Mary, the Art of Perception that breaks the mould

(Lk 2:19) (Lk 1:26-38)

 

For a life from the authentic self to the unknown Apex

 

"Now, Mary kept and treasured all - really all - these event-words, putting them together and comparing them in her heart" [sense of the Greek text].

What about her, her Son, and all the others?

He wanted to understand the essential affinities - with the soul and elsewhere: the meaning of the strange and simple happenings. Golden rule for us too.

In the portrait of Jesus suckling, his silence did not linger - and he did not allow himself to be demotivated: he dug.

That is why he knew far more expressive things than many minds - sublime and yet incapable of breaking out of automatisms, already flooded with remarkable doctrines and traditions.

We are gladly there too, with Mary; in a culture that invades our senses and pollutes our souls with noisy opinions, with models that are apparently eloquent but which bring us to our knees: stressful and futile.

All emphatic, impactful reproductions - but external.

Yet they overflow into the innermost, and despite glittering appearances, lock the personality into a confined space of unhealthy habits, only to be exhibited.

In fact, we force ourselves to run from one side to the other, often acting out prototypes. Precisely, forcibly intrigued by plans, organigrams and thoughts, even devout ones, which however become forms of personal and social trivialisation.

We are becoming accustomed to the fear of our discreet, reserved, non-gossipy, secluded, hidden side, all our own and close to the Source: in a word, guardian of the Calling by Name - which wants to pause to return to the ancient Listening of the new.

A side we do not yet know: it never has the same tone as always. It is all our own, but it alludes to real encounters.

By sharpening our inner vision, we grasp our source and the meaning of history; and its folds - so we can still give birth to the precious world inside and outside us.

We do this from the intangible that pivots the essence. And guards the Fire within.

 

For a stretch - ever so briefly - the official pundits delude us that we are at the centre of the world.

They want to inoculate us with a false sense of prominence and permanence that quickly fades away; in reality, they overwhelm us.

We feel the need for a rediscovery of being and essence, not dissolved in the realm of night and illusion [to have power appear, to hold back rise dominate]. Without escapes, nor rhythms that do not belong to us.

We seek involvement, and distance.

We want to 'perceive' like Mary and like the shepherds - disconcerted by others' religious views - to become and be reborn, and to become again. Recovering the frenzies, the surprises, the wounds; without dispersing the centre.

 

"Taking refuge" in a secret space was not for her a rediscovery of the self expected by all, stereotypical and adequate as always.

Rather, she was expressing her being - escaping from conventional ways.

In order to live intensely, she did not wish to enter the nomenclature - then to be normal, and subservient - rather to get away from it, but to stay there. So she did not exclude anything.

She also recognised herself in those vagabonds.

Never would she have imagined herself the (acting) protagonist of a tradition that placed her on pedestals, forms, solemn attributes, and constraints - the very ones that would have made her sweetly but decisively rebellious.

She did not revisit herself to bask in it, but to verify and reactivate her 'way' - which she did not want to lose: it could be overwhelmed by external opinions and buried by [impelling but horizonless] circumstances.

She did not want to lose her address within common, homologated goals, losing sight of what she really was, and introduce her into the sky of the timeless - nor did she want to resemble the majority, or be above them.

The one we built for her was not her home.

Mary did not look out into reality and into us today [to help us look at 'our' Mystery] with a conformist face; sweetened and artefactual, or intimist, swampy.

 

His soul was always on the move. To know the unknowable, she would never stop - even without knowing in advance where to go.

Her character did not want the certainties of accommodation. Without wavering, even within herself she preferred to intuit and live the Passion of love.

He allowed himself to be guided and saved, but from his own sacred centre, sanctuary of the God-Con. He who unlocks, sets us free.

He could not allow his Vocation to be covered by idols, nor by any plot, which was nevertheless unfolding.

In the 'here and now' he found his affinity from his very being as a wayfarer, who by advancing put hardship behind him.

As she developed her inner eye, she also transmuted her inner self to find the step of the Annunciation hidden in the misfits, which still led her on.

Only this lasted her through the years - not the functional side.She did not dream of a quiet life, but of understanding her personal mission.

 

Without naivety, she wondered about the meaning of intimate callings, happenings, and her own motions - alien only to the anxiety of pleasing everyone.

She wished to understand how best to fit in, moving towards the new promised land [cf. Lk 1:29: "But she was greatly troubled by the Word and wondered what greeting this was"; Lk 1:34: "How shall this be?"].

The stillness within was not uniform, but filled with the vicissitudes and unpredictable 'news'.

Never to become a model: an expired identity document - plastered, dogmatic. Never an icon of privilege, and ostentatious - like a woman who extinguishes her consciousness, and makes herself identified, empty, disjointed.

In the midst of others - even the lazy, indiscreet ones - Maria let herself be, perceiving the inaudible sounds of the silence of the soul.

Notes that produced her figure and - even better - her evolution and Destination, without disturbing her with separate intentions.

Removing the gaze from conformist intention.

 

To really exist, intensely, she changed or broke through; she recovered history but listened to the inside of herself.

Grasping her own deep layers, perceiving herself in her innermost voices, she became aware of the meaning of her life, and of the unfolding story. 

In the intervals of thought, he reactivated the energy of the 'gaze'.

And without mortification, he would bring his attention to another dimension, gradually entering the Wind that ceaselessly disengaged it.

In this way, he learnt not to expect something aligned with normal intentions and predictions, nor with social and cultural rankings: he had to enter into the events, and detach himself (to contemplate their importance and depth).

Mysteriously - thus scrutinising without doing too much - he read the 'notes', chose the right registers; he interpreted the score.

Epiphany of God in a creature utterly devoid of hieratic or courtly style; rather, delicate and gypsy.

She did not rush to put things in place: she sensed 'inside' the summary life, rather than leading it and organising it, or arranging it.

She waited for her eminent self to lead the strange, non-directed, non-voluntarist path that was unfolding, truly all eccentric and unexemplary.

 

She did not act to please.

We also learn in her: to see the domestic God happen, the 'visits' we would not expect; the intensity of different colours.

They then lead us to a different look into the soul too; involved and detached.

Like the surrounding reality, Maria was not always the same.

She did not have in mind a champion to be pursued to the end, only to find herself chronicled in the exemplarity of others - uprooted, external, dissipated and discharged.

Situations and emotions had value, not only and not primarily on the basis of the - now useless - paradigm register with which they were interpreted.

In the hope of things present and in their sensitive listening, they were acquiring fluidity.

In this way, it passed unforced from the religion of the fathers to the Faith, to the risk of friendship in the unpredictable proposal of the one Father.

Retreating into the Abode of the Spirit, within a Hope that unveiled itself wave by wave, she learned to understand relationships and inner energies, unpacked.

Once heard and taken in, they could deviate, and take just the unexpected path.

 

Step by step, the attentive eye, ear and heart also introduce us - like Mary - into a territory of suspension of closed intentions. Where the love and destiny of the Newness of God dwells.

He expands the Vision not just from around.

By deploying his losing himself in the We, not selectively, but only from his own sacred centre, the horizon also expanded in the sensation of infinity in action.

In the contemplation of events, she would flesh out and even reinvent the figure of the heart that had guided her there.

She was still reinterpreting the expressive image of her Vocation. And she changed her destiny - giving no weight to one-sided angles.

No obligations and chiselled intentions - against the tide but natural, without the laceration of titanic efforts.

So even the hardships brought her closer to her Mission as Mother of the new humanity, in her Son.

 

And each one equally rediscovers the energy of the primordial suggestion that leads him, so that in Meditation he re-embraces the Calling that still wants to snatch him from the mire.

Echo of the primordial Call that is woven into the events and is already the Destination.

Witness every moment to be rediscovered in the "intimate and full void" to be made within, to wait for something we do not know what it is first.

Mary let herself be traced in time by Love without a patent.

Such are the Dreams of creatures totally immersed in the true passions, which grasp, anticipate and actualise the timelessness in time.She did not give up wondering what - with its many aspects - was inhabiting her and silently guiding her.

 

We still imagine her (v.19) 'as with eyes closed': a situation our culture often ignores.

She did not think of the efficient causes: it was to rediscover otherwise her opening the door to visitors, and to every new thing by astonishment.

She was already nursing, not only her Son; at the same time she was feeding herself.

Not out of vain intimism did she rediscover the subtle Mystery nested in the different - and the raw, changing - unpredictable within and without.

Without realising it, she was already nourishing the world, preserving herself.

True, she comes to us and in us, tending the nest of essence and history... without any appearance of banners and shop windows - respecting only what happens.

Similarly, his entire Family becomes the true fruitful lady of an impossible Feast of the Announcement around - which we do not understand where it came from (Lk 1:20).

Certainly from nothing external. Therefore decisive.

Totally adherent to the circumstances and present in himself, he became completely - in the clear and spontaneous movements, also of others.

 

Certainly he had no people around him who could boast of screens. Only strange individuals, but who ceaselessly let their vital instincts emerge.

They too did not tell each other beforehand where to go. That is why they found themselves in an incessant pregnancy.

All they had in store was the experience of distance; often frost and rejection. 

Never knew a figure who helped them to recognise themselves completely, and to look at things from the point of view of the timeless gentleness they discovered.

Even capable of tending to the wider and more inclusive global [we would say, to the helpful eternity of the angelic condition].

Instead, they are set ablaze by the everlasting Flame - that of the whole world (past, present and future) that knows how to recover and stand hidden, apart but in the cosmos - as the dawn and day of the Lord.

In the culture of the time, the condition of the spirits of the heavenly throne service, who glorified and praised God (v.20) "for all that they had heard and seen".

 

Faced with the domestic Church Family, in Mary and Jesus the shepherds have a decisive experience.

No longer of one-sided lack and judgement, but of rebirth in esteem; of another world, available and inclusive - of another kingdom, unison without uniformity.

The Mother of God is a possibility to strive for the eternal present, no longer exclusive: but like a dance, where the changing whole puts one perfectly at ease - with no tracks to retrace.

Society's oddballs, pilgrims and prairie dogs, skilled only in transhumance, had perhaps never had the ability to recognise the ecstasy of being well and intensely in the brief.

Perhaps they had never had the experience of recognising in an accurate creature their own sensitive, tender and feminine side.

Appearance that in the authentic Woman Church becomes the guardian and differently announcer [in the shaky] of the treasure chest of Life.

From the warmth of Mary and the Cradle, amidst their labyrinths, they now bring to their own secluded place an exciting blessing, and the indestructible intimate side; even elsewhere.

To question us too.

 

We seek a silent soul, for an art of rebirth.

Here was Maria: she had noticed, as she meditated, that others reflexively did too.

When she carved out preparatory energies, even those around her disposed themselves in a more balanced, fuller way to the Announcement.

He walked through life to guard and nurture new fathers and mothers of humanisation. 

Not to comment, but to intuit and dissolve; not to extinguish the dreaming side with the 'up to date', old side.

His realm of truthfulness that cures the I and the Thou was the heaven and earth of new powers.

Reliable virtues because they sprang from the Silence of the Way that was completely renewing her - loving contradictions. 

Because everything can now happen, regenerate; and each day bring its tide (of the unseen) in the presence of Spirit, without routine.

A genuine soul, devoid of pretense, can do it.

For an adventure that pushes away continuity, filled with foundational Eros; for a direct exploration to the unknown Culmination.

 

 

Maria: Slowing down a little, one is born

 

Whoever does not follow innate intuition, a more radical call of the self, or stunning proclamations [Lk 1:26-38. 2:8-15] does not develop his destiny, does not move; does not set things right.

Common proclamations end up incinerating personalities.

It is true that the shepherds find nothing extraordinary or prodigious, except a family reduced to an ordinary condition, which they know.

But it is that simple hearth that draws them into the new Project, and into the proclamation of its scandalous unconditional Mercy - which did not electrocute them for impurity.

Archaic religion had branded them forever: lost, despicable, remorseless beings. Now they are free from identification.They have another eye - like that of the first time. An eye that will take them one hundred per cent.

Exodus facing a helpless image of God, they do not bother to engage in ethical discipline: it would have crumbled them.

Rather, they enjoy the wonder of a simply human reality - in a mysterious relationship of mutual recognition.

 

A baby in a manger, an unclean place where beasts would play.

Strange that the modest sign convinces them, that it makes them regain esteem, and makes them evangelisers - perhaps not even assiduous evangelisers.

Like Calvary (to which it refers), the Resolute Manifestation of the Eternal is a paradox.

But the affective geography of this Bethlehem devoid of conformist circuits remains intact, because it is spontaneously rooted in us.

There is a sense of immediacy, without any particular entanglement or ceremony.

The Child is not even worshipped by the now 'pure' gazes of the little, vilified prairie dogs and transhumance - as, conversely, the Magi will do (Mt 2:11).

They did not even know what it meant, reflecting Eastern court ceremonials - like the kissing of red slippers.

[This is why Pope Francis rejected them, along with the ermine - after Paul VI had had the courage to lay down the pluridirigist sign of tiaras, with its three overlapping crowns; a little more intricate was the affair of the anachronistic gestatorial chair].

The wretched of the earth and the distant of the flocks are those who hear the Announcement, readily verify it, and found the new divine lineage.

People untroubled by static judgement - men in the midst of all; no longer at high altitude.

 

In the meantime, Mary sought the meaning of surprises and thus regenerated, for a new way of understanding and 'being' together - to give birth also to the inner world of a different people of fullness.

She would put facts and Word together, to discover the common thread.

And to remain receptive; not to be conditioned by the convictions of the devout and inflexible fences, which would give her no escape.

The Mother herself, though taken by surprise, prepared herself for God's eccentricity, without departing from time and her real condition.

 

Her figure and that of the shepherds question us, demand the courage of an answer - but after having allowed the same kind of inner Presences to flow: worthy visitors, who are allowed to express themselves.

 

Like us, you too had to move from the beliefs of the fathers to Faith in the Father.

From the idea of love as reward to that of 'gift'.

From the practice of cults and closures that do not make one at all intimate with the Eternal, to the opening of the mind and of the exits.

He did not achieve this without effort, but rather by enduring the resistance of his arid environment.

Jesus was indeed circumcised - a useless rite that according to custom claimed to change the Son of God into the son of Abraham.

 

The Good News proclaims a reversal: what religion had considered distant from the Most High is very close to Him; indeed, it corresponds fully to Him.

Never before imagined.

In the Annunciations of the Gospels, the adventure of Faith is opened wide.

And the new Child has a Name that expresses the unprecedented essence of Saviour, not executioner.

His whole story will also be fully instructive from the point of view of how to internalise uncertainties and discomforts: these "no moments" and precariousness that teach us how to live.

In fact, we too, like Mary, 'recognise' the presence of God in the enigmas of Scripture, in the Little One 'wrapped in bandages' - even in the ancestral echo of our inner worlds.

And we let ourselves go - we don't really know where. But so is the Infinite, the immense Secret, the inexplicable Breath, in its folds.

 

The wise Dream that inhabits the human knows of ancient humus, but its echo is reborn every day, in the tide of being that directs one to truly 'look', without veils.

A conformist demeanour of 'seeing things' would not solve the problem.

Sometimes, in order not to be conditioned, it is necessary to re-establish oneself in silence, like the Virgin; to build a sort of hermeneutic island that opens different doors, that introduces other lights.

Within her sacred circuit, the Mother of God also valorised innate transformative energies, precisely by rooting them in questions...

Thus returning to her primordial being and the sense of the Newborn Child - an image steeped in primordial meaning and life-wave, dear to many cultures.

 

Mary entered an Elsewhere and did not leave the field of the real.

She was 'inside' her Centre, unhurried - searching for the Sun drowned in her being and which returned, emerged, resurrected; from within, it made her exist beyond.

Thus she did not allow herself to be absorbed in energy by the conformist ideas of others or by [external] situations that wanted to break the balance.

In her veracious solitude - filled with Grace - that higher and hidden self in essence came more and more to her. She made herself a new Dawn and guide.She did not want to live within thoughts, knowledge and reasoning around - none capable of amplifying life - all in the hands of the drugs of procedures, dehumanising the Enchantment.

The happy magic of that Frugolo of flesh brought his Peace.

Dreams sustained and conveyed her nest and intimate core - causing new life to flow from the core of her Person, and the youth of the world.

 

"Now Mary kept all Words-events by comparing them in her heart".