MIRIAM AND MARY

There's something about Miriam we often overlook: we usually say she's Moses's sister. First and foremost, Miriam was a prophet. There's something about Mary we often overlook: we usually say she's Jesus's mother. Mary was also a prophet.

There's something about Miriam and Mary we often overlook: both play major roles in the Bible's most important narratives, the Exodus and the Christ Events. We know their names come from the same root. That root is actually Egyptian and many scholars say it means "rebelling against a bitter system."

Mary's Magnificat is probably one of the most powerful prophetic passages in the New Testament. Mary, a young Palestinian woman, followed a God who scatters the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; who brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly; who fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty.

This young Palestinian woman followed a God who takes sides, a God who takes the preferential option for the poor, a God who brings down kings and kingdoms, a God who weeps with those who weep and who cries with those who cry.

This young Palestinian woman is alive today. Yet the proud, the powerful, and the rich who pretend to venerate her fail to see her among the lowly and the hungry as they struggle against life-negating and death-dealing forces: in Gaza, among the Lumads of Mindanao, in Myanmar, and among Occupied Peoples. Moreover, the proud, the powerful, and the rich who pretend to venerate her tag so many who are working for "life in all its fullness" as enemies of the state, as terrorists, or as communists.

So, Jesus had John the Baptist as teacher. But before there was John, there was Mary: The Prophet. And she taught her son well. Very well indeed.



*image "The Annunciation. Gabriel and Mary." JESUS MAFA (Vanderbilt Divinity Library digital archives)