A response to crisis.
There’s been a lot of buzz lately about Christian “options,” in the vein of Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option. The publication of The Marian Option: God’s Solution to a Civilization in Crisis during May, a month traditionally dedicated to Mary, adds to that conversation. The book might focus that conversation even further on the Incarnation, as well as the promises and mandates that Christ’s death and Resurrection present to Christians.
“The benefits of choosing Mary go well beyond our own soul and spread out dramatically into the world,” author Carrie Gress writes in The Marian Option. “Mary shows us how the ‘yes’ of one person can change all of history. We know from the history. We know from the historian Toynbee that it doesn’t take many people to change the world. Your ‘yes’ might mean more to the world than you will ever realize this side of heaven.” We talk about this “option” and its implications.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: Benedict Option. Dominican Option. Reading about one option — never mind multiple options — can be exhausting! Will it ever end? Isn’t this whole conversation about living the Christian life seriously?
Carrie Gress: I know. Another option, really? I wouldn’t have bothered if I hadn’t stumbled upon something different that actually answered my own questions about what the world needs now. What I was looking for when I started reading Rod Dreher’s work was some sort of argument based on history and theology to explain why we needed Saint Benedict’s charism again. What The Benedict Option advises, as you mention, is really about going deeper into the Christian life — but that’s not exclusive to Saint Benedict. So I kept looking.
One thread I kept in mind is that when looking at Salvation History, patterns emerge. God supplies the antidote to the evil of every age. So for pagan Rome, Saint Benedict and his retreat were required both to protect what was left of civilization and to wash culture clean of pagan influences. It is hard for us, 15 centuries later, to imagine just how entrenched the Greek and Roman mythologies were in the civilization — every tree, flower, weather pattern, and so on had some affiliation with a god or goddess. Certainly, many Christian converts were made (and many martyred), but a scouring was necessary to give Christians new eyes with which to see the world, instead of through a pagan lens.
We can also see this pattern with Saint Francis of Assisi, who arrived as the poverello — the little poor man — when the Church was choking with riches. Or the Jesuits’ arrival during the tumult of the Reformation.
With the Marian Option, however, I was able to go deeper theologically, historically, and culturally, to see why and how Mary’s influence is so vital to every Christian (whether we know it or not). There is a tremendous amount of evidence pointing to the fact that Mary is the right antidote for our age.
To name just a few, first, look at women. On the whole, we are a pretty unhappy, angry, and confused group of people who have really lost our sense of who we are. Collectively, women exhibit a sort of anti-Mary mentality. Mary is the antidote to this attitude, and not in the saccharine, overly pious way that might initially occur to us, but in beautiful, dynamic, and unique expressions suited to every woman.
Second, we can look at the uptick in papal discussion about Mary and her role. Pope Leo XIII wrote no fewer than 13 encyclicals on her. Even in our own lifetime, Pope John Paul II had an incredible devotion to her, as does Pope Benedict XVI. Pope Francis has made his devotion clear and reiterated it again in his beautiful words about her at Fatima this past weekend.
And third, along with papal documents, there have been steep developments in Mariology — such as the work of Saint Maximilian Kolbe — which help every Christian understand Mary’s role as mother and as the link between heaven and earth. These are harder to put into pithy explanations or sound bites, but I lay them out carefully in the book, along with an explanation about why Protestants shouldn’t be afraid to come to her as a mother. Christ came to us through Mary. It is only fitting that we return to him through her as well. Time and again, that is what she does — brings us to her Son.
Lopez: Your full title is The Marian Option: God’s Solution to a Civilization in Crisis. How much of a crisis is our crisis?
Gress: Well, there are 3,000 abortions daily in the U.S. alone, saber rattling from Russia and North Korea, ISIS and al-Qaeda growing and expanding their terror targets, angry secularists seething at home, and moral confusion everywhere. Crisis might be an understatement. Even the Church is experiencing moral confusion in new and disturbing ways.
Lopez: How has Our Lady been the strongest force in conquering enemies, making converts, and renewing culture?
Gress: Most books about Mary focus upon one theological point or one apparition site, such as Fatima. I wanted to look at her role in history with a optical view. It takes me four chapters to answer this question in the book because there is so much evidence, but I’ll try to put it succinctly.
Mary’s influence and intercession span the globe in remarkable ways. For example, many have heard about the Battle of Lepanto where the Rosary was given credit for the Christian victory, but that battle is just the start of a much larger story, all driven by Marian devotion and intercession. Another clear example is the role Mary played in the life of Pope John Paul II. Here was a humble man with no family, money, or pedigree, but who lived through the harshest anti-Christian regimes. It was his strong devotion to Mary that not only helped him live through these awful times, but helped him play a pivotal role in bringing down the Soviet empire.
But Our Lady isn’t like a general who packs up when the war is won. She sticks around to build civilization up again, to help us have life in abundance. Henry Adams, the son of President John Quincy Adams, has a fantastic discussion of the role “the virgin” has played in culture. Comparing the wonder he felt when faced with a new invention called the “automobile,” Adams said that no matter how much this new dynamo (as he called it) changed the world, few things could compare with the influence of the Virgin Mary. The Protestant Adams had spent many years in Europe soaking up the culture and witnessing just how much of it was devoted to and inspired by Our Lady, such as the Gothic cathedrals bearing her name. Like a good mother, the Virgin Mary brings order and beauty to the families and cultures devoted to her.
Lopez: Why do I need to choose the Marian option? How do I?
Gress: Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Marian Option is that it doesn’t require much — praying the Rosary is a basic requirement. Marian consecration is another element that can be added. The real “why” here, aside from the incredible evidence of her intercession for us, comes back to who she is and who we are. We are her spiritual children and she is our mother. Unlike our earthly mothers, who are imperfect, she is God’s masterpiece — she is perfection and therefore knows exactly what we need even before we know it.
In the book, I mention that I’m not necessarily trying to refute any other option out there. But the Marian Option is more essential than any other option could be because of this basic relationship that we are called to live. Individuals may be called to another option, but Mary, as a good mother, helps guide us to how our gifts can best be used. There is an entire chapter explaining the transformation that takes place in souls that have put themselves under her care and protection. She will lead us to what we need to do, but first there has to be a real relationship with her. That relationship is best fostered through the Rosary and drawing closer to her Son and His Church.
Lopez: How are you so sure that the Marian Option is “God’s solution to a civilization in crisis,” as you write?
Gress: It may seem like hubris to suggest that I know what God is thinking. But again, the evidence is overwhelming that Mary isn’t just another saint among many. She is our spiritual mother that God has given to us to intercede in our lives. Saint after saint attests to this — that Mary is the “neck” connecting heaven to earth and that God is using her in powerful ways to bring us back to Him, to help us work out our salvation.
Lopez: Your “yes” might mean more to the world than you will ever realize this side of heaven. Why do people find this so hard to believe?
Gress: I suspect this is difficult because we like to see changes happen on a grand scale, and it is hard believe that our little acts can have any sort of global effect. Often, when we realize that we can’t do something huge, that is precisely the moment when we are tempted to give up. I think there is a spiritual reason for this. If we were able to do great things on our own, we might think we are really the ones changing the world, but when we know we can’t do anything grand, that is the moment when we allow God to truly work through us, to work with our littleness to do something great. Even a cursory reading of scripture reminds us of how God does magnificent work through the humble — babies, rocks, children, water, mud, the hidden, the uneducated — while confounding the proud with these humble objects.
We live in very troubling times, and our families seem to be rife with layers of struggles and difficulties, not to mention the larger geopolitical ones. And yet, God has provided for us through His Mother, if we are humble enough to ask. Sister Lucia de Santos, one of the children of Fatima, said that Our Lady has given such efficacy to the Rosary “that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families . . . that cannot be solved by the Rosary.” Once again, the solution is simple, beautiful, and Marian.
READ MORE:
Kathleen Beckman: Taking the Power of Prayer Seriously
David Limbaugh: The Humbling Encounter with Jesus in the Gospels
Father Thomas Berg: The Cross and Healing
– Kathryn Jean Lopez is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and an editor-at-large of National Review. Sign up for her weekly NRI newsletter here.