Mary Mother of the Church

Several years ago, as I sat praying the rosary, I was reflecting on Our Lady’s request that we pray it “for sinners.” Throughout the centuries, saints have spoken of the power of the rosary to change history, to effect profound conversions and transformation, even among the most hardened sinners. I imagined my prayers going out to some mystery person of whose great need only Our Lady knew. Perhaps someone dying alone in the remote reaches of Africa or Asia. Perhaps someone on the edge of doubt and despair or facing a critical decision between good and evil. Perhaps a great sinner in need of conversion.

As I prayed I found myself wondering more about this mystery person, and wishing I might be able to see the conversion first-hand. Wouldn’t it be fun, I mused, to see someone specific whose life was saved by the rosary? The answer was swift, and tinged with gentle laughter: “Well, you’re one of them.”

What?

This was a shock. Shock as in surprise, but also as in what accompanies an earthquake.

It was humbling, beautiful, and yet terrifying, to realize that I was recipient of some other mystery person’s prayers—perhaps the prayers of more than one person, perhaps people I have never met. To realize that Our Lady had looked down with her Son and chosen me as the beneficiary of prayers, that all along she and her Son were not just watching over me but watching out for me. My life was in more ways than I had imagined, all gift and grace.

I had previously thought of my spiritual journey as a path I had undertaken to get to God. I made progress by my own efforts; got lost or sidetracked by my own fault. But I suddenly saw with startling clarity how my life was not merely a path of my own making, but had been prepared and protected by both someones and a Someone. I began to see how much I had been led, how very much I had received.

Until that point, I had not realized the role Our Lady had in shaping my soul. Looking back I see clearly how often she was involved, and how nearly every new phase or mini-conversion was in some way connected to Our Lady.

Coincidence? No.

Tomorrow, we will celebrate a brand-new feast instituted by Pope Francis: Mary, Mother of the Church. This title is not merely honorary. As Mary was called to be the very real human mother of Christ, she is also our Mother and is instrumental in forming us into Christ.

After the Ascension, doing as Jesus had asked, the disciples gather in the Upper Room. “All with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus…” (Acts 1:14)

The presence of Our Lady at Pentecost is not a detail we should overlook or take for granted.

On the surface, however, Our Lady’s presence in the Gospels is much less than we might expect. Luke of course tells us of the Annunciation and the early life of Jesus, but nothing of Mary in His adult life. John tells of Mary present at Cana, and how her intercession brings about His first miracle. But then we do not see her again until the Cross.

We do not hear of Mary at the calling of the Apostles, the Sermon on the Mount, or the Multiplication of the Loaves. There is no mention of her at the Last Supper. Nor is she named among those who saw Jesus in His post-resurrection appearances (although it has always been assumed that He appeared to her first).

So, throughout His public life, Mary seems to be mostly hidden. At times, in fact, when she seems to be seeking Him, He seems to brush her off. (See When God Goes Missing).

And then we see her with the apostles on Pentecost when the Church is born. She is there praying with them in the Upper Room. And the same Holy Spirit who espoused and overshadowed her at the Annunciation, conceiving Jesus in her womb, now overshadows her spiritual children, making them into other Christs. Father Richard Veras writes:

What must Pentecost have been like for Mary? She who was the first to be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, who accepted her Yes and made Jesus present in her. She had been become the Mother of God, and at the cross her Son called her to be the Mother of his beloved disciple. She must have pondered the meaning of that in her heart; and perhaps on Pentecost, after waiting for the Spirit with the Apostles, her pondering received a response. She saw all of the apostles witnessing in a new way. That was John, but he had the life, the energy, the spirit of her Son. It was still Peter, but she recognized in Him the living authority of Jesus.

As we sometimes become amazed when we suddenly recognize the mannerisms of our parents or grandparents in our children or nephews and nieces, how much more profoundly must Mary have recognized her risen Son in each of the Apostles, and begun to understand what it meant that she was the Mother of the Church. For the one born from her womb was being born again in the World through the flesh of the Apostles. They would be the foundations of His Church, which would not be a merely human organization, but a Sacrament of His Person, alive and present in the world. The Mother of the Son of God, human and divine, was now the Mother of the Church, human and divine. The Incarnation was not only an event of the past; it was happening in the present. Jesus would dwell among us through the Church, and the Acts of the Apostles clearly traces the life of Christ lived in His Mystical Body.¹

When the apostles leave the room and go out to preach, they are so full of joy that bystanders accuse them of being drunk. I suspect Our Lady laughed with joy herself, as she saw Her Son continue to answer her prayer at Cana. And it is her joy to say to each of us, “Do whatever He tells you” as her spouse forms each of us into images of her Son.

Mary Mother of God, Mother of the Church, Our Mother, pray for us.

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Notes:

¹ Veras, Richard. The Word Made Flesh: Foreshadowed, Fulfilled, Forever. (New York: Magnificat Inc., 2017) pp. 142-143

Image of rosary and Mary picture by Anna Sulencka from Pixabay

Image of stained glass window by AJ jaanko from Pixabay