The ‘Spousal Mystery’ of Christmas

By Christopher West

Christmas celebrates the marvels of the birth of the Son of God from the virgin womb of Mary. At Christmas pageants, at Mass, and in beloved Christmas carols we will hear the story told again and again this year: “The angel Gabriel was sent from God . . . to a virgin . . . and the virgin’s name was Mary. . . . And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus” (Lk 1:26-31).

Perhaps our familiarity with the story has numbed us to the breathtaking, astounding, incredible mystery that is Christmas. In this column and the next, I’d like to turn to the mystical insights of a certain saint in the hopes of waking us up a bit to the mind-blowing reality we celebrate (or should celebrate) at Christmas.

St. Louis de Montfort, in accord with the whole mystical tradition, often speaks in very sensuous ways about the Christian mystery. He uses spousal categories and terminology, drawn largely from the Song of Songs (one of the favorite biblical books of the mystics), to illuminate divine truths. He sees the Annunciation, for example, as a divine wedding proposal.

But before we get into some of de Montfort’s imagery, let me preface it with something John Paul II – himself a sincere devotee of de Montfort – once said. The pope admitted that this saint’s writing “can be a bit disconcerting, given its rather florid . . . style, but the essential theological truths which it contains are undeniable” (“Gift and Mystery,” p. 29). Bearing that in mind, let’s now turn to de Montfort and allow him to awaken us to some “essential theological truths” about the great “spousal mystery” of Christmas.

As de Montfort put it, God sent his angel to Mary “in order to win her heart.” And on account of the “hidden delights” of his divine proposal, “she gave her consent.” He describes this glorious moment – when God proposed and Mary said “yes” – as “joy for the angels,” as “a sweet melody,” as the “Canticle of the New Testament, a delight for Mary, and glory for the Most Blessed Trinity.” This divine song is”a pure kiss of love” given to Mary, “a crimson rose, a precious pearl.”  (“True Devotion” 252-253).

Then, groping for images to describe the invisible, immortal and eternal seed of God given to Mary (see 1 Pt 1:23), de Montfort writes of “dew falling from heaven” to make her fruitful. In this astounding moment, God poured a “chalice of ambrosia” into the virginal womb of his mystic-bride and, receiving this “divine nectar,” she conceived God’s own Son (see “True Devotion” 253).

Whoa! Such imagery would have been enough to give my wonderful, but rather prudish, grandmother cardiac arrest. For anyone experiencing palpitations, de Montfort reminds us plainly: “These are comparisons made by the saints” (253) – saints who, undoubtedly, were immersed in the holy and sensual imagery of the Song of Songs.

The Song of Songs teaches us – as does the spousal imagery throughout all of Scripture – that God wants to “marry” us. Furthermore, through this mystical marriage, the divine Bridegroom wants to fill us, “impregnate” us with divine life. In the Virgin Mary, this becomes a living reality. And this, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, is why “Mary goes before us all in the holiness that is the Church’s mystery as ‘the bride without spot or wrinkle’” (CCC 773).

With great reverence and a kind of “holy daring,” St. Louis de Montfort unabashedly presents the spiritual mystery revealed to us through the Virgin Mary’s feminine body. If we don’t share his comfort – indeed, many find themselves decidedly uncomfortable in the face of such a treatment of the Virgin Mary – we would do well to examine the source of such discomfort. It is much easier to eschew the body (our own body, Jesus’s body, Mary’s body) than it is to face the disorders in our hearts that cause us to eschew the body.
Christmas is a celebration of the Word made flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary. May that “great mystery” cast out all the lies we have believed about our own bodies. Amen.

 

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