It’s really simple actually, if Mary is the mother of Jesus, she is also the mother of all those who bear his name as Christians. Mother of Christ = mother of Christians. All those who were baptized into Christ have become his brothers and sisters. If that’s the case, we have the same spiritual mother, Mary.
Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God becomes our Father just as he is the Father for the Son. That is why Jesus tells his Apostles that they should no longer ask him to pray to the Father because they themselves can ask him. In other words, our relationship to the Father is, by grace, the same relationship that Jesus has with him by nature. So too, his mother has become our mother. We are rooted in Christ, one with him.
At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples at the Upper Room gathered together with Mary. He overshadowed them, just as he overshadowed her. Christ was conceived at the Annunciation, and he was conceived in his Members at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit equips and sends us forth as Jesus into the world. It can be understood then, that we are Jesus.
At the Cross, Jesus gave his mother to his beloved disciples. At the Cross, the side of Christ was opened and blood and water flowed out, symbolizing the Church emanating out of the side of Christ the new Adam, just as Eve came forth from the side of Adam.
Christ and his Church are united as one, as a bridegroom with his bride form one flesh. All people are called to this fellowship, to be incorporated into the Church, beloved by God. The One Church of Jesus Christ is Universal, made up of people from around the world.
With all that in mind, here is an image I want to share today on the Feast of Mary, Mother of the Church. It’s called Our Lady of Wisdom, painted by a Christian Indian artist. I’ve had it for years but I found it recently and am looking for a place to put it in my room.
The image, while not the typical image of Mater Ecclesia, Mother of the Church, think, the mosaic at the Vatican, does have some connections to the feast day, I think:
Lotus flowers are symbolic of purity and wisdom. Not only do they symbolize the Immaculata, in addition to the crescent moon symbolizing her, they also symbolize wisdom. Jesus is Wisdom Incarnate, the Logos, the Reason who orders the Universe. Mary is the mother of Jesus, the mother of Wisdom.
Through the powerful intercession of the Mother of God, we can receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in abundance. We desperately need the Holy Spirit right now, with his Sevenfold Gifts, especially Wisdom, in order to be Jesus for a hurting society and world starved for him.
We can learn so much from other cultures; it’s as if in going out and evangelizing the world, Christians are evangelized themselves. If, for example, this was taken to heart in the America’s, instead if viewing the I indigenous peoples as “savages,” one could see common threads in our own faith, perhaps a lot of suffering could have been avoided. I realize this is a complicated issue, as many pre-Christian nations practiced some pretty abominable things, but so too the pre-Christian Gentile World, and the non-Hebrew Middle East before them. But the fact that there is a universal longing to be nurtured and lived, like the way Mary does for us, cuts across all cultures and all time, speaks to the universality of the Gospel message and its truth.