Advent Joy: Jesus Christ arriving embodied…
Week One: Mary – embodying the Creator
In this Advent season, we remember that Jesus is arriving not only among his creation, but actually within Mary’s body – the body of one of his creatures! Jesus is carried within Mary throughout Advent. In fact, as we begin this month-long waiting, she has been carrying him for eight months already. In the last month of pregnancy what is happening? All major developments have already taken place in the baby. The last month is about the baby becoming bigger and stronger; able to survive outside his mother’s body (although he will remain dependent on her for some time). How on earth could the Creator of the universe be taking form within the body of a human woman? Within her body she holds the whole cosmos and, in fact, its Creator, as in Kelly Latimore’s icon, Mary: Love forever being born.
Infant mortality was prevalent at the time of Mary’s pregnancy. And yet, early on in her pregnancy, when Mary visited Elizabeth, she prayed the Magnificat. These were words of great faith, given that her baby’s survival and her own survival of childbirth were not at all certain, and that at the time the whole land was under the occupation of the Romans. As a young Jewish woman in this environment, probably in her mid-teens, she would have experienced joy at the great honour of this (particularly following the visit of the Angel Gabriel to her to tell her of her extraordinary pregnancy Luke 1.26-38), and at Joseph standing by her, but she would surely also have been afraid of all of the unknowns.
Body Prayer
How can the Creator be taking shape in the womb of one of his creatures? And yet here his is; a foetus. We embody Mary’s joy and faith as prayer, that we might somehow become bearers of the Creator within our own bodies, following the pattern of Mary. “Let joy make a home in this flesh.”: (words by Cole Arthur Riley, Black Liturgies[London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2024]; movement by Soobie). See the movement here and join in
Magnificat
Let the bellies of all women everywhere magnify God.
Let the bellies of thin women,
shrinking in upon themselves,
leap at the promise of food.
Let the bellies of fat women,
enormously round,
jiggle their huge flesh with pride.
Let the bellies of barren women be comforted
by the caress of other women’s hands.
Let the bellies of women exhausted from too much bearing
rest from their labours.
Let their children leave them in peace.
Let the bellies of old women
not be ashamed of their wrinkles and stretch marks:
they are the scars of life.
Let the scar-marked bellies of the women who have been under the knife
be honoured and revered:
let their abortions and cancers and hysterectomies be named as the griefs of God.
Let the bellies of Iraqi women,
groaning for their war-despoiled country,
be clothed with garments of hope.
Let their mourning be exchanged for dancing.
Let the bellies of children in Darfur, distorted and extended,
be strengthened and mended.
Let them hear tidings of bread,
a festival of peace.
Let the bellies of the grandmothers in Kashmir,
keening for their dead,
be lifted on the shoulders of those who can carry them.
Let many strangers’ hands support them.
Let the bellies of women working alongside the men all along the coasts of Sri Lanka
be strong to build what must be rebuilt.
Let the bellies of all women offer their burdens.
Let us carry them together,
wrapped in swaddling clothes.
Let us bear them in our arms to the altar of God.
Let Mary and Elizabeth go with us,
blessing the fruit of our bellies,
swelling our tears and our praises.
Let not one woman be barred
from sharing our song.
Let unborn babies,
the infants in arms,
the toddlers,
the children and awkward adolescents
join with the young women,
the middle-aged,
the old women, the crones and the dying.
Let us come in our wheelchairs and walking,
single-breasted and flat-chested,
wombless and wombful,
wounded and recovering,
bodies beautiful and broken,
knowing ourselves unwhole and hurting,
hopeful and despairing.
Let us carry each other.
Let us support the ones who won’t make it on their own.
Let us lean on each other’s strength.
And let all the bellies of all women everywhere magnify God
for the great and awesome deeds She is doing in our midst.
by Nicola Slee (The Book of Mary London: SPCK, 2007)
Bible
Luke 1.46-55 is known as the Magnificat (literally “magnifies” as Mary “magnifies” God in the first line); Mary’s song-prayer, which she uttered in the early stages of her pregnancy. We invite you to read this meditatively, perhaps using the Lectio Divina process outlined below. As you read, you may wish to prayerfully consider the questions: Has God brought down the powerful from their thrones? Has God filled the hungry with good things? How could Mary, who would face struggle, find this maverick hope and faith in the face of her difficult reality?
Lectio (read)
Read the passage slowly several times, with pauses in between. Notice which particular word, phrase or image sticks in your mind.
Meditatio (meditate)
In the silence, chew over the word, phrase or image that stuck in your mind. Ask God; “Why did this stick out to me? What are you drawing my attention to?” Stay with this question.
Oratio (prayer)
Pray with your word/phrase/image. Offer it back to God in some way. What is the deep longing within you or need in the world that this keys into? Be really true to yourself in how you pray (speak out loud or stay silent, write, draw or create something, use movement, listen to music – do whatever will help you to offer your prayer to God).
Contemplatio (contemplation)
Simply rest in the love of God. Trust that God, that Love, is present with you in this moment.
Chant
There is a kind of enchantment happening on this journey. As we consider Mary, pregnant and waiting, we en-chant our advent by singing this prayer: “I will wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him…in his word is my hope” (words from Psalm 130) (Click the words to hear the chant and join in.)
Compiled by CF Companions Soobie Whitfield and Revd Ali Dorey