To Be Virgin

“… Thomas Merton, in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, describes the true identity that he seeks in contemplative prayer as a “point verge” at the center of his being, “a point untouched by illusion, a point of pure truth...which belongs entirely to God, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point…of absolute poverty,” he wrote, “is the Glory of God in us.”

It is only when we stop idolizing the illusion of our control over the events of life and recognize our poverty that we become virgin in the sense that Merton means…”

“Mary’s “How can this be?” is a simpler response than Zechariah’s, and also more profound. She does not lose her voice but finds it. Like any of the prophets, she asserts herself before God saying, “Here am I.” There is no arrogance, however, but only holy fear and wonder. Mary proceeds—as we must do in life—making her commitment without knowing much about what it will entail or where it will lead. I treasure the story because it forces me to ask: When the mystery of God breaks through into my consciousness, do I run from it? Do I ask of it what it cannot answer? Shrugging, do I retreat into facile clichés, the popular but false wisdom of what “we all know?” Or am I virgin enough to respond from my deepest, truest self, and say something new, a ‘yes” that will change me forever?”

Amazing Grace, Kathleen Norris

"Much bickering has centered on the word virgin…but I think the time has come for us to stop limiting this word to a descriptor of Mary’s body and to start considering the power of this word in describing us as the body of Christ. What must we be untouched by, unknown by, not pierced by, in order for Christ’s conception and birth to continue to be miraculous?

…we need to consider not only what this word means to us as a people of faith. After all Mary’s hope was not just for herself, it was for a nation of faith. Perhaps for us to be virgin we must be untouched by the disillusionment of the world—we must remain impervious to the tired cynicism that denies the possibility of something new or different or transformative. To be virgin is to heed our deep and painful longing to be the bearers of new life. To be virgin is for us to hold space for the life that is to come.

Advent is a season of longing, not a vapid, reasoned longing, but the passionate, heedless longing of the lover for the beloved, the desperate longing for the exile for her homeland. It is an embodied longing that is at once intimately sensual and deeply spiritual. The slow walk from Advent into Christmas is a movement from longing for transformation, to giving ourselves up to transformation."

Strength of Women Found in the Strength of Mary, Elizabeth J. Welch

“Jesus observed, “Without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Yet we act, for the most part, as though without us God can do nothing. We think we have to make Christmas come, which is to say we think we have to bring about the redemption of the universe on our own. When all God needs is a willing womb, a place of safety, nourishment, and love. “Oh, but nothing will get done,” you say. “If I don’t do it Christmas won’t happen.” And we crowd Christ out with our fretful fears.”

“… what if, instead of doing something, we were to be something special? Be a womb. Be a dwelling for God. Be surprised.”

Letters from the Holy Ground, Loretta Ross-Gotta