Monday after Pentecost

Gen 3:9-15,20.  Ps 87.  Jn 19:25-34

Deacon Jim McFadden

         As Vatican II was coming to a close, St. Pope Paul VI bestowed upon Mary the title of Mother of the Church, which is celebrated on the Monday following Pentecost.  While we’re very familiar that Mary as the Mother of Jesus, the connection that she is necessarily the Mother of the Church, that she is our Mother,  may not be so self-evident.           The connection lies in the nature of the Church, which the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium (The Dogmatic Constitution of the Church) proclaimed that the Church is Jesus’s very mystical Body: He is the head and we, the baptized,  are His members in which, as St. Paul notes in the Acts of the Apostles (17:28) that “in him we live and move and have our being.”  Since Mary is the Mother of God she is therefore the Mother of the Church: they are bound together for our consolation: that is, through her, we will become closer to her Son, Jesus.

         Life is very, very hard but it’s good as well.  And one thing that makes life good is that we can come to Mary as our loving Mother.  Mary loves, nurtures, and cares for us just as she did for her Son Jesus throughout His earthly life and continues to do so as the Queen of Heaven.  Just to say the name ‘Mary’ gladdens our heart as we honor her with deep gratitude and appreciation for all that she has ever done, and continues to do so, for our good: namely, interceding for us  our eternal salvation with the Triune God.

         While Pope Paul VI formally articulated Mary’s title, this truth has long been engrained in the devotional practice of the Church from her earliest apostolic beginnings.  The genuine devotion to Mary is grounded in the truth that she is the Mother of the Incarnate Word of God.

         Just as the Divine Motherhood is the basis of her unique relationship with Jesus and for her presence in the work of salvation that is accomplished by Christ Jesus, that Divine Motherhood is the foundation of the relationship that exists between her and the people of God.  From the moment that Jesus was conceived within her body, He joined himself as Head, to his Mystical Body the Church.  Mary, therefore, most be recognized as Mother to all the faithful, that is to say, the Church.

         And, what does a Mother do?  She gives life; she nurtures.  As we raise our eyes to Mary, the one who gave us Jesus, the one who nurtured Jesus through his childhood, adolescence,  and adulthood–I mean she never stopped being a Mother to Jesus—she will offer the same maternal help to us, especially when we strive to follow Jesus and to intentionally participate in his salvific mission.

         While the Son of God is the fount of all grace, Mary is “full of grace,” in which she communicates the superabundant and wonderful gifts from God to us, God’s beloved children.  And, because Mary was spared from Original Sin by virtue of her Immaculate Conception, she can communicate these gifts received from God as a reflection of her perfect faith.  As we receive these gifts from Mary, we draw ever closer to her Son, in which the Gospel proclaims “Blessed are you who have believed.”

         Our Blessed Mother, of course, is not a substitute for God, but as the embodiment of being a perfect model of a disciple of Christ, she mirrors for us what discipleship looks like, and she exemplifies all those virtues contained in the Beatitudes.  As we draw closer to Mary, we become closer to Jesus, who is borne within us at a deeper level through the intercession of her.  “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”  Amen.