Naming the Holy
A Reflection and Practice with Mary.
She has birthed the holy.
The cloth is wrapped, secure, as she flees to safety.
Fleeing Roman occupation, yes.
Fleeing judgment and accusation, yes.
Fleeing a social hold so strong that it could have strangled her as she walked the streets of her very own town.
Perhaps every mother feels this holy rendering… from birthing to safety.
From a feeling of security within the body to the anxious knowing that now I am ‘the all seeing’ eyes for this brand new human.
From the song of Magnificat to the small still beats between breaths.
Between pauses.
Between silence when there are no other angels on the path in front of you.
What happens after we birth holy things in our lives?
When we birth holy thoughts?
When we birth holy ideas?
Holy resurrections?
Reflections
In Christine Valters Paintner’s book, ‘Birthing the Holy1, she has outlined thirty-one names and titles for Mother Mary. Archetypes that remind us that holy things are experienced. Giving us a holy treasure trove of what Mary held, longed for and became as part of her own holy birthing beyond the Christ child. She who helps us hear the call, hold the call, and co-create our call in the world.
During this recent Advent season at Table we have been reading from the book, ‘Birthing the Holy’ and asking the deeper questions of what it means to give birth to holy things… to walk our own paths of birthing or infertility… what it means to birth wholeness or holiness in both light and darkness.
As we gathered each Wednesday to share together, I would listen to the stories from women who have birthed several children and others who have not been able to have their own. Women who have spent resources and time to become pregnant but could not. Women who chose not to have children. Each story, each woman is holy.
Birthing is not just something that happens in people with wombs. Birthing is also the process of creating. In this way, each of us in some capacity is involved in the work of birthing—of bringing to life something new—in ourselves and in each other. ~ Kat Armas2
As I listened I asked myself, “I wonder if they know how beautiful their own story is. If they realize that they too have thirty-one names/titles within themselves?”
Thirty-one archetypes perhaps that have yet to be named, noticed, or written down as they have birthed holy things, holy thoughts, holy othering… whether they have given birth to a human being or not.
These names and titles for Mother Mary came from {someone experiencing the holy…}
Through Mary’s presence.
Through Mary’s perspective.
Through Mary’s posture or gestures.
Through slow and ordinary movements.
Through intentional story-telling.
Through rituals and embodied traditions.
Through her own holy breath.
Popes, mystics and other beloved companions of Mary gave her these names / titles that you may be familiar with…
‘Mother of Sorrows.’
‘Queen of Heaven.’
‘Mystical Rose.’
Less familiar ones ‘Mary the Greenest Branch… The Air we Breathe… Mary as Burning Bush… Woman Clothed with the Sun.’
I was not raised in the Catholic tradition where Mother Mary is honored in beautiful and tender ways on a regular basis. I missed that opportunity to know her soul as a young person. I was taught to honor her as Mother, as Life-Giver, as the Holder of the Divine. There was reverence given to Mary in my tradition but not enough reverence as I would later come to understand about her. She was still a woman and the patriarchy made sure to keep Mary as ‘meek and mild’ and not full on HOLY FIRE from the very breath of Spirit… of God.
Mary the Mother birthed the Holy and then raised the Holy in ordinary ways and days.
By knowing within herself what she was capable of.
By remembering her ancestors who had journeyed before her.
By feeling the resonance in her own body and Spirit ~ a vibration that spoke to her in ways that words could not.
By remaining.
Staying.
Abiding in her own wholeness while teaching Jesus and others who were walking with her what it meant to birth the holy, to remember, to remain.
To bring wholeness to full-term and offer it in such a way that only she could ~ that only you can ~ that only we can.
Practice and Interior Movement
If Proverbs 313 has been your go to definition for naming a Blessed woman, can I ask you to consider the thirty-one archetypes of Mother Mary from the book, Birthing the Holy as a way to see the holy in your own feminine soul?
Take one chapter from the book each day for a month and read, listen and attune to the invitation of the holy. Sit with her. Linger in ways that allow you to see a reflection of yourself when you hold extended moments with her. Or learn about the feast days that honor her while you read, celebrate, and imagine with her what is similar in you. Invite a friend to journey with you. I am confident the insights will be valuable to each of you. Mary reached down deep within herself to birth the Holy... and she expanded holy birthing beyond the stable to demonstrate to each of us what continues to evolve even when we are often challenged to name it ourselves. We may need someone else to recognize and name our holy too.
Whether we take main roads or side roads, may we all travel to places where we feel safe…
After birth or infertility.
After marriage or divorce.
After loss or trauma.
After acceptance or rejection.
She left Israel to find safety for herself and her child. Maybe perhaps for Joseph too as he began to practice what it means to stay or remain… feel safe.
Like Mary the Mother, we have made birthing the holy in our lives and in ourselves…
holy work…
holy listening…
holy silence…
holy expansion…
holy reconstruction…
holy mourning…
holy annunciations…
holy breath…
holy othering…
Table Conversations
This Wednesday at Table we will offer space to call forth thirty-one names/titles for ourselves as we give attention towards how the holy has been birthed in us… as we listen to what others have seen as holy within us … we will hear stories of how we had to flee some form of social hold in order to find our own safety for what was being birthed in us…
We will create a list of holy remembrance for who we are, where we have been and what awaits us as we open ourselves to holy birthing..
Bring your writing tools as we practice a ritual of naming…reminding ourselves that naming the holy within us is one of the greatest acts of holy intention we can offer ourselves and each other.
And like Christine Valters Paintner, we too might just walk away from Table having an outline for what could become our very own… ‘She Birthed the Holy’ book…
”Every book I write is a new birthing …” ~ Christine Paintner
Love Expands the Table ~ Shelly
To join Wednesday’s Table Conversation click the Table Chat link above for zoom details.
Birthing the Holy, Christine Valters Paintner 2022 Avemariapress/ Sorin-Books.
Sacred Belonging, Kat Armas 2023 Brazos Press.
Proverbs Chapter 31, First Testament Story found in Scripture.
This restores Mary to her proper scale. Not meek decoration, but holy fire in motion. Birthing didn’t end in the stable. It became flight, courage, naming, staying alive. Naming the holy isn’t flattery. It’s survival. And when women name what they’ve carried, the patriarchy loses its favorite eraser.