Traditionally, May is Mary’s month and in many churches and homes throughout the world her image is crowned with a garland of flowers. Accompanied by images of Mary from our churches, we reflect on the part that Mary plays in the life of the Church.
A teenager stands on the stage in front of a few hundred others. He holds a microphone in his hand, looks nervous.
Bishop Lindsay who stands next to him welcomes him, tries to make him feel at ease, looks at the T- shirt he’s wearing. “Iron Maiden. Sounds like a description of Our Lady,” he says. There is laughter.
Mary. The Iron Maiden.
The boy who wears the T-shirt is probably well into his twenties by now, maybe touching thirty! It’s been quite a few years since I’ve been to the Walsingham Youth Pilgrimage. Even then, ten years ago, Iron Maiden had been around for many years even before that teenage lad was born, at a time when I was a teenager too.
Mary has been around for even longer.
The Iron Maiden.
Strong, resilient, constant, dependable.
That’s the image we get from Holy Scripture. Throughout the ministry of Jesus, Mary is a constant presence, experiencing the hardships and the difficulties, sometimes at a distance but never far away. She travels with him. Moves to his momentum.
She is there when Jesus’ family thinks he has gone mad, when they are concerned for his health and well being. Tries to push through the crowd to speak to him.
She is there when he dies. She is broken but resilient. Dependable and loving. An Iron Maiden. The handmaid of the Lord. Submissive to God but stubborn and serious enough to tell the stewards at Cana’s flagship wedding to do whatever he tells them. She orders them to take his orders.
Meanwhile, that teenage lad is stood on the stage at Walsingham’s pilgrimage of the young, ready to tell his story, his own story of faith. We all have a story to tell. Stories connect us. We make stories of our lives. They help us give meaning to who we are. They make us matter.
Mary matters to Jesus. She matters enough that in his dying words he creates a covenant of love in that place of death, gives Mary and John to one another, creates a new community of faith even as his blood pours to the very ground which will envelop him.
Mary’s story continues into the new life being created from the momentum of God’s hand in the world, stirring things up, and telling the even greater story of our Salvation.
Jesus’ resurrection means that more is to come. When the Holy Spirit’s power is poured out on a praying crowd squeezed into a first floor room, she is there, side by side with the Apostles.
Her story is crowned in the life of heaven for which she and we were made.
She hasn’t gone away. Never will.
An Iron Maiden.
Made to last.
The staged teenager tells his story, talks of his life and those moments of faith which mark him, makes connections with those who listen.
I wonder what T-shirts he wears today. And if the Iron Maiden features in his life.
Stubborn, strong, resilient
Pointing us to her Son.
Images of our Lady will be crowned in our churches on Sunday May 5
South Cardiff Ministry Area 
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