Mary, Mother of the Church

A great gift from Pope Francis is the establishment of the Memorial of Mary Mother of the Church on Monday following Pentecost Sunday. He made this addition to the liturgical calendar in 2018 in order to highlight the relationship that the Mother of God has with the Church throughout the world and each one of us of members of the Church.  Although it is a recent celebration added to our calendar, it is not a new idea.  The title of Mother of the Church was given to Our Lady by Pope St. Paul VI at a Mass celebrated in Rome for the closing of the last session of the Second Vatican Council.  Its origins harken back to the accounts of the Passion found in the Gospels.  I offer some reflections on this wonderful role of the Blessed Mother.

The collect or the opening prayer of the Mass in honor of Mary Mother of the Church prays these words: O God, Father of Mercies, whose only begotten Son, as he hung upon the Cross, chose the Blessed Virgin Mary, his Mother, to be our Mother also, grant we pray that with her loving help your Church may be more fruitful day by day and, exulting in the holiness of her children may draw to her embrace all the families of the peoples…”   

This prayer calls us back to the foot of the cross and especially to the beautiful words in the 19th chapter of St. John’s Gospel when Our Lord commends St.  John and every one of us to His Blessed Mother as He says, “Woman, behold your son.”  Through our own sufferings in life, we all have stood at the foot of the cross.  How comforting it is for us to know that Jesus sees us in our pain and sorrow and says to Our Lady, “Look at your children standing here. They need you.”  From the cross, Jesus then says to St. John and every one of us, “Behold, your mother.”

Wherever we may find ourselves in life, whatever worries or suffering we are experiencing, we hear the clear message from the lips of Our Lord, “Look, here is your Mother. Go to her and she will take care of everything for you.”  I have to say that every day of my life I have received tremendous consolation and hope from this short and powerfully touching message from Jesus Himself.

At the cross another amazing mystery unfolds that shows the very beginning of the Church.  St. John Chrysostom, a bishop and doctor of the Church (407 AD), taught that from the side of Christ pierced by the centurion’s lance as He hung upon the Cross, the Church was born.  How so?  Well, St. John Chrysostom argues that the water and the blood that flowed forth from His side remind us two other wonderful gifts.  First in the water, we can see the symbol of the Sacrament of Baptism, that cleansing water by which we are reborn and made members of the Church, Christ’s own Body. Second, we can see in the blood that came forth from His side, the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, the very Body and Blood of Jesus by which we are fed and given eternal life. 

He then notes that, “Since the symbols of Baptism and the Eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church…”  This leads us to understand that she who was the Mother of Jesus as He came among us at His Incarnation is also the Mother of His Body the Church as it is fashioned from His side.

The Second Vatican Council affirms this understanding as she recalls the teaching of St. Paul in the First Letter to the Corinthians.  He wrote that the Church is the Body of Christ and that we are all members of this Body by baptism. We understand then that just as the Mother of Christ stood by Him as he suffered on the Cross, so, too, she stands by His Body the Church and each one of us as members of His Body.  That is why the Church teaches, and Pope Francis has powerfully underlined by instituting the Memorial of Mary Mother of the Church, that she as the Mother of the Redeemer so too is the Mother of the Church and our Mother.  This is not just a theological argument.  It is, rather, a blessed and loving relationship with a Mother who loves us so very much and cares for us each day of our lives.  It is no wonder that we call her “Help of Christians” and “Mother of Perpetual Help.”

In faith, we can see that by her consent to becoming the Mother of God at the Annunciation, she was also destined to become our own Mother.  In the preface for the Mass the Church teaches us that “receiving your Word (Jesus the Word Incarnate) in her Immaculate Heart, she was found worthy to conceive him in her virgin’s womb, and giving birth to the Creator, she nurtured the beginnings of the Church…” We see that through her bond of spiritual Motherhood with us, she also nurtures us who are members of the Body of Christ.  She is that Mother who always wants us to have the fullness of life that her Son won for us by His Passion, death and Resurrection.  That is why the Council Fathers tell us that, “(Mary) calls the faithful to her Son and to his sacrifice and to the love of the Father…” (Lumen Gentium # 65) I like to think of her meeting us at the doors of our churches calling us in to Mass and to drink deeply of the wellspring of salvation, the Sacrifice of the Mass.

How great it is for us have this memorial of Mary the Mother of God the day after Pentecost Sunday! We understand that her presence at Pentecost was a profoundly maternal one. We know that, based on what we hear in Acts 1:14 to 2:4, the Church affirms that Our Lady was in the upper room at the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.  She joined her prayers with those of the apostles and became “the pattern of the Church at prayer.”  She intercedes for us and teaches how to be steadfast in prayer opening our hearts to the Holy Spirit.  She is, after all, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, because she said “Yes” to God’s plan conceiving Jesus by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit.

Finally, contemplating the Assumption of Our Lady into heaven, we recognize the way that our good Mother teaches us to go.  Mary as the Mother of the Church accompanies the Church in every age and place through trials and persecutions, through triumphs and growth, always with the ultimate goal of heaven in sight.  We can think of the Assumption into heaven, as the road map, or perhaps we would say today, the GPS, for us as we move on this pilgrimage through life.  The Preface for the Mass of Mary Mother of the Church puts it this way, “In the glory of heaven, she (Mary) accompanies your pilgrim Church with a Mother’s love and watches in kindness over the Church’s homeward steps, until the Lord’s Day shall come in glorious splendor…”  Isn’t it a motherly thing to do – to guide us, show us the way to God, and accompany us on our path through life?

Truly Our Lady is “Mother of the Church” and Mother of us all.  Every day we thank Jesus for giving us so great a gift – His own Mother to be ours as well!  How could we live without so good and loving a Mother?

Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh