One of the charges often leveled by Protestants against Catholics, especially when it comes to Marian doctrine and devotion, is that it has no grounding in Scripture. The New Testament, it is argued, says very little that supports these dogmas. There is perhaps no defined dogma that more demonstrates this than the most recent, the Assumption. But when we look at Scripture as a whole, however, we find a completely different story.
When St. Paul goes to Ephesus, the same Ephesus where the Beloved Disciple settled would eventually settle with Our Lady, he encounters worshippers of the female fertility goddess Artemis (Roman goddess Diana). This was hardly unique as many of the pagan religions had similar goddesses. It is into this historical reality that the Mother of God, who was a real person that could still be touched and seen, lived. So, the earlier New Testament writings had good reason to remain relatively silent about her role in salvation. This helped to keep the message of the Good News focused on Christ and avoided any chance that the pagans would wrongly assume that Christianity was simply offering a new pantheon of gods (like when St. Paul speaks at the Areopagus, Acts 17:22-32). Without great care, especially when she was alive, there would most certainly have arisen a cult that could have eclipsed or put her on par with her Son.
How St. John Described Our Lady
If it stopped there, then perhaps the objections that Catholics merely resurrected those practices might be valid. But it didn’t. For after she left the earth, St. John, the man who next to her Son knew her best, left the Church all that was needed for the foundation of Marian devotion. With surprising clarity, in what is an otherwise mystical and confusing book, John tells how he met Our Lady during his heavenly sojourn. He found the Woman clothed with the Sun with a crown of twelve stars who gave birth to the male child who was to rule all nations of the earth (c.f. Rev 12:1-5). Readers of John’s gospel would also know that when he uses the title “Woman” he is referring to Mary.
To make it perfectly clear who he is talking about, he introduces this section by mentioning something that would have immediately grabbed his readers’ attention—the Ark of the Covenant. “And the temple of God in heaven was opened, and there was seen the ark of his covenant in His temple…” (Rev, 11:19). In other words, in John’s inspired understanding, Mary is the Ark of the Covenant. And in calling her such, he now links everything that is said of the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament to the person of Mary.
The Ark of the New Covenant
Recall that the original Ark of the Covenant held God’s Word written on Stone in the Ten Commandments. Now, the true Ark of the Covenant carried the Word written in Flesh. The original Ark of the Covenant held a piece of the heavenly bread manna. The true Ark of the Covenant carried the Bread of Life. Finally, the original Ark of the Covenant held the staff of Aaron as a sign of the Old Covenant priesthood while the true Ark of the Covenant carried the new High Priest of the New Covenant.
This connecting of Mary to the Ark of the Covenant was not lost on the early Church either. The great defender of Christological orthodoxy, St. Athanasius in homily passed on the traditional link between the two when he said,
“O noble Virgin, truly you are greater than any other greatness. For who is your equal in greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word?…O [Ark of the] Covenant clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the Ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which divinity resides…You carry within you the feet, the head, and the entire body of the perfect God…you are God’s place of repose.”
Once the connection with the Ark of the Covenant is made, we can link it to another key text in the New Testament: the Visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth. David took the Ark of the Covenant into the hill country of Judea where he leapt for joy and the Ark remained there for three months (2 Sam 6). After the Annunciation, Our Lady, carrying the newly-conceived Son of God, travels into the same hill country where John the Baptist leaps for joy at the sound of her voice. She also stays there for three months. It is clear that St. Luke is deliberately evoking images of the Ark of the Covenant to suggest that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant.
The eventual resting place of the Ark of the Covenant has been the subject of speculation and rumor for many centuries. According to 2 Maccabees, the prophet Jeremiah hid the Ark in a cave and God would reveal its location at the appropriate time (c.f. 2 Macc 2:1-8). When his followers despaired that he did not mark the path to it, he prophesied that “the place is to remain unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows them mercy. Then the Lord will disclose these things, and the glory of the Lord and the cloud will be seen…” (2 Macc 2:7-8). During the Annunciation, Mary was “overshadowed by the Holy Spirit,” the description of which would have evoked the return the “glory cloud” that overshadowed the Tabernacle (c.f. Ex. 40). Now this same cloud is seen and announces that God has gathered the people together and shown them mercy. This overshadowing then marks not just the presence of God, but the presence of the New Ark of the Covenant. The Feast of the Visitation then is a celebration of the revelation of the place where the Ark of the Covenant can be found—wherever Mary went.
The connection between the Ark of the Covenant and the Assumption of Mary is made explicit by John during his heavenly vision. But the Old Testament also teaches that the Ark was never meant to remain on earth or, God forbid rot in a cave, but to go to its resting place with God in heaven (c.f. Ps 132:8). This is why when St. John Damascene, when marking the Feast of the Dormition of Mary, connects Our Lady’s Assumption with the Ark of the Covenant: “Today the holy, living ark of the living God, the one who carried her own maker within herself, comes to rest in the temple of the Lord not made by hands. David—her ancestor and God’s—leaps for joy; the angels join in the dance” (St. John Damascene, On the Dormition of Mary, II).
The quest for the Ark of the Covenant is over. It has been found and she is Our Mother Mary who brings Jesus with her everywhere she goes.