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Readings for Today. Listen to our other podcasts.
Today we celebrate Mary, the Mother of the Church. Mary is the mother of Jesus, the disciple of Jesus, and the one who brings us to Jesus.
Mary, Mother of the Church
Today we celebrate the Feast of Mary, Mother of the Church, and the readings today, and in particular the first reading, gives us a really clear picture of God’s overwhelming desire that we be saved. The passage we heard is referred to as the Proto-Evangelium, that is the first gospel, because it is seen that the woman who will trample on the snake is the Blessed Virgin Mary.
What is interesting is I would claim in one way that the most important title of Mary is in fact not Mother of God, but Disciple of Jesus, and yet in her vocation as being the Mother of God, the Mother of Jesus, she in fact demonstrated how she could be a faithful disciple of her Son. And by extension then, helping us to come to realize as the Church, as those who listen to the Word of God and are active in our faith, then we figure out what it means to be a disciple. In that instance, we have two real helps from the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The first and most important is her intercession on our behalf to her Son Jesus. Most children have a hard time saying no to their mother. In fact, we know that Mary longs for nothing more than to bring us into deeper relationship with her Son Jesus.
The second is her example of a faithful life to God. We know that she was born without original sin. We know that she did not sin. And in her total dedication to her Son Jesus, it was in fact the pathway given to us.
When we think of the Blessed Mother, it seems then to me that if we are really to honor her, if we are really to understand her profound and important role in the Church, then it means understanding that in all things we should be like Mary, saying with all of our heart, with all of our energy, loving God with all of our mind, soul, strength, and ability, and to be able to say as she did, “Let it be done to me according to your word.”
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