Role of the Virgin Mary

As the leadership of the Christian church struggles to find a proper role in its theology for the Virgin Mary, those of us who travel the far older pagan religious traditions understand her mission to humankind clearly. The reality is that Mary has been a part of the Indo-European religious understanding since the dawn of history.

Mary entered Christianity, as did so much more of our pagan religion, through the back door of Greco-Roman synchronism (the common practice of adopting the religious beliefs of others).

The original Mary of the ancients continues to live in many faiths and practices, including Hinduism (as Kali), Irish folk religion (as St. Brigid), in Mithraics as Mary the adopted mother of Lord Mithra and in many other forms. Like the multiple Marys who stood at the bottom of the cross in the story of Jesus, the real Mary continues to live among us as: Blessed Virgin (innocence), mother (Madonna), lover (Magdalene), Hag (Sophia--grandmother wisdom, and many other forms). She is anima, the feminine in each of us.

That the worship of Mary should surge again in our desperate time is no accident, because dear Mary is the Gaia, our mother the Earth. She is the armor of anyone who seeks to defend her threatened children, the animals, forests and the seas.

She will show herself to the so-called illegal aliens in the window smudges of tenements, in the sap of an abused tree, on the hillsides of war-torn Croatia, and at the hour of our death in the silent waiting rooms of convalescent hospitals.

She comes to us “in times of trouble, whispering words of wisdom; let it be!”

GERALD R. FECHT

Moorpark