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| Barocci's "Nativity" |
A book that I’ve had forever---over thirty years, anyway---is “The Martin Luther Christmas Book,” translated and arranged by Roland H. Bainton, whom I met while at student at Yale Divinity School. Luther writes of Mary:
“In the village of Nazareth she appeared as a mere servant, tending the cattle and the house, and no more esteemed than a maid among us who does her appointed chores. Her age was probably between thirteen and fifteen years. And yet this was the one whom God chose….Quite possibly Mary was doing the housework when the Angel Gabriel came to her. Angels prefer to come to people as they are fulfilling their calling and discharging their office. The angel appeared to the shepherds as they were watching their flocks, to Gideon as he was threshing the grin, to Samson’s mother as she sat in the field. Possibly, however, the Virgin Mary, who was very religion, was in a corner praying for the redemption of Israel. During prayer, also, the angels are wont to appear.
"The angel greeted Mary and said, ‘Hail, Mary, full of grace.’ That is the Latin rendering, which unhappily has been taken over literally into German. Tell me, is this good German? Would any German say you are full of grace?....I have translated it, ‘Thou gracious one,’ but if I were really to write German, I would say, ‘God bless you, dear Mary---liebe Maria,’ for any German knows that this word liebe comes right from the heart…
"We must both read and meditate upon the Nativity. If the meditation does not reach the heart, we shall sense no sweetness, nor shall we know what solace for humankind lies in this contemplation. The heart will not laugh nor be merry….There is such richness and goodness in this Nativity that if we should see and deeply understand, we should be dissolved in perpetual joy. Wherefore Saint Bernard declared there are here three miracles: that God and man should be joined in this Child; that a mother should remain a virgin; that Mary should have such faith as to believe that this mystery would be accomplished in her. The last is not the least of the three….
"Had she not believed, she could not have conceived. She held fast to the word of the angel because she had become a new creature. Even so must we be transformed and renewed in heart from day to day. Otherwise, Christ is born in vain. …This must be our daily exercise: to be transformed into Christ, being nourished by this food. Then will the heart be suffused with all the joy and will be strong and confident against every assault” (pp. 21-23).
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