Mother of the Church

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.

“With one heart,” we are told in the Acts of the Apostles, “all these joined constantly in prayer, together with some women, including Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers” (Acts 1:14).

We see that after the Easter period, Our Lady gathers the Apostles together. She was a symbol of unity. She strengthened their faith. She kept them together. She kept them going. She acted in a very concrete way like their Mother.

Our Lord had spoken from the Cross, saying, “Mother, behold your child.” Behold your children. And he had said to St. John, “Behold your mother” (John 19:26-27).

In 2018, Pope Francis decided to institute this feast day of Our Lady, Mother of the Church, and he wanted it celebrated strategically, on the day after Pentecost.

We have Pentecost Sunday, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the founding of the Church. The following day we celebrate Our Lady as the Mother of the Church.

That fact can lead us to look at the beauty of the Church and the beauty of Our Mother, how Our Lady has looked after the Church in the past twenty centuries, and how she would be looking after the Church for all time because her Son said, “Behold your child,” behold your children.

When we think of Our Lady as the Mother of the universal Church, we could also think of her as the Mother of the domestic Church. Our Lady is present in every home when we bring her there and allow her to enter, where she's venerated, respected, prayed to, called upon as a Mother by her children.

Pope St. Paul VI officially gave Our Lady the title ‘Mother of the Church’ at the end of the Second Vatican Council. It's a title that goes back to the fourth century. St. Ambrose of Milan used it very specifically. It was also used by Pope Benedict XIV in 1748 and by Leo XIII in 1885. It's a title that's also found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Pope Leo said she is invoked as Mother of the Church and the Teacher and Queen of the Apostles because in those moments after Easter, when Our Lady was keeping the Apostles together, she was also teaching them.

Pope Paul VI said, “For the glory of the Virgin and our consolation, we proclaim Mary the Most Holy Mother of the Church, that is, the Mother of the whole people of God, both the faithful and the pastors.”

In an encyclical that he wrote in 1987 called Redemptoris Mater–Mother of the Redeemer, which was issued just fifteen years before the millennium, as though commemorating Our Lady's birth, Pope John Paul II made reference to some of those statements of Paul VI, where he referred to her as “Mother of the entire Christian people, both faithful and pastors.”

He said that this truth was restated by Paul VI in an ever more forceful way. John Paul, explaining that title, talks about the Blessed Virgin Mary's maternity of Christ's faithful, and how this derives from her maternity of Christ.

He said she's “present in the Church as the Mother of Christ, and at the same time, as that Mother whom Christ, in the mystery of the Redemption, gave to humanity in the person of the Apostle John. Thus,” he says, “in her new motherhood in the Spirit, Mary embraces each and every one in the Church, and embraces each and every one through the Church.”

It's a rather beautiful idea, that Our Lady is the Mother of each one of the supernatural families in the Church, all the different organizations of the faithful, religious orders, of priests, of brothers, people living out their commitment, their vocation in all sorts of ways, serving humanity.

Our Lady is there embracing each one of them, as though behind them, encouraging them, leading them forward, helping them to solve their problems.

We're told also in the Apocalypse, “A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman robed with the sun, standing on the moon, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Rev. 12:1). She “crushes the head of the serpent” (Gen. 3:15).

There is no danger or difficulty that may appear in the course of time that Our Lady cannot solve. All the graces come through her. She can crush the head of the devil as he rears his ugly head in all sorts of moments.

That means we can always turn to Our Mother and know that we can experience her maternal tenderness.

It must have been in a special way that Pope John Paul in 1981, after his assassination attempt, turned to her in a special way. He ordered the installation of a mosaic of Mary, Mother of the Church, on a building overlooking St. Peter's Square, partially as a tribute to her intercession in saving his life.

The whole story of how that image came about is on the Internet—a very beautiful story. It started with a young student at Easter time telling the Holy Father that St. Peter's Square was unfinished.

As the Pope moved along the crowds shaking their hands, this statement registered in his mind, and he went back to that young student and said, “What do you mean it's unfinished?”

And he said, “There's no image of Our Lady in the whole of St. Peter's Square.”

Pope John Paul, the Marian Pope, told him he was right. The Pope took that very much to heart. Within a year, that image of Our Lady, Mother of the Church, was installed, overlooking the whole of St. Peter's Square, and venerated under the title Mater Ecclesiae, Mother of the Church.

We're told that Our Lady is present in every aspect of the Church. “She embraces,” says John Paul, “each and everyone in the Church”—each and every supernatural family. “In a certain sense,” he says, “Mary, Mother of the Church, is also the Church's model.”

“The Church must draw,” said St. Paul VI, “from the Virgin Mother of God, the most authentic form of perfect imitation of Christ.”

Mary has been invoked under many titles: Mother of God, Mother of the Faithful, Our Mother, all the titles of the Litany. John Paul inserted that invocation, Mother of the Church, into the Litany.

It re-emphasizes the deep conviction that Our Lady is not just the Mother of the person of Christ, but also of each one of us.

“The Church is virgin and mother, she is immaculate and carries the burdens of history. She suffers and she is assumed into heaven. Slowly," says Cardinal Ratzinger, “she learns that Mary is her mirror, that she is a person in Mary. Mary, on the other hand, is not an isolated individual who rests in herself. She is carrying the mystery of the Church” (Joseph Ratzinger, Address, Festgabe zum 75).

We know that Our Lady then is looking out for the Church in each moment of her history, helping her to get through the various ups and downs, the challenges, the contradictions, the calumnies, the scandals that may occur, the things that bring home to us that the Church is just made up of human beings who have a wounded human nature.

We needn't worry about all these things because we know Our Mother is there to solve the problems, to smooth everything out.

In the Catechism (Points 963 to 970) we're told, “The Virgin Mary…is acknowledged and honored as being truly the Mother of God and of the Redeemer. ...She is ‘clearly the Mother of the members of Christ’...since she has by her charity joined in bringing about the birth of believers in the Church, who are members of its head.” She is “Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Point 963, quoting Lumen Gentium, Point 53 and Paul VI, Address to the Second Vatican Council, Nov. 21, 1964).

The Catechism continues: “After the Ascension, Mary ‘aided the beginnings of the Church by her prayers.’ In her association with the apostles and several women, ‘we also see Mary by her prayers imploring the gift of the Spirit, who had already overshadowed her in the Annunciation.’

“Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death.”

Our Lady is there, Mother of the Church in heaven, looking out for the Church in each moment. She's “the exemplary realization of the Church,” the Catechism says.

“Her role in relation to the Church and to all humanity,” it says, “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's a Mother to us in the order of grace.’”

The Church exists for the sacraments, the Blessed Eucharist. All the graces that flow through the sacraments flow through the hands of Mary.

There is no activity of the Church where Our Lady is not present and involved, helping us to see the supernatural nature of the Church, and not to allow Our Mother the Church to be dragged down to just a purely human level.

The Church is not just a socio-political pressure group. The Church is the Body of Christ.

“This motherhood of Mary,” we're told in the Catechism, “in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office, but by her manifold intercession, continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. … Therefore, the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.”

Also in the Catechism, we're told that “Mary's function as Mother of men in no way obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power.” All the mediatory activity that Our Lady has or does participates in the mediation of Christ. She always leads us to her Son.

“But the Blessed Virgin's salutary influence on men...flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ. It rests on his mediation, depends entirely on it, and draws all its power from it. No creature could ever be counted along with the Incarnate Word and Redeemer.”

St. Josemaría in the Furrow says: “What an extraordinary lesson each one of the teachings of the New Testament contains! The Master, before ascending to the right hand of the Father, told the disciples: ‘Go and preach to all nations’ (Mark 16:15), and they remained full of peace. But they still had doubts: they did not know what to do, and they gathered around Mary, Queen of Apostles, so as to become zealous preachers of the Truth which will save the world” (Josemaría Escrivá, Furrow, Point 232).

We can be filled with confidence that we have the Queen of Apostles around us, who will also teach us in the various situations where we are, to become zealous preachers of the Word, to give good witness after the heart of Christ and after the heart of Mary.

One of the great things which the saints teach us, St. Josemaría included, is to have a great love for the Church. When we love Our Lady, when we love her Church—the Church is also our Mother—we don't let anyone speak badly about the Church.

We are the Church. If ever we see or hear somebody speaking bad about the Church on the television, on the radio, in a newspaper, it's very good we react. We stand up to defend Our Mother the Church. We feel bad that Our Mother might be treated badly.

At the same time, we know that the Church is holy—holy, because she's the Bride of Christ, because Our Lady is her Mother, and that is in spite of the sins of her members.

Sinful humanity does not scandalize us. It should lead us to want to be more holy, more faithful, to love Our Mother in a deeper way.

There are probably few ways that we can make Our Lady happy than by being good children of the Church—making an effort to know her doctrine, to spread it with the gift of tongues, in season and after season, to help people around us, to see the Church in action, lifting up the whole of society, and to foster in each one of us a great responsibility for the Church, and also a great initiative: What can I contribute? What can I do to build up the mystical Body of Christ on earth?

Each supernatural family is a part of the Church. St. Josemaría says in The Way, If ever we can't say anything good about somebody, or about some member of some supernatural family in the Church, then we should just keep silent, and pray more, and make acts of contrition to God and atonement for the fact that I am not better.

Any criticisms or calumnies against any supernatural family in the Church is an attack on the mystical Body of Christ and it's an attack on Our Lady, the Mother of the Church, no matter where they're coming from.

Because we love Our Mother the Church and the Mother of the Church, our only desire is to serve the Church. ‘I have come to serve the Church. Lord, teach me how to serve the Church better.’

Because Our Lady is the Mother of the Church, she's also the Mother of all priests, the other Christs. We have to try and foster a great respect for those other Christs.

The Curé d’Ars once said that when someone wants to destroy the Church, they start by attacking the priesthood, because in that way there may be no sacraments and no worship (John Vianney, The Little Catechism of the Curé d’Ars). The devil is very clever.

Our love for the Church and our love for the Pope—no matter who he may be, as St. Josemaría said many decades ago—is a vital component of our Christian spirit; part of the heritage that we have received.

If we ever hear somebody criticizing the Pope, we can say, who are you to criticize the Pope?

There have been people in history who thought the Pope was wrong. I heard a professor of law saying once, many years ago—around the time when there was a lot of dissent on Humanae Vitae, the teaching of the Church on the regulation of birth—this wise professor of law said, “It's better to be with the Pope and to be wrong, rather than to be without the Pope and to be right.”

In principle, the Pope is never wrong. He’s guided by the Holy Spirit. But we might think the Pope is wrong. If we adopt that attitude that I'm right and the Pope is wrong, that's a dangerous stance to take because that can lead us off on a tangent.

Probably the Pope has a 99.9 percent possibility of being right on all matters of faith and morals. If we adopt a position that the Pope is wrong and I'm right, I don't share that 99.9 percent chance of being right on all other issues.

In the history of the Church, there have been people who found themselves outside of the Church, precisely by adopting that attitude.

Our Lady must be very happy when we are united to the Pope, when we pay attention to what he's saying or what he's doing, when we make it our business to read the things that he publishes, so that I can come to love the Church more.

In The Way, St. Josemaría says, “What joy to be able to say with all the fervor of my soul: I love my Mother the Holy Church!” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 518).

“Thank you, my God, for the love of the Pope you have put in my heart” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 573).

Try and teach your children to have a great love for the Pope, great veneration for the Church, great spirit of gratitude for what we receive from the Church.

In the Furrow, he says, “Every day you must grow in loyalty towards the Church, the Pope, and the Holy See...with a love that should always be more theological” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 353).

In the times that we're living in, there's great reason and scope to defend the Church and her teaching, and defend the Pope in all sorts of moments, particularly her teaching on marriage and the family, on the sacredness of human life, and so many of the other buzz issues that are so topical today.

At the Second Vatican Council, we learned about the role of the laity in the Church. We are the Church. The role of the laity is to order temporal realities, which means laws, cultures: the evangelization of culture, the evangelization of the family.

Pope John Paul liked to say, “The future of humanity passes through the family” (cf. John Paul II, Homily, November 30, 1986).

Mother of the Domestic Church, help us to see what we can do to promote the family and society.

St. Augustine wrote, I embrace a Church full of corn and straw, with the Word and the discipline of the Lord, I amend those I can, and tolerate those I cannot amend. I do not wish to be straw, but not for this will I abandon the threshing floor, for otherwise I would be nothing.

Our love for the Church can be eminently supernatural. In the old days people liked to make a pilgrimage to Rome. It was called videre Petrum, which means “to see Peter.”

That's a good desire to foster in our family. St. Josemaría had a beautiful little aspiration, whereby he used to say in Latin, Omnes cum Petro ad Jesum per Mariam–“All with Peter, to Jesus through Mary” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 833; Christ Is Passing By, Point 139).

With Peter—Peter is the way. Peter is the focal point. God has given us one focal point of unity to teach us where we need to go, what we need to do, what we need to be close to, and how can we make sure that we're on the right track.

Our Lady must be very happy when she sees us taking care of that right track, listening to things the Pope says in a special way.

One particular moment could be at Christmas and Easter when the Pope is on television and gives his blessing to the Church and to the world. It’s not a bad moment to let our children see that this is something important in our family.

In the First Eucharistic Prayer, we're told, “In union with the whole Church we honor Mary, the ever-virgin Mother of Jesus Christ Our Lord and God.”

We could try to get more personal with Our Lady. We could try to think of vocations for the universal Church. Each of us has a role to promote vocations in our family, outside of our family, in our local school, in our local parish, because the future of the Church depends on those vocations. To a large extent, it depends on the formation of those vocations.

That's why we can pray to Our Lady, Mother of the Church, that she would continue to raise up numerous vocations for the universal Church—people to take part in the teaching professions and the healthcare professions, or missionaries to go all over the world, to places where perhaps no man has gone, and bring the light of the Gospel to people who've heard very little.

There are many mission fields that are hungry for such people. The future generations can be grateful to us for the role we've played in bringing forward the Church. Probably, to a certain extent, it's with all these concerns in mind that Pope Francis instituted this particular feast day.

We've probably seen the Holy Father just before going on any of his major journeys, international trips. He goes to St. Mary Major in Rome, the Shrine of Our Lady, Patroness of Rome, the safety of the Roman people.

He goes there like a little child carrying a little bunch of flowers. It's a beautiful little childlike detail. He carries the flowers himself, as though saying, I reserve this privilege to me. I make this personal trip to entrust this journey and the fruits of this journey to my Mother, and I make this trip for the good of the universal Church, to Myanmar, to Iraq, to Chad, to the Central African Republic, to so many places.

I notice how the Holy Father has not been back to Argentina in the last eight years. There is sacrifice there. He's come to serve the Church, to be a good son of Mary.

Every day, we should try and pray for the Holy Father, maybe a decade of the Rosary, or have your family to hear you talking about the Pope and asking Our Lady for the future of the Church and the great role that the Church has to play in society.

Our Church has a very prominent role. The Holy Spirit, who is the soul of the Church, is active in each part of the Church, bringing that light of Christ to all the corners of the earth.

We can ask Our Lady, Mother of the Church, that she might extend her gentle hand with more graces at this particular point in the Church's history, and build up the Church so that we can look forward to the great flourishing of the Church in the 21st century.

Mother of the Church, pray for us.

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.

OLV