Maria Sacerdota

As I research my sermon for the 4th Sunday in Advent (also the winter Solstice, I'd like to note!), I came across this amazing poem about Mary ... who is the focus of this week's Gospel text. Just as Mary's Magnificat forever challenges the status quo, so this poem by Alla Renee Bozarth challenges our perceptions of Mary's relationship to her child. 

Maria Sacerdota—

Mary, Protopriest of the New Covenant

 

Before Jesus

was his mother.

 

Before supper

in the upper room,

breakfast in the barn.

 

Before the Passover Feast,

a feeding trough.

And here, the altar

of earth, fair linens

of hay and seed.

 

Before his cry,

her cry.

Before his sweat

of blood, her bleeding

and tears.

Before his offering, hers.

 

Before the breaking

of bread and death,

the breaking of her

body in birth.

Before the offering

of the cup,

the offering of her

breast.

Before his blood,

her blood.

And by her body and blood

alone, his body and blood

and whole human being.

 

The wise ones knelt

to hear the woman's word

in wonder.

Holding up her sacred child,

her God in the form of a babe,

she said: "Receive and let

your hearts be healed

and your lives be filled

with Love, for

this is my body,

this is my blood."

 

--The Reverend Dr. Alla Renee Bozarth