21 May 2018
Mary Mother of the Church (Gn 3:9-15,20; Jn 19:25-34)
Only a few weeks ago, Pope Francis proclaimed the day after Pentecost to be a memorial on the universal calendar celebrating the Blessed Virgin Mary as Mother of the Church. (Seehttps://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2018-03/pope-institutes-new-celebration-of-mary–mother-of-church.html.) Pope Paul VI had already formally bestowed this ancient title upon the Blessed Virgin in 1964 and then had a votive Mass instituted for her under this title (Votive Mass 10B in the current Roman Missal).
Already in the beginning God intended to share the fullness of his own life with Adam and Eve, but after listening to the serpent, Adam and Eve chose another path. After the fall we are told, “the man called his wife Eve, because she became the mother of all the living” (Gen 3:20). In a very real sense, Eve is our mother. We inherit the consequences of her life, not only in its negative aspects but also in its positive ones. Let us not remember that, as mother of all the living, Eve is also the mother of both Jesus and Mary.
In Jesus, however, something new begins, and Mary is intimately involved in it. As Christ is the new Adam (Rm 5), so Mary is the new Eve. Following the Church Fathers, the Catechism teaches that “as Eve was formed from the sleeping Adam’s side, so the Church was born from the pierced heart of Christ hanging dead on the cross” (CCC 766). We witness the piercing of this heart in John 19. But, together with this, we witness something else: Jesus says to his mother, pointing to the the beloved disciple John: “Woman, behold, your son,” and he says to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” Then we here that “from that hour the disciple took her into his home.” And what was that home? It was the Church, newly born from Christ’s side. As Mary was mother to Jesus and now becomes mother to John, so returning “home” with this young man who had left everything to follow Jesus, Mary becomes mother of all those who say “yes” to Jesus with him, mother of the new creation that is the Church.