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Elaine Elizabeth Belz
AMONG WOMEN, BLESSED

I do not come bearing gifts like the magi,
or introduced by angels like the shepherds. I have
mistimed and miscalculated and misunderstood, and
the Christ I seek

is still a fetus, still developing the fingers he
used to form the world, the eyes that surveyed
it, perceiving it as “Good.”

Mary, you grow this human God inside you.
Eternity now bears your DNA.
Here, at the navel of the cosmos,
you prepare a place for him.

Holy Mary, Gestator of God,
I can only wait with you —

But is the kicking I feel inside me
also Life? Is the emptiness around me
also at work to make him room?

Let me linger here and learn from you;
for soon you will be wearied with new motherhood,

and all the world will come to suckle
at your breast.

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This poem represents what I love so much about poetry: its ability to evoke meanings differently at different times to different people, perhaps in layers, perhaps only vaguely. I can’t tell you what it means—other than to repeat it to you. As a poem, it can only say what it says how it says it. To me, that’s an ideal of poetry, and one I think (I say with trepidation) I’ve succeeded in here, for the most part.

While I can’t explain what the poem “means,” each image feels just right to me: fumbling my way into marveling at the divine ordinariness of Mary’s pregnancy and her now-and-not-yet-present Child, seeking rest and wisdom in the presence of the Theotokos, even while she’s working out how to be the Theotokos. Scripture tells us Mary pondered the mystery of the Incarnation quietly in her heart, although she wasn’t always quiet. Hymn-writers who should have invested in thesauruses and rhyming dictionaries have done us all a disservice by calling her “meek and mild” (as far as I can tell, because they needed a rhyme for “child”). But anyone who’s read the Magnificat knows better:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; *
    for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed: *
    the Almighty has done great things for me,
    and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him *
    in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm, *
    he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *
    and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, *
    and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel, *
    for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers, *
    to Abraham and his children for ever.

Luke 1:46-55 as it appears in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, p. 119.¹

I think I want to ponder my poem side-by-side with the Magnificat and see what new meanings emerge for me. I certainly hope I—or, if you prefer, the poem’s persona—would not be sent away empty (having arrived empty, I doubt it). However, this is a woman who is, indeed, called “blessed” by Christians in every generation; who am I to presume to hang out with her?

It’s about to get crowded, though. Like James Joyce famously wrote in Finnegan’s Wake of the Catholic Church, “here comes everybody.” Mary is a popular figure for so many reasons. Sadly, she is too often dehumanized in the way that still all too common for women—being put on a pedestal. As most women know, as “essential workers” know, when anyone with more social status than you lavishes praise on you, it means you, as a person, are not being seen, let alone considered. “Oh, she really runs the place,” the boss will say of the secretary, who is underpaid and never gets a raise. That sort of thing.

One old English carol lyric sums it up nicely:

“Mother and maiden was never none but she; well may such a lady God’s mother be.”²

It’s the ultimate misogynist’s fantasy: a woman who is a mother and a virgin, so far removed from normal womanhood that she can be idolized, objectified, manipulated, kept at a safe distance. More like a pet, however much you might, superficially, exalt her.³ She can be a variable, made to be whatever you want or need her to be. We know so little about her in her own right.

But many Christians do pray to Mary.⁴ So if we keep in mind that we’re talking to a real person—one who was chosen by God for a terrifying and special vocation, sure—I think we can find ourselves sitting with and learning from her, in the silence she keeps or in the words of revolution she sings.

Meanwhile, “here comes everybody.” Perhaps in Mary’s presence, whether in the preparatory time of Advent or during Christmas or any other time of year, we can soak up some of the grace, wisdom, and strength God has supplied to her, and would supply to us, to face whatever daunting vocation we may have been given.

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A note on the title change: “Among Women, Blessed” is obviously taken from Gabriel’s address to Mary: “Blessed are you among women.” However, by reordering the words, I hope to open broader possibilities—such as finding blessing among women, perhaps; or however else that title speaks to the reader. NB: With the feminist inflections in this post, I want to make it very clear that trans women are women, and I denounce all things TERF. I also hope people of all genders/gender identities can find themselves in this poem.

I think “blessed are you among women can imply that Mary is blessed only among women; like the priest in footnote 3 below, even Mary has nothing on (certain) men. I hope that altering the word order might at least interrupt the unfortunate reading that has Gabriel calling Mary blessed only compared to half of humanity.

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1. The Book of Common Prayer of The Episcopal Church (USA). The Magnificat (also known as the “Song of Mary”) is a canticle in the liturgy—Evening Prayer, in this case—and so, as with a Psalm, it has asterisks to indicate where each verse might be read antiphonally, or, if chanted, where the chant ends or changes. I’ve left them in because, well, why not. Go ahead and chant it if you have a chant tune handy. Even if you’re on the bus. ↩︎
2. “I Sing of a Maiden,” which has been set to various tunes over the years. It’s included in Britten’s Ceremony of Carols. ↩︎
3. Again, Joyce comes to mind: In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, a priest trying to sell a priestly vocation to the young Stephen states that “…not even the Blessed Virgin herself, has the power of a priest of God…” Chapter 4, available online here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4217/4217-h/4217-h.htm#link2HCH0004 ↩︎
4. NB: Praying to Mary or any other saint isn’t the same as praying to God. The basic idea is that Christ has destroyed death, and so the Communion of Saints is not divided by it. If I can ask a friend on earth to pray for me, why can’t I ask a friend in heaven to pray for me? Ideally, devotion or prayer to saints is meant to build that friendship with them and, with them, with Jesus. ↩︎

Merry Christmas.