FAUSTO GOMEZ OP
At the lovely chapel of the Saint Thomas Aquinas Priory in the University of Santo Tomas (Manila), there was a carving of Our Lady on the main wall of the altar, to the left of the big cross that holds centrality next to the Blessed Sacrament. Under the feet of Our Lady is this inscription: Ecce Mater Tua: Behold your Mother. I love it!
The motherhood of Mary is the source of all her privileges and graces. She was conceived without original sin (she is the Virgin, the Immaculate Conception); she was taken up to heaven body and soul (she is Our Lady of the Assumption).
Mary is the Mother of God (cf. Lk 1:26-38). This is how she is called from the first centuries of Christianity. She was declared Mother of God at the Council of Ephesus (431): Theotokos (God-bearer), Mother of the Son of God, of the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. She is the mother of the humanity of Christ which is united essentially to His divinity. Humanity and divinity constitute the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son of God and of Mary. Before conceiving Jesus in her womb, by the Holy Spirit, she conceived Him spiritually in her “yes” of faith (cf. Lk 1:45).
Mary is the Mother of Jesus, the Son of God (cf. Lk 1:35), the Mother of the Lord (cf. Lk 1:43). “…the Blessed Virgin…conceived, brought forth and nourished Christ. She presented Him to the Father in the temple, and was united with Him by compassion as He died on the Cross. In this singular way she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope and burning charity in the work of the Saviour…” (LG 61).
Mary is “the Mother of God and Mother of the Redeemer. Redeemed by reason of the merits of her Son and united to Him by a close and indissoluble tie, she is endowed with the high office and dignity of being the Mother of the Son of God, by which account she is also the beloved daughter of the Father and the temple of the Holy Spirit. Because of this gift of sublime grace she far surpasses all creatures, both in heaven and on earth” (LG 53). Mary “occupies a place in the Church which is the highest after Christ and yet very close to us” (LG 54).
Mary is also the Mother of all. Let us imagine Jesus crucified. Mary, His Mother and the Beloved Disciple are at the foot of the cross. Jesus looks at Mary and pronounces His third word from the cross: “Woman, behold your son,” and to the Beloved Disciple: “Behold your Mother” (Jn 19:26-27). Jesus then and there gives his dear Mother to John, and through him to each one of us. Undoubtedly, Mary is our Mother.
Mary is indeed our Mother because Christ is the Only-Begotten Son of God, and we are the Father’s adopted children. The Risen Lord: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (Jn 20:17).
Saint John Vianney said that the Blessed Virgin Mary is better than the best of mothers. Mary, then, is truly beyond compare, because the mother who bore us in her womb and taught us to walk and to smile and to love and to pray is the best person in the world, as my father told me with tears in his eyes when his mother died. Kahlil Gibran was right when he wrote: “The most beautiful word on the lips of mankind is the word ‘mother.’” Mary does not replace our own mother. She is our Mother in a different dimension. Mary is our Mother, that is, Mother in the Spirit, Mother of those reborn in the Spirit. Spiritual motherhood goes hand in hand with spiritual filiation.
Mary is our spiritual Mother. Jesus is the Head of the Mystical Body – the Church – and the Virgin is the Mother of the Church, of the community of disciples, who are members of the Church, with Mary as the first, for she is the disciple of disciples, the humble handmaid, the closest to Jesus. Why? “Because she cooperated with her charity in the birth of the faithful of the Church that are members of the head” (St. Augustine).
Mary’s spiritual maternity is a maternity of grace: she is the one “full of grace” (Lk 1:28). By reason of her obedience, hope and charity, her sublime supernatural life, Mary is “our Mother in the order of grace” (LG 61). Jesus is the only Mediator, and Mary – subordinated to Christ – can be called the Mediatrix of all graces. Under Christ, in the Holy Spirit, Mary is channel of graces to us: “In her we have a great and faithful Mediatrix before Christ” (Luis de Granada).
Hence, our Mother, the Virgin Mary, guides us to the sacraments, channels of grace, and, in particular, to the Eucharist, in which Christ’s Body of the Virgin Mary is really present. St. John Paul II tells us that Mary is the Woman of the Eucharist, the first and the best tabernacle of Christ (cf. Ecclesia de Eucharistia).
In the Immaculate Conception Shrine in Washington D.C., there is a side altar with a lovely statue of Mother with Child, with the inscription: “More Mother than Queen.” I love it. Queen, yes, of course; but above all, Mother of Jesus and our Mother.
The mother of my younger days helps me to know Mary as my spiritual Mother. Mary as my spiritual Mother aids me much to understand God as Father, as my Father/Mother: as love, compassion, and tenderness.
Mary is our best intercessor before Christ, and our model in following Him, our only Way. As it was said at Cana, Mary reveals her role for us: first, her role as intercessory mediator – “They have no wine” and second, her role as disciple of disciples – “Do whatever He tells you” (cf. Jn 2:1-11).
In closing, I wish to underline that for us, her children, our filial devotion to Mary (veneration), witnessed in the imitation of her virtues, is ordered to our devotion to Christ (veneration/adoration), to following him. Christ is the end of all devotions, including the devotion to Mary, which is the highest among all devotions to the saints: “The reason for our love of Mary is the Lord Jesus; the measure of our love for her is to love her without measure” (Saint Bernard).
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