Beginner’s Mind: Mary As Guide for Ordinands

Beginner’s Mind: Mary As Guide for Ordinands

St Mary Magdalen, Oxford

8 June, 2019

Open Sodality Event with Rosary and Mass

In our little community of priests we have taken as our patron the Mother of Jesus in her love for priests. If she loves priests she must also love those preparing for ordination and, indeed, those discerning with the church a path to ordination. Waiting, preparing is something Mary knows about. Mary, is above all, the one who awaits, prepares, she literally gestates the coming Lord. She is, therefore, one who understands and knows what it is to be on the threshold, she is our sister in moments of transition, our friend and accompanier when we are almost, but not quite, there. Mary is a fount of provisionality, recognising that her role is always to prepare for Jesus, to point to Jesus, to refer us to Jesus.

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Jesus says that we must become as little children if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven.

I have worked with children and young people for most of my adult life. Like anyone who has done that there are many aspects of being a child that I would not recommend for a healthy spiritual life! I won’t go into those now.

When I started teaching it was in a Reception class of four year olds.

I have taught children from 3 to 18 and enjoyed it all but if I was forced to choose a favourite age it would be that. At four most children have acquired a good deal of language, combined with their natural curiosity they have insatiable appetites for learning. They ask question, after question, after question. Why? What? Where? How? When? Who?

It can be enormously tiresome of course, but is also delightful.

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One of my favourite spiritual writers of the twentieth century is Shunryu Suzuki a Japanese Zen teacher who made his home in San Francisco. He wrote a book called Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Beginner’s mind is a translation, I am told, of the Japanese word Shoshin, which means: “… having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner would”

Suzuki said that “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities.”

I’m going to look at the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in so far as we know it, and show how, I believe, she demonstrates ‘beginner’s mind’, how that can be a model and guide in preparing for ordination, and indeed in ordained life, and then think a little about some general aspects of what we know about Mary.

The events that we know about in Mary’s life are relatively few:

• Annunciation
• Visitation
• Nativity
• Presentation
• Coming of the Magi
• The Flight to Egypt
• Finding in the Temple / Passover visit to Jerusalem
• Wedding at Cana
• Jesus preaching in Galilee / the attempt to see Jesus
• At the Cross
• At Pentecost

The annunciation is the start of it all. The extraordinary thing is how brief it is. It takes Mary a lot less time to discern and consent to God’s call to be the Mother of God than it does for anyone to be selected for training for ordination!

Discernment over any decision can become a major industry; I know that when I have big decisions to make I speak to my Spiritual Director, perhaps my confessor, colleagues and friends, I pray about it; I might even write up a pros and cons sheet.

Mary asks a simple question. She is perplexed and she ponders.

Beginner’s mind is full of possibilities ; it does not come up with all the reasons not to do something; it ponders. Beginner’s mind is willing to take risks, not foolishly, but after a little pondering.

Mary says yes.

Next what does Mary do? She goes to see her cousin. She doesn’t sit and make plans for her pregnancy and birth; she is spontaneous; she doesn’t arrive at her cousin’s with a long speech, she simply greets her; and then beginner’s mind leaps into praise, the Magnificat; this is not a nice Anglican middle way; it is all out change. Social revolution. Beginner’s mind is not calculating; it does not use weasel words; it says things as they are. It is truth-telling. Spontaneous enough to speak in poetry.

Jesus is born. Shepherds arrive, so do Magi, Mary travels to Jerusalem with Joseph to present her baby to the Lord “required by the law of the Lord”.

Among all the extraordinary events we have no words from Mary.

Beginner’s mind is not too quick to speak, to try and explain the unexplainable; it is obedient when it is appropriate to be so.

Even in the face of a hard prophecy about herself, she keeps quiet. Like any good priest she knows when to speak, and when to be silent.

Next Joseph has a dream and he takes his wife and child to Egypt. A model for us. The priest is always one who may have to respond to the voice of the Lord in dreams, to leave home behind and travel to new places. The beginner’s mind is open to possibilities, to new ministries.

The Passover visit to Jerusalem is tantalising as our only glimpse of Jesus between infancy and adult ministry. Here we hear her speak:

“Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.”

After he answers them we are told that they did not understand what he meant.

This is really a quite extraordinary episode.

Mary has experienced an angel appearing to her, shepherds and magi turning up, prophecies in the Temple, and then she is surprised when he doesn’t seem to be just like other children!

Beginner’s mind, doesn’t make assumptions, doesn’t presume on status or expectation. Most people might, given all that had happened thought that their Son was the most amazing prodigy at the very least, might even have marched him up to the teachers of the law themselves and presented him to them.

Mary and Joseph do no such thing.

Nor are they even a little over-protective; they set off home from Jerusalem assuming Jesus is somewhere in the group!

Then after he has grown up we get the wedding at Cana. Again we hear Mary speak, she simply states a fact “They have no wine.” And then to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Beginner’s mind, doesn’t make big claims, doesn’t tell the servants that Jesus is superman/Messiah. Quietly states a fact and gives her confidence in him.

Mary later tries to speak to Jesus when he is teaching the crowds. Here, we have an important teaching on the status of Mary; her blessedness is not in biology; it is not in conceiving, carrying, giving birth to Jesus, let alone in bringing him up. “Whoever does the will of my Father … is my mother.”

Mary is blessed for ever, because she is first and foremost a believer. The first believer. The first human being to know that God was to become flesh, and the first to say yes, let it be done.

Belief is not acquiescence to a set of propositions, it is faith and trust in Jesus. As priests, like Mary we must say yes to Jesus, like Mary we must have a beginner’s mind that recognises that it is our faith in Jesus, our belief in him that is important. It is by this, for us, unlike Mary, by baptism that we are saved. No one was ever saved by ordination.

Not quite finally, we come to the cross. Silent again, Mary accepts Jesus giving her another Son.

What does beginner’s mind, the openness to possibilities bring to the cross?

The fact that she is there is important. She has followed Jesus all the way, she follows to this ‘end’. The beginner has more to learn, wants to know more, hear more, see more.

And she does. She sticks with the apostles and is there at Pentecost.

The beginner always returns to the beginning. She who was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit at the annunciation, who was present when Elizabeth was filled with the Spirit, sees the apostles receive the Spirit. She knows, perhaps better than they do that this ‘end’ is far from being an end. Wherever the Spirit is, is a beginning.

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Two things stand out for me in reflecting on Mary at these events in her life.

The first is that word ponder.

She ponders these things.

In education circles there was a phrase that was popular a few years ago, that teachers should be “reflective practitioners”.

Priests are called to reflect, on our selves and on our work.

For priests, the psalms of the daily Office are the bread and butter of our prayer, the day in, day out, recitation of these texts that have been chanted, sung, recited by all Christians.

The editor of the book of psalms made a decision about which psalm should come at the start, to set the tone, the theme of the psalter:

It is the Torah psalm of the happiness of those who ponder the law of the Lord day and night,

Who are like trees planted by flowing waters,

Yielding fruit in due season

And whose leaves shall never fade,

And all that they do prospers.

The ministry of priests is blessed when it is a reflective ministry, when we ponder daily on the Scriptures of the Office and Mass, taking time to chew on them every day. When we have a beginner’s mind, open to new learning.

Psalm 1 points us to the greatest, and most priestly of the psalms, the majestic Psalm 119. The psalms of the torah that is way, truth, life; that is Jesus. The psalm that priests in the western church prayed in its entirety each day for 1500 years. The psalm that we can use daily to be faithful to Jesus

The second thing that occurs to me reflecting on Mary as a guide for Ordinands, is the privacy of Mary.

To be ordained is to become a public person. The transition in ordination from being a private person to this public life is one of the things many people find hardest.

Mary, too must have been a public person to the apostles. But throughout her life she maintains a personal privacy. A sense of her own integrity.

No one can be an entirely public person, it would destroy you.

One of my favourite places to visit is the former cathedral in the Provençal town of Cavaillon.

In the summer it is always full of tourists, but even they do not go to its most beautiful part: to the side, is a cloister and garden, in the heat of the sun the shadows are cool and comforting, the gardens green and lush, the fountain dances invitingly. It breaks my hearts as I sit there in that garden and say my prayers that the tourists are rushing around inside. (Although I am also slightly pleased!)

A cloister garden is a hortus conclusus, an enclosed space, that for the medievalists was itself a sign, an image of Mary The term hortus conclusus is derived from the Vulgate’s version of the Canticle of Canticles, the Song of Songs, 4:12, in Latin: “Hortus conclusus soror mea, sponsa, hortus conclusus, fons signatus”

(“A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed.”)

In your heart, in the midst of your public lives find that cool cloister, that inner garden of delight that is untouched by busy-ness, by the demands made on us.

Perhaps even imagine Mary there. Not as the slip of a girl meeting an angel but as a mature woman, a woman who has seen her Son die, and has known the coming of the Spirit. A woman, perhaps in her early fifties, who will accompany you, in preparing for priesthood, and in ministry as you ponder God’s word. As you walk with Jesus as she did.

I will end on a really practical note.

Beginner’s Mind isn’t just a clever turn of phrase. It is essential to being a pastor.

When I was first ordained I thought that one day I would become an expert. Most of all I thought that one day I would know what to say, in confession, spiritual direction, a casual meeting in the street. That I would have the ‘right words’, the consoling phrase the meaningful look.

But there are no right words. Beginner’s mind pays attention to each person and responds not in the ‘right’ way, but authentically, truly, with integrity.

There are many dangers in ordained life. We can become casual when dealing with the sacred. Priests are at the forefront of the spiritual warfare that evil wages. We in our time know perhaps more than ever that darkness can enter the soul of even those who stand closest to the altar.

Mary is a guide for us because she has beginner’s mind, she expects nothing and so is never resentful; she trusts in Jesus, so is never cynical; even though she knows Jesus better than anyone other than the Father she makes no claim on that intimacy; she is never clever or sophisticated. She never looks down on anyone.

Her simplicity is always a challenge to me, all my reading, all my books; am I able to be as simple as she was in her claim on Jesus, her only claim “Do whatever he tells you.”?

And perhaps she taught Jesus the importance of beginner’s mind, he never responds in a formulaic way, some clever phrase. He is always true, always authentic, always himself.

Mary is our guide in staying close to Jesus, in never letting him go, in being a beginner every day, open to possibilities.

Mary sits with us in the enclosure of our hearts, she is the cool fountain singing at the heart of the cloister. Saying few words, paying attention to our needs, and drawing us, ever closer to Jesus.

“hortus conclusus, fons signatus“, the fountain is the life of Jesus in us, the signatus, is the seal, the mark of Jesus we received in baptism; the blood on the lintel of our souls which drives the angel of death away.

I often wonder if Mary prayed the psalms. If she did I hope she loved Psalm 34 (H). My favourite line in that psalm is “Look towards him and be radiant.” This is what Mary teaches us, to radiate the joy of being those who know Jesus, “look towards him,” she says, “and be radiant.” That is the priestly life.

As it says in Day 3 of our Manual:

“As priests under the patronage of Mary, Mother of God and Mother of Priests, members of the Sodality desire not only to honour her with traditional forms of devotion, but also to imitate her life, asking that her charism may infuse ours. We seek to wait and trust, to listen and to serve, as we, like her, endeavour to do God’s will.

With Mary on the flight to Egypt,

we take special care of the homeless and refugees.

With Mary at Nazareth,

we find God in the ordinary tasks of daily life.

With Mary at Cana,

we turn to Christ with our prayers.

With Mary at the Cross,

we stand with all who suffer.

With Mary, praying with the disciples,

we are faithful to the Church’s life of prayer in Mass and Office.

With Mary at Pentecost,

we pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit.”