{"id":6860,"date":"2020-11-08T16:40:09","date_gmt":"2020-11-08T06:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=6860"},"modified":"2020-11-08T16:41:08","modified_gmt":"2020-11-08T06:41:08","slug":"the-mind-of-saint-mary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/the-mind-of-saint-mary\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mind of Saint Mary"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The Mind of Saint Mary<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Mark Basily<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Passage Luke 1:26-38<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are you thinking about right now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What have you been thinking about for the past few days?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has consumed your mind over the last month?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are questions that we do not often reflect on. What\nconsumes our thoughts? What is going on inside us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the 29th<\/sup> of each Coptic month, the church\npresents the reading of the Annunciation of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary.\nThere is a lot going on in this passage. One thing revealed is what runs\nthrough the mind of St Mary. We can tell what\u2019s on her mind by her reaction and\nresponse to the Archangel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We see St Mary and the angel Gabriel comes in and he greets\nher. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In some icons of the Annunciation, we see the angel up high,\nlooking down on St Mary and telling her the news. In this particular icon, the\nangel is lower and has his arms folded in respect for the Virgin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is how I imagine it would have taken place \u2013 not above,\nbut below, in great respect for the Mother of God, bowing before her with arms\nfolded, and saying, \u201cRejoice, highly favoured one, the Lord is with you; blessed\nare you among women!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He calls her, \u201chighly favoured\u201d and the most blessed among\nall women! Imagine his posture while greeting her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This greeting troubles her and she wonders what manner of\ngreeting this could be. Why is she troubled? Is she not used to apparitions?\nWas she not used to seeing angels? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If an angel appeared to me, I would be troubled! I\u2019m not\nused to that. But for Mary, an apparition would not shock her. She lived her\nwhole life in the Temple, probably seeing apparitions regularly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why on this particular apparition was she troubled? This is\nthe first insight we get into the thoughts of St Mary. For she was not troubled\nby the apparition, but by the manner of the greeting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We might get troubled at the manner of greeting if someone\nwas to disrespect us. If I was say, Doctor Joseph, and a patient walked in saying,\n\u201cHey Joey,\u201d that would trouble me. I am a doctor, Doctor Joseph. That greeting\nis troubling in its disrespect. Or if I\u2019m Fr Mark and someone calls out, \u201cHey\nMarky,\u201d that would be troubling. But for St Mary, it was the opposite. She was\ntroubled for the honour of the greeting of being highly favoured, and the angel\nbowed before her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first insight into her thoughts was how she saw herself.\nA simple slave girl in the Temple, in complete humility. She was bothered\nbecause she didn\u2019t see herself the way the angel saw her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we know she thought this? Was it a mere inference on\nthe part of the reader? We know because St Mary must have told the author, St\nLuke, how she felt at that moment. We know that Luke spent time with Mary and\nshe herself told him. He drew her first icon. This was probably St Mary\u2019s\naccount of the Annunciation and our first insight into the inner workings of\nher mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the angel presents the proposition of the conception of\nChrist from her; \u201cAnd behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth\na Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the\nSon of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father\nDavid. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom\nthere will be no end.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary\u2019s next question gives more insight into her thoughts; \u201cHow\ncan this be, since I [c]do not know a man?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This question reveals to us Mary\u2019s decision of life long consecration\nand virginity. If St Mary had plans to get married, she would not have asked\nthis question. She would have assumed that when she married, she would have\nthis child. On the contrary, she had no plans to marry and could not conceive.\nHow could it be when she had consecrated her virginity to the Lord? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her vow of virginity and service was on her mind. Finally\nher last word was, \u201cBehold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me\naccording to your word.\u201d<\/em> She submits in obedience to the request of the Lord.\nHer humility and obedience runs through her mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What consumes our minds? Elder Thaddeus was an Orthodox monk\nwho wrote the book, \u201cOur Thoughts Determine our Lives.\u201d In his book he says, \u201cOur\nlife depends on the kind of thoughts we nurture. If our thoughts are peaceful,\ncalm, meek and kind, then that is what our life is like. If our attention is\nturned to the circumstances in which we live, we are drawn into a whirlpool of\nthoughts and can have neither peace nor tranquillity<\/em>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your thoughts will determine your life. What you think will\ndetermine how you live. That is why it is extremely important to stop and\nreflect on what is consuming my mind. Today and lately. A big portion of that\nmust be spiritual. Peaceful. Meekness. Kindness. This determines how I live my\nlife. If I find that my thoughts are consumed by worldly concerns, lusts, anger,\nhatred, I need to shake them off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few analogies from the fathers- consider any thought that comes is like an aeroplane. You see aeroplanes that fly around the airport then they come to land. Only allow the good thoughts to land. Thoughts will always fly around, never let them land and stay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or imagine your thoughts are like birds. Don\u2019t let the bad ones nest on your head and lay eggs and reproduce and grow. If a fly lands on your face, naturally you flick it away, but you never let it sit there. You don\u2019t let it sit on your face, and lay germs. In an instant, you get rid of it. The same applies to our thoughts, we need to develop an instinct that compels us to flick the bad thoughts away. For any lust, I flick it away. Any hate, I flick it away immediately. If I overthink of money, I flick it away and refocus my thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St Mary is the model of thoughts and feelings that were\ntotally consumed by God. I pray that each of us shifts our thoughts away from\nevil and sin and closer to the Kingdom, for our thoughts determine our lives,\nand potentially our eternity. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Mind of Saint Mary Adapted from a sermon by Fr Mark Basily Passage Luke 1:26-38 What are you thinking about right now? What have you been thinking about for the past few days? What has consumed your mind over the last month? These are questions that we do not often reflect on. What consumes … Continue reading “The Mind of Saint Mary”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6862,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[464,82,181,388,184],"class_list":["post-6860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-annunciation","tag-humility","tag-obedience","tag-st-mary","tag-submission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6860"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6864,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6860\/revisions\/6864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}