Hidden in the backwater town of Nazareth, Mary (8 September c. 18-16 BC – 15 August c. AD 48, traditionally) was a Jewish virgin and the Virgin Mother of Jesus, and thus the mother of God. Well, according to The Four Gospels, anyway. She is perhaps the most widely recognized and venerated saint in Catholic tradition.
According to Christian tradition, Mary was born on 8 September c. 18-16 BC, nine months after the Immaculate Conception on 8 December (the Immaculate Conception is the doctrine that teaches that Mary was conceived without original sin), to Joachim and Anna. The birthplace of Mary is disputed, with three different places considered: she was born in Bethlehem, Sephoris (according to the non-canonical Protoevangelium of James), and Jerusalem. However, she lived in Nazareth at the time of the Annunciation. When she was a child, Joachim and Anna presented Mary in the Temple of Jerusalem, where she made a vow of virginity; the Protoevangelium of James states that Mary was three when she was presented in the Temple.
As per Jewish custom, Mary was betrothed and eventually married to Joseph despite her vow of virginity. One day, in Nazareth, the Archangel Gabriel came to Mary and informed her she would give birth to the Messiah: "Into her presence the angel came, and said, Hail, thou who art full of grace; the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women. She was much perplexed at hearing him speak so, and cast about in her mind, what she was to make of such a greeting. Then the angel said to her, Mary, do not be afraid; thou hast found favour in the sight of God. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call him Jesus." She anxiously asked how this could be, given that she's a virgin, and Gabriel replied that the Holy Spirit will come upon her, thus preserving her virginity, and added that her cousin Elizabeth conceived a son in her old age and is now six months pregnant; Mary, trusting Gabriel and God's omnipotence, replied: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be unto me according to thy word." (Luke 1:26-38).note In the following days, Mary went to the hill country into a city of Juda to visit her cousin. There, when Mary greeted her cousin, the child in Elizabeth's womb, who would be John the Baptist, leaped for joy in her womb, and an enraptured Elizabeth cried out: "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. How have I deserved to be thus visited by the mother of my Lord? Why, as soon as ever the voice of thy greeting sounded in my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed art thou for thy believing; the message that was brought to thee from the Lord shall have fulfillment." In reply, Mary sang a canticle of praise, commonly called the "Magnificat". She then stayed with Elizabeth for three months before returning home (Luke 1:39-56). Joseph, upon learning of Mary's pregnancy, was initially troubled and considered sending her away in secret so as not to publicly shame her, but an angel informed him of the actual state of affairs and convinced him to keep her at his side.
Joseph and Mary journeyed from Nazareth to Bethlehem to register for a Roman census, but while there, Mary gave birth to Jesus, Son of the Father; the enrolment brought a multitude of strangers into Bethlehem, so there was no room for Mary and Joseph at the inn. They took lodging in a grotto, which served as a shelter for animals. Mary had her son circumcised and brought before the Temple in Jerusalem for legal purification. When the rites were complied with, Simeon, a pious Jew, took the child Jesus in his arms and pointed out the universality of the salvation that was to come in his praise to God ("Nunc dimittis"), but not without prophesying the crucifixion: "Behold, this child is destined to bring about the fall of many and the rise of many in Israel; to be a sign which men will refuse to acknowledge; and so the thoughts of many hearts shall be made manifest; as for thy own soul, it shall have a sword to pierce it." (Luke 2:34-5) to Mary's sorrow.
After the presentation, Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem, where they were greeted by the wise men from the east, or the Magi; they presented gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. After their visit, Joseph was informed by an angel to take Mary and Jesus and flee to Egypt on account of Herod the Great ordering the slaughter of all the male children who are two years old and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem. The family's daily life in Nazareth was that of the ordinary tradesman, with Joseph being a carpenter and Mary attending to the various duties of housekeeper.
One day, when Jesus was twelve, Mary and Joseph went to the Temple in Jerusalem at the paschal solemnity, according to Jewish custom. Jesus stayed in Jerusalem, and His parents did not notice this until later. A distressed Mary and Joseph looked for Him in vain, "and it was only after three days that they found him. He was sitting in the temple, in the midst of those who taught there, listening to them and asking them questions; and all those who heard him were in amazement at his quick understanding and at the answers he gave." (Luke 2:46-7) When Mary found her son, she said: "My Son, why hast thou treated us so? Think, what anguish of mind thy father and I have endured, searching for thee." However, Jesus replied: "What reason had you to search for me? Could you not tell that I must needs be in the place which belongs to my Father?" (Luke 2:48-9) Here, Jesus was alluding to His being the Son of God, but nobody understood what He meant... at least, for now. Regardless, Jesus returned to Nazareth with them as their obedient foster son. "And so Jesus advanced in wisdom with the years, and in favour both with God and with men." (Luke 2:52) At one point, Mary convinced Jesus, now a grown man, to perform His first great miracle for the marriage feast in Cana (John 2:1-11) as He turned water into wine. This marked the beginning of Jesus's apostolic ministry, and Mary bowed out, not wanting to interfere with His work by her untimely presence.
One paschal week, while she was in Jerusalem, she met her son as He was carrying His cross to Golgotha, bringing her much anguish, and thus Simeon's prophecy came to pass; she accompanied Him throughout the arduous trek. When Jesus was crucified and hung on the cross, "Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen. When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved," that is, John, who would be one of the Gospel writers, "he saith to his mother: Woman, behold thy son. After that, he saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own." (John 19:25-27) He committed John to Mary as his (spiritual) mother and wishes Mary to regard John as her (spiritual) son. After Jesus's death on the cross, Mary and the others stayed behind as His body was taken down and was buried in a tomb cut out from a rock.
The Gospels never said anything about Mary learning about Jesus's resurrection, nor did they claim to give a complete account of what Jesus did or said. With that taken into consideration, it is safe to say that Mary learned about the resurrection (it is said in Christian tradition that Mary was the first to see the resurrection of Jesus, as if to counterbalance the anguish she experienced from watching her son being taken to Golgotha). According to the Acts of the Apostles, Mary was present with the disciples and apostles in an upper room at Jerusalem after Christ's ascension, serving as an example and a source of encouragement to the early Christian community, but the details of Mary's post-Pentecostal life are sparse. That said, according to Church tradition, Mary moved with the Disciple John to a mountain home near Ephesus, Turkey. It was from there that she was assumed bodily into Heaven at the end of her life on 15 August AD 48.
In the following years, Mary has appeared to a number of the Christian faithful
, even being given numerous titles based on these apparitions, like "Our Lady of Guadalupe", when Mary appeared on the Hil of Tepeyac before a Nahuan peasant named St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin; "Our Lady of La Salette", when Mary appeared in La Salette in southeastern France before two shepherd children named Maximin Giraud and Melanie Calvat; "Our Lady of Fatima", when Mary appeared in Aljustrel outside of Fatima in west central Portugal before three children: Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Sts. Francisco and Jacinta Marto; and "Our Lady of Lourdes", who appeared before St. Bernadette Soubirous outside of Lourdes in the Hautes-Pyrénées region of southern France. Many other apparitions have also been reported. However, the Catholic Church has a very rigorous process of discerning whether these apparitions constitute an authentic call of Christ or His saints to the Church, that is, if any of these apparitions are in accordance to what the Church teaches or not. It's possible for local bishops to investigate and approve a visitation, but it only becomes official when the higher-ups do so.
Some of the major Marian feast days are January 1 (The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God), February 2 (The Presentation of Jesus, commemorating the purification of Mary), March 25 (The Annunciation), May 31 (The Visitation of Mary, though traditionalist Catholics observe it on July 2), August 15 (The Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary), August 22 (The Queenship of Mary), September 8 (The Birth of Mary), September 15 (The Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, based on the Seven Sorrows of Mary), October 7 (Our Lady of the Rosary, which commemorates the victory of the Holy League of 1571 over the Ottoman Navy at the Battle of Lepanto), November 21 (The Presentation of Mary in the Temple of Jerusalem), and December 8 (The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception)
The amount of devotional Art dedicated to Mary is astounding, and it spawned tropes like Pietà Plagiarism, A Saint Named Mary, and Madonna Archetype. In fiction, Mary is often present or referenced as a shorthand for Incorruptible Pure Pureness or to complete a Messianic Archetype.
Works featuring/referencing Mary:
Anime and Manga- My Last Day, a short Anime depicting the Passion
- Superbook and its sister series Flying House.
Art
- The Annunciation by Leonardo da Vinci.
- The altar painting of the Sistine Chapel shows Mary as a Primary-Color Champion standing beside the Apollo-like Christ.
Film
- Ben-Hur (1959) opens with Joseph and Mary leaving Jerusalem for Bethlehem and the Nativity.
- From the Manger to the Cross (1912), one of the first feature films ever made.
- The Gospel According to St. Matthew, in which Jesus is depicted as more of an angry rabble-rouser.
- The Gospel of John
- Jesus (1979), A word for word adaptation of The Gospel of Luke.
- The King of Kings, a silent film by the director of The Ten Commandments.
- King of Kings, a 1961 Epic Movie narrated by Orson Welles and colorized remake of 1927's black and white original Cecil B. DeMille epic only also without "The" in its title.
- The Gospel According to St. Matthew, a 1964 Italian film with the dialogue ripped straight from Matthew.
- The Greatest Story Ever Told, an 1965 Epic Movie starring Max von Sydow.
- The Last Temptation of Christ, a novel and film which paint Jesus as a flawed man whose life goes differently at the Crucifixion.
- Parable, an allegorical short film featuring Jesus as a circus clown.
- The Passion of the Christ, where Mary's compassionate suffering with her son is greatly emphasized.
- The Nativity Story
- Son of God, a Compilation Movie adapted from the History Channel's The Bible.
- The Visual Bible: Matthew
- The Young Messiah
- The Song of Bernadette in which Bernadette's lady is finally revealed to be Herself. Here she's played by a radiant Linda Darnellnote .
- The Miracle Of Our Lady Of Fatima, a dramatization of the events at Fatima, Portugal in 1917, one of the best-known Marian visitations. One of actress Sherry Jackson's first roles. Mary is played by Angela Clarke, who also played Lucia's mother.
- Mary Magdalene
- In Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Frollo's song, "Hellfire," is addressed to her. "Beata Maria" is Latin for "Blessed Mary." Esmeralda's "God Help the Outcasts" is also implied to be an intercessory prayer to Mary and Jesus, as she sings it to a statue of Mary holding the Child Jesus.
- In Disney's Fantasia, Chernabog and his minions are scared off by pilgrims singing the Ave Maria.
- The 1982 Filipino religious epic Milagro sa Porta Vaga (lit. Miracle at Porta Vaga), a dramatisation of the legendary account about the apparition of the Virgin Mary in front of a Spanish sentinel in Cavite City during the 17th century. Milagro is now considered a lost film as no copies of it are known to exist.
Literature
- The Bible:
- The Four Gospels deal with Mary to varying amounts, with Luke and Matthew depicting extensive Nativity narratives with her while John depicts her as more active during Jesus' ministry.
- In Acts of the Apostles, Mary is briefly mentioned as among those followers of Jesus living in Jerusalem after his ascension.
- The Book of Revelation, specifically Revelation 12:1-6, has a passage that Catholics say is a reference to Mary.
- The Qur'an. A whole chapter is devoted to Mary or Maryam.
- Mary kicks off the plot of The Divine Comedy by sending Saint Lucia to send Beatrice to start Dante's tour through the afterlives. She is also repeatedly referred to in Purgatorio as an example for the penitents to follow and appears at the end of Paradiso to pray to God to allow Dante to better see Him.
- In Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, the titular Biff (Jesus' best friend) has a long-standing crush on Mary, despite thinking she's a bit of a Cloud Cuckoo Lander for the way she talks about her son being destined to become the Messiah.
- Milagros de Nuestra Señora is a compilation of twenty-five miracles of Mary, written in verse.
- Mary is mentioned twice in Paradise Lost in reference to her role as a replacement for Eve. She also appears near the beginning of the sequel, Paradise Regained.
- She Who Weeps is a work by the French writer and Catholic polemicist Léon Bloy, based on the apparitions of Our Lady of La Salette, which occurred on 19 September 1846. Bloy wrote this to warn people to repent lest the end of time come and also resented how the apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes, the first of which occurred about twelve years later on 11 February 1858, distracted everyone from what he claimed was the less sentimental message of La Salette.
Music
- The Filipino devotional album ''Mary, Mother of All'', performed by an all-star lineup of local celebrities and released in 2000. Interestingly, the album features a number of secular songs which either vaguely allude to or could be tangentially associated with the Virgin Mary, most notably the song "Let It Be" by The Beatles.
Radio
- The Man Born to Be King, twelve radio plays depicting Jesus's story in highly modern language.
Television
- Some episodes of The History Channel's The Bible.
- Some episodes of NBC's AD: The Bible Continues, a follow-up series to the above.
- The Chosen (TV series)
- Jesus (1999)
- Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter
- Jesus of Nazareth, a 1977 television mini-series.
- Mary And Joseph:A Story Of Faith (1979)
- The Nativity (1978)
- The Wishbone episode "¡Viva Wishbone!" dramatizes the Marian apparitions attributed to Juan Diego in 1531
Western Animation
- The Star, a computer-animated film about the nativity told from the perspective of various animals.
- Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey: Nestor helps Mary get to Bethlehem.
- The Miracle Maker, a stop-motion retelling of the gospel told through the eyes of a Delicate and Sickly Jewish girl.
- The Little Drummer Boy, a stop-motion television special based on the Christmas carol of the same name. Mary appears at the end in the manger, as the drummer boy sees the newborn Jesus.
- The Night the Animals Talked: She is only seen from afar or in shadow.
- The Small One: she is only visible in silhouette form on the donkey towards the end.