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Holy Mary: The woman

Holy Mary: The woman

Thomas M. Columbus January 17, 2025

A trip to Centerville yields the unexpected.

William Joseph Chaminade, a Marianist Family co-founder, liked to visit a certain garden in Bordeaux. There he would go to a statue of Mary with her foot on the head of a serpent. “He would put his hand on the serpent’s head,” Father Bert Buby, S.M. ’55, said.

“And then Chaminade would say, ‘She will crush your head.’”

So much for the gentle mother stuff when Satan tries to mess with your son.

I had gone out to the Marianist assisted-living community at St. Leonard in the Dayton suburb of Centerville to ask Buby, who has spent scores of years amassing knowledge of the mother of Jesus, a few questions about Mary for a possible magazine story. I hadn’t, however, been thinking of Genesis, “I will put enmity between you and the woman.”

Window from UD's Chapel of the Immaculate Conception

I learned more than I was seeking.

What I had been curious about were a couple of instances in which, at least in the Bible’s English translations, Jesus’ attitude toward his mother seems at least bit odd. Most 12-year-olds don’t wander off for three days, explicate texts to learned men and then tell their parents, “Don’t you know I must be about my Father’s business?” No wonder Mary “pondered.” And at Cana, when she told the hosts had run out of wine, he pretty much said that was none of his business. (I have always liked the part where Mary ignores his response and just tells the stewards to do what he tells them. Makes me think she knew a lot about being a mom.)

Buby, professor emeritus of religious studies, has published five books on Mary, two books on Scripture and a book on Dayton Christian-Jewish dialogue. In “retirement” he sends out an email blog explicating Scriptures used in the lectionary. “Last night,” he told me, “I woke up at 3 a.m. I prefer texts to TV. So, I wrote.”

He patiently explained to me language from the Bible and peculiarities of translation. A word that fascinates him is one in Greek and Hebrew that is often translated as “woman,” which it does mean, but it also means “wife” or other respected roles of women. So, when Jesus addresses Mary as “woman,” he is being respectful.

Buby said, Jesus is giving up everything, including his mother, before he returns to the Father, to the Trinity. But Mary remains here.

Many roles of women and a variety of relationships to men are contained, Buby said, in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel. Ruth was David’s grandmother. Tamar was the daughter-in-law of Judah — and the mother of his two children. Rahab, a Canaanite, was an innkeeper, maybe a prostitute, but certainly a protector of the Israelites. Bathsheba was wife to Uriah, then to David and mother of Solomon — and a queen.

Connections are important to Buby. The beginning and the end of Jesus’ ministry, Cana and the Passion, are linked by bread and wine, as symbols and as realities. Cana was a feast; so, too, was the Last Supper a communal meal. And they are linked by Jesus using the word “woman.” He uses it as he begins his ministry with the miracle at Cana, and he uses it on the Cross — “Woman, behold your son.”

Jesus tells Mary that John will be her son, and he tells John that Mary will be his mother. On the Cross, Buby said, Jesus is giving up everything, including his mother, before he returns to the Father, to the Trinity.

But Mary remains here. At Pentecost, as the Holy Spirit descends upon the church, only one woman is named, and she is honored by being the last person to be named. The woman is Mary.

 


A version of this article appears in print in the Winter 2024-45 University of Dayton Magazine, Page 14. EXPLORE THE ISSUEMORE ONLINE

To be added to Buby’s email list for his reflections on Scriptures used in the lectionary, send an email to magazine@udayton.edu with the subject line “Scriptures.”

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