Mother of Jesus The New Eve of the Bible How much do we love our mothers? Let us contemplate on our love for our mothers. And we are only capable of human love. Christ, who is Divine Love, loves His mother with a degree unimaginable to the human mind. She is the spouse of the Holy Spirit for Jesus was born not in the natural way but by the Holy Spirit. Leaving aside the fact that Mother Mary is the mother of Jesus and the spouse of the Holy Spirit, she deserves the honor and veneration for being the most beautiful and exemplary woman earth has ever known. In her perfect obedience and compliance to the will of God, Mother Mary negated the disobedience of Eve, the first woman of the Bible. Her obedience brought salvation not only to herself but to the entire mankind. Mother Mary remains for eternity the role model of perfect womanhood and perfect motherhood for she bore the Savior and stood by Him from the time of His Inception to the time of His Crucifixion. However, Mary’s apostolate does not end at Calvary. In her quiet and stoic heroism, she witnessed the crucifixion of her beloved Son. As a young girl, her response to the declaration of angel Gabriel was innocent and uncomplicated. All that she said was “Be it done to me, according to Thy Word” (Lk 1:38) even though she did not quite understand. The young girl Mary won the victory in her simplicity and humility. She is known as Theokotos, Bearer of God. “The Word became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us”(Jn 1:14). Mother Mary is the woman of the Word. While the first woman of the Bible believed Satan, the second believed the Word and is therefore responsible for the new creation, a creation under the grace and truth of Jesus Christ. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth called her blessed. “You are the most blessed of all women, and blessed is the child you will bear!”(Lk 1:42) just as angel Gabriel exclaimed, ‘Hail, full of grace!’ For this matter, God preserved her from the original sin and her own conception was Immaculate. She is the woman of the Bible who is prophesized in the Genesis and revealed in the Revelation. When God said in Gen 1:15, “I will make you and the woman hate each other; her offspring and yours will always be enemies,” He was prophesizing Mother Mary. Rev 12 speaks of the Woman and the Dragon. “The dragon was furious with the woman and went off to fight against the rest of her descendants, all those who obey God’s commandments and are faithful to the truth revealed by Jesus” (Rev 12:17). She is again prophesized in the book of Is 7:14.“Well then, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: a young woman who is pregnant will have a son and name him ‘Immanuel.’ This brings us to the core question; what is the role of Mother Mary in the salvation of mankind? Her role is to lead us to Jesus, the Savior. Jesus refers to Mother Mary twice as ‘Woman’, not in a derogatory sense but because He wanted to make us aware that she is the fulfillment of the Biblical prophecy. When Mother Mary requests her Son for His first miracle of changing water into wine, he addresses her as “Woman.” When Jesus is about to breathe His last, He again addresses her as woman and says to John: “Behold your mother” (John 19: 27), Jesus was passing on His mother to us. Thereby, she becomes the Mother of all of us, all her children. As she leads Jesus to perform the first miracle even without being asked, she is our most powerful intercessor when we have recourse to her. With motherly care, she knows our needs even before we plead with her. But Mother Mary is most concerned with the salvation of our souls. Her Motherhood of all humanity prefigures also in the book of Sir 40:1 “a heavy yoke is placed in the children of Adam…until the day they return to the Mother of all the living.” Mary was present in the three key moments of our salvation: Incarnation of Jesus, Paschal mystery for she was present at the foot of the cross and the Pentecost. Her role is therefore, clearly defined. Mother Mary is not Mother God but Mother of God. She is not the dispenser of graces but a powerful intercessor. She is also the first believer of Jesus. When Jesus ordered that the jars be filled with water at the wedding feast at Cana, she told the servants to do as He commanded for she believed in Him. Today again Mother Mary is urging us to believe in Him and to believe in His Word. After the ascension of Jesus, when the apostles and disciples felt lost without their Master, Mother Mary took them to the upper room, coordinated them and prayed for the downpour of the Holy Spirit. “All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers” (Acts 1:14). As the temple of the Holy Spirit, she was the powerful intercessor for the outpouring of the Spirit. Mother Mary is the Mother of the Church in the order of grace because she gave birth to Jesus, the Head of the body which is the Church. Her role in the salvation of mankind is revealed clearly in the Revelation. She will crush the serpent and defeat the dragon. That probably would explain the many apparitions of Mother Mary in present times. More importantly, she is the Queen of Heaven. “Then a great and mysterious sight appeared in the sky. There was a woman, whose dress was the sun and had moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head” (Rev 12). Her royalty is established in giving birth to the King of Kings. In her total cooperation with the plan of God in establishing the New Covenant, she becomes the Arc of the New Covenant. The three mysteries about Mary that is, her Immaculate Conception, her Perpetual Virginity and her Assumption reveal that she was set apart from the time of her conception. The most popular prayer to the Virgin Mary is the Rosary which took form in the second millennium. It was inspired by the Holy Spirit and though it may seem entirely Marian in nature, it is Christocentric as it meditates on the birth, life, death and resurrection of Lord Jesus. Through the Rosary, the Virgin Mary leads us to her son and fulfills her vocation in assisting Jesus is saving souls. It has all the depth of the Gospel message in its entirety. It is an echo of the prayer of Mary, for the work of the redemptive Incarnation which began in her virginal womb. With the Rosary, the faithful contemplate the beauty of the face of Jesus and experience the depths of His love. Through the Rosary, the faithful receive abundant grace. We honor and rejoice in the Blessed and most worthy Mother of Jesus in her perennial victory with all her glorious heavenly court. We invoke Mother Mary’s protection against evil as she is the perennial enemy and terror to the serpent and his legion. Let us pray: Mother of God, Mother of Salvation. Cover me with your most holy mantle and protect my family from the influence of Satan and his fallen angels. Help me to trust in the Divine Mercy of your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, at all times. Sustain me in my love for Him and never allow me to wander away from the Truth of His teachings no matter how many temptations are placed before me. Amen.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 10:00:47 +0000