The Life of the Virgin<\/a> written by St. Maximos the Confessor. In St. Maximos’ work, Mary is portrayed as a key influence in the life of the early Church.<\/p>\nPrayer was also at the core of all of these significant occurrences. Mary’s parents prayed to God for a child. Mary spent a life in private personal prayer and formal congregational corporate prayer. Mary shows us that prayer is the water that God uses to make the garden grow.<\/p>\n
Forgiveness<\/h4>\n
Third, in Mary we find the epitome of forgiveness. Mary was a mother who chose the path of forgiveness rather than of hate in the name of “justice”. She saw her Son persecuted, unjustly tried and executed. <\/p>\n
Yet, amidst her pain and grief, she recognized God’s divine plan at work. She did not get caught up in her own circumstances and put aside all earthly cares and concerns to seek the will of the God.<\/p>\n
After the customary forty days of purification according to the Jewish custom and to present Jesus for dedication, Mary and Joseph went to the Temple to give the priests a pair of doves to as a burnt offering.<\/p>\n
There they encountered a righteous and devout man named Simeon who prophesied to them of their Holy Child’s destiny of greatness and the difficulty of His life’s work. The prophecy ended with a reference directed to Mary herself, “And a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Luke 2:34).<\/p>\n
One can only imagine that horror that Mary must have endured watching Her Son suffer and die on the Cross. The prophetic words of Simeon over three decades earlier had been realized. Yet we never find Mary losing faith, seeking vengeance or harboring animosity. <\/p>\n
Mary shows us what forgiveness is all about. She is free to love unconditionally because she is not bound by an unforgiving spirit. How much better lives would be if we followed her example of forgiveness!<\/p>\n
The Great Example, Not the Great Exception<\/h2>\n
Mary is not merely a figure found in books. The late theologian Alexander Schmemann wrote that “Mary is the great example, not the great exception”. God shows is in the example set by Mary – her obedience, prayer life, and forgiveness — how He can work through His creatures.<\/p>\n
All we have to do is to respond to Him with an open heart.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
John G. Panagiotou is a contemporary Christian theological writer. He is a graduate of Wheeling Jesuit University and St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. He can be reached at johnpan777@gmail.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mary is the preeminent follower of Jesus and an example to all believers. Everything she does and says points to her Son.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1897],"tags":[1905],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14036"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14036"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14045,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14036\/revisions\/14045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}