Mary as the New Rachel
Mary as the New Rachel
According to Scripture scholar Brant Pitre, the link between Mary and Rachel in the Old Testament is often overlooked, though similarities abound. As the mother of Joseph, who was sold and taken into Egypt, Rachel is considered the mother of Israel. Her firstborn son saved the Israelites from famine. Mary, whose firstborn son saved the world from death, is known as the mother of the new Israel. According to Pitre, if Jesus is the new Adam, the new Moses, and the new Joseph, then Mary, the new Eve, is also the new Rachel.
Rachel was buried on the road to Bethlehem; Jeremiah’s claim, “Rachel is weeping for her children” (Jer 31:15), implies that even from the grave, she was aware of the suffering of her children as they passed her grave on their way to Babylon where they would live in exile. As the new Rachel, Mary, aware of the massacre of the innocents that was about to take place in Bethlehem and the surrounding region, surely wept for the infants who would be slain. Continuing the comparison between Mary and Rachel, Pitre further identifies Rachel as an archetype of Mary as mother and intercessor for the people of God.
To this day Jews, Muslims and Christians visit Rachel’s tomb, pouring out their heart to the mother who dwells in a lonely grave to be near her suffering children. We don’t know if Mary and Joseph passed the actual site of Rachel’s tomb during their flight to Egypt, but we can be sure their hearts were grieving, for when a loved one dies, words cannot console; as the prophet exclaimed, “Why do you cry out over your hurt? / Your pain is incurable” (Jer 30:15). Yet as Mary, through the eyes of her soul, could see the light of redemption, so we can find new meaning in her constancy as model and intercessor, in the words of John of the Cross:
“Extinguish these miseries, since no one else can stamp them out; and may my eyes behold you, because you are their light, and I would open them to you alone.” (C stanza 10)
Even in the midst of danger and the wrench of leaving their homeland, Mary and Joseph would have found, gazing upon the infant Jesus, delight and consolation. How long the Holy Family remained in Egypt is not known, but once again Joseph was instructed by an angel: they were to return to Israel, specifically to Galilee. “There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean’” (Mt 2:23).
We know the end of the story; the gospels have been written, the Good News preached. But Mary was living in the moment with all the dangers and uncertainties that being the Mother of God entailed. As with all seekers who travel by faith and surrender their life to God, her knowledge was veiled. As with every disciple, her understanding of events evolved and was revealed only at the proper time. The prophet’s words, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, / and out of Egypt I called my son” (Hos 11:1), identified Jesus as the new Moses, but only by walking with Jesus and witnessing the events of his life would Mary come to understand the fullness of the prophet’s words: “The more I called them, / the more they went from me” (Hos 11:2). Although the words of prophecy rang true at the appointed time, Dominican priest Albert Nolan explains:
“A prophecy is not a prediction, it is a warning or a promise. The prophet warns Israel about God’s judgment and promises God’s salvation. Both the warning and the promise are conditional. They depend upon the free response of the people of Israel. If Israel does not change, the consequences will be disastrous. If Israel does change, there will be an abundance of blessings. The practical purpose of a prophecy is to persuade the people to change or repent. Every prophet appealed for a conversion.”
More and more, Mary would realize that the fate of her son was linked to a refusal of the people to accept him. This was already strikingly clear in the persecution of Jesus while he was still an infant. Perhaps, on the long road to Egypt, Mary would have understood something of the events—something essential, at any rate, even if she could not yet know the details—that would unfold as her son’s identity was gradually revealed as the Suffering Servant in Isaiah (see Isa 52:13–53:12).
Among Mary’s many titles, “Queen of Prophets” is one of several that bear the mark of Carmelite spirituality. Through her many apparitions, she continues to call her children to conversion of heart and to a return to God through prayer. Like Elijah on Mount Carmel, who proved to the Israelites that the Lord was the true God, Mary’s many miracles draw the attention of believers and unbelievers alike. The miracle of the sun at Fatima, the roses and her portrait on the tilma of St. Juan Diego, and the countless miraculous healings at Lourdes testify to her supernatural intervention, but they are not the reason Mary visits her children. Like Elijah, who discovered and proclaimed the presence of God not in the sensational aspects of nature but in the gentle breeze, so Mary draws willing hearts to look beyond the miraculous and discover their true identity as the beloved of God through union with her son.
Teresa called prayer the entrance to the interior castle. And what is the interior castle if not the place where seekers meet God who awaits their return? As John of the Cross wrote, “In order that God lift the soul from the extreme of its low state to the other extreme of the high state of divine union, he must obviously, in view of these fundamental principles, do so with order, gently and according to the mode of the soul” (A 2.17.3). Surely, there could be no one gentler than our mother Mary, who stands ready to open the castle door so that, like the wise men of the East, we too can fall on our knees and worship the incarnate God, the Bridegroom, that our souls may be transformed in God through love.
(by Barbara Hughes, OCDS, “Mary the Perfect Contemplative: Carmelite Insights on the Interior Life of Our Lady”)
