Tuesday, March 25, 2014

From Eve's NO to Mary's YES


When I taught high school I tried to teach with visuals as much as possible; movie clips, sacred art, memes, intentional doodling in our notebooks, and then through what I call "theography." It's simply a way to capture the typology of the Old Testament in a graphical, tech savvy way. I use a stylus on the iPad and my favorite app was (and is) Paper by Fifty Three. 

The drawing above tried to capture the dichotomy of the two mothers of the human race, as well as that of the two fathers (or husbands perhaps fits better). 

Typology is an incredibly rich gift for interpreting and understanding Sacred Scripture, and it's as old as the Bible itself. It's essentially God's theography or "divine writing" found in water, rocks, trees, people, places, events. God uses everything in the world and every word of Scripture to speak to us. That's how He rolls, and the wrappings of HisTruth have multiple layers! I'd be continually surprised by my freshmen each year as they discovered new "gems" in our Biblical Studies classes. 

Today is the awesome feast of the Annunciation. The dawn of salvation is breaking over the humble heart of the Virgin of Nazareth, and the angels await her answer with bated breath. When her yes comes it continues to echo throughout her entire life right up until the end. And at that foot of the cross, the yes  again unlocks power. Tremendous power is unleashed by Mary's yes that unravels the sin of the first and of subsequent women throughout history whose yes was repressed, or locked up out of fear of all the yes would entail. 

Christ too unleashes power. His yes fills in the hollow silence that Adam gave when put to the test. 

May we sons and daughters of Eve and of Mary, of Adam and of Christ truly tap into that yes. May it unleash power too for us. The power of His redemption!

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