how does the eternal one enter time? how does the creator participate in the creation? much, perhaps, as a builder of a house enters that house: through a portal, a door. the image of the door is one of the many ways of understanding the mother of god. it is through the mother that the holy one enters time, and becomes an actor in time.the first festival of the church year is the nativity of the mother of god. much of the post-renaissance western world has lost this festival and the understanding of the primacy of the mother in the world, although it was certainly part of the understanding of the culture that built, for example, the cathedral of our lady of chartres. since then we have adopted an athena-sprung-from-the-forehead-of-zeus image of the goddess, making the head and, although perhaps unconsciously, the phallus, our most important images of creation. the eastern church has never lost an appreciation for the centrality of the heart and womb in the theosis of the world.
and so the celebration of the acts whereby the the holy one reconciles the world to 'himself.' starts with the birth of the mother. it is an act of synergy. as i sat in a coffee house this morning watching the creation of the light of a new day, a recording of the beatles' 'let it be' was playing: 'sometimes in my hour of darkness, mother mary comes to me, singing songs of wisdom, let it be.' for the reconciliation of the world, the mother must say, 'let it be.' then the holy one, beyond sex and gender (think of the words of genesis, 'in the image of god made he him, male and female made he them.' a sentence that is syntactically odd, reflecting both the limits of language and the ineffability of the holy one), became the father of the son.
and so it is throughout the world. the mother, whether called 'goddess' or not, precedes the son, who becomes one with the father. the son of mary, the mother of god, is the one who is, in the words of the creeds, 'god of god, light of light, true god of true god, begotten before all worlds, by whom all things were made,' but he remains always the son of mary.
there is nothing strange, therefore, that the iconography of mary and jesus should reproduce the iconography of isis and osiris. what the christian creed proclaims about mary and her son is what is called sometimes 'the scandal of particularity.' the things it describes happened 'under pontius pilate.' the events, the situation, described by the isis and osiris myth is always true, but became history with mary and jesus. truth became fact; it was always true, because the holy one is always true. in religions throughout the world and throughout time the 'godhead', to use a clumsy term common in western theology, is beyond sexuality, beyond identification with any one 'god' or 'goddess,' and enters the world through the 'goddess,' and then of 'god the son' it can be said, 'thou art that.'
there is also nothing strange therefore that in the history of religions we find images of the goddess that are very ancient, that 'goddess religion' predates 'god religion.' this is a precognition that the holy must have a womb through which to enter the world, a 'virgin womb' reserved for the holy alone. what is strange is that we have so often forgotten that ancient understanding in our modern, 'scientific' hour of darkness. may we listen to the words of wisdom when mother mary comes to us.
