Mary's Relationship to the Almighty in 'The Mystical City of God'

Following the lesson I reread Book III, Chapter 1 of The Mystical City of God, which focuses on the novena before the Incarnation. Over these nine days, God elevates Mary to understand and share in his omnipotence and omniscience so she would be worthy of carrying his only son. Mary of Agreda’s focus on characterisation makes the dynamics of this relationship very interesting. It is manifested as both a teacher/ pupil relationship but also lovers before the consummation of the Incarnation. Mary herself constantly humiliates and degrades herself yet also appears to hold power over God and his decisions. It is clear she is constructed as a mirror for God, but sometimes this dividing line seems very vulnerable and she herself appears almost deified. I’m going to explore the nature of this ‘correspondence of a creature with its Creator.’

In the nine days of the novena, God shares with Mary all that can be known by any creature bar God alone. With Genesis as the basis for the first six days, Mary is able to read through the scripture and see what lays behind it. She ‘perceived and understood’, understanding how and why God did as he did. She is allowed into the decision making process, or even the mind, of the Lord. She even understood ‘in how far and in what way it was a void,’ glimpsing and quantifying what existed before creation itself. In addition to this she also understands the sinfulness and lowliness of the human race and is overcome with sorrow, ‘She debased herself more than all the children of Adam with all their miseries.’  It is interesting to consider whether we can read some of Mary of Agreda’s intellectual frustrations into the description of the knowledge that the Virgin received. After the third day Mary of Agreda writes ‘In comparison with her all those skilled in medicine in the world would appear but ignorant even after the most thorough studies and largest experience.’ Having talked about Mary of Agreda’s frustration at being prevented from travelling as a missionary due to her statues as a woman and nun, I felt at some points a similar frustration can be detected towards the intellectual limitations of her life. The Virgin is clearly held up as a general example, ‘an object of admirable emulation to the angelic spirits and an unparalleled example for men’, but perhaps she is simultaneously a very personal role model for Mary of Agreda herself, empowered and fulfilling many of the roles the nun yearned for.

The Virgin Mary also shares in God’s power. On the second day God made her ‘a corresponding participant in the divine Omnipotence’ and she is ‘raised to sovereignty over the sea, the earth, the elements and the celestial orbs, with all the creatures which are contained therein.’ In addition, she is able to step outside normal time with the Lord and perceive ‘all the creatures of the past, present and future.’ This was necessary partly so she would be the most perfect of all the Lord’s creatures so that she could infuse perfect humanity into God’s son as ‘like begets like’. The power she receives from the lord here also acts as the base of her intecessionary power. If ‘the strength of the Lord had not come to her aid, she would not have been able to bear the impetuosity of her desire to assist and save mankind.’ In sharing in God’s power and knowledge she derives the ability to act as ‘the mother and advocate of sinners.’

The way Mary of Agreda presents this divine relationship and exchange is quite varied. On one level it appears pedagogical. Mary, the perfect pupil, ‘was taught and comprehended’ and gains the knowledge to elevate her above all humans and even the angels. Perhaps more striking, however, is the erotic aspect of the relationship. God refers to Mary as ‘My spouse and dove’ and there are parallels made to the Song of Songs and to the Old testament marriage of Esther. There is also a constant pattern of yearning and fulfilment, the Lord being ‘strained in waiting for the time’ he can redeem man and bring about the ‘fulfilment of this desire’. Later, the Lord seems to play with Mary, tantalising her by saying the ‘ungrateful behaviour of men… does not merit the execution of this promise.’ This cause Mary to degrade herself and petition him further until he gives in. Mary of Agreda then claims, ‘His apparent hesitation was merely a device of his tender love in order to enjoy so much the longer the voice of his Beloved, causing her sweet lips to distil most sweet honey.’ The Lord toys with Mary for his own pleasure in a sometimes overtly sensual way. There is a strangeness to this as the Lord attempts to transform Mary ‘more to a likeness of her God in order to make her worthy of being his Mother.’ This seduction takes place both in preparation for a consummation that will also make Mary his Mother.

The active role that Mary increasingly plays in God’s decisions throughout the novena is striking. She is tested by God, as Jacob was, and asked what her name is. Her answer impresses God so much he is ‘wounded and weakened’ by desire for her. She appears to motivate God to send his Son, Mary of Agreda claiming she, ‘next to her most blessed Son, is the cause of their salvation.’ Another strangeness exists in the way Mary’s agency and power towards God is derived from her constant humiliation and debasement. Whatever the Lord shows her, she reverts to a position of extreme humility and consideration of the ‘measureless iniquity and malice of men’. The more she does this the more God desires her and the more powerful she appears.

Mary of Agreda works hard to distinguish Mary as the mirror of God. In learning of God’s power and knowledge The Virgin sees him increasingly clearly and the ‘veil fell more and more from the secrets of the infinite wisdom.’ Sometimes the power she derives seems to elevate her to the same level as the Lord, giving her ‘sovereignty’, yet this is always tempered by the fact her power is always derived from the Lord. She ‘reflected his infinite attributes and virtues...under the colours and lights added to it from on high.’ The fact that the closeness of this divine relationship is dependent on Mary’s constant debasement and submission ensures the correct hierarchy remains intact.

W. Russell

Likeness of the Marian Image and Prayer to the Image and Prayer of God

The Mystical City of God and The Secret of the Rosary have differing intents for the readership of their works, but they parallel and support each other in the ultimate equating of Mary as a mirror image of God. We arrived at the conclusion in class that Mary of Agreda uses The Mystical City of God to assimilate the Virgin Mary and God into a singular identity. The vivid details describing Mary, such as her newfound knowledge of human anatomy and animal taxonomy for example, vividly affirm the message that Mary is as wise as God, because God manifests to her all he knows. She is the likeness of God in many other ways, as described when Mary of Agreda says “It was eminently befitting that [Mary] should be all mercy, kindness, piety and clemency, who was herself to conceive and give birth to the Word made man, since He in His mercy, clemency and love desired to humiliate himself to the lowliness of our nature, and wished to be born of her in order to suffer for men. It is said: like begets like… (154). Just as Jesus humbles himself to the Earth, so too does young Mary humble herself to the Angel Gabriel and to God’s plan for her. Mary is remarkable because of her ability to be simultaneously humble and powerful, and this confounds Mary of Agreda who says “But what has caused the greatest wonder in me, when I considered these things in the light given to me, is the humility of this heavenly woman and the mutual contest between her humility and the divine power” (163). The notions of humility and divine power are so incongruous, that only God has the ability to possess them in coexistence. Thus because Mary successfully finds harmony within the dichotomy, she too has the strength, in addition to the wisdom and humility, of God, enhancing her likeness of him.

There are passages, some were mentioned in class, where Mary of Agreda directly conflates Mary and God. She writes “The Lord extended His powerful arm and expressly renewed the spirit and the faculties of the great Lady… It was the finishing act and the final retouching of the living image of God, in order to form, in it and of it, the very shape, into which the eternal Word, the essential image of the eternal Father and the figure of His substance was to be cast” (163). Especially with the Novena before the Incarnation, God assists Mary in every stage of her physical and spiritual growth not just to prepare her conceiving of the Word Incarnate, but to sculpt her as his image on Earth. Mary of Agreda continues; “Thus the whole temple of the most holy Mary…was covered with the purest gold of the Divinity inside and out…He provided for the greatest possible similarity between the Mother and the Father” (163). At this point historically, the symbolism of the temple as Mary is well-known, but Mary of Agreda presents a novel interpretation of it by describing the temple as God rather than containing God; in the same vein, her understanding of Mary as a mirror image of God conquers the conventional understanding that Mary contains God.

The Secret of the Rosary by St. Louis de Montefort is more didactic, and as a result has a more widespread audience given the introduction includes addresses to Priests, Sinners, Devout Souls and Little Children. The verbose and somewhat convoluted writing of Mary of Agreda contrasts with St. Louis De Montefort, who writes with simplicity often meant to be understood by commoners and youth. He retells the story of Saint Dominic who “began preaching the Holy Rosary and explained the Hail Mary word by word as he would to a group of children, and used the very simple illustrations which were in the book Our Lady had given him” (21), and she speaks directly to youth, ordering “So, dear children imitate these little girls and say your Rosary every day as they always did. If you do this you will earn the right to go to Heaven to see Jesus and Mary” (15). Thus, whereas Mary of Agreda equates Mary and God by using logic and extrapolating from the theology, de Montefort uses more accessible emotional persuasion to equate the two, with the ultimate purpose of converting readers or increasing their piety. Multiple passages throughout The Secret of the Rosary show how Mary also possesses traits that make her God’s likeness, making these writings unassumingly supportive of Mary of Agreda’s argument in The Mystical City of God. In the Fourth Rose story about Blessed Alan de la Roche, Jesus tells him “you crucified Me once before by your sins… You are crucifying Me again now because you have all the learning and understanding that you need to preach My Mother’s Rosary, and you are not doing so…” (25) and makes de la Roche feel guilty about his negligence to Mary and thus God. Jesus’ intercession here reflects his intercession of Saul in the desert, and just as Saul repents and becomes a Saint and devout follower, so too does Blessed Alan de la Roche revitalize himself and then restores the Holy Rosary. The likeness of these two stories make Jesus and Mary mirror reflections of each other, and Jesus feels crucified when people forsake either him or Mary. In addition, though Our Lady’s Psalter/The Rosary consists of prayers of the Hail Mary, de Montefort says that the three parts of it serve the purpose of honoring the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ, and the Church, with no mention of its service to Mary. De Montefort is saying here that The Rosary’s verbal praise of Mary is a spiritual praise of God, and “it greatly glorifies the Most Blessed Trinity because any homage that we pay Our Lady returns inevitably to God Who is the cause of all her virtues and perfections” (49). So although The Secret of the Rosary has a main instructive purpose (especially with the imagery throughout of followers needing to water the Garden of Marian devotion), de Montefort uses more emotional and spiritual techniques such as Biblical allusions and analysis of The Rosary to highlight an understanding of Mary as a near-perfect reflection of God, emphasizing the concept that devotion to Mary is essentially devotion to God. While the Secret of the Rosary and The Mystical City of God perpetuate the notion of Mary as God by visually describing the likeness of her image, St. Louis de Montefort’s work goes a step further in also emphasizing the likeness of Marian prayer and devotion as ultimately worship to God himself.

- ALZ

The Astrolabe of the Divine

 Love is the astrolabe of God’s mysteries

            - Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī

In my 9^th grade year, my boarding school required we take a course in world religions in place of a history course, and in that class, I first ran across this quote of Rumi which has  stuck with me since then. In reflecting on our class discussion of Mary of Agreda’s Mystical City of God, this quote came to mind, and I found that the same role that love plays for Rumi is played by the Virgin Mary for Mary of Agreda. We touched on this idea many times in class, though in slightly different terms. Generally, we have observed this phenomenon in depictions of Mary as a spotless mirror or light-refracting crystal. In this way, it would seem that Rumi and the venerable Mary of Agreda would agree, perhaps among other things,  on the idea that humans – being unable to grasp the divine itself – must use other means to discuss or to understand effectively the divine.

As I noted, this idea is not new at all to Mary of Agreda; it has been a prominent part of the tradition at least since the homilies of St. Andrew of Crete if not before. However, I see in the Mystical City of God a full flowering – in rather rococo form that I find not inappropriate to the subject matter – of the Marian tradition into this role. If I may be permitted to make a rather arcane metaphor, Agreda’s Mystical City of God could be bright Silmaril born of the tradition, the two interwoven trees. While I feel this metaphor could be extended further, I will refrain for now to return to the main matter at hand.

While, in many ways, Mary of Agreda’s work is a distillation of the previous tradition in how it views Mary; there is innovation too in both the extent of the claim as well as the theological basis for this claim. In the Mystical City of God, Mary is depicted as wholly a true intermediary between normal humans and the Godhead whereas in earlier traditions there was an uncomfortable tension between the fact that she was both an “unspotted mirror”, the perfect reflection of the divine, but herself still absolutely human. This tension came to the fore in the high Medieval debates regarding not only the validity of the immaculate conception itself – taken up as we’ve seen between the Dominicans and the Franciscans – but also the question of when exactly Mary was rid of original sin or whether she was stained by it at any point. Mary of Agreda through her work resolves this issue with a bold theological claim that Mary was a particular human who existed as wholly an intermediate being between people and God. The argument is made in many ways, but it can most clearly be seen in Mary of Agreda’s description of the order or “instants” by which we understand how God came to manifest his divine knowledge or plan or being – as Mary of Agreda describes these things are not easily divisible (Mystical City of God, 12).

Beginning with the first instant, Mary of Agreda describes how God recognizes and comprehends fully his own divine nature that, like “the sun should diffuse its light”, is inherently creative and communicative without any loss or detriment to itself. The second instant describes the duty of that creation to magnify the same God as the “manifestation of his greatness”. Next, the third instant involves the manner in which this communication will take place, and to that end, the necessary existence of Christ as hypostatically God and man was preordained.

Finally, in the fourth instant, Mary of Agreda comes to discuss the Virgin Mary. In this instant, the existence of Mary was effectively born or decreed to be. I find it particularly interesting that this followed directly from the instant in which Christ himself was preordained – who In turn proceeded from the necessary creative outpouring of a perfect divinity. This distinctly reminded me of the origins of the Marian cult in the Christological arguments against Nestorianism in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. The fifth instant involving the origin of the angels both good and evil in the mind of God followed afterwards. The origin of the angels as following that of Mary is of note particularly because it prefigures why Mary is the “empress of heaven” and ergo holds authority over the angles. This comes up later in the Mystical City of God with Mary’s guard of 1,000 angels, but also in St. Louis de Montfort’s The Secret of the Rosary in the account regarding the man wracked by demons that were forced out by the invocation of the Virgin – who preceded them and therefore is accorded the greater authority (The Secret of the Rosary, 88-91). Finally, in the sixth instant, humankind and their fall from grace is prefigured – though their nature as being free, and as having both the faculties to know God and the ability to distinguish good and evil came in the third instant.

This particular description of the “order of instants” in the mind of God effectively constitutes – among other things – a theological argument for the immaculate conception since the Virgin Mary’s existence predates humankind itself and their corresponding original sin – though not human nature which is how she can partake of the good in human nature without being tainted by the evil. In this way, these instants set up Mary of Agreda’s goal of depicting Mary as the perfect human, a divine human, someone we can understand because while we can’t grasp divinity – being mere humans – it is much easier to grasp a human who displays perfectly divine characteristics through whom or by whom we can begin to penetrate, as far as we are able, the mysteries of God. The Virgin Mary is the immaculate astrolabe – for what is the use of an astrolabe if it is not perfectly accorded with the stars – so likewise Mary of Agreda’s theological treatise on the divine naturally traces the terrestrial life of the Virgin.

-LDD

Fear, Reverence, and Humility

I think the most theologically-surprising part of The Mystical City of God isn’t all of the details about Mary’s life. Some of those are definitely strange, but they’re not categorically different than many of the other things we’ve read: imagining the important points of Mary’s life is a very old tradition, even if Mary of Agreda is interested in a different kind of detail. The part that seems most surprising to me is how important and transformative she thinks this work is.

In the first chapter, Mary of Agreda writes that she felt it was “improper to put off the writing” of the book because “the Most High had intimated this as the fitting and opportune time.” She then quotes God’s historical account of sin and salvation, where the important periods are from original sin to Moses, when “men governed themselves according to their own inclinations and fell into many errors and sins; and from Moses until the Incarnation, when “they again committed sin by not obeying” the law given to Moses. The Most High then told her that “just as I chose the opportune time for the greater manifestation of my mercy, so I now select this time for showing toward them another very great favor”: this book, which will explain God’s anger and let people avoid it (7-8).

Mary of Agreda seems to see the revelation she received as important on a cosmic scale, comparable to Sinai or the Incarnation. Most of the other Marian works we’ve read have, of course, said that Mary is important, but I can’t think of any others (except the Gospels) that are claiming to usher in a new era of salvation history.

Mary of Agreda frequently emphasizes her own smallness and humility, especially in this first chapter. For example, she quotes Christ’s praise of God from Matthew 11:25, praising God for having “hidden these high mysteries from the wise and from the teachers,” but where Matthew’s Christ ends by saying that God has revealed the mysteries to little children, Mary of Agreda says He has revealed them to “me, the most insignificant and useless slave of Thy Church” (5). Mary of Agreda puts herself in Christ’s place by adopting his words as her own, but by the end of the sentence, she puts herself in the place of the insignificant “little children” instead.

The “three things” Mary of Agreda says she paid attention to while writing the book also demonstrate the same humility. She says she kept in mind that “the creature must ever [...] abase itself in proportion to the condescension of His Majesty,” that “all men, who are so forgetful of their own salvation” must “consider and learn what they owe to the Queen and the Mother of piety,” and that she must be “willing to have my spiritual director, and if necessary the whole world, find out my littleness and vileness” (6). Both the first and the third of these three principles center on humility, abasement, and littleness.

When I first read the book, I read all of these statements of humility as simply part of the genre: many writers we’ve read (notably Bernard) have begun by talking about how unfit they are for the task of writing about Mary. Some of them connect it to Mary’s own humility, while others paint their smallness in contrast to Mary’s majesty, but there is certainly a long tradition of Marian works beginning with the writer’s humility. It also reminded me of Hildegard’s visions, which she claims that she did not want to write down, and actually refused to write them down until she was forced to by being stricken with an illness as punishment. All of these techniques seem to absolve the writer of responsibility for anything inappropriate that might be in the work, but more than that, they seem to be just a part of the genre of works about Mary.

But looking at it again now, in the context of her salvation history in the beginning, I wonder whether her humility actually evokes a different ancient tradition: that of Moses. Numbers 12:3 says that “The man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.” Moses demonstrated that quality at the burning bush, when he claimed not to be a good enough speaker to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. It seems like Mary of Agreda’s claim to be giving a new work that would deliver people from sin in the same way as Moses’s Law or Christ’s Spirit might be related to that humility that is a hallmark of Moses.  

-- ADM

Sister Mary's Theology

This week, I am drawn to the role theology plays in The Mystical City of God by Sister Mary of Agreda, as it relates to author’s depiction of Mary and Sister Mary’s relationship to the church.  In response to Professor Fulton Brown’s comment about the overarching theological themes of this work, there is an important interplay between the theology of the Church which would have been approved (I.E. the mystery of the Trinity, the fallenness of humanity, Christ’s role as the redeemer) and the points at which Sister Mary utilizes this already well-understood framework of a theological system in order to describe Mary in relation to her own account of her visions.  I would like to further analyze the major points in which I see Sister Mary pointing directly to a common theological position or concept that would have been most likely widely known by her readers and how Sister Mary has entailed such theology into her depiction of Mary.  What is at stake for Sister Mary in the context for writing this book, as I have gathered from her introduction, is taking very seriously what she describes as a demands from the ‘Most High’ and the ‘Queen of Heaven’ herself (4).  She must convince her readers that her visions and the words she writes are accurate and true, while also maintaining a covenant with the ‘Most High’, as it is her expressed intention to “…preserve the powers of [her] will entirely for His love, without allowing it to incline toward any creature, be it ever so small or unsuspicious…” (6).

In book one, section six, Sister Mary explicitly recognizes the system of theology that has been predetermined.  While most (if not all) of this book is by nature theological, I think it is this section where Sister Mary is the most deliberate connecting her own encounter with Mary to the established “orthodox” position(s).  In describing Mary’s perfection and her ability to exercise all the virtues at once, Sister Mary writes; “Among the first thus exercised were the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity, which relate immediately to God” (49).   Here, Sister Mary’s reference to “the three theological virtues” connects her reader to a pre-existing framework onto which something logical can be added.  While we cannot necessarily know Sister Mary’s true intentions behind every word written, I would speculate that in recalling her visions, Sister Mary is taking into consideration her audience, framing the Mary she witnessed by using familiar language and already firmly established doctrine and perhaps, even then methodology with which theologians in her time would have made sense of her visions.  While I fully understand why Sister Mary would describe Mary using familiar theological language, I am led to wonder why she taken the opportunity to refer to an already apparently familiar set of “theological virtues.”  Other than the fact that people may have just been able to understand what she was saying more clearly by referring to something already familiar, I wonder how this account relates to the Church’s theological teachings.  In other words, is it possible that Sister Mary has tailored her writings to the doctrines of the Church in places where she can afford to do so so that her other, more controversial chapters (immaculate conception) might be more kindly considered?

In painting a Mary who is a dutiful servant of God who possesses perfect justice, Sister Mary distinguishes Mary from Adam and Eve in a crucial way which I have not yet seen in this course.  Sister of Mary writes: “To [Mary] was also conceded the most perfect light of reason, corresponding to the gifts of grace, which she had not received” (49).  In this account, what make Mary most different from Eve is her access to reason.  This is a notable shift in the course, as we have discussed in the past how many have thought of Mary as the “new Eve;” as the one who will “get it right” this time.  The comparison between Eve and Mary cannot be made in Sister Mary’s account, however, because Sister Mary has made it clear that Mary is untainted, even with the ability to reason.  “She was possessed of the most perfect justice, superior to that of Adam and Even in their first formation” (49).  I am curious about this connection to the doctrines of the Church in her time.  While the theological function Adam and Eve play remains intact, Mary has broken the laws of humanity by remaining untainted, even after exposure to reason. Is this an issue that would be pertinent to the Church in Sister Mary’s time, or am I superimposing my own protestant theology?  It sounds odd to imply that someone other than Christ is not in need of atonement. 

Whether or not there is conclusive information on the full scope of how or why she has written this extensive text, it is clear that Sister Mary is strategic in the way she chooses both to employ church doctrine and the places in which she may diverge from it.  Perhaps drawing on a theological language familiar to those reading her work provided her voice with an additional authority.  It is possible that in being careful so as not disturb the theological tenets of the Church, Sister Mary would have had the chance to indeed be bolder with her claims that were controversial, especially regarding immaculate conception.  It is also possible that Sister Mary has been intentional in not allowing her own relationship with the Church affect the way in which she wrote this account.  Given the fact that Sister Mary had burned up her first version for fear of breaking Church orthodoxy, it is would be hard to imagine Sister Mary writing this work without the implications of the Church in the back of her mind.  I think Sister Mary walks an impressive line between a voice of sanctioned theology and an emboldened image of Mary, as she has witnessed so vividly and firsthand.    

DOC