The Hiddenness of the Holy Family: Unveiling the Tent and the Ark (Part II)

-- PART I --

This series explores Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the aspect of their Hidden Life. Namely by drawing on 2 Maccabees 2:4-8 which mentions how at the time of the Babylonian conquest Jeremiah hid the tabernacle tent, ark of the covenant and altar of incense in a cave. Part II of IV looks at God's incremental unveiling of the Mystery of Jesus, the Tent, followed by Mary, the Ark.

A depiction of the Ark of the Covenant, 16/17th Century, Unknown Painter.

PART II: UNVEILING THE TENT AND THE ARK

1. Step One: Unveiling the Tent

 

1.1 Why Show the Tent First?

We know that Jesus is the center of the Holy Family, the culmination of its glory and the reason for its greatness. Quite simply, this is because Jesus alone is God. Hence we learn why God hid the other two persons of the Holy Family—Mary and Joseph, in their individual identities and trinal-dynamic in relation to Christ, from explicit awareness. God first wanted to establish a firm foundation of faith in the Person of Jesus Christ as the Messiah and Incarnate God. ‘First things first,’ as the saying goes. This Christocentricism first had to be established in His Chosen People—the New Israel of the Church, made of Jew and Gentile alike. A Christocentric foundation had to be laid before the glories of Mary and Joseph (glories caused by God, and pointing to Him) were apprehended, lest misunderstanding arose.

1.2 Purging Idolatry

After all, the converted pagan Gentiles, like the Babylonians with the temple articles, and even like the idolatry inclined Judeans of old, might have easily deified Mary and Joseph to the status of gods; worshiping them as deities alongside Christ. This might seem like a ridiculous notion, but the stupendous dignity of Mary above all, if understood with the clarity we possess today after two millennia of Marian dogmatic development, but without the same corresponding Christological precision that has developed over centuries, some of the early Christians could have easily transferred their worship of pagan goddesses to the Virgin Mary, and even Joseph might have been seen as an additional deity.

This possibility is demonstrated when one considers that Saints Paul and Barnabas in their journey to Lystra and Derbe were hailed as pagan gods—Hermes and Zeus—because of the miracles God worked through them (Acts 14:11-12). If such idolisation took place over these holy men who were inferior in dignity to Mary and Joseph, it’s not hard to imagine that it could have easily took place regarding Mary and Joseph if God wasn’t so prudent in ‘holding back’ the explicit and widespread knowledge of their God-given dignities. The first Jews who came to Christ might have been more inclined to reject Jesus as the Messiah if a faulty understanding along this line took place. They’d flee from anything smacking of idolatry. Hence we see the wisdom of God who first weaned the Gentile Christians from idolatry to monotheism—to first recognise the Tent-Pitcher, Christ Jesus, as One with the Triune Godhead. Partially veiling the dignity of Mary and Joseph from the Church in the meantime

1.3 God's Incremental Style

Another reason God kept Mary and Joseph mostly hidden until centuries had passed in Mary’s case, and over a millennium in Joseph’s, is because God prefers to reveal His secrets, His precious truths incrementally to the human mind. It took thousands of years for God to finally reveal Himself in the Incarnate Word, preparing the way through various holy men and women and prophets. There are many reasons we can intuit as to why God would act thus. Take for example a rare and precious liqueur. If stored in a cabinet and given out and drunk once every now and again a sense of specialness is preserved, and the taste is appreciated all the more. Yet if an endless supply was at one’s disposal and it could become a daily affair, drinking it anytime one wanted, a sense of its specialness would be lost, and familiarity might even lead to contempt for it. As the proverb goes, “Hast thou found honey? Then eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.” (Prov 25:16).

In His wisdom God thus pours out His truths portion by portion, and never all at once, so that each truth is savoured and appreciated accordingly. God is thus glorified to the maximum and the Church is illumined all the more from taking time to savour each and every truth across the generations. Yet if God laid out every truth in manifest awareness to the Church from the beginning, the fallen human mind couldn’t duly process such a bombardment, and like someone who gorges themselves at an ‘all-you-can-eat buffet’ and becomes sick and starts to loathe even the sight of food, some of these truths would inevitably be ‘vomited up,’ not ingested—not understood, and thus disrespected, and all the truths would be less appreciated because of such an overwhelming manifestation.

1.4 Christ the Tent in Whom All is Revealed

The thing is, God has manifested His truths fully in the Person of Jesus Christ—Truth Incarnate. In the words of John of the Cross, quoted in the Catechism: "In giving us his Son, his only Word... he spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word - and he has no more to say" (CCC 65). Yet Jesus is like a hive which is made up of countless deposits where honey is stored, and the Father has spoon fed His Church portions of honey from numerous of these deposits, but only later has He started spoon feeding from those deposits containing the honey of truths about Mary and Joseph. We are not simply encouraged but commanded by the Father to eat and savour the abundance of honey which the pallet of the Church in Her earthly members is able to savour today. Hence we read, “Eat honey, my son, for it is good, and the honeycomb is sweet to your taste.” (Prov 24:13).

1.5 First the Christ-Section, then the Mary and Joseph Sections

To fit in with the aforementioned buffet and tent analogy we might say Jesus is also like a catering tent in which countless bain-maries are stored, and like a chef, the Father only uncovers one dish at a time, so that each is savoured and digested. The Mary and Joseph section of the Heavenly Catering Tent has been ‘opened up’ later than the Christ section, the central and main section.

This ‘Christ section’ was opened by Jesus at the Last Supper, beginning the 'endless course' of the endless Feast enjoyed by the Church on earth—and which will continue until the end of time, and forever in heaven. Yet later on it has pleased the Lord to open up the Mary and Joseph sections. Sections which complement the Christ section, the Main Meal. Perhaps we might think of Mary as the desert section and Joseph as the salad bar or drinks bar. Jesus is what it’s all about, the main meal of the faith, and this is why God hid the desert section and salad/drink bar partially for a time. Yet providing everything is excellent, whenever has a desert, salad or drink subtracted from the main meal? Never! It adds to the meal, and helps us enjoy it more.

This is why God has always intended to ‘open them up’ to the pilgrim Church, because He wants us to enjoy Divine Life in His Son to the full, and He wants to delight in us to the full as well. God accomplishes this by sharing with us His beloved Mary and Joseph who only lead us closer to God's Son who is also their Son. But in due order, after Jesus, God first shared with the Church the gift of Mary His Mother.

2. Step Two: Unveiling the Ark

Once belief in Jesus had been firmly pitched and pegged down—the Christocentric Tent firmly in place—then and only then did God reveal the second article of His Spiritual Temple, the New Ark, the Blessed Virgin Mary, in full array as it were. That is, then and only then did God lead the Church as a community to learn more about Mary and Her dignity. For example, only after four hundred years in 431 at the Council of Ephesus was the first explicitly Marian teaching defined as dogma: Mary as the Mother of God. Over the centuries additional dogmas would be defined, most recently the dogma of the Assumption in 1950. Sure, the Church was never totally ignorant about the dignity of Mary, but nor was the pilgrim Church fully aware either. True, there were individuals and sectors of the Church in all ages who were ahead of their time Mariologically speaking, but even so, often these elements and the Church as a whole lacked the Marian clarity we have today, a clarity we will necessarily gain into the future.

2.1 Unveiling to the Pilgrim Church What is Already Unveiled in Christ Her Head

It is also very important to note we are not talking about God making new revelations that inferred more about Mary. Revelation was completed in Christ who is the Revelation of God. This revelation chronologically ended at the death of the Apostles (CCC 66-67). We are simply speaking about a deeper penetration of that fullness of Revelation already completed in Christ, and which the Church possesses in Him, but is yet to fully unpack. This unpacking includes aspects of Divine Revelation relating to Mary which the Church over time developed its awareness and appreciation of. As the Catechism states:

Even if Revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries. (66).

Therefore, because a Christological foundation had been set, the focal point established, the development of the Marian dogmas complimented and deepened this Christological focus. Far from taking away from the worship of God, the development of the Church’s understanding about Mary led the Church into higher planes of understanding and worship—a worship conscious of Marian intercession and secondary-mediation, and a greater understanding about who Jesus is, as God made man, “born of a woman” (Gal 4:4). Yet also who we are called to be “as God’s adopted children” (Rom 8:17). This is not too complicated to grasp, since truths open way to truths; and learning about someone’s mother only ever helps us know more about that someone.

2.3 The Ark Glorifies the Lord

When we think back to the ancient ark, it was at its best not an obstacle to the worship of God, but a profound aid and instrument to advance Israel’s worship of the One God. We mustn’t forget—God commanded the construction of the ark, and God doesn’t order idolatry, nor make mistakes, but knows what is best and beneficial. The misuse of the ark on the one hand, and the dismissal of the ark on the other, hampered divine worship, and this fault lay with the people, not the ark, hence why God preserved the ark in hiding, while He allowed His people to be chastised in exile.

In the same way, the dignity of Mary show-cases the dignity of God who operated and operates in Her. God commanded the first ark to be built; and similarly God decreed the existence and maternal office of this Second Ark, the Blessed Virgin Mary. This New Ark of the Testimony does not take away from God’s glory, but She testifies to the glory of God, as this Ark, the Virgin Mary, declares as such in the hymn of Her praise: “My soul magnifies the Lord” (Lk 1:46).

God simply hid most of the contours of the New Ark from the Church until the Church had been prepared to receive Her accordingly. We should be grateful to live in a time when the New Ark of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, stands mostly revealed in the midst of our Temple, the Tent of God’s House on earth—the Church. This Ark can help us worship God more perfectly, and know Him more intimately. We would be naïve to think the Church has attained a complete apprehension of the understanding about Mary’s dignity which it mysteriously already possesses in Christ. For one thing, the magisterially employed terms mediatrix, co-redemtrix and advocate are yet to be expounded upon definitively. There is always more we can learn, in breadth and depth.

2.4 ‘Heaven was Opened, and the Ark of His Covenant was Seen’

There are a few powerful passages in the Book of Revelation that can be interpreted regarding God’s unveiling of the dignity of Mary to the pilgrim Church.

Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child (Rev 11:19-12:2)

When read in sequence, without dividing the portions of text according to chapters, as the text originally would have appeared, we see that the Ark and the heavenly apparition of the woman are connected. The ark is seen within God’s temple, accompanied by mighty signs, “and a great portent” appears in heaven: “a woman clothed with the sun” and she is “with child”. This is not a stretch considering the flow of the narrative and the use of the conjunction “and” (και) in the Greek. Even thematically there is an undeniable connection, since Mary has long been referred to in ark imagery, and the woman here in Revelation has long been understood according to one layer of interpretation as Mary. For example, Oecumenius in the 6^th century writes, “It is speaking about the mother of our Savior” she is depicted “as in heaven and not on earth [… because] she is exalted, wholly worthy of heaven, even though she possesses our own human nature and substance.”[i]

The above passages from Revelation can thus be understood as God’s revealing to the Church about the Woman Mary, the New Ark. Opening the heavens to show the Church more about Her. A revealing complete from the perspective of eternity, but which is unfolding here in time in the apprehension of the Church on earth. This gradual unveiling about Mary to the Church is symbolised by the successive wonders that accompany the ‘seeing’ of the ark in heaven: first lightening, then voices, thunder, an earthquake and hail—each separated in the Greek by the conjunction και (“and, and also”). One could interpret each of these five signs as representing the four proclaimed Marian dogmas which were defined one after another over many centuries, and the fifth postulated dogmatic decree yet to be proclaimed.[ii] Yet putting such matters aside, our main point here is to show how God gradually and slowly has the led the Church into a deeper understanding about Mary, who as the New Ark has mostly been brought out of ‘hiding’ and obscurity from the cavern of the Church’s mind. A process still taking place. For "many daughters have gathered together riches," many souls are filled with God's grace and glory, but "thou [O Mary] hast surpassed them all." (Prob 31:19)

In Part III we'll explore the unveiling of St. Joseph, the Altar of Incense of the New Covenant. 

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[i] Oecumenius, Commentary on the Apocalypse, 12.1-2, as found in William C. Weinrich and Thomas C. Oden eds. Revelation, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament XII (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsityPress, 2005), 174.

[ii] Mediatrix, Co-Redemptrix, Advocate.