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Mary: Mother of the EarthAuthor(s): Sen McDonaghSource: The Furrow, Vol. 38, No. 8 (Aug., 1987), pp. 504-511Published by: The Furrow

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Mary - Mother of the Earth

Sean McDonaghBefore Vatican II the devotional life of most Catholics had a strongMarian flavour. The Council itself, in Chapter 8 of the DogmaticConstitution on the Church, set out to affirm and strongly upholdthis tradition. It held Mary up as a model of faith and discipleshipfor the individual Christian and the Church herself. The bishops,while cautioning Catholics against any tendency which either exaggerates or diminishes the role of Mary, encouraged Catholics tocontinue to develop a filial love towards our mother and to imitateher virtues .

A FALL-OFF IN MARIAN DEVOTIONSYet in the years following the Council there was a marked decline,at least in First World countries, in Marian devotions. Catholicsseemed to be so absorbed in reshaping the vernacular liturgy, discovering the riches of the Bible and new prayer forms - in cooperation with other Christians - and searching for an appropriatestand vis-?-vis the world, that Marian piety seemed to disappear,especially among the young. Some commentators were inclined tosee the development almost in evolutionary terms. They felt thatwith the Council, Catholics had come of age, and therefore hadlittle need for the sweet, sentimental piety often reflected in preVatican popular art, hymnody and prayer forms.A RESURGENCE OF MARIAN PIETYRecently some strange surprises have appeared on the horizon.Those who viewed devotion to Mary as something of a pre-adultphase in religious development, which modern Christians hadoutgrown, have had to revise their perceptions. The symbol of

Mary is extremely resilient, somewhat like the bamboo clump at theend of my garden. While old stalks crack and fall*or are cut back,new fresh vibrant shoots spring up to take their place, often inSean McDonagh is a Columban priest, author of the recentlypublished To Care for the Earth (Chapman). Address: Santa CruzMission, P.O. Box 7878, Marbel, South Cotaboto, 9708, Philippines.

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MARY - MOTHER OF THE EARTH 505unexpected places. Many people I am sure were unprepared for therecent findings of Fr Andrew Greeley. In an extensive survey he discovered that Mary is a powerful symbol in the religious imaginationof young American boys and girls. The image has little to do witha sentimental other-worldly piety. Rather it is closely connectedwith a desire to love responsibly and to work for social justice andracial harmony.

MARY IN LIBERATION THEOLOGYIn Latin America devotion to Mary has strong sturdy roots. Thetradition goes right back to Our Lady of Guadalupe - an image of

Mary which identifies her with the poor, the oppressed and the outcasts of the New World. This devotion has sometimes beingcriticized on the grounds that it deflects the anger and yearnings forchange of an oppressed people and projects them in a fatalistic wayon to an archetypical Piet? image. Whatever truth there may be inthis charge, there is nothing fatalistic about the devotion to Marywhich has emerged in recent years from the various theologies ofliberation in Latin America.

While this new Marian piety is in continuity with the earlier devotion of the people it is deeply rooted in the Bible. St Luke s presentation of Mary, especially as seen in the Magnificat (Lk. 1:46-56),is at the heart of this tradition. Here Mary takes her stand as afellow member of the community of the poor and afflicted who hasexperienced the pain and agony of oppression. The experience doesnot embitter Mary. She does not wallow in self-pity or rage in angeragainst her oppressors. Instead she praises God on behalf of thecommunity of poor people. Mary is not a starry-eyed idealist livingin an illusory dream-land. She is a supreme realist who knows thatthe anawim can expect little sympathy or redress from the high and

mighty of this world. They can, however, look with confidence toYahweh for help and justice. Down through the ages he has seenthe affliction of my people . . . and has heard their cries becauseof their taskmasters . . . and has come down to deliver them (Ex.3:7-8).

Mary herself in every facet of her life, from her immaculate conception to her glorious assumption, is living testimony of Yahweh sfidelity and graciousness. She knows from experience that Godbrings salvation and wholeness to the wretched of the Earth andempowers them to bring this message and witness of freedom,justice and love to others. So today, especially in Latin Americaand other Third World countries, Mary is a source of inspirationto those Christians who challenge the social, economic and politicalstructures. These inhuman structures impoverish the vast majorityof people in Third World countries. Those who operate them gaol,

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506 THE FURROWmurder and torture anyone who agitates for justice and radicalchanges. Many Third World women, who stand in the frontlines ofthose working for human rights and social change, draw courageand strength from this image of Mary. The oppressive regimeswhich they oppose hear subversive overtones in the ringingaffirmation that He will put down the mighty from their thronesand exalt those of low degree (Lk. 1:52).THE EARTH SUFFERS TOOBut there is another, often forgotten dimension, to the widespreadpoverty and injustice which shackles the vast majority of humanbeings today. I witnessed this once again this morning as Icelebrated Mass with a small tribal community here in the hills ofSouthern Mindanao. The T boli are a gentle, hospitable peoplewho are happy to share what little they have with me whenever Ivisit their villages. In common with their tribal brothers and sistersall over the Philippines, life has been particularly difficult for themin recent decades. They have lost their most fertile lands and havebeen pushed deeper and deeper into what remains of the forest byland hungry settlers from other islands in the country and largetransnational agri-business corporations who grow luxury crops onthe best land in the area for Western palates.After Mass Iwalked around the village and chatted to a numberof people. Once again I came face to face with the crippling povertywhich is the daily experience of most Third World people. It is particularly evident in the children, many of whom are suffering fromvarious degrees of malnourishment.After an hour or so I , and the two or three people who camewith me, retired to a house to eat lunch. The conversation centred

mostly on the lack of rain and the anxiety the people felt about losing their crops. During lulls in the conversation I reflected on thefact that, while the immediate problem was lack of rain, which ina sense is beyond human control, these people are caught in theclutches of global and national economic policies which theyneither understand nor control. They are the victims of First Worldeconomies which are extravagantly wasteful and in a suicidal urgepour hundreds of billions of dollars into arms production.But as I ate my rice and looked around me I was once againreminded that the earth herself is the ultimate victim of much ofour human greed and exploitation. As it is the dry season the deepscars on the earth in the form of dry river beds and scrapped outgullies are more noticeable than usual. Not so long ago the placewhere Iwas sitting was lush tropical forest. But the pressures haveincreased in recent years. The forest has been cleared and burned,with the result that the fields around the village are no longer very

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MARY - MOTHER OF THE EARTH 507productive since much of the topsoil has been carried away with thefloods. The water situation has also changed drastically. When Ifirst came to this village a few years ago there was a constant sourceof free flowing water. Today that abundance has dwindled to atrickle.

If what confronted me in Tablo this morning were unusual orconfined to that village one could feel sorry for the people livingthere and yet not be alarmed at what is happening to our world.Sad to say Tablo is, in fact, a microcosm of what is happening toalmost every ecosystem in our world. The situation is so seriousthat every creature and the vast majority of human beings face ableak future unless we awake from our trance and really see theimpact of our explotitation and greed on the life-spontaneities ofthe Earth.

There are signs that, at least, we are beginning to do this. Moreand more we are coming to realize that our earth wears a very thin,beautiful, living cloak. This garment supports all the life there is orever has been on earth. But it is limited and fragile. Despite the sizeof our globe we must remember that the life-supporting mantlereaches down just a few metres beneath our feet and, at the very

most, a few miles into the sea and the air.Until very recently human beings were inclined to take this wombof life for granted, as if itwould always remain constant, fresh andfertile no matter how itwas abused. But we can no longer do this.Nothing in the natural world is today beyond the pale of humaninfluence. Forests, in what were formerly inaccessible areas, arebeing logged and rapaciously destroyed. The oceans are beingexploited relentlessly and polluted with all kinds of toxic effluent.

Many of our activities are having unexpected and potentially disastrous consequences. The feature article inNewsweek for 2 March1987 carried reports on worrying changes in the atmosphere. Theincreased levels of carbon in the air and the depletion of the ozoneregion, threaten to cause severe world-wide flooding, the destruction of fertile croplands and an increase in the incidence of cancerin human beings.

MARY, MOTHER OF THE EARTHIt is against this background that I think a new appreciation of

Mary as Mother of the Earth can help reorient the way Christiansrelate to the natural world. Mary is the mother of the one who camethat they may have life and have it to the full . Therefore she isan apt symbol of the Earth in all its wonder, beauty and fruitfulness. This focus on her motherhood highlights both the integrityof all the created world and fruitfulness of the various life-systemson earth.

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508 THE FURROWHow might the symbols function at both a universal and particular level? The following is just one sketch of how itmight givea new religious sense to the way we relate to our earth. One of themost ominous and yet little discussed dimensions of the ecologicalcrisis is the massive extinction of species which is taking place inour time. This threatens the very continuance of life on earth, sinceall life forms are interrelated and species and genetic diversity isessential for new life forms to emerge. We hope and pray that wewill be spared a nuclear war. In the absence of that the present

wholesale slaughter of life-forms is the most destructive attack onthe fabric of life on earth today. If we continue this carnage - killing off over 1,000 species a year now and expected to reach 10,000a year by 1990 - we can be assured that no creature will ever againexperience the fullness of life on planet Earth.A lively devotion to Mary, Mother of the Earth can help us tobecome acutely aware of this massive assault on life. Salvation inour Judeo-Christian tradition is probably best expressed by theHebrew word shalom. In Hebrew this word has overtones of

peace, wholeness, harmony and prosperity. As Mother of theEarth, Mary yearns for this shalom not just the oppressed membersof the human community, but for the endangered members of thelife-community as well. Mary always stands on the side of life, butlife viewed within its only true parameters - the integrity of all creation. This title can become a salutary corrective for our myopicvision of the earth which focuses exclusively on the human component of the earth community. It can help us see the earth forwhat it really is, a wonderful interrelated and interdependent community of all the living. This is not to deny the unique role of thehuman being as the conscious creature within this community ofthe earth whose primary vocation is to reflect on the beauty of creation and to give thanks to God on behalf of all creatures. Thisvision of the human vocation is beautifully captured in the following lines taken from a preface of one of the new Eucharistieprayers. We thank God for giving us breath and speech so that allthe living might find a voice to sing your praise .The most suitable date on which to celebrate a Feast of MaryMother of the Earth is, of course, January 1. Almost all culturesand civilizations celebrate the new year as a time of hope and newbeginnings. So it is particularly appropriate to celebrate the yearning of the human and wider earth community for regeneration onthat day. Since the Church already celebrates the feast of MaryMother of God on January 1, she could easily join Mother of theEarth to that title. The union of these two aspects of Mary smotherhood would also be very much in line with our Christian

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MARY - MOTHER OF THE EARTH 509faith. We affirm that we experience God in his creation, especially,in the person of Jesus.DEVOTION IN THE LOCAL CHURCHThe universal manifestation of this devotion should not be pursuedat the expense of the local one. The earth is not revealed to us asa single entity with monotonously similar characteristics extendingright around the world. No, the earth iswonderfully diverse. Evenin this tropical area in which Iwrite there are a number of very different bioregions. There is the area of the tropical rainforests; theriver systems and lakes; the agricultural lands, and finally the coralreefs, mangroves and more extensive marine environment.One can add to this the traditional human cultures which, untilthe spread of modern industrial culture, adapted themselves verycreatively to the particular environments inwhich they found themselves. Traditionally these cultures met the basic needs for food,clothing and shelter from within the creativities of their particularbioregion. People were forced to care for their particular area andlive in a sustainable way. If one generation plundered their reefs orforest to the point of irreversible damage the human communityfaced extinction along with every other creature.PHILIPPINE EXAMPLES

Today in the Philippines, human beings are plundering what is leftof the forest and smothering the coral reefs, yet few people areaware of the consequence since food can be transported from otherareas or imported from abroad. Plantation economies and hugetransport systems allow Europeans and Americans to enjoytropical fruit all the year round. Economists and proponents of freetrade might rub their hands in glee at this increase in GNP andworld trade. But those who see the earth as the true bottom line foreverything realize that this parasitical way of living has no future.Even now it can only be achieved through cheap fossil fuel, whichis being rapidly depleted, and chemical agriculture which in thelong run sterilizes and poisons rich soil. The only sure way forwardfor human communities is to once again begin to live more or lesswithin the limits of the particular bioregion in which they arelocated.

This search for a sustainable human culture which respects therhythms of the natural world will surely release new creativitieswithin different cultures. A religious symbol which helps to identifya people with a particular bioregion can act as a stimulus in thisnew search. Here again the title Mary Mother of the Earth can playan important role.I live and minister among the T boli people here in the highlands

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510 THE FURROWof Southern Mindanao. For hundreds of years these people havelived around a fertile lake called Lake Sebu. This late provided theT boli with their main source of food and much of their artistic andspiritual inspiration. Their myths of origin visualize the first T boliman and woman emerging from the lake. The mythology, the songsand the poetry speak of a very deep identification between thepeople and the lake. Much of this has been lost in recent decadeswith the incursion of settlers into the area which has put pressureon the land and the forest and is threatening the very survival ofthe lake. A local devotion to Mary, Mother of Lake Sebu couldhelp renew and heighten the bond between the people and the lake.It would also make the T boli more aware of the damage beingdone to the lake by extensive deforestation in the nearby hills andby agricultural chemicals. This pastoral approach would alsoensure that the on-going attempts to inculturate the gospel arefirmly rooted in the particular bioregional experience of a people.The Council recognizes this. Speaking of Marian devotions it saysthat these forms have varied according to the circumstances oftime and place (L.G. 66).LINKS WITH THE PAST

What I am advocating here is inmany ways a return to the ancientexperience of many cultures where the mother symbol is associatedwith natural phenomena. Even in the pre-Christian Ireland, thesymbol of The Earth Mother is associated with particular rivers,trees, plants and animals. This identification between Mary andparticular locations is also present in our own Catholic tradition.We speak of Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Fatima and OurLady of Knock. As I noted above, the human factor is almostexclusively to the fore in our tradition. But it need not remain so.In my own area of North Tipperary there is no reason why a localdevotion toMary, Mother of Lough Derg, could not take seriouslyall the life-forms in this rich ecosystem. On another level the morefamous Marian shrines like Knock, where Mary is venerated as

Queen of Ireland, could become national centres for this devotion.The women or men in charge of these shrines might attempt toincorporate, not just the cultural and artistic genius of the peopleinto the devotional ethos of the shrine, but also the realities of thelocal bioregions. There are many ways in which this could be donethrough appropriate prayers, hymns, meditation gardens and, particularly, healing rituals.

THE EARTH ALSO NEEDS HEALINGAll the Marian shrines are well known for their healing rituals. Thisis often the basis for their appeal to Catholics. However, in my

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MARY - MOTHER OF THE EARTH 511experience most of the healing rituals are directed to the individualpilgrim. There is no reason why we cannot move beyond thisindividualism. We know now that most illnesses are, at least inpart, due to psychological, social and environmental factors. Oncewe recognize this, our contemporary healing rituals should alsoseek to bring communal healing to a community which is experiencing the effects of racism, religious prejudice and social injustice.But human beings are not the only members of the earthcommunity that need healing. At the moment most of the ecosystems are in need of healing. Lough Derg, for example, desperately needs to be cared for and healed, if it is not to becomea giant cesspool within a generation or so. The rituals which mayemerge at well-known Marian centres should attempt to respond toall these healing needs. Replete with a Marian dimension theserituals will have a particularly powerful effect on the religious consciousness of the worshippers. If peace, wholeness and fruitfulnessare to be maintained on this earth then they and we need the protection of a loving, caring mother whose heart bleeds when she seesland poisoned and made sterile, or rivers swollen with rich top-soil,like slashed arteries disgorging the life-blood of the land into the seas.

The gospels and the tradition of the Church witness to the factthat Mary was not just a hearer of the Word but also a doer.Immediately after the Annunciation Mary set out to be withElizabeth in her joy and in her need. So Mary s testimony calls this

generation to repentance and action. In terms of the ecologicalissue this generation occupies a unique position in relationship toall past and future generations of living beings. Decisions which wetake about the natural environment will irreversibly affect allfuture generations and the very structure of life in the future.We also know that most of the present despoliation comes fromignorance and, especially, human greed. The urge to accumulate

more and more material possessions and the need to subjugate anddominate other human beings and the earth itself go hand in hand.Here again Mary s own way of living stands out as an example anda challenge to us today. She had no need to manipulate and controlother human beings or the earth. She did not see value primarily inmonetary terms which is so characteristic of our acquisitive culture.Much of our modern way of relating to the earth is exploitativeand based on short-term goals. Mary was quite different. Herapproach was contemplative. The beauty and grandeur of the earthwas a constant source of joy, wonder and awe for her. She saw allreality as a gracious gift of God which drew from the depths of herbeing a song of praise. A widespread devotion to Mary Mother ofthe Earth should help this generation recapture Mary s attitude ofwonder and awe at the beauty of creation and gratitude to God forgifts which he has given into our care.