The Goretti Group Gazette
May, 2008
Mary as Mother in the Theology of the Body
Mary is personally a recipient of the redemptive work of Christ in a pre-eminent way as being preserved from original sin and cooperating with grace so that she never sinned during her earthly journey. She is the first Christian and the exemplary follower of Jesus. Jesus first reveals himself to Mary through His humanity that he received from her. The Son unites himself to the Mother in a way that is closest in human relationships which is between a mother and her child who share the same blood and who are in communion for the entire time of pregnancy. This communion transforms the Mother to be like her Son. Because Mary is so like her Son we call Mary most holy among Christians and we recognize the fitting resemblance between the Mother and the Son.
We look to the relationship between the Eternal Father and the Son to get some idea of how the best of all mothers would be in the case of Mary. We observe in the Trinity that the Son is entirely in the Father and the Father is entirely in the Son in a reciprocal exchange of love and that the Love shared between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Jesus said that “no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him (Mt.11: 27)” and “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me (Jn 14: 11)”. So the Son is the very likeness of the Father so much so that anyone who sees the Son sees the Father. I would venture to say that anyone who sees Mary would immediately recognize Jesus as her son in a crowded room.
Jesus came to dwell with Mary in pregnancy and thereafter through grace by the indwelling Trinity. In Mary’s turn she reveals Jesus to members of the Church. Through many revelations of Mary she often appears as pregnant as she does in the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. By this she means to indicate that she brings Jesus to the Church and she is indeed the “Christ-Bearer” par excellence as his Mother but she also wants to indicate that she is the mother of every Christian. Mary leads us to Jesus, not only as her son but also as her Lord. She brings us into contact with Jesus in a familial way and we are brought, by degrees, to understand more about who Jesus is in His Divinity as the second person of the Trinity and the only-begotten of the Father.
Mary also reveals Jesus to us in the Eucharist since Jesus has taken His humanity from her. Every time we receive the Eucharist we recall the relationship of Mary with her Son. The Son took all of his humanity from Mary who is Immaculate and in turn Jesus gives us the humanity he received from Mary, uniting it with his Divinity, in the Eucharist. So when we receive Jesus in the Eucharist we receive the humanity He received from Mary and we receive His Divinity—we receive Jesus, the Son of Mary according to the flesh.
We venerate Mary as Mother of Jesus and Mother of the Church and every Christian person. All generations call her blessed because through her our redeemer—our only hope of salvation—has come to us in a very concrete way—literally in the flesh. As we remember our heavenly mother we also remember our earthly mothers and we wish them the best of all Mothers’ Day.
