Hello, all! And happy Feast of the Birth of Mary! I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch and not blogging for some time. I hope to get back on track with monthly posts. In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy this reflection. I originally wrote it for the Assumption of Mary, but I thought it was appropriate for the Birth of Mary also, the day her body made its appearance. Blessings!
The Body of a Life Well Lived
Blessed as she was among women, Mary’s day-to-day life was much like everyone else’s—a life that no doubt took its toll on the body. Scars, sunspots, wrinkles—she would not have escaped them. And why would she want to? Life tells its stories and leaves its beautiful marks on every body.
Like you, I’ve lived into every scar on my body. I’ve earned these wrinkles! Every sunspot is a part of my story—a story of long childhood days in the Texas sun, of every moment I can squeeze into my backyard garden. Every ache and pain is a reminder that I’ve birthed children, carried them on my hip long past when I should have, hauled baskets of laundry up and down basement steps for decades, bent my knees infinity-plus-one times for weeds, socks, and Legos.
My body hasn’t been through as much as Mary’s, working as she did in heat and sun, carrying water, walking great distances, toughing out pain. But it has its own good stories to tell.
Mary always goes before us—but not to show us how different she is. Sometimes the likenesses are what prod us forward, to know what it really means to be Marian. Clothed with the sun, the moon at her feet, crowned with stars—suntanned, vibrant, aging, loved—the body of a life well lived.
She goes before us, body and soul, and we will follow. In heaven as on earth, our bodies will tell their stories.
Amy Ekeh, “The Body of a Life Well Lived,” from the August 2022 issue of Give Us This Day, www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2022). Used with permission.
The Virgin Mary, 1505, Francesco Marti (goldsmith), Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington