A Shabbas Table: Our Lady of the Book

The whole "would Mary blog" question has still been on my mind lately. Its not a mattter of thinking its a waste of time, becuase i would never see writing as a waste of time, nor any form of beautifying or creativity for that matter, far from it. Its more the silence issue. In so many of our lovely holy card images and traditional artwork, Mary is seen as quiet and receptive, sacred and feminine... and so too are many beautiful images of we her daughters seen in this light, like the ones posted above.

The quiet part is what gives me pause...she who pondered things in her heart" so deeply, this is a woman who knows the gift of a feminine inner silence, who carries it, who spreads it. Not a cold silence but a warm quiet receptive nurturing silence. And i do sometimes really wonder if we can find that kind of feminine silence when on the computer a lot. Something about the mechanical humming of the machine....not only computers but all machines really (that's why i've been trying to go more off grid gradually). And in the case of the computer there's also all the images and colors and words that it can bring so easily....such bombarment is not necessarily very conducive to softness and quiet. And yet, the gifts there are undeniable, it can be like opening a treasure chest of wisdom and freindship. So i still go back and forth about this discerning the balance, but for now, still blogging. Yet trying to shift it a little, so will have to see how it unfolds. For now, kind of in organizing mode, filling up the library, bringing over some of the archives, reorienting. Instinctively right now, feeling this blog might focus more on the nuts and bolts type stuff of "spirited simplicity" (what i like calling simplicty with spiritual roots) in the future than it did before. Well, we'll see how it goes.

One thing is that the comments will stay closed on most of the posts, at least for now. But email is surely welcomed. And likewise i may be commenting less on blogs, and doing less daily visiting... simply out of a quest for some balance. If y'all could see my computer files you'd understand, there is just waaaaay too much there....and i'm realizing one of the ways to tame that is to simply let less in on a daily basis. So, will be seeing how that goes too. Though i am seeking more silence in my life, that doesnt have to mean losing friendship and i sure hope it doesnt! Fellow introverts especially i think will appreciate that a friendship can be quieter yet still true.

In this "would Mary blog" type discerning lately i was reminded again of Our Lady of the Book, one of my very favorite titles for Our Blessed Mother. From here:


"Christian artists have often depicted the Blessed Virgin as reading, especially at the Annunciation. She is shown seated with a book; Gabriel is coming on the scene to deliver the message from heaven for which God's written word has prepared Mary. "The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary," as the familiar Angelus begins, "and she conceived of the Holy Spirit." Sometimes God's angelic messenger holds a scroll with the legend, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you." In medieval art the Blessed Virgin is often shown kneeling at a priedieu, totally taken up in reading and prayer.

Renaissance art sometimes shows the child Mary reading a book, with her parents Joachim and Anne. Murillo painted St. Anne and the child Mary reading. Rubens has Anne teaching Mary out of a book...

What is behind the representation of Our Lady of the Book?

The first meaning is Mary as reader; she reads in the fullest sense, that is, she searches, she understands, she prays, she opens her mind and heart to whatever message God will send her through his sacred word. A second sense of Our Lady and the book is the correspondence in her life between God's promises and their fulfilment in Jesus her Son. Gabriel is quoting the same prophecies Mary is reading, and as she consents to become Mother of the Savior, the forecasts become reality.

She has said, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your word," and as the Angelus continues, "and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." The pattern of the Annunciation - Our Lady's total surrender to God's saving plan - characterizes her entire life. Of this "daughter of Abraham," more than of any of his children, will the followers of Jesus say, "You have great faith!" (Mt 16, 28). The holy Virgin is a true child of Abraham, who produces appropriate fruit (Lk 3, 8). Elizabeth's words, "Blest is she who trusted that the Lord's words to her would be fulfilled," are repeated in her Son's praise, "Still more blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it" (Lk 11, 28). The book is a symbol of Jesus himself; Mary is the reader. First she reads the messianic prophecies of the Hebrew Bible, then their achievement in her divine Son.

A third element in the tradition of Mary and the book is that the Blessed Virgin is herself a book in which the Church reads, a reading that began with the apostles. Early authors call Mary "the sacred book of the divine precepts, in which what pleases God is made known to us, as Jeremias saw long ago..." (St. Theodore of Studion, D. 826). One compiler tracked down ninety titles in which Mary is described as a book.

Books enshrine the past, both words and deeds. St. Luke twice assures us that the Mother of Jesus kept in her heart and memory everything that pertained to her Son. Pope John Paul II has described biblical ways Mary searched out God's ways: at the Annunciation - "deeply troubled ... she wondered," she asked, "How can this be?" in her reactions to the words of the shepherds and her twelve-year at old at Jerusalem in the temple.

At the visit of the shepherds St. Luke tells us, "Mary treasured all these things and reflected on them in her heart." At the finding of the boy Jesus in the temple, the gospel says Mary and Joseph did not grasp what he said about being in his Father's house. All the same, concluded St. Luke, "His mother kept all these things in memory," while her Son returned with them to Nazareth, to obey them and to "progress steadily in wisdom and age and grace before God and men." Some bible translations have: "Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart."

St. Luke would have us understand far more than mere memory on Mary's part. She remembered and compared, turning over and over in her heart what she had heard and seen and experienced, seeking ever more profound appreciation and acceptance of God's mysterious and merciful ways. In the litany we call Mary seat or throne of wisdom, meaning that divine Wisdom, the Word of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, made his dwelling place in her ...

A conciliar document on Revelation (Nov. 18, 1965) in explaining tradition, presented Our Lady as the model of how the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, "grows in the understanding of the realities and words which are being passed on. This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts (cf. Luke 2, 19 and 51), through the intimate understanding of spiritual things they experience, and through the preaching of those who have received through episcopal succession the sure gift of truth" (n. 8).

Father Joachim Smet, wrote the poem 'Our Lady of the Book,'(first seen in America magazine where it first appeared November 27, 1943):

Our Lady wears no dearer look
Than when she's reading in a book.

For then the virgin named most Wise
Reveals her schoolgirl's earnest eyes.

A furrow grace where eyebrows meet
I trace in her called Wisdom's Seat

The hands that steady Jesus' pace
Now cautiously each letter trace.

And Anna's lessons learned so slow
Seem long ago, seem long ago.

Our Lady wears no dearer look
Than when she's reading in a book.

For then the virgin named most Wise
Reveals her schoolgirl's earnest eyes.

A furrow grace where eyebrows meet
I trace in her called Wisdom's Seat

The hands that steady Jesus' pace
Now cautiously each letter trace.

And Anna's lessons learned so slow
Seem long ago, seem long ago."

Good Shabbas Everyone : )

(First image is taken from Weyden's The Seven Sacraments, second image from He Gently Calls Us, and third image from here)