Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,
Tomorrow is our monthly contemplative prayer service and because Simon is in the middle of a big transatlantic move, I will be joined instead by Nóirín Ní Riain, a wonderful friend here in Ireland many of you know well.
Because it is the month of May and Nóirín and I both have such a devotion to Mary and the sacred feminine, Mary will be the focus of our prayer service, as well as the Celtic festival of Bealtaine.
In my book Birthing the Holy: Wisdom from Mary to Nurture Creativity and Renewal, I explore 31 names for Mary. Here I share an adapted excerpt from the chapter on Mary as the Morning Star.
Morning Star: She Who Awakens the World
Dawn is the time of new awakening, new light, new life, all qualities connected to the resurrection. The first Christians faced east when praying. By the eighth century most Christian churches were built to be aligned in an east-west orientation with the altar facing east in the direction of the rising sun. I love this directional orientation as a physical reminder of how we are called to orient ourselves.
In the story of Epiphany, the magi follow a star to discover the Christ child. Stars have a magical quality in the scriptures offering just enough light to illuminate the pathway ahead. We can imagine in times before electric lighting, how much more mysterious, magical, and important the night sky was and being able to trace its movements for navigation and sense of time.
The morning can be full of promise and new beginnings and Mary as the morning star is symbolic of all that we hope will come in a new day. Many of the early Church fathers wrote about the “morning star,” the stella matutina, that shines brightly before the sun rises symbolizing Mary who is the light preceding the brilliant illumination of the sun (Son). This morning star was actually the planet Venus, which depending on the season appears in the sky as a bright, steady light a couple of hours before sunrise.
St. Aelred of Riveaux, a monk in the 12th century, wrote: “Mary is this eastern gate. For a gate which looks to the east is the first to receive the rays of the Sun. So the most Blessed Virgin Mary who always looked toward the east, that is, to the brightness of God, received the first rays of sun or rather its whole blaze of light.” The east is the direction of the new dawning, the first rays of illumination, and the journey of awakening. Mary is facing in the direction of light and reflecting that back to us to offer us hope of what is to come.
Swedish mystic St. Bridget describes Mary as “the star that precedes the sun.” The celestial bodies are symbolic of our inner life, calling us to luminosity and transcendence. Much like the Star of the Sea, the Morning Star beckons to us, guides us, and shows us the way to a life illuminated by wisdom and Mary’s guidance for us. The Morning Star shines the way to our true calling.
St. Bonaventure writes: “despair not; raise up your eyes and cast them on this beautiful star; breathe again with confidence.” Cardinal John Henry Newman had a devotion to Mary and held her two titles of mystical rose and morning star in high esteem. He considered Morning Star to be her ultimate name and title as it connects her to the heavens while the rose is earth-bound and will eventually wilt and decay. She appears in the darkness before the dawn to herald the light that is coming. She invites us to awaken from our sleep to prepare for illumination.
Mary as the Morning Star calls us to the inner work of embracing darkness and shadow while also finding the glimmers and gleams of inner gold. She invites us to rest into those places of darkness, lifting them up to our loving gaze, and then offering them to her, bringing us closer to wholeness. Mary also reminds us that we are made from stardust, she holds a place to remind us of our dignity and humanity.
Just in the way that the North Star connects to an inner dimension of ourselves, so too does the Morning Star. When we are able to locate our inner guidance system and lean into the wisdom we find there, we find ourselves directed toward our calling in life. Mary helps us to discover this aspect of ourselves by being an outer symbol of an inner reality. I think of the North Star as more of our inner direction and the Morning Star as more of our inner promise that light follows dark and a new day is beginning. We live embedded in a family and cultural setting which can determine a lot of what we believe our calling to be. Mary helps us to distinguish between the various pulls in our lives and helps us to set down the masks and personas.
Please join us for our contemplative prayer service tomorrow!
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE
Blessing and excerpt come from Birthing the Holy: Wisdom from Mary to Nurture Creativity and Renewal by Christine Valters Paintner (Ave Maria Press)
Mary Block print by Kreg Yingst
