Mary, Mother of the Church
The feast of the Ascension is a reminder that heaven is a real place and that it is our destiny. Since Jesus ascended body and soul, with a real human body, it means that it must be a real place. He also allowed the apostles to see him ascend into heaven. That was deliberate, to help them believe. The angels that appeared to them specifically mentioned heaven.
Today as we celebrate mother’s day, even though it is not a religious holiday, I want to talk about our heavenly mother and maybe try and clarify a few misunderstandings that often come up.
Sometimes Catholics are accused of worshipping Mary. To worship Mary would be idolatry, as Mary is a human being, like any of us. We do not worship Mary, but we do venerate her and show her great honor, for the huge role that she played in the history of our salvation. To give her honor does not in any way take from giving glory to God. Since Mary is God’s masterpiece and chosen instrument, honoring her is honoring God and recognizing his wonderful work. If someone began complimenting you for your beautiful child, you would hardly say, ‘You should not be talking about them, only me.’ To acknowledge a masterpiece is to acknowledge and give praise to the artist, the Creator.
The fourth Commandment says that we must honor our father and our mother. Jesus kept all the Commandments perfectly and that means that he also showed honor to his earthly father and mother. He spent 30 years in the care of Mary and we don’t know how long in the care of Joseph too. He loved them both dearly, just as any son would and treated them with great honor and respect. We are called to imitate Jesus, which means we are also called to honor his mother and St. Joseph. If God gave Mary this remarkable role of being Mother of the Son of God, she must have a very exalted place in heaven. From the book of Judith, Mary is often spoken of as, ‘The highest honor of our race.’ (Jud 15:9).
Since Mary was without sin, she did not experience death, which is a result of sin and so like Jesus, she was taken body and soul into heaven. How do we know she was without sin? When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and asked her if she would become the mother of Jesus, he started by saying, ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.’ If she was full of grace, that implies there could not be any sin in her. It also makes sense that the one who was chosen by God to bear the Son of God, would be as pure as was possible. If you had a say in the creation of your own mother, what gifts would you not have given her? God did create the mother of Jesus and this was his gift to her, that she was preserved from sin from the first moment of her existence. Since Jesus is both God and man, that means that Mary was the mother of God too.
We say that Mary is Queen of heaven. In the Old Testament there is a line in Jeremiah (7:18) which talks about worshipping a false god who was called, the Queen of Heaven. This has nothing to do with Mary, as the Queen of heaven.
In ancient Israel the queen was not the wife of the king, but the mother of the king. Any king may have had several wives, so who would the queen be? The queen was always the king’s mother. In 1 Kings 2:19, Bathsheba comes to ask a request of her son, King Solomon. It says that he bowed down to her and had a throne brought for her so that she could sit at his right hand. Bathsheba was Solomon’s mother, but she was given a seat at his right hand because she was queen.
Jesus is the king of heaven. Since Mary is his mother, that makes her the queen of the heaven. How would God not give Mary an exalted position considering the role she played?
You could be given the impression that it would have been easier for Mary than for other people because she was without sin. However, the fact that she was without sin means that she would have been more sensitive to evil and would have suffered more because of it than anyone else. From what we know in the Scriptures, she suffered from the time that the Angel appeared to her and told her that God was asking her to be the mother of God. She was pregnant before she came to live with Joseph in a way that was impossible to explain or understand, from a human point of view. According to Jewish law, to be betrothed to someone meant that you were already legally married, but weren’t yet living with them. So how would Mary explain this to Joseph? What embarrassment, fear and tension there must have been for her and the terrible grief it must have caused Joseph. The birth of Jesus was in very difficult circumstances. They had to flee for their lives from Herod and became refugees in Egypt. Later on, Mary and Joseph lost Jesus for three days and finally the arrest, torture and death of Jesus. But Mary never gave up hope. She continued to believe that God would make sense of it. After the resurrection she stayed with and encouraged the Apostles as they waited for the gift of the Spirit before Pentecost.
At the wedding at Cana, Mary interceded for the couple when they had run out of wine. She made it known to Jesus and even though He questioned why she was asking him to work a miracle before his time, He did come to the rescue of the couple and worked one of his first public miracles, which it says helped his disciples to believe in him. (Jn 2:11)
What could Mary ask of Jesus that He would not grant? And so we ask her to intercede for us for Jesus’ help. Who could be a more powerful intercessor?
When Jesus was dying on the cross, He entrusted Mary to St. John and John to Mary as his mother. ‘Woman behold your son… Behold your mother’ (Jn 19:26). St. John represents the model disciple, what we are all called to be and we understand that giving of Mary to St. John, as giving her to us as our spiritual mother and our heavenly mother.
Over the centuries Mary has appeared in many parts of the world, many of which have been approved by the Church. It is interesting that in each place she has appeared she says more or less, the same thing. She tells us that we cannot exist without God, that we need to turn away from sin, to read Scripture, go to Mass and to pray and fast. She is always pointing us to Jesus. It is never about her. She tells us that we need to go to confession often, yet sadly very few people feel the need for this. I wonder who convinced them that it is not necessary? She also tells us that we cannot live without God. Our life makes no sense without God. We are only on this earth for a short time, so we need to be careful how we use our time. It is also interesting that everywhere she has appeared (to my knowledge) she has always shown the seers heaven, hell and purgatory. In Fatima the children she appeared to were just 7, 8 and 10. Why would she show something so terrifying to young children? to help us believe that they are real. Heaven is real, but so is hell and the decisions we make in this life have eternal consequences, which is why she is trying to warn us to live our life well, so that we will go to heaven when we die.
It always makes me sad when I see or hear of people who get obsessed with money and material things, as if that was the answer to everything. They are looking down, instead of up. It is also sad to see how people can become obsessed with power, which so often leads to the suffering of others.
The fact that the heavenly Father continually sends her to us, is an indication of how important a role she continues to play in our salvation. God sends our heavenly mother to guide us, and warn us, just as any mother would. We are blessed that God has given us such a beautiful and powerful intercessor.
The life of Mary is a wonderful witness to us for several reasons. One, it is a reminder to us of what God can do through a human being; a 14/15 year old girl. Mary is fully human and we should never worship her as that would be idolatry, but we give her great honor, just as Jesus did. We ask for her intercession as we continue on our journey to heaven. She has been through dreadful suffering, so we can ask for her help, knowing that she understands our suffering. When we find ourselves losing hope, remember that Mary never lost hope, in spite of what she had to go through.
‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.’
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