Mary, Mother of the Church

Earlier this week, we celebrated the Feast of Mary, Mother of the Church. This may seem like an odd title for Mary: how can she be mother of an organization? The first thing that this title calls us to remember is that the Church is more than a mere organization. The Church is not some non-governmental organization or charity group; the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ. Just as the human body is compiled of many individual cells united together by a single soul, so too the Church is compiled of many individual persons united together by the one Holy Spirit and united to Jesus Christ her Head. What is it that Mary gave birth to? Jesus. Therefore, Mary is the mother of the Church Universal. 

This makes her also the mother of each one of us individually as well. In John 19, when Jesus is hanging on the cross, Jesus sees His mother standing there. “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.” He addresses Mary by her true name (“woman,” in reference to her being the new Eve) and entrusts John as a representative of the Church to her as her child. Each of us, through John, are entrusted to Mary as her children and she as our mother. 

We therefore can look to her for help and support, as we would our biological mothers. We can turn to her for protection, knowing that nothing comes between a mother and her child. We can turn to her for her intercession, knowing that Jesus her Son can turn her away anymore than any of us could turn our biological mothers away. May we truly look to Mary to teach us, protect us, take care of us, as our mother and the Mother of the Universal Church!