Tag Archives: Mother of God

I am Wounded with Love

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The heart of the Mother of God is pierced by sorrows because she loves God; although St. Simeon foretold when Christ was 40 days old that his mother’s heart would be pierced by sorrow, the classic Christian belief is that her heart had already been pierced by love for God from the day she was born. This icon is also known as the “Softener of Evil Hearts” as the Mother of God can soften/pierce the hearts of those whose hearts are stony and unforgiving. Many pray before this icon to soften feelings of enmity that make it difficult to forgive others.

In Christ, that which is uncreated, eternal, existing before the ages, is completely inexpressible and incomprehensible to all created intellects. Yet that which was revealed in the flesh can to a certain extent be grasped by human understanding. It is towards this in Christ that the Church, our teacher, looks, and of this does she speak. inasmuch as this can be made intelligible to those who listen to her.

… he who sees the Church looks directly at Christ–Christ building and increasing by the addition of the elect. The bride then takes the veil from her eyes and with pure vision sees the ineffable beauty of her spouse. Thus she is wounded by a spiritual and fiery dart of desire. For love that intense is called desire. No one should be ashamed of this as the arrow comes from God…. the bride is proud of her wound for this desire has pierced her to the depths of her heart. This she makes clear when she says to the others, I am wounded with love (Song of Songs, 5:5).

(St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Song of Songs)

The bride–who is always the Mother of God, the Church, and each believer personally–is wounded with love. Driven mad by desire for her divine bridegroom. Delirious with love. In this mad, intense desire for the groom she finds it possible to love all those whom he loves as well even though she may not even like them herself. In this all-encompassing love we see a little of the incomprehensible love of God.

Many mystics describe an experience of being pierced by love for God during their own personal prayer. But more important than being pierced in such a personal way and having a particular emotional experience during prayer is the ongoing living out day-to-day of the love which all believers are wounded by. All those who struggle in some way to see God or apprehend the truth of reality are pierced by this desire. This wound–this desire–should shape and motivate all our actions as go about our business and not be limited to a particular “quiet time” we have alone although those quiet times are vital to nurture and develop this ongoing wound of desire and love.

To see the Church–corporately and personally–wounded with love for God is to see Christ wounded with love for us.

Thy Rod and Thy Staff

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Mary, the Mother of God, is identified with the Bride in the Song of Songs. As the bride, she is also the Church. Through her consent to bear Christ and through the prayers of the Church, Christ is in the midst of his people who can approach him in the Cup which overflows with blessing (Psalm 23).

Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me. (Psalm 23) The great King David tells us that this rod causes a consolation, not a wound. Indeed, it is by this rod and staff that the divine table is prepared and all these other details as well: oil for the head, a cup of unmixed wine (for sober intoxication), the mercy of God that follows us so well, a long dwelling in the house of the Lord. These are the blessings implied by that sweet striking…. hence, that striking must be a good thing since it produces such an abundance of grace…. the divine rod, or staff, that brings comfort and cures by striking is the Spirit…. This shows us that the wounding of the bride, by which her veil is stripped off, is a grace. In this way the soul’s beauty is unveiled and not hidden under the mantle of darkness. (St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Song of Songs)

Psalm 23 is associated with the Eucharist because not only does King David describe the table that the Lord prepares and the cup of blessing but because King David is said to have composed this psalm when he was hiding from King Saul, who was intent on murdering him. Hiding in the dry Judean wilderness, and on the brink of death without food or drink, he was miraculously saved by God, who nourished him with a taste of the World to Come. David gratefully burst out in song, describing the magnitude of his trust in God.

According to the traditional Jewish interpretation of the psalm, David alludes to how God provided for the Jews’ every need throughout their 40-year sojourn in the desert, and to how they will sing when God brings them back to the Promised Land; David sings, not just for himself, but for every Jew.

As Christians, we understand how King David sings for each of us as well, as we taste the food of the World to Come: the Bread of heaven and the Cup of salvation. We often read Psalm 23 either in thanksgiving after the Eucharist or in preparation before the celebration of the Eucharist.

St. Gregory of Nyssa points out that the rod and staff mentioned in the psalm are the sufferings of the faithful by which God strikes us in order to help us become more spiritually beautiful. Just as David was struck by affliction–running for his life and hiding in the desert as he and his followers nearly starved to death–we are also struck by various afflictions that are certainly hard to see as “good” as we experience them but which we can see later to have enabled us to experience the presence of God afresh. More deeply. More profoundly.

In some liturgical practices, these sufferings that lead us to experience God anew are summarized in the striking of the chest at the beginning of the Eucharist and again just before approaching Holy Communion. (St. Jerome remarked that the reason we strike our chest, rather than any other body part, is because the heart is the seat of all desires and it’s our desire to do our own will that causes suffering by dividing us most from the will of God.)

The shepherd’s staff–the Spirit of God–both wounds and heals. The wounds come, whether we want them or not. It is our choice to see them as the opportunity for healing.

Joy of all who sorrow

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This Russian icon of the Mother of God, the “Joy of all who sorrow,” depicts the Mother of God holding Christ in one arm while holding a scepter aloft with her right hand. She receives the prayers of various groups of the needy, those in distress or sorrow: the elderly, the poor, the hungry, those naked and cold. They pray, certain that she and her Son will provide what they need. They receive these gifts from her and from the Church.

“You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride.” (Song of Songs 4:9)

“I think that the expression, You have stolen my heart, means the same as You have given us life or You have put heart in us. For the sake of clarity … I will call on the divine Apostle for an explanation of these mysteries. For he tells us, in writing to the Ephesians, about the great economy of salvation through the epiphany of God in the flesh, that the Church–the bride of Christ–reveals the manifold wonders and wisdom of God to the race of angels as well as to the human race…. If the Church is Christ’s body and he is the head of the Church, then it is his face we see on her. Perhaps this is what the friends of the Bridegroom saw when they were given heart: in her they see clearly what is otherwise invisible…. So the friends of the Bridegroom see the Sun of Justice by looking upon the face of the Church as though it were a pure mirror. Thus, the Bridegroom can be seen by his reflection.” (St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Song of Songs)

Christ, the image (lit. icon) of the invisible God is seen in both his Body–the Church–and in his most holy mother. He continues to act in this world through both his mother–who gave him flesh–and his body, the community sustained by his Body and Blood.

It is too easy to forget that everything human about Christ comes from his mother Mary. His flesh is her flesh, his blood is her blood, his DNA is her DNA. When we see her, we see her Son; when we see him, we see his mother. And when we see him, we see the whole Christ–that includes his body throughout time and space. Wherever Christ is, there his whole body is. When we encounter him–whether in personal prayer at home or in liturgical prayer at church–we encounter ALL of him.

And when we encounter all of him, our hearts are stolen.