Mary, Mother of God (2nd Ed.)

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Son, behold your mother” (John 19:27), Our Lord said on the Cross.

Many times, we’ve contemplated Our Lady with the Child in her arms. And Christian piety has inspired the countless different works of art which represent the feast that we celebrate today: the Motherhood of Mary. This fundamental fact casts a light that shines out in the life of Our Lady. It’s the foundation of all the other privileges with which God has wanted to adorn her.

Today we give thanks and praise to God the Father because Mary conceived His Only Begotten Son. We’re told in the Preface of the Maternity of Our Lady: “The Holy Spirit came upon her and she conceived your Only Begotten Son. Without losing her glorious virginity, she brought forth Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is forever the light of the world.

And from our hearts we sing to her, as is said in the [Mass]: “Hail Holy Mother, who gave birth to the King” (Entrance Antiphon), for truly “the Mother has brought forth the King, whose name is eternal; she who has conceived has at the same time the joy of motherhood and the glory of virginity” (Divine Office, Lauds, Antiphon 3).

Mary is Our Lady, full of grace and virtue, conceived without sin, who is the Mother of God and Our Mother, and who dwells both body and soul in heaven.

Sacred Scripture refers to her as the most exalted of all creatures, the blessed one, the most praised among women (cf. Luke 1:42), “full of grace” (Luke 1:28), “she whom all generations will call blessed” (Luke 1:48).

The Church teaches us that after Christ, Mary occupies the place that is highest and closest to God because of her divine motherhood. The Second Vatican Council says, “She, after her Son, by the grace of God, was exalted over all angels and men” (Vatican II, Lumen gentium, Point 66, November 21, 1964).

“Through you, O Virgin Mary, have been fulfilled all the oracles of the prophets who announced Christ: being a virgin, you conceived the Son of God and, remaining a virgin, you gave birth to him” (Magnificat, Antiphon of December 27).

The Holy Spirit teaches us in the [Second] Reading of today’s Mass that “when the time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law…” (Gal. 4:4).

Jesus did not suddenly appear on earth out of heaven. He became truly man, like us, taking our human nature in the most pure womb of the Virgin Mary. Insofar as He is God, Jesus is generated, not made, by God the Father from all eternity. Insofar as He is man, He was born, “was made,” of Mary.

St. Cyril says, “I am exceedingly astounded that there could be anyone who has any doubt as to whether the Blessed Virgin should be called the Mother of God. If Our Lord Jesus Christ is God, why should the Blessed Virgin, who gave Him birth, not be called the Mother of God?

“That is the faith that Our Lord’s disciples transmitted to us, even though they did not use this exact expression. And that too is what the holy fathers have taught us” (Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 1). It was defined by the Council of Ephesus (Heinrich Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum, Point 252).

St. Josemaría says, “All the feasts of Our Lady are great events because they are opportunities the Church gives us to show with deeds that we love Mary. But if I had to choose one from all of her feasts, I would choose today’s, the feast of the Divine Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin.

“When the Blessed Virgin said Yes, freely, to the plans revealed to her by the Creator, the divine Word assumed a human nature, with a rational soul and a body, formed in the most pure womb of Mary. The divine nature and the human were united in a single Person: Jesus Christ, true God and, thenceforth, true Man; the only begotten and eternal Son of the Father and, from that moment on, as Man, the true son of Mary.

“This is why Our Lady is the Mother of the Incarnate Word, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity who has united our human nature to himself forever, without any confusion of the two natures. The greatest praise we can give to the Blessed Virgin is to address her loud and clear by the name that expresses her highest dignity: Mother of God (Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 274).

Our Lady will be well pleased to hear us, on this her feast day, repeating many times the aspiration: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.

Our Blessed Mother is the loving and consoling title that we often give to Mary. She is truly Our Mother in that she continually gives birth to the supernatural life within us.

The Second Vatican Council says, “She conceived, brought forth, and nourished Christ. She presented him to the Father in the temple, shared her [Son’s] sufferings as he died on the Cross. Thus, in a wholly singular way, she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope, and burning charity in the work of the Savior in restoring supernatural life to souls. For this reason, she is a mother to us in the order of grace (Vatican II, Lumen gentium, Point 61).

This motherhood of Mary “will last forever…until the perpetual consummation of all the elect. For, having been assumed into heaven,” says the Council, “she has not left behind this salvific mission but, through her constant intercession, continues to obtain for us the gifts of eternal salvation.

“With her motherly love she looks after the brothers of her Son, who are still wayfarers and a prey to danger and uncertainty until they at last reach their heavenly home” (ibid., Point 62).

Jesus gave us Mary as Our Mother when, after He had been nailed to the Cross, He addressed her in those words: “‘Woman, behold your Son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold your mother’” (John 19:26-27).

Pope John Paul said, “And so, in a new way, he bequeathed his own mother to the man: the man to whom he has transmitted the Gospel. He has bequeathed her to all men. … From that day onwards the whole Church has her as Mother. And all men have her as Mother. The words pronounced upon the Cross are understood as being addressed to each one of us” (John Paul II, Address at General Audience, Point 3, January 10, 1979).

Jesus looks at each one of us, one by one and says, “Behold your mother.” John took her into his home, we’re told, receiving her lovingly and cared for her with great respect.

“He brought Mary into his home, into his life” (J. Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, Point 140).

In the last Encyclical of Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia (or Instruction, Redemptionis Sacramentum Sacrament of Redemption), he describes how St. John would have celebrated Mass after Our Lord ascended into heaven, and Our Lady would have been present at those Masses, and she would have received the Body of Christ again from the hands of St. John. With what fervor those communions must have been received! (cf. John Paul II, Encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Point 56, April 17, 2003).

St. Josemaría says, “Spiritual writers have seen these words of the Gospel as an invitation to all Christians to bring Mary into their lives Mary certainly wants us to invoke, to approach her confidently, to appeal to her as Our Mother, asking her to ‘show that you are Our Mother” (J. Escrivá, ibid.). Mostra te esse Matrem! (ibid., The Forge, Point 986).

In giving His mother to be Our Mother, Christ gives proof of His love for His own until the end (cf. John 13:1). And in accepting the Apostle John as her son, Our Lady shows her motherly love for all men.

We can say that Our Lady has had a decisive influence on our lives. Each one of us has had our own experience. Looking back, we see her intervention behind every problem, driving us forward, and with the definitive push making us begin anew.

Another spiritual writer said, “Whenever I get down to thinking about the numerous graces I’ve received from Mary, I feel like one of those Marian Shrines on the walls of which, covered with ‘offerings,’ there is inscribed only: ‘Through grace received from Mary.’ In this way, it seems that I am written all over: ‘Through grace received from Mary.’ Every good thought, every good act of the will, every movement of my heart: ‘Through grace received from Mary’” (Guiseppe Maria Masserano, The Life of St. Leonard of Porto Maurizzio).

We can ask ourselves on this feast of Our Lady if we have known how to turn to her like St. John did, if we’ve often said to her, “Show yourself to be a Mother,” proving to us through our deeds that we want to be good sons to her also.

Devotion to Our Lady is the way to Christ. We want to begin this new year with Mary at our side.

Our Lady, close to her Son, fulfills her mission as Mother of all men by interceding continually for them. The Second Vatican Council says the Church gives Mary the titles of Advocate, Help, Perpetual Succor, Mediatrix (Vatican II, Lumen gentium, Point 62), and with motherly love she takes upon herself the task of obtaining both ordinary and extraordinary graces for us and increasing our union with Christ.

What is more, St. Paul VI said, “given that Mary must, in all justice, be considered as the way by which we are led to Christ, the person who encounters Mary cannot but equally encounter Christ” (Paul VI, Encyclical, Mense Maio, Point 2, April 29, 1965).

Filial devotion to Our Lady is an integral part of the Christian vocation. We’re always ready to run instinctively to her who, St. Bernard said, “consoles us in our distress, enlivens our faith, strengthens our hope, gets rid of our fears, and invigorates our timidity” (Bernard, Homily on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary).

It’s easy to approach God through Mary. The whole people of God, doubtless inspired by the Holy Spirit, have always had this divine certainty. Christians have always seen Mary as a shortcut, “a path which shortens the journey” to reach God.

“O God, you made Mary’s virginity fruitful, and so held out to mankind the reward of eternal salvation. Through her you give us her Son to be the source of our life. Grant that we may experience the power of her prayers for us” (Roman Missal, Collect of the Mass).

On this Solemnity of Our Lady, we begin the New Year. There could not be a better start to the year, and of all days of our life, than being very close to Mary.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “‘All generations will call me blessed.’ The Church’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship (Luke 1:48). The Church rightly honors the Blessed Virgin with special devotion (Lumen gentium, Point 66). From the most ancient times, the Blessed Virgin has been honored with the title of ‘Mother of God,’ to whose protection the faithful fly in all their dangers and needs. … This very special devotion…differs essentially from the adoration which is given to the incarnate Word and equally to the Father and the Holy Spirit, and greatly fosters this adoration.

“The liturgical feasts dedicated to the Mother of God and Marian prayer, such as the Rosary, ‘an epitome of the whole Gospel,’ express this devotion to Mary” (Catechism, Point 971).

“By her complete adherence to the Father’s will, to his Son’s redemptive work, and to every prompting of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary is the Church’s model of faith and charity. She is a ‘preeminent and…wholly unique member of the Church’. Indeed, she is the ‘exemplary realization’ (Lumen gentium, Points 53,63) of the Church.

“Her role in relation to the Church and to all humanity goes still further. ‘In a wholly singular way, she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope, and burning charity in the Savior’s work of restoring supernatural life to souls. For this reason, she is a mother to us in the order of grace’ (Lumen gentium, Point 61)” (Catechism, Points 967-968).

A number of years ago, a lady in Singapore, a Mexican lady, decided to organize a talk on Advent for Spanish-speaking couples. This talk was organized in a downtown church. There was a priest there who was going to talk in Spanish. I was there to help with Confessions.

When the Confessions were finished, the group of thirty or so people went up to the front of the church to have their talk on Advent.

There was a Singaporean Chinese lady on the back pew of the church praying with great piety. I was walking up and down saying my Breviary. And after some time, she came to me and she said, “Father, what is the name of the woman with the baby?”

I looked up the front of the church to see this group of people who were having this talk on Advent, and I couldn’t see any mother with any baby. Then she saw that I didn’t get what she was saying, and she said, “No, Father, the woman with the baby.”

Then I saw that she was looking on the opposite side of the pews to where the people were, where in fact there was nobody. I was beginning to wonder: Is this lady all right?

When she saw that I still wasn’t getting what she was asking, she pointed up to a big statue of Our Lady with the Child Jesus up on the front wall of the church, said, “No, Father, the woman with the baby.”

I was very confused because a few minutes before, this lady was praying with great piety. But now she doesn’t even seem to know the name of Our Lady.

Many people who are not Catholics have heard of Mary. Muslims speak of Miriam. If there’s nothing at all that they know about the Catholic faith, they tend to know the name of Mary. But this woman seemed to know nothing. I felt confronted with the greatest amount of religious ignorance I had been confronted in my life.

She tried to help me to find the name of “the woman with the baby” and she told me, “You know, Father, some of them are called Perpetual Help, others are called Mount Carmel. What’s this one called?”

And so, it became clear that this woman didn’t know if all these women with babies were related, or if all the babies were related. I don’t know if she thought that there were some sort of different Chinese goddesses or something. The only thing she knew from wandering into different Catholic churches was that this “woman with the baby” was very special.

We can thank God for the grace that He’s given to us, that we know so much about “the woman with the baby,” and that we know her name. We could ask that many people that we know in the course of our apostolate in the coming year, like that lady, might come to know a little bit more about “the woman with the baby.”

That woman had obviously wandered into different churches and she discovered that this woman with the baby was very special. We could ask for that grace for all our relatives and friends.

Pope Benedict in one of his encyclicals says, “Mary’s greatness consists in the fact that she wants to magnify God, not herself” (Benedict XVI, Deus caritas est, Point 41, December 25, 2005).

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47). A lady in Singapore told me that when she says those words, she said, ‘I could be hours and hours just contemplating their meaning.’

“Mary is lowly.” Although she is the Mother of God, “her only desire is to be the handmaid of the Lord” (Benedict XVI, ibid.).

Mary, may you help me to accept all the little things that God may send me, in the same way that you did.

“She knows that she will only contribute to the salvation of the world if, rather than carrying out her own projects, she places herself completely at the disposition of God’s initiative.

“Mary is a woman of hope: only because she believes in God’s promises, and awaits the salvation of Israel, can the angel visit her and call her to the decisive service of these promises. Mary is a woman of faith: ‘Blessed are you who believed’ (cf. Luke 1:45)”—these are the words that Elizabeth said to her.

“The Magnificat is like a portrait of her soul, entirely woven from threads of Holy Scripture, threads drawn from the Word of God. Here we see how completely at home Mary is with the Word of God, with ease she moves in and out of it. She speaks and thinks with the Word of God; the Word of God becomes her word, and her word issues from the Word of God. Here we see how her thoughts are attuned to the thoughts of God, how her will is at one with the will of God” (ibid.).

St. Josemaría says, “Mother! Call her again and again. She is listening, she sees you in danger perhaps, and with her Son’s grace, she, your holy mother Mary, offers you the refuge of her arms, the tenderness of her embrace. Call her, and you will find yourself with added strength for the new struggle” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 516).

And so, we could look at our Marian piety. Do I turn to Our Lady frequently during the day with the Memorare? Do I say three Hail Marys before getting to bed at night, asking in particular for the virtue of purity? Do I live her scapular devotion? Do I celebrate Marian feast days in my family and help my children and grandchildren to be more aware of Our Lady, or to make her places of pilgrimages and shrines more well known? God wants us to have a spiritual sweet tooth for His Mother.

On Saturdays, we could try and have some special Marian custom; see how we can place flowers on our altars or in her shrine. Help the month of May to be something special.

When we were kids, my mother suggested to each one of us to have a little Marian altar in our room, or set up a little Marian altar in the garden. It was a small thing, but it was every year. It helped to transmit the message that the month of May was something special.

Do I have frequent recourse to the Rosary? Do I say the Hail Holy Queen frequently, particularly on Saturdays? Do I try and spread that devotion in all sorts of ways?

“Because he looked graciously upon the lowliness of his handmaid,” said St. Josemaría in the Furrow, “I am more convinced every day that authentic humility is the supernatural basis for all virtues! Talk to Our Lady so that she may train us to walk along that path” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 289).

Mary, may you help us to be more humble. Help us to listen to those words that you said at Cana of Galilee, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5), so that we might live out our Christian vocation in the way that you want.

And that childlike prayer could be frequently on our lips:

“Lovely Lady dressed in blue—
Teach me how to pray!
God was just your little boy,
Tell me what to say!

Did you lift Him up, sometimes,
Gently on your knee?
Did you sing to Him,
The way Mother does to me?

Did you hold His hand at night?
Did you ever try,
Telling stories of the world?
O! And did He cry?

Do you really think He cares,
If I tell Him things?—
Little things that happen? And
Do the Angels’ wings
Make a noise?

And does He hear me,
When I speak low?
Tell me now—for you know.

Lovely Lady dressed in blue—
Teach me how to pray!
God was just your little boy,
And you know the way!” (Mary Dixon Thayer, Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue).

With the confidence of children, we turn to Our Mother, that she may help us to live in holiness every day of the coming year; so that she may give us the impulse to begin again each time we fall because we’re so weak; so that she may intercede with her divine Son to lead us to interior renewal, and to strive to grow in the love of God and in the service of our neighbor.

We place in Our Lady’s hands our desire to identify ourselves with Christ, to sanctify our professional work, and to be faithful apostles.

We repeat her name with ever more fervor whenever difficulties arise. And she, who is forever at the service of her Son, when she hears her name on our lips, will come quickly to our rescue. She will not leave us in error or in disunion.

Today, when we are looking at one of her pictures, we can say to her, at least in our hearts without the use of words: “My Mother,” and feel that she is protecting us and encouraging us to begin this New Year that God has given to us with the confidence of one who knows he is well looked after and is being given help from heaven.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

BWM