Crushing the Head of the Serpent Who Still Troubles the Peace of the World
“My Lady Mary
Fiery Chariot of the Godhead
More splendid than the Sun, and more radiant than the Moon,
Bride from the Land of Galilee,
What shall I call you?”
This beautiful poem to the Mother of God from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church comes from Harp of Glory (Enzira Sebhat): An Alphabetical Hymn of Praise for the Ever-Blessed Virgin Mary from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Layered with symbolic biblical images which praise the Mother of God in each letter of the Ethiopian alphabet, it joins in the tradition of the great Akathists and Theotokians of the Church to give us a rich meditation during this time of the Dormition Fast.
“Mary is radiant and praiseworthy, because she is the demonstration to the world of what the resurrection glory of Christ will look like in the eschatological moment of the revelation of the perfect kingdom,” writes translator Fr. John Anthony McGuckin in the introduction. “But she is not a merely passive example of transfiguration.”
Fr. McGuckin describes the powerful role the Theotokos is given throughout the poem: “Now, in her glory, the poet describes her as powerful and philanthropic, like her Son. Her eschatological glory is not a time of idleness, but a process wherein Virgin takes the initiative constantly to work beneficent philanthropia among the righteous of the Church.”
Images alluding to the Theotokos as “the bringer of peace” and the “Tree of Life” are mingled with powerful interpretations such as “you are the the strength that resided in the hair of Sampson.” In these allusions, McGuckin tells us, “She thus appears (as she does in the Byzantine Akathist and in most of the Marian literature of the Early Church) not as Mary the meek and mild maiden, but as the mighty Warrior Virgin, who is eager to help her kin, and crush the head of the serpent who still troubles the peace of the world.”
Other lines call the mind the poetry of the Psalms:
Through you the humble are exalted,
And those who have hatred in their heart are turned back to love.
The rich rejoice in you
And the poor also spend their lives in hope because of you.
As we journey this month through the Dormition Fast, these meditations remind us of the rich gift humanity has been given in the personhood of the Theotokos. May we turn to her as our Champion Leader and Mother, asking for her intercessions of peace to our troubled world. And may we join in prayer with the poet and pray, “Under your wings protect me, and spread your shade above me…That I can gather into the cellar of my heart, the honeycomb of your love.”