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THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Father Christopher G. Phillips

THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY: MODEL AND INTERCESSOR

Throughout the centuries, Christians have loved and honored Mary, the Mother of God.  We rejoice in her festivals, we sing her praises, we remember her in the names of our churches, we ask for her prayers.  Artists have used their talents to communicate her glory; poets have spoken of her great spiritual beauty; her fame is without equal for any other created being.  In her Magnificat, she foretold that all generations would call her "blessed" -- and so they have from generation to generation, including our own.

Devotion to Mary, the Mother of our Lord, is an important part of the true practice of the Catholic faith -- and yet, it is probably one of the most misunderstood aspects of our faith by those who are not Catholic, and it is often-times something which isn't properly incorporated into the practice of the faith by Catholics themselves.

The basis of our devotion to the Blessed Mother begins, of course, upon the pages of Holy Scripture.  There is a multitude of passages in the Old Testament which refer to her in a prophetic way, and she is portrayed on several occasions in the New Testament.  But there is one picture of her which we glimpse in the Gospel which provides the beginning point, and the final word, if we are to understand her at all: and this picture is that of Mary as she stood beneath the Cross.  To see her love at this climactic moment in her life is to understand her as the Virgin foretold --it is to see her as Mother of the Church -- it is to know her as Queen of heaven.  Mary beneath the Cross is the ideal model for Christians; she shows us the pattern of how our own souls should stand before the Crucified Redeemer.

This single scene has been portrayed in countless works of art, and there are almost limitless ways in which the Mother who stands at the feet of her dying Son has been represented.  Some have portrayed a bitter sorrow and desolation; but many have shown her with no tears in her eyes, and no outward show of sorrow at all.  Certainly, we can't think that Mary was unmoved by the agony of Jesus on the Cross -- indeed, perhaps Christ's greatest pain as He hung on the Cross was the sight of His Mother's sorrow at His suffering -- and perhaps the heaviest grief in Mary's heart was the knowledge that her sorrow increased her Son's pain.  But perhaps there is something to this picture of Mary's steady calm on Calvary -- although it may not be realistic in a human way, it perhaps shows us a deeper truth about the Blessed Mother: it tells us of the strength which was given to her by God, and it speaks of her unwaivering trust in her Divine Son.

At the crucifixion of Jesus, most of Christ's followers had given in to despair -- they had scattered in all directions; they had, for the time being, forsaken the Master whom they loved.  There were others who were hoping that He would perform a miracle and come down from the Cross.  Still others were indifferent to his pain, while others were making a mockery of His sufferings.  But even though most of the apostles had scattered like sheep who wouldn't risk their lives for their Shepherd, and even though St. John alone had returned in the spirit of penitence, it was Mary who had remained.  She was faithful to the last -- oh, certainly she wasn't encouraged by any word of hope from the lips of her Son, she wasn't encouraged by any sign of remorse from His persecutors -- but she simply trusted and believed in the Son who had never failed her.

As we look upon those who shared in Christ's earthly life, we know that the love that we have for our Lord is really more like the Apostles' love. We consider that we're quite devoted to Him -- we wonder why others don't love Him more -- but then, when the times comes when our faith is tested, we so often fail the test. When religion becomes difficult or unpopular -- when our faith begins to make us look foolish or weak in the eyes of the world -- then we forsake our Lord, just as surely as his followers did when the executioner raised the hammer to drive the nails into Christ's sacred Flesh. We have learned to pray with Christ, and we have known the joy which His presence gives to our prayers; we may even have learned to serve Him, by bringing others to Him, and we have known a real joy in our service. But, sad to say, so often our prayers don't seem to stand the acid test of Gethsemane -- our service falters when others are slow to respond to our words and actions -- when things don't seem to be going well, our love and our prayers and our service seem to pale. But it is precisely then that our Lord most demands our love. As followers of Christ we cannot be content simply to share in His victories. He asks us to follow Him to the Cross and to stand beneath it, just as His Mother stood.

It was perfect love that brought Mary to the foot of the Cross; it was perfect love that kept her faithful to the end, when all others had deserted our Lord.  And so, after our own failures, our own acts of disloyalty and desertion, we must come back, as St. John came back, with all of our guilt -- to the Cross; not looking for anything but a share in our Lady's perfect love and our Lady's perfect faithfulness -- and it is then that we will hear Christ's words, "Behold thy Mother."  Those words spoken first to St. John, become words directed to us.

Think of the circumstances in which they were first said: here before our Lord were the two whom He loved the most -- His blessed Mother and St. John.  How difficult it must have been to speak intimately to these two in the prevailing atmosphere of hatred surrounding Him.  Our Lord used the same form of address to Mary as He had on that day some three years before at the wedding in Cana -- "Woman..."  He had told her there that His hour had not yet come -- and yet what she was asking Him to do then would bring about His Hour; namely, His Passion.  The miracle which she had asked for -- the changing of water into wine -- was going to hasten the day when wine would be changed into His Blood -- and so He addresses her both times as "Woman..." -- that term of universal Motherhood.  Mary was the "new Eve" by whom salvation had come into the world -— and there came a universality to the Motherhood of Mary; likewise, Jesus did not address John by his name, for that would have limited this new relationship simply to the son of Zebedee -- no, John was addressed by Christ also in a universal way, as "son" -- so that he could stand for all of humanity.  And here is the answer to the mystery which appeared in the Gospel, when we are told that Mary laid her "first-born" in the manger.  Did that statement mean that Our Blessed Mother was to have other children?  Most assuredly it did, but not children according to the flesh -- our divine Savior Jesus Christ was the one and only Son of Mary according to the flesh -- but our Lady was to have other children according to the spirit --namely, every faithful follower of Christ.  Each one of us, marked with the cross of Christ in baptism, nourished with His Body and Blood in Holy Communion, stands mystically in the place of St. John: Mary has been given to us as a loving Mother, and we have been given to her as spiritual children -- this is what Christ meant when He spoke out of His final agony on the Cross, "Behold, thy Mother."

Remember when the disciples were travelling with Jesus up to Jerusalem, Christ tried to explain to them on more than one occasion that He was going to suffer and die; He tried to explain His coming passion, to show them that it was the condition of His ultimate resurrection and glory.  But Scripture tells us that "they did not understand His saying, and it was hidden from them..."  Doesn't that seem to describe us, too?  As long as we can feel our Lord's approval and encouragement -- as long as there is work to be done which is gratifying and rewarding, then we're faithful to Christ.  But we seem unable to understand that it is our vocation to stand by Jesus even when we are unable to accomplish what we want -- when things don't go well -- when it appears that Christ is suffering and we see no lightening of His suffering -- when we seem to gain no happiness from our faith, and it seems that we want to run away from it all in an attempt to save our good spirits, just as the apostles ran away to try and save their lives.  We've felt that depression on more than one occasion.  We want to please our Lord, but it seems that the more we try, the less we accomplish, and the more depressing it becomes.  But Mary's love tells us how wrong that is: she understood something which the disciples could not, at that time, understand. Perhaps it was because she had kept all His sayings and pondered them in her heart, that she caught some glimpse of our Lord's meaning as He went up to Jerusalem towards the Cross -- she saw that the Son of Man must suffer, and Mary knew in her heart that divine paradox of realizing victory through what the world would call failure.

If we simply look at the Gospels, it would appear that Mary never did anything very striking in and of herself; she wasn't responsible for any great work like St Peter or St. Paul or St. John.  But there is the marvel of Mary's life.  When we see grand and glorious results of prayer -- when we see real evidence of the power of Christ in our lives and in what we are able to do their lives, then we have no temptation to despair; but when we're not given any great thing to do -- when we simply have to wait upon God -- when we have to just practice our faith day after day, without any great sign begin granted to us, to show that we're doing ourselves or anyone else any good -- then that's the time when we're tempted to be discouraged -- but it's then that we must turn to Mary, and look at her life.

Think of Mary's life -- think of the care she spent in nourishing the Christ Child; think of the time she spent in raising Him to adulthood; think of how she had the responsibility of educating Him in a human sense.  It was she who taught Him His first prayers; she told Him about the things of God; she took Him to the synagogue and to the Temple to worship.  And then -- just when most mothers might have expected some return or reward, her Son left her.  She heard of His ministry, but she didn't share in it in any great way.  She no doubt prayed for Him, but she wasn't called to work for Him.  She didn't know the joy which the apostles knew, on those occasions when people crowded to hear the new prophet -- when people flocked to become His followers, and the children ran out into the streets because they heard that the Man from Nazareth was coming.  She didn't share in the power that the Lord gave His disciples; she didn't know the happiness of healing the sick -- she didn't know the wonder of casting out devils, or the joy of preaching the kingdom of God.  She just waited -- she was proud of her Son, and yet she was unable to do anything for Him -- she knew that her role was waiting for that day when the prophecy of Simeon would come true, and that her heart would be pierced by a sword.

And certainly, the sword did come.  Even at the end of Christ's life, Mary was deprived of the comfort which the apostles had given to them: she was not in that Upper Room when Christ instituted the sacred Mystery of the Mass, and bestowed the priesthood upon his apostles.  We only hear of her at the last when she has walked the Way of Sorrows with Jesus.  She was jostled anonymously along with the crowds, trying to catch a glimpse now and then of the tortured face of her divine Son  until finally she stands beneath the Cross in silence, and she watches her Son die, uncomforted and untouchable.  How her arms must have ached -- those arms which had held him as a baby -- those hands which had guided Him in His first steps, and which had prepared His food and His clothes, and which had soothed Him throughout His childhood -- her arms could not hold Him as long the nails were holding Him upon the Cross; her hands could not comfort Him as long as He was lifted high upon the Cross.

But here is the glory of Mary: her faithful love -- faithful even when her beloved Son was far away from her in His agony; faithful, even when His eyes were dimmed by death, and when she was unable to receive any sign of His love and encouragement.   She had been prepared for this moment -- and she may well have thought back to those times when it seemed as though Christ was far from her, and out of her reach.  She may have remembered back to the wedding in Cana of Galilee, when Christ seemed to be short with her, when he said to her, "Woman, what have I to do with thee; my hour is not yet come....."  She may have remembered when He was with a group of followers, and she stood outside the place with some of His family, and when Christ was told that she was there seeking Him, He asked, "Who is my mother and my brothers?..."  But she came to know that He was not ignoring her, but He was preparing her for this day, so that she would have the strength not to turn away simply because the time was difficult.  In the light of that, how can we complain about our unanswered prayers?  How can we be discouraged over those times when our Lord seems not to listen to us, or smile upon us?  Isn't that a sign that He trusts us, as He trusted His Mother -~ that He isn't treating us as petulant children always needing encouragement -- but as friends and followers on whom He can rely, who will not turn away simply because things are not always as we want them to be?

Each of us has had times when we feel that we aren't doing any good -- that we're failures.  Perhaps children whom you have raised and taught the Catholic faith have lapsed and fallen away from the Church as they grew older.  Maybe friends who came with you to Mass have given up receiving the sacraments.  Perhaps you feel you ought to be doing more to bring people to the faith, and yet somehow you cannot find any way in which you can help.  Perhaps you feel that the work you are doing, or the prayers you are saying, are not really of much use.  You may feel that God isn't taking any notice of you, and that He's far away.  Such thoughts are bound to come, if you have been in the Church for any length of time.  But remember Mary -- how she never allowed herself to become discouraged; she never wondered because things seemed to be going wrong for her Son and for the Church which He founded; she never despaired because she was not able to do all that she wanted to help her Son Jesus. She simply trusted her Son, and went on trusting.  And what was the result?

The result of Mary's patience is simply this: that she has brought far more souls to our Lord than any preacher, than any other saint in the history of the Church.  Think of the millions -- both saints and sinners -- who have trusted in her prayers -- and in that trust, have received salvation. Rich and poor, wise and foolish -- they have come to the power of her intercession, and they have never found it lacking.  Mary's silent waiting upon the Lord during her earthly life: that has given her strength to accomplish more for God than any other of His creatures in the history of the world. And so we should go to Mary at all times -- but especially when we feel that we have failed, when we feel that we are useless, when we feel that we are spending lots of time but making no progress at all.  It's that sense of failure and disappointment -- of feeling that we have accomplished very little for God  that is one of the agonies of the passion which our Lord wants us to share with Him and with His Blessed Mother.  If we continue on -- even when we are failures -- then we can be certain that, like Mary, we may be doing more to assist the coming the Kingdom of God than the most eloquent preacher -- more than the most skillful shepherd in the Church of Christ.

We have no difficulty in appreciating the message of Bethlehem: the beauty of the Christ Child -- the joy of the birth of a baby, and the nursing mother -- it would take a very hard heart indeed not to be moved by all of that.  But the question is, can we -- like Mary -- endure what follows it?  Can we, who worship with her at Bethlehem follow her to Calvary?  Can we, who rejoice at His birth, be faithful as He faces death?

Mary did —- and her secret was a simple one: she kept every saying our Lord, every look, every gesture, and she pondered them in her heart.  If we fill our hearts and minds with Christ, as she did -- we will not be found unworthy.  We will come through the "refiner's fire" -- that fire which was part of the prophecy of Malachi, who said, "He shall sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver."  The refiner of silver worked like this: he would sit before the furnace and hold a crucible above it, containing the impure mixture of silver and lead.  Then, as the crucible was heated, the lead would crumble away, until the pure silver would begin to shine.  And when the refiner could see his own reflection shining clearly in the silver, then he would know that the metal was pure, and needed no further refining.  That's what Jesus saw in Mary -- He saw His own image -- the image of God, shining and reflecting in her soul.  He saw the reflection of His own love and holiness in her.  And it's precisely that which He looks for in us.  Our sins are to be purged away -- our selfishness and our worldliness are to be refined away, as the lead is from silver -- in the furnace of our contrition, until Christ sees His own face reflected in our hearts.  He has promised that He will purify us, if we come to Him.

The first thing a baby sees when he looks up into his mother's eyes is the reflection of his own face in them. And that, no doubt, was the first thing that the Baby Jesus saw at His birth -- the first recollection of His earthly life -- His own face, shining, reflected in His Mother's eyes.  And the last thing that the crucified Lord saw, as He looked down from the Cross, was His Mother's eyes looking up at Him.  And there again -- He saw in her, His own reflection -- unmarred by any stain of sin and without any selfishness at all.

And what He saw in Mary, He looks for mystically in us --and He has made it possible, in His saving work of redemption.  As Mary bore the Incarnate Word within her, so we are afforded the privilege of bearing Christ within us -- He was planted within us at baptism, and each time we receive Holy Communion, we bear Him within us in a miraculous way as we are living tabernacles for His Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.  As Mary lived only to serve her Son, so we have the same vocation in her words, "Do whatever He tells you to do..."  To follow Mary as our Model, and to be helped by her as our Intercessor -- that is how we will become the "holy people" Christ wants us to be.

THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY: CHOSEN BY GOD
 
Mary is the greatest of all the saints, because of the special task for which she had been chosen by God -— that of being the Mother of the Incarnate Word of God.  We have seen the result of this special "choosing" by God of Mary, as we looked at her standing beside the Cross.  But now, we "back up" for a time -— and we see what it was about her that made her this model of patience and holiness.  Just as a novel or a film can be most effective when it "begins with the end" and then proceeds to tell its story through  flashbacks  -— so we already have seen Mary standing beside the Cross, but now our hearts are ready to look back, and see what it was that led her there.  To understand, we must look back in the misty distance of Jewish history:

The Messiah was yearned for by the Jews for centuries.  It was the hope and dream of every Jewish maiden that she might be the mother of the awaited-one.  For a people which had been set apart by God, and then attacked from every side -- other peoples attempting to dislodge them; heathen kings attempting to rule them; the prophets attempting to keep them in the ways of Almighty God -- wanderings and waverings from the faith which had been revealed to them, meant that their yearning for the great king -- the Anointed One -- was deep and persistent.

Thirty-nine times in the Old Testament is mentioned the "Anointed One" -- most often referring to the Kings of Israel and Judah: it is used of Saul; of David; of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah -- and, mysteriously, of a descendant of David who is given no more precise designation.  But the "Anointed One" was the one around whom history was to revolve.  "To anoint" means to pour or smear oil upon a person, thus consecrating him, particularly consecrating him to the Lord.  "The Lord's Anointed," referring to whatever king happened to be ruling the Jews at that time, was shortened simply to "Anointed" (which is Hebrew is "mashiah", of "Messiah".  This was translated into the Greek language as "Christos" or our word, "Christ."

Even though, in its primary meaning, "The Anointed" referred to the earthly king or ruler of the Jews, there was the expectant and more universal meaning which referred to the One Who Was To Come -- the final Messiah -- the One who would restore the Kingdom of Israel in all of its glory as an earthly kingdom: God's rule would thus be established upon the whole earth, under the leadership of God's special Anointed One, and the original state of man, as he was before the Fall, would be a reality.

Thus the prophets spoke -- their words having a double meaning, as they addressed their own contemporary situations, and yet with a mystery which would transcend history.  And so our understanding of the unique place of Mary can be found in the words of a prophet by the name of Isaiah, who spoke to an obscure king by the name of Ahaz, a king of Judah who ruled from the year 735 to 715 B.C.  Ahaz was a king of the house of David, but he was an unholy man -- he had given in to pagan worship at Jerusalem; Jerusalem was under seige, and Ahaz and his people were in such terror because of the advancing armies, that he emptied the treasuries of both his court
and the Temple, hoping to obtain help from his pagan friends the Assyrians.  To that end, he even offered his own son as a sacrifice to the Assyrian gods.  The prophet Isaiah pleaded with him to return to the true God.  Ahaz was frantic about defending Jerusalem, and Isaiah told him where the true defense was to be found -- that is, with God.  He tells Ahaz that the invaders are on the way out -- in a few years they would be shattered.  Let Ahaz trust in God, Isaiah said -- because faith is the true source and secret of security.  But the appeal fell on the deaf ears of a man beside himself with fear.  "So what?" you might be thinking -- what has the story of a desperate and obscure king have to do with Mary? It's because Isaiah then spoke these words to Ahaz:

"Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven."  But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test."  And Isaiah said, "Hear then, 0 house of David!  Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also?  Therefore  the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel [God is with us.]"

Ahaz is invited -- or rather, dared -- to name the thing in heaven or earth or hell itself which to him would be proof of God's word.  He refused, as we would expect a man to refuse who didn't want to be convinced by that which would commit him to the way of God -- when the last thing he wanted was even to acknowledge God.  With a pretended piety he says that he will not put the Lord to the test.  Isaiah says, "No, you will not test him -- but you will flaunt him and deny him and weary him till even divine patience is at an end.  You have come to that point.. therefore, you will have a sign..."

The attack will be spared.  Somewhere in Israel a little son will be born, and his mother, rejoicing in the deliverance of her nation, will call him IMMANUEL (God is with us.)  The salvation offered and refused will, despite the king's unbelief, become a fact, and before the child is weaned, the attackers will have met their doom.

But how much bigger the sign is -- than simply a sign to Ahaz!  What was a relief to an anonymous mother, moving her to give her new-born son a name to honor the fact that God had not deserted the nation, became the announcement of the great Son -- the Messiah -- to come...Immanuel: could the name ultimately describe anyone but our Lord Jesus Christ? And could the mother ultimately be anyone but the Virgin Mary?

Yes, God came to the rescue time and time again in those
centuries before the birth of Christ -- and the people would be reminded of the fact that God was with them, and they would honor that fact.  But God would not deal eternally in stop-gap ways.  Finally he would send the real Son -- the one who really is "God with us."  In attempting to call a faithless king to have faith, Isaiah spoke the words -- wittingly or unwittingly -- which would herald the real "Anointed One" and which would describe the Mother of the Anointed One -- the Blessed Virgin Mary, chosen by God from the beginning of time.

Ahaz did not heed Isaiah and he did not heed God, and so the prophet turned to the people with his message: a great disaster is coming, your land will be over-run with foreigners -- return to God before the plundering of your homeland!  Because their king had compromised with evil, so the whole country was enslaved by sin.  There was a conspiracy to dethrone King Ahaz -- no one knew what to think, everyone was filled with fear, and Isaiah cries out, "Conspire with God, fear him and nobody else."  But Isaiah is met with deaf ears, and so the prophet stops speaking. The time had come for his silence, so that the drama could play itself out, and the people would see the power of God in action.  And out of the silence -- out of the darkness of the people's false religion and superstition -- come those memorable words of Isaiah: "The
people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.  Thou hast multiplied the nation, thou hast increased its joy; they rejoice before thee as with joy at the harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.  For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, thou hast broken as on the day of Midian.  For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and for evermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this."

Does this refer to a contemporary king, or an ideal king of the future?  Is Isaiah speaking about a new king of Judah, or is he looking far into history after the last king of Judah was carried off into exile, and is simply an expression of hope for the restoration of the Davidic monarchy?  Or has Isaiah, once again -- wittingly or unwittingly -- peered hundreds of years ahead, and is announcing the birth of the true Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ -- the Son of Mary -- the One who brings light into the darkness and gloom?

Although Isaiah spoke these words to his own people, there is no doubt that the Church has claimed them for its own. Whenever the Church gathers to celebrate the nativity of Christ Child, these majestic words are heard.  We rejoice at the gift of God's love in Christ Jesus.  It is the great song of Christ, and the Church sings it in thanksgiving for the fulfillment of that hope which burned in the heart of every child of God for centuries -- it's the song of that heart's desire that God would visit and redeem his people. In Christ all has come true: "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light" -- the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
 

Across the centuries it cries out: spoken to the despairing hearts of a handful of Jews more than twenty-five hundred years ago, it has become a statement which is timeless and universal -- the Redeemer has come to establish His Kingdom! Foreign powers invade; sin holds sway; people turn from God, and yet -- here we have the vision of the King coming in triumph.  By faith Isaiah saw him.  To this king are given the titles which are beyond any earthly king: he is a "Counselor" more wonderful than the wisest of men; he is a "mighty God" rejected time and time again, but who came nevertheless; he is the "Everlasting Father" who comes with a love for men which cannot be destroyed; he is the "Prince of Peace" who brings peace where there was no peace, but only confusion and injustice.

We cannot escape the fact that this whole great passage is bound up with faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God: phrase by phrase, line by line, all that Isaiah proclaimed about the coming Messiah has been fulfilled in the person and mission of our Lord Jesus Christ, and for two thousand years the Church has taken up the message, and proclaimed the Good News from God: "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given..." -- Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, the Savior of the world -- and He has come to us through a virgin chosen by God: Blessed Mary herself.  Her life forms one of the great pivotal points of history, because of the task given to her by God.  And yet -- this earth-shattering event took place in a surprisingly quiet way: St. Luke records it for us:

"The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.  And he came to her and said, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!"  But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be.  And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.  He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and of his kingdom there will be no end."  And Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I have no husband?"  And the angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God..."

And so to this, Mary said "yes" -- and in her "yes" to God is a treasury of truth.  Just as God heard Mary's "yes" and so the Son was conceived in her womb, so the Church has listened to Mary's "yes", and it has communicated the great truths about Mary in a voice loud and clear -- truths which we accept, and around which we form our devotion -- because these truths about Mary speak volumes about her divine Son.
 

First -- the Church teaches us that Mary was immaculately conceived.  At the instant of Mary's conception in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, she was, by the special grace of God, protected from the stain of original sin.  This was done because of the great destiny which was hers -- that of being the Mother of God.  It was her flesh which would give flesh to Jesus; it was her body which would be His tabernacle for nine months -- therefore, it would be inconceivable that the Mother of God should bear the sin of Adam, since God can endure no sin.  This was taught implicitly and explicitly from the earliest days of the Church, and was confirmed and solemnly proclaimed by Pope Pius IX in 1854, when he stated infallibly, "The most holy Virgin Mary was, in the first moment of her conception, by a unique gift of grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ the Redeemer of mankind, preserved free from all stain of original sin."

Second -- the Church teaches us that Mary was impeccable. In other words, she was never stained with any personal sin, and she was free from every moral imperfection.  Certainly, she lived a normal human life, she had to labor, and was subject to pain and tiredness; but she, like her son Jesus Christ, had nothing in her which led her to act against the perfect moral law of God.  This
formal teaching of the Church is deduced from the words of the archangel Gabriel, when he addressed her as being "full of grace" -- since moral guilt could not be reconciled with being filled completely with God's grace.  Once again, this teaching is defined because of Mary's relationship with her Son, and not through some merit of her own.  She did not sin, and she could not sin, because of a special grace and privilege given to her by God, because He had chosen her to bear the Incarnate Word.

Third -- the Church teaches us that Mary was perpetually a virgin.  Three states of virginity are professed in this teaching: Mary conceived her Son without a human Father; she gave birth to Jesus without violating her virginity; and she remained a virgin after our Lord was born for the rest of her life.  The virginal conception is contained in all of the ancient creeds: "Jesus Christ.. who was born by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary..."  The biblical basis of this, of course, is the prophecy of Isaiah ("A virgin shall conceive and bear a son...'), and it is confirmed by St. Matthew's Gospel, which quotes this directly from the prophecy of Isaiah.  All of the early Church Fathers confirm this teaching.  The virginal birth was not questioned until a monk named Jovinian, teaching in the 4th century, said that "a virgin conceived, but a virgin did not bring forth," and he was condemned by a synod of the Church meeting at Milan in the year 390, which was presided over by St. Ambrose.  This was confirmed by the fifth general council of the Church, which was held at Constantinople in the year 553, where Mary was confirmed as being "perpetually virgin." Certainly, the ancient theologians did not go into the physical details, but they speak in modest analogies, such as the "emergence of Christ from the sealed tomb"; his "going through closed doors"; the "penetration of light through glass"; the "going out of human thought from the mind".  The Church also teaches us of the perpetual virginity of Mary; that she remained a virgin after Christ was born; her marriage to Joseph was a spiritual one, which was not consummated physically, and so she bore no other children.  From the fourth century on, such formulas as that of St. Augustine became common: "A virgin conceived, a virgin gave birth, and a virgin remained."

All of these truths about Mary have to do not only with her -- but they are intimately related to Our Lord Jesus Christ. All of them are true, because of the one great truth of history: that Almighty God took human flesh upon Himself, and was born of this special woman -- a virgin, chosen by God Himself -- a Virgin prepared for this task through her immaculate conception, a virgin preserved for this task through her impeccability (her inability to sin), a virgin honored for this task through her perpetual virginity, as a constant witness to the fact that it was her pure flesh which was given to the Incarnate Word.  These truths are not simply esoteric theological statements: they are truths which impact history; they are truths which prepared for that ultimate moment of history when God entered personally into time and space in Bethlehem.

It was at that time that Ceasar Augustus, the master of the world, determined to issue an order for a census of the world -- remember that all of the nations of the civilized world were subject to Rome.  To every outpost -- to every corner -- the order went out: every Roman subject must be enrolled in his own city.  How far it was from the mind of Caesar Augustus, that this imperial order was simply a tiny part of God's great plan that the Savior of the world should be born of the chosen Virgin Mary in a little-known place called Bethlehem.  An order of Caesar Augustus -- perhaps thought of by him only incidentally, and then ordered casually -- meant that countless lives were interrupted as people gathered the necessary supplies for their various journeys.

And so it was that Joseph and Mary, this couple visited by angels and touched by God, were travelling in eternity at the order of an earthly ruler.  And because of that, how things were to change!  In a dirty stable, Pure Love was born.  The "Living Bread come down from heaven" was laid where animals had eaten.  The ancestors of Joseph and Mary, the Jews, had worshipped the golden calf, and now the ox and the ass were bowing down before their God.
As Mary fulfilled the plan of God, and gave birth to the Christ, his passion began: He was born in a borrowed stable; He was buried in a borrowed tomb.  The swaddling clothes which Mary wrapped around him when he was born looked forward to the grave-clothes which she would help to wrap around His lifeless body some thirty-three years later.  The wooden manger in which His mother had laid him became the wooden Cross from which she would receive His body into her arms.

And so -- in Christ, heaven came to earth, and it came through the Blessed Virgin Mother.  God's glory was announced to shepherds and to kings -- and they came, as men and women have been coming ever since, to worship the Word Made Flesh.  The Blessed Virgin, holding the Child Jesus, becomes truly our model  - as God calls each one of us to hold out Christ to the world -- to hold Him out in our actions and in our words -- so that all may come to worship Him.

THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY: THE WOMAN TO WHOM WE LOOK

There are many in the world today who are perplexed and confused because the path to God seems to be an obscure one. The world pulls us in all directions.  Not only do we need strength of will -— but often our primary need is to know God's truth so that we can live by it.  We struggle to see some way to live sanctified lives; we seek to find our role in building up the Kingdom of God; we want desperately to find a solution to our own problems and the problems of the world; we need some standard by which we can judge the things which happen to us and around us:    what is moral? what is right? what is God's Will in a given situation?  The one thing that is essential for us to learn and practice is to look to the life of our Lady for the necessary guidance, and to ask for her intercession so that we will receive the grace we need in our search.
 

Many of the traps which wait for us in the world today --many of those confusions which keep the light from our minds and hearts, are such that we are hindered from knowing truth which would be more evident if we lived in a truly Christian time and in a Christian society.  But we don't. How often we feel that the world is so dark, that what would appear in the Gospel to be straightforward and clear, is obscured in our attempts to live out our day to day lives. It is an unfortunate fact that, living in our world as we do, we are bound to be influenced by our surroundings -- by the false standards of the world, by its distorted ideas. What we need to do is to stop trying to figure out by ourselves what we should do -- what is right and moral and good -— and we must start turning to Mary to ask her to implore her Son to give us His light.  She is Our Lady of Wisdom -- and she can give us the understanding we need to illumine our minds concerning the truth which is revealed through the Holy Catholic Church -- she will show us the wisdom which will make clear all things of earth and time and interpret them in the light of God Himself, and of eternity.  She will give us the counsel to see clearly how all the practical details of our lives should be ordered so that we will be led to sanctity -- so that we will know the things of the world for what they really are, and we will know the truth of God for what it really is: namely, that truth which gives us eternal life!  Whatever our situation, through the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary can give to our minds a truly heavenly brightness.  If we will but ask for light, we will need to have no fear of losing our way in the maze of the world, or of falling into error.  Mary, "pondering in her heart" the things concerning her Son, is our model for obtaining light and wisdom from God.  We will be given light as we need it, and we will see more and more with the eyes of her Son as she gradually reveals Him to us. But there is an important thing we should bear in mind: that just as the Holy Spirit unfolded the plan of the Incarnation and Redemption to Mary little by little -- remember that after the Child Jesus was lost in the Temple she had not yet received complete light, since Scripture tells us that she "understood not the things that He spoke unto her" -- so we will receive God's light little by little.

It would probably be more for our pride than for our genuine spiritual need, for the Holy Spirit to let us know in advance His complete program for our sanctification -- and so with Mary, we should ask, "How shall this be done?" --asking the Holy Spirit for guidance, but not expecting an answer so clear, so definite -- that every problem in our lives will simply vanish.  In His wisdom, the Holy Spirit works through out obscure vision, and our darkness, so that His light may shine all the brighter.  He will give us light as we need it, but not always all the light -— all the answers -- we think we must have.

Faithfulness to the Will of God is both active and passive. In her own life, Our Lady gave us the perfect example of faithfulness.  She unhesitatingly and complete accomplished the Will of God as it was manifested to her, by doing her ordinary, commonplace duties -- her housework, caring for the Infant Jesus, cooking Joseph's dinner, making the home in Nazareth a welcoming place -- and she was also faithful to the demands of charity and concern for others which God placed in her path -- such as going to assist her cousin Elizabeth, who was pregnant with St. John the Baptist, or her noticing the embarrassment of the young couple at the wedding feast at Cana, and then seeking to help them.  Mary obeyed the manifestations of the Will of God so faithfully, that we cannot help but be filled with admiration, just from our human point of view.  We cannot imagine her neglecting to follow the desires of God in any way, whether they were revealed to her by her duties, or the needs of her neighbor, or the message of an angel, or through the inner speaking of the Holy Spirit.  Mary was like a leaf on a tree which is moved by the slightest breeze -- she responded to His slightest urging and inspiration.  Her soul was so attuned to the Spirit of God, that it was impossible for her not to take note of the smallest wish of the Most High God -- and certainly she was always ready to respond to His greatest requests which He made of her.  Here's an important point:

Mary's faithfulness in the small things prepared her for faithfulness in great things.  Her generous response to the demands of God's Will throughout her early life increased her ready response at the time of the Annunication -- her faithfulness made her completely worthy, completely ready, for God to work His Will in her in the accomplishment of the Incarnation and Redemption.  Her words  "Be it done unto me according to thy word," is our example of wholehearted surrender to the Holy Spirit -- her perfect acceptance of the Will of God exactly how and when and in what way He desired it to be accomplished.  At every moment of her life -- in all her joys and sorrows -- in the wonder of Bethlehem and in the horror of Calvary -- Mary was always accepting. She was always ready to let God's Will be done -- she was always perfectly conformed to it -- she was always willing to embrace it.

Mary is our example of how to be faithful to the Holy Spirit.  To often we close our ears so that we won't hear Him -- too often we draw back, even if we don't actively resist -- when He lays upon us the responsibility of seeking the Will of God.  But Mary is our example of doing all that God wants to be done; she shows us how to allow Him to do all that He wants to do in us.

If we ask for help, through Mary, our souls will be opened so that we can hear the Holy Spirit, who reveals God's Will to us.  Through Mary's intercession, we receive the grace to fulfill with the greatest care all the work which God has laid out for us.  And above all -- Mary will show us how truly to love with God's love.  She shows us, because she is a perfect reflection of her Son Jesus Christ.  In looking at His life, we know that to work miracles without love would make them valueless -- to suffer crucifixion without love is worthless.  Our acceptance of, and doing the Will of God, must come from our love for God, and for His creation.  Mary gives us the example of love, and it's through her that all the graces we need to love God and our neighbor will come.

The marvelous gifts of the Holy Spirit in us are made active by our love.  They, in turn, enable us to grow in virtue, and to perform acts of virtue in a divine, rather than a human, way.  As we grow in the spiritual life, under the guidance of Mary, these gifts begin to bear fruit -— at first they're like a tree with tightly-closed buds, but under the strong sun-light of charity they gradually open and come into full bloom -- and then, at maturity, where there were blossoms, comes the fruit.

Through the action of the Holy Spirit, and with the help of the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we shall receive the light, the strength, the grace, and the love, to become saints.  It's no accident that where true devotion to Mary flourishes, so there is a greater dependence upon God's grace, there is greater openness to the Holy Spirit, there is a deeper love for neighbor.  Those who have consecrated themselves to Mary seem to receive from her a greater degree of self-sacrifice, a keener understanding of the truths of the faith and how they are related to everyday life, and a deeper awareness of the needs of others.  And at the same time, Mary helps to guard them against error, and protects them from the danger and darkness of the world and the snares of the devil.

One of the greatest challenges facing us as Catholics today is that of secularism -- and to combat it, we must turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary for grace.  Throughout the ages, fidelity to the truths which shine out in her life is one of the greatest weapons to enable us to keep Christ in every phase of life.  It is the grace which we receive through her intercession that helps us to transform the world, rather than be swallowed up by it.

We cannot think of a living body without a soul; and so we cannot think of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, without its soul, which is the Holy Spirit.  And there's another thing a living body must have -- and that is, a heart.  Mary is called the heart of the Mystical Body because of her unique position within it.  Every member of the body is affected by her -- she keeps the life of grace circulating throughout the body.  This comparison of the Holy Spirit to soul, and of Mary to heart, gives us some idea of their vital importance to each of us individually, as well as to the body as a whole.  Through Mary, we should pray constantly to the Holy Spirit and we will, both individually and as the Body of Christ, increase in holiness in conformity to the model of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Mary, our Mother, is full of compassion for us -- and she prepares us to experience the consolation and comfort of the Holy spirit.  Too often we think of the Holy Spirit only as the Spirit of Wisdom and of Truth -- we forget the Holy Spirit's mission to enflame our souls as well as to enlighten our minds.  His fire in us is a fire that is heart-warming, it's meant to console us in our griefs, it's meant to strengthen us under our burden, it's meant to radiate to us the very real love and compassion that God has for His children.  And it is that compassion -- the compassion reflected in the life of the Blessed Virgin --that shows us that there are so many poor in the world --and not only poor in the sense of needing food and clothing and the things of this world -- but poor in spiritual sustenance -- poor because they do not know Christ; poor because they are not fed with the Food of His Body and Blood; poor, and on the verge of despair, because they have no spiritual goods.  And so we must pray that we will follow the example of the compassion of Mary, and that we will share God's blessings with them.  And for ourselves, we should implore Almighty God to fill our emptiness, to supply our wants, to remedy our spiritual poverty.  We should ask Mary for the grace to see our needs more clearly each day -- it's only if we acknowledge our absolute poverty, that our souls will be open to receive the many blessings of God. And it will be then that we will be able to rejoice with Mary, and join in her Magnificat, giving thanks to God, "who has filled the hungry with good things."

And so we are brought back to be with Mary at the foot of the Cross -- that place where we began.  It is there that her life, her purpose, her overflowing graces, were given meaning.  As Christ was born for the Cross, so Mary was born to stand beside it -- giving silent witness to the redemptive work of her Son.  We are called to stand with her -- with that one who was given to us by Christ Himself, to be our Mother -- because it is through our standing with Mary that our souls will "magnify the Lord."