Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant

The Scriptures foretold the visit of God. Not a man who would make himself God after the manner of the heathen, which Israel abhors, but God would visit his people. God had come down to deliver Israel, saying, “I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land” (Ex 3:7-8). God’s presence descended between the wings of the cherubim on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant (Ex 25:22). But later Isaiah moaned: “We have become like those over whom thou hast never ruled, like those who are not called by thy name. O that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at thy presence” (Is 63:19, 64:1).

In the Bible, the idea that God visits his people is very present, it is the heart of Jewish hope, even if the how is not clear from any prophecy. At the Annunciation, Mary says, "How will this come about" (Lk 1:34).

“The angel answered, / and said to her:
The Spirit of holiness will come, / and the Power of the Most High will descend upon you,
therefore the child to be born of you / will be holy,
and it is Son of God / that he will be called” (Lk 1:35).

The Spirit of holiness [Aramaic: rūḥā dqūḏšā] can be translated “the Spirit of the holy place” or “the Holy Spirit”.

The Spirit “will come [tīṯe]” and if this verb had a complement, it would mean "bring, give".

The power of the Most High “[naggen ᶜlayky]”. The verb "naggen" means that the power of the Most High "will invade" Mary. Furthermore, with a complement, this verb means to bring down something or someone.

Now there is a complement, and it is the one that Mary will give birth to.

He will "be holy" in a very special way: holy because he was conceived by the action of the Spirit of the Holy Place! And he will be called "Son of God" not in the common sense in which Israel and its king were already called "sons of God", in a strong and very special sense because he was conceived by the descent of the power of the Most High (God).

Who does not see that Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant where God descends?

St. Luke described the Holy Spirit covering Mary (Lk 1:35), she is covered on all sides with the fires of the Spirit, just as the Ark of the Covenant was covered with pure gold, inside and out (Ex 25:11), and enveloped by the cloud, the glory of God: Mary is the place of the divine presence, she carries the Word incarnate, the bread of true life, the new manna, Jesus the Messiah. In this image of Mary as the Ark of the Covenant, we are offered a just vision of the mediation of Mary: not an obstacle to be crossed that would delay us, but the excellent place that offers us the divine Presence.

The story of Our Lady's (Mary's) visit to Elizabeth in Luke's Gospel (Lk 1:39-44, 56) seems to be modelled on the transport of the Ark of the Covenant from Qiryat Yearim to Jerusalem, as we read in the previous chapter:

- The journey of the ark and Mary takes place in the region of Judah (2 Sam 6:1-2 and Lk 1:39).

- Joy overflows: the joy of the people and David dancing before the ark, the joy of John the Baptist, who leaps in his mother's womb.

- Both David and Elizabeth shouted for joy: “Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud voice [Greek: anaphoneô]…” (Lk 1:42). (Lk 1:42) The Greek verb anaphoneô is used in the Bible exclusively for liturgical acclamations (1 Ch 16:4) and especially those that accompany the transport of the Ark of the Covenant (1 Ch 15:28; 2 Ch 5:13). Elizabeth has seen in Mary the one who brings the holy presence and cannot hold back that great cry of ecstasy which characterises the appearance of the Ark, the place of the Lord's presence. David said: “How can the Ark of the Lord come to me?”. Elizabeth exclaimed : “How can the mother of my Lord come to me” (Lk 1:43).

- The presence of the Ark in the house of Obed-Edom (1 Sam 6:10,11) and the presence of Mary in the house of Zechariah are grounds for blessing: “The Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all his house... because of the Ark of God” (2 Sam 6:11,12) - As soon as Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth “was filled with the Holy Spirit” (Lk 1:40-44).

- The ark stayed in the house of Obed-Edom for three months (2 Sam 6:11; 1 Ch 13:14) while Mary stayed with her relative "about three months" (Lk 1:56).

The parallelism between "the Ark of the Lord" and "the mother of my Lord" is quite remarkable; under the play of transpositions one guesses that Mary is venerated as the new Ark of the Covenant! This also leads to other harmonics:

Just as the Ark of the Covenant contained the tablets of the law, Mary is the guardian of the sanctifying law.
The Ark of the Covenant was meant to accompany the wanderers. Mary invites us to follow Jesus the Messiah as on a "pilgrimage of faith" [1]. A pilgrimage that will end in Heaven.
As the Ark of the Covenant was overlaid with gold inside and out, so Mary is all pure, immaculate, all holy, covered with the fires of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Holy Place.
As the Ark of the Covenant was made of incorruptible acacia wood and taken to heaven, so Our Lady was taken up into heavenly glory.

Long before the construction of the basilica at Qiryat Yearim, "Mary, Ark of the Covenant" is already in the litanies of the Blessed Virgin, indeed, this title is based on the Scriptures.

In the ancient Ark, God had commanded that the manna that had fallen from Heaven be kept in a golden vessel (Heb 9:4). Is not the Blessed Virgin Mary in this sense also the Ark of the Covenant through the Holy Communion she herself made, the Sacred Ciborium and the Monstrance of love of Jesus the Host? We will come back to this.

The Ark of the Covenant had poles to carry it, it was related to a march, it accompanied the people in Exodus, and Revelation describes the final Exodus. When the 7^e trumpet sounds, a sign is given: the ark appears in Heaven (Rev 11:19). When Jericho was taken, seven priests had to carry seven trumpets made of rams' horns before the Ark of the Covenant and go around the city seven times on the 7th day, so that the wall would fall down (Jos 6:4-5). In the following chapters of Revelation, the fall of Babylon, or Babel the great, the trading city that corrupts the whole earth, is mentioned, from which it is necessary to come out to enter the new Jerusalem.

[1] According to the expression dear to the Second Vatican Council, Lumen gentium 58, an expression taken up by John Paul II in the encyclical letter Redemptoris Mater.