The More Radical Dependency --"Let it be"

I wrote about some of the connections between the feminist critique of autonomy-based theories of justice (a la Glendon), its connection with Alisdaire MacIntyre's work in Dependent Rational Animals, and how Catholic thought enriches that critique, in the 2006 St. John's symposium on the Jurisprudential Legacy of JPII.

But all this focus on man's dependence on man shouldn't obscure something else that seems missing from the Rush-like world view -- our dependence on God.  That's a dependency much more radical than even the dependencies of childhood, old age, and disability than is typically the focus of "dependency justice" talk.  Maybe I'm straining too hard to make a connection here, but I just wanted to share something from an amazing book I'm currently reading about an amazing woman by another amazing woman.  It's (yes, you're reading this correctly) The Complete Idiot's Guide to Mary of Nazareth, by Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda (and, yes, she is related, by marriage, to our very own Michael S.).

M. R. Scaperlanda points out that the words "Let it be" are spoken at three crucial points of the Scripture:  by God, during the creation of the world; by Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane; and by Mary, at the Annunciation.  Mary's "Let it be" became her life-long prayer.  I don't honestly know how this furthers the current discussion, but I keep returning to the following passage from the book on the significance of this prayer, which seems to me to be saying something radical about the "dependence" to which we're all called.  (And yes, the Beatles song keeps running through my head as I think through this.)

Mary knew that each human being is accountable, that what we do, how we live, and the choices we make are never without consequence.  So by choosing to say to God, "Let my life be your will, and not mine," meant she was willing to live through that end result -- not even knowing what that meant!

When Mary responded to the angel with the words, let it be done to me as you say, she was able to do so because her life's foundation included two important factors.

Mary believed in God, in a good and merciful God.  Her image of the creator of the universe was of a mightly and holy being, whose mercy to his people lives on from age to age.  And, because this was her understanding of God, Mary was willing to put her entire life in his care -- and her son's life as well!

Mary trusted her God so completely, so deeply, in fact, that she called herself the servant of the Lord.  This understanding of "servant," then, is not actually about submissiveness.  It is instead about trusting in God's goodness.  But it does include Mary's willingness to place the direction of her life in God's hands -- all of it.  No matter what "surprise" came her way.

Becoming a mother while still a virgin.  Giving birth to the Son of God.  Wise men from the east coming to pay her son homage.  Listening to her husband's dreams -- even when it meant leaving her home and family and living as refugees. 

In every new situation placed before her, Mary was able -- and open -- to see that reality, whatever it was, as parat of God's will for her life and the lives of those whom she loved.

She didn't have to, you know.  She chose to say yes over and over.  But just because her yes was a prayer did not prevent her from being accountable for the consequences of that yes, in every situation -- even standing at the foot of a cross watching her son die.

Mary was willing to turn her will and her life over to the care of God, and she did so deliberately and consistently, because in the midst of a crazy world, she trusted in the goodness of her Creator.