The Apocalyptic Mary: The Labour of Creation and the End of the World

This article argues for the philosophical and theological importance of the image of Mary as the ‘woman clothed with the sun’ in Revelation 12. It proposes to approach Mary as an apocalyptic figure: specifically, as an embodied sign, in whom the boundary between earth and heaven is crossed. As such, she troubles the very binary distinctions she is often used to reinforce: between male and female, earth and heaven, active God and passive creation, past and future. In dialogue with important reflections on the apocalyptic in continental philosophy of religion (including Derrida and Taubes), the article argues that Mary as the apocalyptic sign can challenge the pretensions of either secular philosophy or self-certifying theology to comprehend the relationship between God, humanity and creation. In reading Mary as both a liminal and a cosmic figure, her symbolic potential to disrupt dualisms is rooted in her own semiological ambivalence. The article concludes that this reading opens up new possibilities for an ‘intense Mariology’ in ways that challenge our notions of creation, labour and the limits of the world.