Given the sort of physical risk the Bible implies Mary had to survive in order to have a baby, I’ve always thought that these images of revolutionary women might be more appropriate for the mother of Christ rather than the domesticated, insipidly pale faced, blue veiled, watery eyed portraits we’re used to. If you consider that talk of a new Davidic line would have likely been considered seditious in the then occupied Palestine and consider the content of Mary’s Song in the next passage “The rich are sent, empty, away” (A passage that appears nowhere in the 3 year lectionary cycle!), it becomes clear that Mary stands in the radical prophetic tradition of her culture and knows just what’s at stake when one births a “Messiah”.
In this vein I put together my own ‘Hail Mary’ which uses some bits of the traditional Catholic Hail Mary Prayer and the Litany of the Blessed Virgin.
