MARY: A MOTHER IN THE HEART OF THE CHURCH.
June 6, 2022
Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church.
“When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved,
he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple,
“Behold, your mother”.” John 19:26
A Namibian proverb says: “A mother is always a mother.” And
an Eritrean proverb adds: “A home without a mother is a desert.”
There is no other beautiful image that matches better with
the Virgin Mary than that of the mother. The Magisterium of the Church
emphasizes the most this image. On January 1, while starting our journey in a
new year, the Blessed Virgin is celebrated as Mother of God, the greatest and
most solemn of all the Marian titles. After the Holy Spirit came on the
disciples and made them a community of believers or a Church, Mary is presented
to us as the mother of this community. For, on the day of the first Pentecost,
when the Apostles and the other disciples of the Lord were gathered in the
Cenacle, Mary stood among them with the care of a mother journeying with her
children.
It is said that first taught by Saint Ambrose in the fourth
century, the title of “Mother of the Church” for the Virgin Mary was proclaimed
by St. Paul VI on November 21, 1964, at the conclusion of the Second Vatican
Council’s third session.
Robert Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for
Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, provided some spiritual
reflections in a commentary accompanying the decree: “The water and blood which
flowed from the heart of Christ on the Cross as a sign of the totality of his
redemptive offering, continue to give life to the Church sacramentally through
Baptism and the Eucharist. In this wonderful communion between the Redeemer and
the redeemed, which always needs to be nourished, Blessed Mary has her maternal
mission to carry out.”
Cardinal Sarah’s commentary reminds the followers of Christ
that “if we want to grow and to be filled with the love of God, it is necessary
to plant our life firmly on three great realities: the Cross, the Eucharist,
and the Mother of God. These are three mysteries that God gave to the world in
order to structure, fructify, and sanctify our interior life and lead us to
Jesus.” (From Newsletter of the Committee on Divine Worship, March 2018, USCCB)
The Church as a community of believers of Christ and on a
journey on this earth is not an orphan congregation. We have God as Father. We
have Jesus as our Brother and Head of his Body, the Church. We have the Holy
Spirit as an Advocate to defend us in our trials. And lastly, we have Mary as
our Mother to advise and cover us with a maternal embrace.
The first reading, bringing us to the original disobedience,
shows us the image of the first woman, the first mother as the cause of the
downfall of the whole humanity. Through Eve's fall into temptation, we all
became sinners. Nevertheless, Eve remains our mother, "the mother of all the
living," so, the mother of all sinners.
In the Gospel, another great image of the mother is that of
the suffering Mother, the Stabat Mater Dolorosa. It is about Mary standing at
the feet of the Lord's Cross. When all the disciples fled from him, at the hour
of his Passion, among the little few who remained with Jesus was Mary, his
mother. She had been with him from the womb to the tomb, from joy to sorrow,
from the first to the last day. Consequently, she was given the privilege to
savor and have a part in the Lord’s glory too.
The calling of Mary Mother of the Church is not an invention
of the Catholic Church. It is all the truth about who the Blessed Virgin is.
For, if we accept the fact that the true Church is the Body of Christ. Mary
stands as the mother of that Body, just as she was the mother of the corporal
body of the Lord.
The Motherhood of Mary is a call for us all to be eager to approach her in our needs. She knows better how to direct and present them to her Son. Mary alone has the keys and the secrets to the heart of Jesus. Therefore, taking her as our Mother, we allow Mary to take us as her children, brothers, and sisters of the Lord and to open to us the secrets of the heart of her Son.
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