CONTEMPLATING MARY
In accordance with some of the guidelines of the Council’s teaching on Mary and the Church, we wish to examine more closely a particular aspect of the relationship between Mary and the liturgy, namely, Mary as a model of the spiritual attitude with which the Church celebrates and lives the divine mysteries.
That the Blessed Virgin is an exemplar in this field derives from the fact that she is recognized as a most excellent exemplar of the Church in the order of faith, charity and perfect union with Christ, that is, of that interior disposition with which the Church, the beloved spouse, closely associated with her Lord, invokes Christ and through him worships the eternal Father.
Let us recollect ourselves for a moment, and may our prayer, united with that of Our Lady, become an act of faith, of intimate union with her Son and of perfect praise to the Father.
Mary is the ATTENTIVE Virgin, who receives the Word of God with faith, that faith which in her case was the gateway and path to divine motherhood, for, as St. Augustine realized, “Blessed Mary by believing conceived him [Jesus] whom believing she brought forth.” In fact, when she received from the angel the answer to her doubt, she said, ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord, let what you have said be done to me’ ” (Lk 1:38)
It was faith that was for her the cause of blessedness and certainty in the fulfillment of the promise: “Blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
Similarly, it was faith with which she, who played a part in the Incarnation and was a unique witness to it, thinking back on the events of the infancy of Christ, meditated upon these events in her heart.
The Church also acts in this way, especially in the liturgy, when with faith she listens, accepts, proclaims and venerates the Word of God, distributes it to the faithful as the BREAD OF LIFE , and in the light of that word examines the signs of the times and interprets and lives the events of history.
That is the culmination of the dialogue of salvation between God and humanity: the FIAT of the Word becoming incarnate and the FIAT of Mary who, by the Holy Spirit, becomes Mother of God and Mother of all the living. Are we able to evaluate the consequences of our acceptance or our refusal of what the Lord proposes to us?
Mary is the Virgin IN PRAYER. She appears as such in the visit to the mother of the precursor, when she pours out her soul in expressions glorifying God, and expressions of humility, faith and hope. This prayer is the Magnificat, Mary’s prayer par excellence, the song of the messianic times in which there mingles the joy of the ancient and the new Israel.
It is in Mary’s canticle that there was heard once more the rejoicing of Abraham who foresaw the Messiah, and there rang out in prophetic anticipation the voice of the Church: “In her exultation Mary prophetically declared in the name of the Church, ‘My soul proclaims the glory of the Lord....’ ” And in fact Mary’s hymn has spread far and wide and has become the prayer of the whole Church in all ages.
At Cana, Mary appears once more as the Virgin IN PRAYER: when she tactfully told her Son of a temporal need she also obtained an effect of grace, namely, that Jesus, in working the first of his “signs,” confirmed his disciples’ faith in him.
Likewise, the last description of Mary’s life presents her as praying. The apostles “joined in continuous prayer, together with several women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers” (Acts 1:14).
We have here the prayerful presence of Mary in the early Church and in the Church throughout all ages, for, having been assumed into heaven, she has not abandoned her mission of intercession and salvation. The title “Virgin in Prayer” also fits the Church, which day by day presents to the Father the needs of her children, “praises the Lord unceasingly and intercedes for the salvation of the world.”
The Blessed Virgin, bearing her Son, went to visit Elizabeth to offer her a charitable helping hand and to proclaim with her the mercy of the Savior God. The Magnificat of her humility, her faith and her hope has become the prayer of the Church of all times.
Mary is also the Virgin-Mother – she who “believing and obeying... brought forth on earth the Father’s Son. This she did, not knowing man but overshadowed by the Holy Spirit.” This was a miraculous motherhood, set up by God as the type and exemplar of the fruitfulness of the Virgin-Church, which “becomes herself a mother.... For by her preaching and by Baptism she brings forth to a new and immortal life children who are conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of God.”
The ancient Fathers rightly taught that the Church prolongs in the sacrament of Baptism the virginal motherhood of Mary. Among such references we like to recall that of St. Leo the Great who says: “The origin which [Christ] took in the womb of the Virgin he has given to the baptismal font: he has given to water what he had given to his Mother – the power of the Most High and the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, which was responsible for Mary’s bringing forth the Savior, has the same effect, so that water may regenerate the believer.”
If we wished to go to liturgical sources, we could quote the beautiful Illatio of the Mozarabic liturgy: “The former [Mary] carried Life in her womb; the latter [the Church] bears Life in the waters of Baptism. In Mary’s members Christ was formed; in the waters of the Church Christ is put on.”
Through her divine maternity and her perfect virginity, Mary gave birth to the Savior of the world. As we adore this beloved Son, the Prince of Peace, we venerate as well the glorious Mother who presented the Redeemer of all peoples to the shepherds and Magi that they might adore Him.
Mary is also the Virgin PRESENTING OFFERINGS. In the episode of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, the Church, guided by the Spirit, has detected, over and above the fulfillment of the laws regarding the offering of the firstborn and the purification of the mother, a mystery of salvation related to the history of salvation.
That is, she has noted the continuity of the fundamental offering that the incarnate Word made to the Father when he entered the world. The Church has seen the universal nature of salvation proclaimed, for Simeon, greeting in the Child the light to enlighten the peoples and the glory of the people Israel, recognized in him the Messiah, the Savior of all.
The Church has understood the prophetic reference to the passion of Christ: the fact that Simeon’s words, which linked in one prophecy the Son as “the sign of contradiction” and the Mother, whose soul would be pierced by a sword, came true on Calvary.
It is a mystery of salvation that in its various aspects orients the episode of the Presentation in the Temple to the salvific event of the cross.
But the Church herself has detected in the heart of the Virgin taking her Son to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord a desire to make an offering, a desire that exceeds the ordinary meaning of the rite. A witness to this intuition is found in the loving prayer of St. Bernard: “Offer your Son, holy Virgin, and present to the Lord the blessed fruit of your womb. Offer for the reconciliation of us all the holy Victim which is pleasing to God.”
In the Temple, Mary and Joseph offered for the reconciliation of us all the holy Victim which is pleasing to God. The Virgin is intimately bound to this mystery of salvation as the Mother of Him who was proclaimed “the light of all nations and the glory of the people of Israel”.
Mary is not only an example for the whole Church in the exercise of divine worship but is also, clearly, a teacher of the spiritual life for individual Christians. The faithful at a very early date began to look to Mary and to imitate her in making their lives an act of worship of God, and making their worship a commitment of their lives.
As early as the fourth century, St. Ambrose, speaking to the people, expressed the hope that each of them would have the spirit of Mary in order to glorify God: “May the heart of Mary be in each Christian to proclaim the greatness of the Lord; may her spirit be in everyone to exult in God.”
But Mary is above all the example of that worship that consists in making one’s life an offering to God. This is an ancient and ever new doctrine that each individual can hear again by heeding the Church’s teaching, but also by heeding the very voice of the Virgin as she, anticipating in herself the wonderful petition of the Lord’s Prayer – “your will be done” – replied to God’s messenger: “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let what you have said be done to me.”
And Mary’s “yes’ is for all Christians a lesson and example of obedience to the will of the Father, which is the way and means of one’s own sanctification.
In a unanimous upsurge of fervor, let us venerate Mary in her dignity of Virgin who became, through the work of the Holy Spirit, the Mother of the Incarnate Word.
Let us thank Mary for having accepted her role of Co-Redemptrix and Mother of the all the members of the Mystical Body.
Let us admire, in the humble handmaid of the Lord, the Queen of Mercy and the Mother of Grace.
Let us beseech Mary to transform us and to make, of each one of us, a living copy of Jesus, her beloved Son. Amen.
(Most of this text consists of excerpts from Pope Paul VI’s Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus, nos. 16-21.)
