Through the Eucharist, God knits us together into one family just as He knits all of us together in our mother’s womb. All who partake of the Body and Blood are considered full heirs of His Kingdom,1 brothers and sisters. In Matthew 23:8-10, Jesus tells his followers to call no one father, teacher or instructor, “for you have one Father—the one in heaven.” But in giving Himself to us through the Church, He creates a way for Heaven to parent and instruct us (John 6:45-46 and John 17:20-23) and lead us into a life of holiness and virtue. He gives us a new family. In fact, the apostles frequently refer to themselves as spiritual fathers within this one faith and address the followers as children.2 Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 4:15, “…Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.”
Yet within a family, one primary relationship of a child is with the mother. Good mothers nourish us and protect us at our most vulnerable moments. They catechize before we even know how to sit up or smile. They comfort us during sickness and injury. They set us back up during our falls and failures. Good mothers look to the best interest of their children.
Jesus knew that in this family of Grace, we would need more than a good mother. We would need a perfect mother.
Jesus, in His tender mercy, gave us the one mother He had entrusted with his own care and protection and from whom He had taken His own human nature. He gave us the one mother who was full of grace, perfectly united to the will of the Father. He gave us His own mother and placed her in a special position of parental responsibility over our care and keeping within His Kingdom. He understood that her Immaculate Heart would always see to our best interest uniting us perfectly to God.
Preparing the Perfect Mother
Why did Jesus desire a perfect mother for Himself and desire to give this perfect mother to us?
In the Old Testament, God’s Holy Presence in the burning bush or on Mount Sinai always remains separate and untainted. His holiness could not be diminished. When He called the people out of Egypt, however, God instructed Moses to fashion the Ark of the Covenant and when this perfect container was finished and placed inside the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle, the Glory Cloud of God hovered over it. God could now remain with His chosen people to a degree. Only the holiest of men could step inside without instant death. They only took out the Ark to go to war when God commanded and promised them his power. Though the Ark was a beautiful facet of God’s plan of salvation, this Ark was only a prefigurement to allow humanity to understand the work God planned to do through Mary.
Just like the original Ark of the Covenant, Mary had to be perfect and free of sin or she would have suffered instant death when the Glory Cloud hovered over her (Luke 1:35). Just like the original Ark of the Covenant, Mary’s body, in carrying the infant Jesus, contained the Bread of Heaven (John 6:32), the High Priest (Hebrews 3:1), and the Word made Flesh (John 1:4). In order to contain this magnitude of Holiness, the angel calls her by the unique quality God has bestowed upon her for this unique mission: Full of Grace. This salutation reveals Mary has been given an extraordinary portion of grace in order to carry out God’s will. God made her perfect so that He could dwell within her and, through her, take on a human nature.
When the angel tells Mary she is to mother the Son of God, she answers, “Let it be done unto me according to thy word.” This is known as Mary’s fiat, which means “let it be done.” Mary acted with great trust in God’s plan and united her will completely to His plan of salvation. In response, God gives Himself to her in the Incarnation, forming His body from her Immaculate flesh and blood and completely entrusting His human life to her care and protection.
God’s perfect plan was not only to fill her with grace during pregnancy and the birth of Christ. Her role as Mother of God did not end by laying Him in a manger. It did not end when she weaned Him. While on earth living in a Jewish household, Jesus would humble Himself to her authority role under the law He had given to Moses on Mount Sinai. God, the Father would not have subjected His Son, the Incarnate Word, to someone who would have misused the position. Mary would raise Jesus with perfect unity to His will because even though He humbled Himself to her role, she still remained humble to His authority as God. God prepared her with an Immaculate Heart, a will perfectly in tune with the Holy Spirit. This preparation was important because when Mary stood at the foot of the cross, she alone would have had the parental authority to tell her Child that He must come down, continue to live with her and take care of her in old age like a normal son. Instead, full of grace, her Immaculate Heart fulfills God’s will. She alone confirmed His sacrifice with the authority of a parent and offered Him as the fulfillment of the sacrifice Abraham had once willingly prepared.
Jesus Gives His Mother
When Jesus was only eight days old, Simeon prophesied to Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”3 God had not left Mary in the dark. She knew Christ had a mission of salvation and, as the perfect mother, she desired to give herself to this mission no matter what it cost. When Christ suffered on the cross, God’s grace gave her the strength to see the sins which crucified Him and the people whose lives were mired in that sin. She understood that from His death the Church would be born from the Blood and Water which flowed from His pierced side. She silently endured the hours of Christ’s agony in sorrow, a poignant moment captured in her Title Our Lady of Sorrows as well as works of art throughout the centuries such as the Pietà by Michaelalgelo or Mater Delorosa by James Tissot. Despite her grief, she did not demand He come off the cross because her Immaculate Heart remained united to God’s will, ready for what God asked next.4
Scripture tells us in John 19:25-27:
Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.
This moment in scripture occurs in the final breaths Jesus drew before His death. Jesus, on the cross, saw His mother, and with the last of his strength He gave her away. Jesus wasn’t just tying up loose ends by making sure two of his loved ones had each other. John’s own mother, Mary the wife of Clopas, stood right there. Jesus knew that John, as his cousin, would have taken care of Mary as his aunt. He didn’t need to waste his dying breath unless this exchange was more than it appeared.
Though John is writing this gospel, he doesn’t say Jesus saw John. Instead, he writes that Jesus saw His “beloved apostle” and “the disciple” indicating that Jesus meant He saw each of us who are his disciples. St. Alphonse Ligouri wrote in his book Glories of Mary, “Let it be remarked that Jesus Christ did not say this to John, but to the disciple, to signify that the Savior appointed Mary for common mother of all those who, being Christians, bears the name of his disciples.”5 He saw all of us who love him, all of us who keep his commands and take up our own cross. He tells all of us, “Woman, behold your son.” and “Behold, your mother.” Directly after He offers them to each other, John writes, “…knowing all things had been accomplished.” Certainly, Mary becoming Mother to all of us was always part of the Divine Plan.
Mary, Full of Grace, accepts the role of mother to all of us, knowing it was our sin causing Jesus to suffer. Her love for us and her love for God sustained her through those moments, uniting herself with Jesus as He endured His redemptive sacrifice. Simeon’s prophecy was fulfilled. She saw beyond the pain of the moment to the future glories that God had in store.
John confirms this gift of Mary to us in the book of Revelations when he first identifies her in Revelation 12:5 by stating, “And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne.” Clearly, he is speaking of Mary and Jesus, but John is not finished. Just a few paragraphs later, he writes, “Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her children, those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus.”
Mother to the Early Church
After Mary, John, and the rest of the Body of Christ received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Mary remained with them. She selflessly continued the mission of Christ and devoted herself to the Church, the Body of her Son.
First, she went with John on his missionary journeys, and they eventually settled in Ephesus. Ephesus was a thriving coastal city connected to trade routes from the East and North, a perfect distribution point for the spread of Christianity and a central location for the apostles to frequently return on their own travels.
In John’s home, Mary nurtured the infant Church. This crossroads position allowed Mary and John to host pilgrims and missionaries from all over the known world. We can imagine the moments the apostles stopped by on their various missionary journeys, clutched her hands as loving children returning home to visit their mother, and sat beside the hearth ready to listen to her memories and wisdom. “Tell us all the things that you hid in your heart,” they must have asked since they were able to relate those memories to us through the gospels. Mary’s love of the Church allowed us to see those moments of His life.
Even before her assumption, Mary began to appear to those who needed her guidance. Our Lady of the Pillar6 marks her first apparition when she appeared to St. James (St. John’s older brother) in AD 40. She bilocated to encourage him at his lowest point of discouragement on his missionary journey. When she appeared, she brought thousands of angels to comfort him on the banks of the Ebro River (modern-day Spain.) From that point on Christianity flourished in that region. The book of Revelations itself is John’s testimony to an apparition and vision he received while exiled in Patmos. Mary never stopped working as our Mother, anxious to see the Body of Christ and the work of salvation grow throughout the world.
Queen Mother
The words revelation and apocalypse did not mean global cataclysm when John wrote the book of Revelations. Instead, they meant unveiling, something hidden revealed to all. John wrote in 1 John 3:2, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” The book of Revelations reveals the spiritual war which leads to the unveiling of the Kingdom of Christ.
In Revelations 12, written long after Our Lady’s assumption when John was in his seventies, Mary appears as Queen of Heaven clothed with the Sun, the moon at her feet, and a crown of twelve stars. One important cultural aspect of this vision allows us to understand his intent. Jewish kings in the Davidic Kingdom placed their mothers on the throne, not their wives. They honored their mothers with the authority to give them counsel and advocate for the people as seen in 1 Kings 2:18-20.
When Mary is placed on the throne in John’s Revelations and is simultaneously referred to as the Ark of the Covenant, it signifies Christ’s Kingdom has been established, his reign is in effect, and His mother received an honored position of authority at his side. Under the Queenship of Mary, as Ark of the Covenant, she has been given authority to crush the head of the serpent as prophesied in Genesis 3. Just as the Ark of the Covenant was brought out of the Holy of Holies when God led His people into battle, so Mary goes before us in battle. From heaven, Satan can not destroy her or the work Christ has given her as our mother, but from her protected place she still labors to bring about His Kingdom and reveal it to the world.
Mother of the Bride
In Revelations 20:2, John wrote, “And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” A first-century Jewish wedding day represented a personal Yom Kippur, the holiest day of one’s life where all sins are forgiven. Yom Kippur celebrated the day that God took Israel as His bride and made her holy. Both the bride and groom wore spotless white robes, valuable seamless garments which would later serve the couple as burial shrouds.
In Revelations 19:6-10, the children of God are revealed as a bride: spotless in white. Mary’s goal as mother and Queen is to clothe us in righteousness and raise us to be holy men and women. Revelations 20:2, 7-8, and 26-27, specifically warn that no unholy person will enter heaven.
Mary, filled with grace and gifted with the unique role of the Mediatrix of Grace, understands what we need to be equipped for our own journey to holiness. She advocates for us now just as she knew what the Wedding Feast of Cana (John 2:1-11) needed when she told the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.” Mary continually turns to us and confidently tells us, “Do whatever He tells you,” signifying growth in virtue. At the same time, she turns to the throne of God saying, “They need more wine,” signifying the outpouring of grace. She knows the power of the wineskin full of grace.
Humbling Ourselves As Children
In Matthew 18:4, once again Jesus refers to child-like humility, “Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” This child-like humility is an innocent openness that is ready to do God’s will without any selfish motives of its own.
When we approach Mary as a mother, when we devote ourselves or even consecrate ourselves, we are seeking Jesus in this child-like humility, acknowledging that this spiritual battle is so much more than we can handle on our own. Placing ourselves in Mary’s protection and care, as Jesus once did, she becomes our safe shelter where we can offer up our struggles like we do in the rosary when we “send up our sorrows in this valley of tears.” We can bask in her abundant graces, asking her for illumination and guidance to grow in holiness so that we can “be made worthy of the Body of Christ.” As a loving mother is proud of her child’s feeble attempts, Mary delights in us when we offer up our small and humble sacrifices, offering them to God the Father in union with Christ. Our Blessed Mother delights in us most profoundly when we can imitate her fiat to say, “I will serve” no matter how seemingly insignificant or overwhelming the role Christ asks of us. Under Mary’s guidance we can grow in holiness and approach the Eucharistic table, the fruit of her womb, with a brighter hope, wonder and awe, confident that we are one in the Body of Christ, part of the Heavenly family.
- Matthew 19:29; 1 Corinthians 10:16-18; Romans 8:17; Galatians 4:1-7; Hebrews 2:11-14
↩︎ - 1 Corinthians 4:15; Hebrews 12-13; 1 John 2:1; 3 John 1:4; 1 Thessalonians 2:11 ↩︎
- Luke 2:33-35 ↩︎
- Revelations 12:1-6 ↩︎
- Liguori, Alfonso Maria de’, and St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori. The Glories of Mary. American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family & Property, The (T F P), 2015. p 13 ↩︎
- https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12083b.htm ↩︎
