That Wonderful Belt of the Theotokos

Today, August 31st, is a somewhat unusual (sounding) feast: “The Placing of the Venerable Belt of the Most Holy Theotokos.” Now that’s a mouthful, especially if you’re a convert from Evangelicalism.

As the Tradition goes, the belt (or sash) used by the Holy Mother of Christ, Mary, was entrusted to the Apostle Thomas. After being safeguarded by a number of people, it was brought to Constantinople and placed in the Church of the Theotokos around the end of the 4th century. It was associated, centuries later, with the healing of the Empress Zoe.

These ancient stories, I am welcoming more and more in my own faith. Yes, they sound “outlandish” to one unaccustomed to them. But, to most, the story of Jonah and the great fish, or Moses and the Red Sea, or St Peter’s holy handkerchief, or…. well, the “Christ” who came back to life and ascended on a cloud….. these sound equally outlandish. We tend to see as outlandish only those stories that we do not grow up hearing as children.

What these stories do, is to remind me that God is not above acting within His creation, even in seemingly mundane and sometimes “crazy” methods. Rich Mullins would have agreed: “God is crazy about us!” he might have said, and He sometimes acts in crazy ways.

Today’s Gospel reading, the story of Jairus’ daughter, reminded me that God’s stories are not so crazy; I am simply so unbelieving. Is it really that unusual that God would heal someone through the belt of His Mother? Is it more outrageous than that he would do so by a brass serpent perched upon a pole? More silly than the thought that if one could only push forward far enough to fall within St Peter’s shadow, one would be healed of illness?

Jesus’ response to the people went thusly: “Do not fear, only believe…. why do you make such a tumult and weep?” By nature, many of us struggle to believe that God actually continues to do things. Belts of Saints strike us as unusual, at best, or simply fables, at worst. What a tumult we make, protecting our modernist pride and egotistical sense of aloofness from the superstitions of our ancestors.

But, in so doing, we slide right into that “two storied universe” that Fr Stephen warned us about. We seek to keep our own environment “rational” (read, “secular”), and to keep God in his own place (read, “ancient times”). It is one thing to believe that God might have used a metal snake to heal people long ago (after all, no test tube or archaeological dig can disprove it, so we’re “safe,” no?). It’s entirely another to believe that perhaps this “God who never changes” still does such things occasionally. So, we remove God either to “heaven” or to “history.” Either does the trick nicely; we no longer have to have faith, only to believe. Believing that God once did something is not the same as having Faith in the God of the Present, the God Who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Today’s feast was actually good for me. How so? Well, the Sacred Belt never healed me of a physical ailment. I’ll never see it, most likely. But, it reminded me that God is not so proud that He cannot stoop to heal us, body and soul, in a myriad of manners. I could give in to the secular urge to disbelieve. I could ridicule, as the people did Jesus, when he expressed hope for the little girl. But, I choose to believe. I choose to believe, because only by this choice does life make sense, and because something within me is drawn to believe by a force that I know is larger than myself. Deep within me, I encounter something that beckons me to let go of my prideful disbelief, even though it is it cloaked with terms like “cautious” and “realistic” and “mature.”

I almost chuckled at the end of the reading, when St Mark tells us that Christ commanded the disciples not only to tell no one, but also to “give her something to eat.” Here I am, fretting over whether a miracle really occurred; there Christ is, worried more over whether a little girl was hungry after her long “sleep.” It’s funny how interwoven Jesus’ world was; miracles and mid-afternoon snacks were not yet sundered and relegated to either Sundays or Saturdays (but never both to the same day). Christ was in all, reconciling the whole world to Himself. Perhaps things are not so different today.

Lord, help me to not fear, but to believe. Grant me a familiarity with your presence. Take from me the self-centered disbelief that is more concerned with the pride of my own mind, and replace it with a faith comfortable with Your presence in all things, even belts. For You are Holy, both now and to the ages of ages, Amen.