Luther claims that only faith saves us. A classic example of faith, according to St. Paul, is Abraham, the father of all believers (cf. Rom 4:1-3). Mary and Abraham were mainly compared by Protestant theologians. The comparison then served as a polemic against Marian piety. Let us note one of them who has a world renown: Sören Kierkegaard, who has gained great respect in many ways. His teaching about Mary deserves attention. It is based on the conviction that Mary has primary importance of faith in salvation. He does not primarily admire her motherhood in the physical sense, but sees Mary’s greatness above all in her faith. As he meditates on the Gospel texts that discuss how the fullness of salvation will take place, Kierkegaard concludes that Mary’s faith surpasses that of Abraham. However, both remain in the same orientation of faith. In both cases, it is a heroic faith, full of sacrifices. Both Abraham and Mary receive God’s word with absolute obedience. Therefore, they remain alone with God alone, if we can say so. They have no human support and sympathy. They are in situations of tension. Abraham is subjected to ridicule because he believed that he could have a son in his old age, as God had promised him. Mary hides her secret from Joseph, her fiancé, keeps everything only in her heart. Joseph gradually learns what happened thanks to the angel’s announcement in the dream, Mary does not tell him anything. In the strength of faith, Mary follows Jesus throughout his life, in his suffering and in his death.
Kierkegaard therefore sees all of Mary’s greatness, her extraordinaryness, in faith. But heroic faith includes sacrifice because it is the essential bond of union with Christ. And by the same principle, faith purifies. The Virgin Mary, because she has faith of an extraordinary quality, is purified in a way that surpasses all other ways. Therefore, Mary remains the greatest example of spiritual life for Christians. In his diary, Kierkegaard writes: “No one who understands how religion is feminine in its nature will not be surprised that a woman is represented as a teacher, as a model of true piety. Because a woman must be silent (cf. 1 Cor 14:34), therefore she cannot teach, therefore silence before God is what belongs to the essence of religion. How we must learn from women! We learn from a woman a humble faith that does not rule, that doubts and hesitates: “Why?”, “What will it be for?”, “How is this possible?”, she asks, but at the same time she humbly believes and as Mary says: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord”. It speaks, but let us note well that this is silence. Learn true listening to the word from a woman, from Mary, who does not understand and does not understand, but keeps the word in her heart (Luke 8:15). Take over from the woman the silent, deep and religious pain that will be silent before the face of God. Learn from Mary. Because it is certain that even her heart – as was predicted – will be pierced by the sword of pain (cf. Lk 2:15); he does not despair either when he hears the prophecy or when it begins to be fulfilled.
In this context we can come to a conclusion: if the message of salvation in the Old Testament begins with the faith of Abraham, the father of all believers, at the beginning of the New Testament we meet Mary’s faith, the mother of all believers in Christ. Faith, participation in God’s knowledge, in Christ’s truth, gradually grows. According to St. Basil and the Fathers, the growth of faith in Mary’s life reached its critical point at the moment under the cross. Here Simeon’s prophecy was fulfilled: “And a sword will pierce your own soul” (Luke 2:35). At first, a doubt penetrated her whether the incarnation of the Son of God was worth it, when he was thus disfigured in front of his own people. On the icons, Christ himself teaches the Virgin Mary to understand the supreme wisdom of the cross. With this, her faith reaches its peak and becomes a vision. Christ dies on the cross, rises from the dead and ascends to heaven. The Ascended Virgin Mary follows him, and thus the mystery of Christ is completed.
In the West, we are used to images in which we see the Virgin Mary ascending to heaven above the empty tomb, surrounded by the apostles and looking up in amazement, while the liturgy reminds us that we, together with them, already live, at least in our mind, in heaven. In the East, the same mystery is expressed by the icon of the Dormition, i.e. the death of the Virgin. It is not she who ascends, but rather Christ who descends from heaven to take her soul into his hands: “The souls of the righteous are in God’s hands, the torment of death will not touch them (Mud 3,1). At the end of the world, Christ must descend to earth to restore everything permanently as the kingdom of God. For the Virgin Mary, this happened already at the moment of her death, when he descended to her. Everything is completed with that. According to V. Lossy, he is “the eschaton, a realized created person before the end of the world”.
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