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If Mary points us beyond our traditional divisions, ideologues of all persuasions—conservative and liberal, feminist and anti-feminist—have long attempted to use Mary to argue their causes, with varying degrees of success. But Mary ultimately resists all causes. Like our God, she is who she is. And Mary is, in the nationally televised words of the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart (who prefaced his remark by saying, memorably, "The Catholics got one thing right") "the mother of God." From the Council of Ephesus to the less-respectable reaches of contemporary American evangelism, Mary holds her own.

As theotokos, Mary is also the mother of Wisdom. Unlike Zechariah, who responds to his annunciation concerning the birth of John the Baptist by inquiring of the angel, "How will I know that this is so?" Mary asks, simply, "How can this be?" It's an existential question, not an intellectual one. God responds to Zechariah by striking him dumb—for the entire gestation of his child, a nice touch—while Mary finds her voice, making the ancient song of Hannah her own. For me, the essential question is not what author placed Hannah's words in Mary's mouth, and with what theological intent. What is far more important is how I respond to this threading of salvation history from 1 Samuel to the Gospel of Luke. How do I answer when the mystery of God's love breaks through my denseness and doubt? Do I reach for a reference book, or the remote control? Am I so intent on my own plans that I ignore the call, or do I dare to carry the biblical tradition into my own life's journey? When I am called to answer "Yes" to God, not knowing much about where this commitment will lead me, Mary gives me hope that it is enough to trust in God's grace and the promise of salvation.

When I first began visiting Benedictine monasteries some twenty years ago, I was so ignorant of Scripture, despite an upbringing in Methodist and Congregational churches, that I did not know where the prayer the monks and nuns prayed each night came from. Gradually, I learned that it was a passage from the first chapter of Luke, and that for centuries before the Reformation it had been employed as the church's traditional vespers canticle. It was called the "Magnificat" because it begins with that word, in Latin translation; in English, it reads, "My soul magnifies the Lord."

I did not know that I was one of many Protestants, both laity and clergy, who had begun filling monastery guest rooms and choir stalls, and discovering there much common ground. What could be more refreshing to a Protestant than a daily immersion in Scripture, not only in communal prayer based on the Psalms but with a rhythm of hearing and responding to entire books of the Bible read aloud? I sensed that I was drawing from the tap roots of Christianity, from traditions and practices of prayer that had existed before the church split into the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, and long before the Reformation. I could claim as my prayerbook the entire Psalter (and not just psalms deemed suitable for Sunday morning); I could open my eyes and ears to the literary and theological treasurehouse of the early church; and I could reclaim Mary as a significant figure in my Christian faith.

No doubt it was my repeated exposure to the Magnificat in monastery choirs that led me to make it the focus of encountering Mary in the Scriptures. Each time I pray, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior," I am compelled to ask, with Mary, "How can it be" that salvation has ways of working around all of the obstacles of sin, ignorance, and defiance that I place in its path? "How can it be" that God troubles with so wretched, self-centered, inconstant, and spiritually impoverished person as myself. Who, after all, am I?

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December (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46