since this happened just four years after the dogma had been declared and it was thought unlikely that Bernadette, whose lack of French and catechism meant she had not even been able to make her first communion, would know the term. The Immaculate Conception had never come up in my own catechism either, but I came to find out about it through Our Lady of Lourdes, just like St Bernadette did. This title of Our Lady's was something I deemed important, and was even that annoying person that once told up a lecturer he had mixed up the Immaculate Conception with the Virgin Birth - a common error as people assume it refers to Our Lady's active conception of Christ, rather her own passive conception. Nonetheless, I only came to fully grasp the significance of the Immaculate Conception through my research and reading the poems of these ardent defenders of this privilege of Our Lady. These poems showed how the Immaculate Conception had been prefigured throughout the Old Testament, and showed why it was so fitting that Our Lord be borne by one who had not once been touched by the stain of original sin. In this way, Mary truly is the New Eve.
This is quite a roundabout way to introduce the topic I want to discuss today. Despite having always had a sincere Marian devotion, there had been one teaching that troubled me slightly, namely the idea that Mary had not suffered any pains in childbirth. The Incarnation is the central, even scandalous mystery of our faith. God became Man, in all the physicality, mundanity and and indignity that entailed. I worried that the idea of a painless childbirth somehow undermined God's becoming Man - if He came to live among us and live as one of us, surely He ought to have entered the world in the same way as us? He suffered as humans do, felt pain as we do and experienced the indignity of death, death on a cross - did being born in a different way undermine this shared, human suffering? Moreover, I wondered if this undercut Mary's example as a mother, Mother of Christ and mother of us all, an example to whom women could look, knowing that she had experienced all that we do. The idea of a painless birth seemed to threaten the humanity of Christ and Our Lady in a somewhat troubling way. I could rationally assent to the idea of a painless birth but failed to fully understand why it was so important - it did not seem fitting to me.
But in coming to see the beauty and perfection of God's plan in the Immaculate Conception, I finally did come to understand. These poets writing half a millennia ago wrote with such love about Our Lady, showing so carefully and elegantly how her exemption from original sin was fitting and true. Some poets used floral language of adoration and others the language of scholasticism; some drew on allegories using the natural world; others used examples from daily life, using the metaphors of glass-making and goldsmithing the explain it; many highlighted the many types in the Old Testament. God showed again and again through Scripture what He intended. In particular, there was a huge focus on Mary's role as the New Eve, and exegesis of the story of Genesis, and an emphasis on Mary's crushing of the serpent's head. Finding myself steeped in all of this, it slowly dawned on me why it is fitting that Our Lady did not experience labour pains, and why this only serves to highlight her humanity. Labour pains are a consequence of original sin, and Mary, having not once been touched by it, was thus exempt. This does not make her in some way inhuman or superhuman, but in fact, the archetypal human. Pain in childbirth was not part of God's plan for us. Mary's exemption from sin, and thus labour pain, make her pre-Lapsarian, the epitome of what it is to be human. She is as Eve was before the Fall. This should all have been obvious to me, but I only knew it in theory before; through the language, imagery and allusion of medieval poetry, I finally came to know it in my heart. In being born this way, Christ's birth was fully human and He did experience our humanity. Mary shows us what is is to be fully human, and is nonetheless fully aware of a mother's suffering, her heart being pierced by seven swords, seeing her Son's death on the cross. To be terribly millennial about it, Mary is very relatable! Both She and Christ know what it is to suffer, and they point toward our true end, and who God made us to be. Mary's painless childbirth only emphasises her humanity and Christ's, showing what the imago Dei really means.
Day-to-day, it didn't always seem like my doctorate was having a huge impact on my faith, despite the subject matter being devotional. And yet, now I look back I can see how I have moved from a rational knowledge of doctrine – assent of the will – to understanding in my heart God's beautiful plan for our salvation.
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