During the Visitation, when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, she spoke in a loud voice and said, “Blessed art Thou among women” (Luke 1:42). The pronoun “Thou” is used in the King James Bible, the Douay-Rheims and the American Standard versions. The New International, English Standard, and New American Standard translations employ the pronoun “You”.
It may be that replacing “Thou” with the pronoun “You” is in the interest of bringing the language up-to-date. We avoid using “Thou” is our daily conversations. Nevertheless, the fact that several Bibles have retained the personal pronoun “Thou,” is not without significance. A wise maxim states that before we make changes, it is always prudent to understand the meaning and importance of what is being changed.
We associate the use of “Thou,” “Thy,” and “Thee” with sects such as the Amish, Mennonites, and Quakers. However, these words have a vitality and persist in appearing in a variety of contexts. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” opens Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet #43. Lorenz Hart’s lyrics to a 1927 Richard Rogers’ song begins with, “Thou swell, thou witty, thou sweet, thou grand”. O Brother, Where Art Thou? is the title of a 2000 movie starring George Clooney. George and Ira Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing is a tribute to the American flag and to patriotism. “Thou” does have staying power. It should not be obsolesced.
It is a common practice among the Chinese to avoid personal pronouns for more respectful and appropriate terms. Hence, a father might say, “Would number one son, please hand honorable father that book”. In speaking in this way, special honor is ascribed to both the son and the father. “Would you hand me the book,” by contrast, seems flat and impersonal.
Perhaps no one has done more to preserve the significance of the word “Thou” than Martin Buber. In his classic, I and Thou (Ich und Du), he elucidates the special and irreplaceable importance that this pronoun has. For Buber, “I-Thou” is a primary word. It is essentially different from the other primary word, “I-It”. Paradoxically, the “I” of the first primary word is radically different than the “I” of the second primary word, even though the letters are the same. The “I” of the “I-Thou” is spoken with the whole being. The “I” of the “I-It” is never spoken with the whole of one’s being.
An illustration may be help in distinguishing one “I” from the other. An artist is painting a landscape. He observes a gentle flowing stream and a grassy plain where cows are grazing. He is completely taken by the objectivity of what he observes. He does this with great calmness. There is absolutely no sense of self-consciousness or nervousness in his comportment. And then, his equanimity is suddenly disrupted. An attractive young woman approaches him, smiles and asks him about what he is doing. He turns and looks at her. She arouses in him something that the landscape does not. An inner “I” is summoned. He is suddenly awkward, perhaps even speechless. “Love is reticent,” as Saint Thomas Aquinas has said. It takes a little time for him to gain his composure. His eyes meet hers. She has awakened his deeper “I” that is a component of an “I-Thou” relationship. The “Thou” he greets demands much more of him than did the landscape. It is eliciting the “I” that is an integral part of an “I-Thou” relationship. The experience is reciprocal. They are both involved in a being-to-being engagement. “So long as love is ‘blind,’” writes Buber, “that is, as long as it does not see a whole being, it is not truly under the sway of the primary word of relation.” Thus, “All real living is meeting”. Buber is a proponent of what are sometimes called “face-to-face” relationships. He is, therefore, a strong critic of the alienation between people that is prevalent in the modern world.
Buber is not being idealistic. When he states that “Through the Thou a man becomes I,” he is not referring to a magical transformation. The Thou gives us a glimpse of our authentic “I” and may inspire us to develop of more complete understanding of both our “I” as well as the inner being of the “Thou”.
If we apply Buber’s notion of the Thou to the words “Blessed Art Thou,” we begin to appreciate how Mary, as the Thou for our I, helps that deeper, more complete I to rise to the surface. The respect is mutual. Mary is not just another You that stands beside us. She is awakening our better self. And that is why there is a need for a special relationship that we have with the Mother of God. Mary is a Thou who is blessed among women, which is to say (if the reader will pardon the pun) among thousands of other women.
The “I-It” relationship is needed for practical affairs. We cannot live without “I-It” relationships. The world is composed largely of things. But it is also inhabited by human beings created by God with a certain inalienable dignity. We cannot be whole human beings without I-Thou relationships. We cannot summon our deeper I by ourselves. We need another to awaken us from our sleep.
Consequently, we need a special word for a special situation. By the same token we reserve our finest china for special occasions. The pronoun “Thou” is not overused and rightly so, since it should be reserved for the proper moment in the proper context. We lose something very important when we address Mary as “You” rather than “Thou”. This same reasoning should apply to the Lord’s Prayer: Thy Will be done should not yield to “Your Will be done”.
Photo by Ash Cresswell on Unsplash
