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Mary continues her role as mother of life with you and me and all of her spiritual children. As mother of Life himself, Mary mediates the life of Christ to us as the new Eve, as the Mother of the Church, and finally, as our mother.
The New Eve
As the “woman” central to God’s plan of salvation, Mary is the “new Eve.” This is the very first title given to Mary in the writings of the Church fathers. St. Paul himself referred to Jesus as the “new Adam” (see Romans 5:14; 1 Corinthians 15:45). There is logic, then, in seeing Mary as the “new Eve” because of her role in giving life to all her spiritual children. We should also mention that the Church in a spiritual way is also called the “new Eve,” because the Church is the mystical bride of Jesus, the Bridegroom, just as the first Eve was the spouse of the first Adam.
The name Eve means “the mother of the living” (see Genesis 3:20). But because the first Eve was joined to the sin of the first Adam, her sin passed on not life but death to her children. This death was both physical and spiritual. Physical death means the death of the body. Before the original sin, our first parents enjoyed the gift of immortality. Death, however, was a punishment for their sin which was passed on to all their descendents. The body would die by being separated from the soul. But even after the death of the body, the soul retains the hope of being reunited to the body at the time of the second coming of Jesus. Spiritual death means that we, as children of the first Eve, were born without the life of God’s sanctifying grace in our souls. We could not redeem ourselves to gain back the life of grace we had lost because we couldn’t pay the price of our own redemption. Unless something happened, the gates of heaven were closed to us forever!
But Mary, as the new Eve, begins to reverse our helpless situation. She can do this because she is now joined to the redemptive work of her divine Son, the new Adam. Jesus came to bring us the fullness of life: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Through his redemption, Jesus restores to us the life of grace that had been lost. This spiritual life is restored to the soul through baptism. At the same time, through his bodily resurrection, Jesus promises to raise our bodies back to life when he returns in glory at the end of time. Because Mary was joined to her Son’s work so intimately, she is truly a mother who brings life to her spiritual children.
Mother of the Church
As the new Eve, the true mother of the living, Mary is the Mother of the Church. St. Paul refers to the Church as the mystical body of Christ. Jesus is the head, while we who are baptized are the members (see Ephesians 5:23). Head and members make up the fullness of Christ’s mystical body. In Bethlehem Mary gave birth to Jesus, our head.
On Calvary Mary became a mother again. Jesus addressed her as such when he said, “Woman, behold, your son” (John 19:26, NAB). To understand this mystical birth on Calvary, we have to look at the way John describes the death of Jesus. At dusk the Roman soldiers broke the legs of the two thieves crucified with Jesus. Breaking their legs hastened their deaths, because the only way to breathe on the cross was to lift oneself up by the legs to inhale. But when the soldiers came to Jesus, it was obvious that he was already dead. They did not break any of his bones, but to be sure that he was not alive, a centurion thrust his lance into Jesus’ side. John tells us that at that moment, blood and water came forth from the side of Christ (see John 19:31-34).
The early Church fathers saw this blood and water as symbols of the creation of the Church. Jesus is the new Adam. Mary is personally the new Eve, as the mother of the living members of Christ’s mystical body. The Church is also the new Eve as the mystical spouse of Jesus, the new Adam. Just as the first Eve was formed from Adam’s side in the garden of Eden, so the Church, as the new Eve, was formed from the side of Jesus on the cross at Calvary.
The Genesis creation account says that God put Adam into a deep sleep, opened his side, took out one of his ribs, and formed Eve (see Genesis 2:21-22). The Church fathers saw a parallel to the Genesis creation in the gospel account of Jesus’ death. In their view, Jesus (the new Adam) was in the sleep of death on the cross, when his side was opened by the centurion’s lance, and out came blood and water, symbolizing the Church. The water represents the Sacrament of Baptism, which gives us the beginning of new life in Christ; the blood represents the Eucharist, which gives us Christ himself, the very author of our new life. As the two greatest sacraments, Baptism and the Eucharist represent the Church itself.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen said that since the Church was mystically “born” from the side of Christ, there was a birth taking place, and so there had to be a mother. Mary was present at the cross and received from her divine Son a new role as mother of the living: “Woman, behold, your son” (John 19:26, NAB). Woman—Jesus again uses that title in addressing his mother, just as he did at the wedding at Cana. There was a deeper reason for his use of the word “woman,” which we see when we look at Genesis. In the garden of Eden, God said to the serpent, who had just led the first Adam and the first Eve into sin,
“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
(Genesis 3:15)
When Jesus at Cana and again at Calvary called his mother “woman,” we can conclude that he was identifying Mary as the one who would be at enmity with the evil one (the devil) and whose offspring would do battle with the devil’s offspring.
When Jesus said to his mother as he was dying, “Woman, behold, your son,” he was also identifying Mary as our mother. In giving life to Christ, who is our head, Mary gives us life also, since the same life that is in the head is also present in us who are the members of his mystical body.
Our Mother
St. Aelred of Rievaulx (d. 1167), a Cistercian abbot and a contemporary of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, explained Mary’s role as our spiritual mother:
We owe [Mary] honor, for she is the mother of our Lord. He who fails to honor the mother clearly dishonors the Son. Also, Scripture says: “Honor your father and your mother.” … Once we all lay in death, as you know and believe, in sin, in darkness, in misery. In death, because we had lost the Lord; in sin, because of our corruption; in darkness, for we were without the light of wisdom, and, thus had perished utterly. But then we were born, far better than through Eve, through Mary the blessed [one], because Christ was born of her. We have recovered new life in place of sin, immortality instead of mortality, light in place of darkness. She is our mother—the mother of our life [Jesus], the mother of our redemption [Jesus], the mother of our light [Jesus]. As the apostle [St. Paul] says of our Lord, “He became for us, by God’s power, our wisdom and justice, our holiness and redemption.” [Mary] then, as mother of Christ, is the mother of our wisdom and justice, of our holiness and redemption. She is more our mother than the mother of our flesh. Our birth from her is better, for from her is born our holiness, our wisdom, our justice, our sanctification, our redemption.p>
We all received new life in Christ, and Mary gave life to him by conceiving and giving birth to him. Therefore, we can say with St. Aelred that Mary gave us life also, since we share in the very life Christ received from her. In the mystical body, the life that is in Jesus our head flows into us who are his members. This makes Mary’s role for us one of being a mother of life. She is always spiritually mediating or transmitting life to us through and in Christ, who dwells within us.
Mary Brings Jesus to Us
How does Mary mediate life to us? First, she brings Jesus to us. Let’s look at the visitation of Mary to her aged cousin, Elizabeth. The archangel Gabriel tells Mary that Elizabeth is with child. Hearing that news, Mary goes in haste to help her older cousin. When the women greet each other, Mary brings the grace and blessing of the Lord’s presence to Elizabeth and to the child within her womb. Elizabeth acknowledges this, saying, “And who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy” (see Luke 1:43-44).
The Church fathers said that at that precise moment, John the Baptist, while in his mother’s womb, was freed of original sin and filled with grace. Mary was bringing the life-giving presence of Jesus to Elizabeth and to John. In response Mary burst forth into praise of God with her beautiful Magnificat: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47, NAB). Mary became the mother who brings life, because she brings Jesus to us, as she did to St. Elizabeth and St. John the Baptist.
I once saw an unusual painting in a retreat house. It was an image of Our Lady enveloped completely in light. She had just traveled over a winding path, and the whole path was covered with light. At first I didn’t understand what this meant, so I asked the resident priest to interpret it for me. He explained that the painting depicts Mary on her journey to see Elizabeth. Because Mary is carrying Christ within her, she is radiating the light of Christ wherever she goes. In the same way, she is bringing light and life to us by bringing Jesus to us.
Mary Obtains Faith for Us
Mary also helps us to find life because she obtains faith for us. In this regard, we look at the first miracle Jesus performed, at the wedding feast of Cana (see John 2:1-11). St. John called this miracle a “sign”—a sign of who Jesus is.
The young bride and groom had run out of wine to serve their guests at the wedding celebration! Perhaps Mary was in some way involved with the wedding preparations, for she knew of the need and simply mentioned it to Jesus: “They have no wine” (John 2:3). At first Jesus didn’t seem to want to get involved. He replied, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come” (2:4). We might interpret his response as something like this: “This is your problem, not mine. Don’t get me involved in it, because I’m not ready to perform any signs.” Doesn’t it sound like an emphatic “no”? But not to Mary. Her faith was so strong, her desire so ardent, that Jesus was moved to respond. Mary’s last recorded words in sacred Scripture, addressed to those who waited on the tables at the wedding celebration, were filled with a confident expectation that Jesus would do something: “Do whatever he tells you” (2:5). And Jesus knew this. How could he resist such confident faith? Mary’s faith moved Jesus to reveal his glory by working his first miracle of changing water into wine. What was his glory? The majesty and power that he had with the Father. St. John adds that after seeing this miracle, “his disciples believed in him” (2:11).
The disciples’ belief in Jesus is a very important effect of our Lord’s first miracle because, as St. John stresses, faith in Jesus is the very beginning of eternal life (see John 5:24; 20:31). So we can say that the miracle at Cana produced a life-giving faith in Jesus’ first disciples. This faith and life came to them through the intercession of Mary, since it was her unwavering confidence that moved Jesus to work the miracle. In this way, the Cana story reveals the beginning of the faith of the Church community. And since faith leads to life, Mary can again be seen as the mother of life in the Church. This is why Pope Paul VI appropriately gave Mary the beautiful title of “Mother of the Church” in his speech at the end of the third session of the Second Vatican Council in 1964.3
Mary’s example of faith also inspires us to believe. Her directive “Do whatever [my Son] tells you,” which was addressed to the waiters, is just as well addressed to the apostles and to us. It was a woman’s responsibility to raise her child in the fundamentals of the faith. Then, when the child came of age, the father and others would teach that child. So in this account of the wedding at Cana, we could say that Mary was handing the disciples over to Jesus. “Do whatever [my Son] tells you.” Her work as our mother is to hand us to Jesus, who will teach us the fullness of all we are called to be and to do. She puts us into the care of her son. Not that she stops caring for us—not at all—but she moves us over to the one who will teach us the fullness of our life-giving faith.
Mary Consoles Us
Mary also brings life to us by consoling us in our struggles and sufferings. Despite the fact that Our Lady had no sin whatsoever in her own life, she was given a great share in suffering, which culminated at the foot of the cross. Her sufferings were always connected with the sufferings of her divine Son and were endured for our salvation. The holy man Simeon, at the presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple, had prophesied this when he said to Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed… and a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Luke 2:34-35). Mary shared deeply in the sufferings of her Son because they were the Father’s will for our salvation. When she moved Jesus to work his first miracle at Cana, she actually “hastened him on to his hour”—to the fulfillment of his life’s public mission, ultimately to his suffering, death, and resurrection! As Archbishop Fulton Sheen once remarked, “What other mother would have ever sent her own son onto a battlefield?” Only her love for the Father’s will and for our salvation could move Mary to do this.
No stranger to suffering in her own lifetime, Our Lady is filled with great compassion to assist us and console us in our own sufferings during our earthly pilgrimage. One of my favorite stories that illustrates this point involves my own patron saint, Andrew the Apostle. When he died and got to heaven, his brother St. Peter was already on the job at the heavenly gate. St. Andrew immediately asked, “Peter, where is she?” St. Peter instinctively knew who his brother was talking about, and he said, “Andrew, she is not up here in heaven. She is down on earth, drying the tears from the eyes of all her suffering children there.”
Mary gives us life as she supports us in our struggles and our sufferings, through which—in the paradox of Christian life—we grow closer to Christ. There is no way we can come closer to Jesus without in some way sharing his cross as Mary did.
Mary Prays for Us
Finally, Mary is a mother of life to us because she prays and intercedes for us. The first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles says that Mary was with the apostles after the Ascension, awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit: “All these [the apostles] were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers” (1:14). Since the disciples prayed together for nine days, this time of ardent prayer can be seen as the first novena of the Church. Mary was in the midst of those first members of the Church as they waited and prayed for the promised gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Since the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of life in us, Mary’s role is to help bring us life by interceding for the gift of the Holy Spirit to come to us as he came to those first disciples of Jesus.
Mary Makes Us the Family of Christ
Although we do not often realize this, we respond to Jesus in many ways. In his Letter to All the Faithful, St. Francis of Assisi says that we are “the brides, the brothers, and the mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Mary as our mother helps us to relate to Jesus in all of these ways.
St. Francis says that a person is a bride of Christ “when his faithful soul is united with Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit.” This means that there is a spiritual spousal relationship between Christ the Divine Bridegroom and the soul. The union with Christ is not physical but it is a union with him by grace and charity. Jesus said, “Abide in my love” (John 15:10). When we live in the state of grace, we remain in Christ’s love, much as spouses, in their union, abide or remain in the love of one another.
St. Francis says that we are brothers of Christ “when we do the will of his Father who is in Heaven.” Jesus taught this clearly. At the time our Lord was in a house preaching, and his mother and some of his relatives were outside; they couldn’t get into the house because it was so crowded. Word reached Jesus: “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” Jesus looked around and said, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:47-50). Jesus said this because when we are doing the Father’s will, we are in a union of friendship and love with him. Elsewhere he had said, “Those who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me” (John 14:21). In this way, we enjoy being children of the Father and brothers and sisters of Christ.
St. Francis also said we are mothers of Christ “when we enthrone him in our hearts and souls by love with a pure and sincere conscience, and give him birth by doing good. This, too, should be an example to others.” This means that we are mothers of Christ, first of all, when Christ lives spiritually in us. This happens when we have Christ living in us through grace.
We are also mothers of Christ when we help to bring Christ to life in others. St. Paul himself used maternal imagery to describe his relationship with his own disciples, his converts. He said, “I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). If St. Paul could say this of himself, how much more can we say this of Mary and her relationship to us?
We, like St. Paul, have a similar mission to help bring Christ to life in others. How do we do this? First of all, by our good example. Have you ever heard the saying “You may be the only gospel someone will ever read”? People have to see Christ in us. There is a story about a young man who out of curiosity went to see the great St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars. This young man was an atheist, but by the end of his visit with that holy priest, he was filled with great faith in God. Back home he met a friend, who upon seeing the dramatic change in him, said, “What? How can you be so fervent in faith? You don’t even believe that there is a God!” The young man answered, “I know that there is a God. I saw him living in that priest!” So our good example can help others recognize Christ in us, and that can be the first way we can help bring Christ to birth in others.
Second, we bring Christ to life in others by praying for them. By interceding for the grace of conversion for someone—whether it is conversion from no faith or from a life of sin—we are helping to bring him or her to life in Christ.
Finally, we bring Christ to life in others by sharing the word of God with them. If you instruct children in some religious setting or train your own children, you are doing the work of evangelization in a mothering role. Remember that a Jewish mother teaches the basics of the faith to her children. Similarly, we may do this with others who become our children in Christ. St. Padre Pio often spoke of his “spiritual children,” whose life in Christ he supported through his offering of the Mass and the sacraments, as well as through his prayers and good example.
Mary Reveals Herself to Us
Mary’s role as our spiritual mother might seem to be carried out completely “behind the scenes,” but she shows the depth of her concern for her children through her many apparitions. Through these appearances to simple, unassuming adults and even children, Mary has given the Church important messages, called us all to prayer, and affirmed the value and sanctity of life.
Paris, France. In 1830 Our Lady appeared to Catherine Labouré (now St. Catherine), expressing her concern about all of the evils that were occurring in the world and especially in France. St. Catherine then had a vision that was later portrayed on what has come to be called the “Miraculous Medal.”
As depicted on the medal, Mary had rays coming down from her hands, actually from gems on her fingers. St. Catherine noticed very bright lights coming from some of the gems, faint lights coming from others, and no lights at all from still other gems.
When St. Catherine asked Mary about the differences, she said the bright rays of light represented the many graces she obtained for her children who asked her for much. The faint rays represented the fewer graces she obtained for those of her children who asked her for only a little. And then, almost with a tinge of sadness, she explained that the gems that gave off no rays of light represented the other graces she wished to obtain for her other children, “but they never asked me.”
So Mary is always ready to come to our aid. We just need to ask her.
Fatima, Portugal. Mary showed her motherly love again in 1917 at Fatima, Portugal, when she appeared to three shepherd children, Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lúcia de Santos. This time Our Lady came to bring a message of grave concern and warning for the peace of the world. She explained that the evil we know as Communism would begin in Russia and that it would provoke wars as well as persecution of the Church. She asked us to pray and offer sacrifices for peace and for the conversion of sinners.
Our Lady’s message of prayer, penance, and reparation is absolutely essential to preserve Christian values and bring world peace. Pope John Paul II has said that the message of Fatima is more important and more urgent now than when Our Lady first gave it to us in 1917!
Guadalupe, Mexico. Perhaps the message of Mary as the mother of life is nowhere more vivid than in the message and image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. On December 9, 1531, Our Lady appeared to an Aztec peasant named Juan Diego, who is now a canonized saint. At the time of the apparitions, December 9 was the date of the feast of the Immaculate Conception. (It’s now December 8.) There were four apparitions to St. Juan Diego and another apparition to his uncle, Juan Bernardino, who was quite ill at the time. Mary appeared to his uncle and healed him.
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, miraculously imprinted on St. Juan Diego’s cloak, speaks a message about life. First, it shows that Mary is carrying Christ within her. She is wearing a dark cord with two tassels hanging down from her waist, called a cinta, which was worn only by pregnant women. And photographs of the image, studied by scientists, reveal a slight protrusion of the abdomen, indicating Our Lady is carrying the Christ Child in her womb.
An interesting symbol of life on the image is a particular four-petaled flower called the “Flower of the Sun,” which is placed directly over Mary’s womb. To the Aztecs, who worshipped the sun, the appearance of this sun flower heralded the birth of someone great who would inaugurate a new era. Mary’s Son would be the Son of life. In fact, Mary described herself to St. Juan Diego as the mother of all the living.
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe communicated a sense of dignity to each person and of the sanctity of human life. This brought an end to the practice of human sacrifice among the Aztecs. Mary told the people about a God who sacrificed his own body and blood so that all people could live. And within ten years of Mary’s appearance, nearly nine million Aztec people embraced the Catholic faith.
Through her appearance as Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mary teaches us respect for the dignity of human life in all its manifestations—for the unborn, for the disabled, for the elderly, and for the terminally ill. That is why we pray to Mary to restore the sacredness of life, especially under her title of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Mary truly deserves to be called the mother of life. Let us ask for her prayers so that we may help to restore the God-given dignity of every human life that has been degraded by abortion, euthanasia, or assisted suicide. Furthermore, let us ask her prayers so that all may come to the fullness of life that her Son promised when he said, “I came that they may have life, and have it to more abundantly” (John 10:10).