Mary “traveled to the hill country… and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out” “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Mary’s response shows the radical nature of such joyful union, “God has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly… has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich sent away empty.”
Mary and Elizabeth are two women routinely subjected to suffering, yet they embody and embrace joyful union. As such, these women are the transformation of the world. Their union as joyful life-givers is the power that ‘casts down the mighty from their thrones, and lifts up the lowly… that fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich away empty.’ There is much about institutional christianity that rejects these women’s joyful union while it unfortunately accepts the opposite – rulers and their torturous misery that causes alienation but promises delayed union. For example, institutional christianity accepts John of the Cross, a Carmelite priest whose feast day was recently marked (1542-1591). He wrote the Dark Night of the Soul and was tortured with misery and alienation when he was born into the poverty the wealth class devises for humanity. He sadly chose to be tortured with misery and alienation through the asceticism his religious superiors devise for members. If the torture were done for sport, as entertainment, we would know it to be cruel. We can know it is more cruel that the torture is done for religious salvation. The religion that teaches such salvation is Militarism. Its ranked supremacists teach the value of subordinate suffering. The torture of the Carmelites’ asceticism and the Inquisition’s whippings and rack are reflected in child abuse and spousal abuse. Torture, abuse, is due to Mary and Elizabeth’s joyful union being rejected in favor of Militarism and its miserable alienation. Torturers assert people are sinful and deserve punishment, not union with God. Those who theologically justify torture devise a heaven where union with God is promised but only after our deserved earthly suffering. Torturers want to claim the suffering they inflict is Christ-like and thus praise John of the Cross, Faustina Kowalska, Thomas a Kempis, and Padre Pio who asserts, “Anyone who wants to be a true Christian… must mortify his flesh for no other reason than devotion to Jesus, Who, for love of us, mortified His entire body on the cross.” But Jesus did not mortify his body on the cross. Soldiers mortified his body on the cross – they tortured him to death. Torturers lie when they claim the suffering they inflict is done out of love. Torturers lie when they claim only then is a person able to offer pure love to God or to another person. Mary and Elizabeth, physically in union with God, each other, and with their unborn children, were offering pure love to each other. Torturers and their lies ensure we never witness Mary’s radical transforming challenge to them, to ‘cast down the mighty from their thrones, and lift up the lowly… to fill the hungry with good things, and send the rich away empty.’
The religious value of torture can explain the negative reactions to Olympians Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka, and other female athletes. Torturers like Fox News and The Daily Wire, like Seth Dillon, Jerry Falwell Jr., and Matt Walsh say Biles is “a quitter,” her behavior “weak” “disgraceful and selfish.” Unfortunately, athletes, in part, do devise and embrace suffering. It is also possible they are caught up in a larger religious system of torture, for sport. Female athletes from a young age suffer immense body shaming, debilitating injures, and are targeted by coaches and medical professionals for sexual torture. When no longer useful, torturers then cast them aside and send them away. Despite all the suffering these Olympic athletes endure, their critics are demeaning them for not suffering more. For not enduring what the women are beginning to identify as torturous and alienating. Ms. Biles, in one response, addressed her predicament from that view, “For anyone saying I quit. I didn’t quit. My mind & body are simply not in sync.” “Physical health is mental health.” Potentially taking their cues from Mary and Elizabeth, these women are attempting to embody joyful union. Gymnastic organizations including the Olympics may be among those to whom Mary’s Gospel message applies, ‘cast down the mighty from their thrones, and lift up the lowly… fill the hungry with good things, and the rich send away empty.’
Prayer: Spirit, joyful union is our calling.
Question: What can I do to transform misery and alienation into joyful union; personally, and socially?
August 15, 2021 Gospel Luke 1:39-56 Feast of the Assumption