The Mother of Christ.

Henry Noewn (“Seeds of Hope”, Darton, Longman and Todd, London, page 110-111)

During dinner I had a very moving conversation with Father Andre Stoecklin about the importance of Mary in the Christian life. To look at Mary, Father Andre told me, is to see God’s original plan for humanity. In her we see the way God wanted us to be. She is a completely redeemed human being, free drom sin and already participating fully in the life of the risen Lord. Mary also shows us how to receive the marvelous gift of God’s love, and how to respond to God’s redemptive action in our lives. Thus, the closer we come to Mary the better we see the splendor of God’s redeemed humanity and the beauty of the redeemed life.

What most struck me in Pere Andre’s vision was his conviction that a deep devotion to Mary prevents us from making the Christian life into an ideology. Mary reveals to us the personal quality of God’s love as well as the personal quality of a faithful human response.

Mary’s full affiramation of God’s election made her the Mother of God. God chose to take flesh in the women who had found favor in God’s eyes and had responded to that favor with a full “yes”. Her response was not only an initial agreement but a lifelong obedience to God’s redemptive presence. In this obedience she followed Jesus in the most perfect way. Her life was a life of always fuller abandonment to the divine will, a total emptying out in faith, a full entering into the darkness of her Son’s death. There is no other human being in whom we can see do fully what it means to receive the love of God who loves us so much that he sent his own Son. She has known more blessing and more suffering than anyone else in all humanity. In her we see most fully what it means to be redeemed.

Thus Mary protects Christianity from becoming a system of ideas, doctrines, opinions, or convictions. She constantly keeps before us that most intimate relationship with her Son. Her complete obedience, radical humility, and unwavering faithfulness show us what a life of following Jesus truly can be. Following Jesus does not mean clinging to an idea or holding on to a principle. It is walking the path of the one who gave his life for his friends and called his followers to do the same. Mary’s whole being is in the service of Jesus. She is totally Mother, totally given to letting Jesus be born into this world, not only long ago in Bethlehem, but today and always in the heart of anyone who wants to find God. Her whole being is for Jesus. Seeing Mary always means knowing the one who gives life to God. It is impossible to encounter Mary truly without being led immediately to Jesus. In her, faith finds its purest expression. She is the woman of faith, who always points away from herself to her Son, the source of our redemption.

Ideologies lead to debates, conflicts, violence, and often war, but faith leads to obedience, humility, faithfulness, and finally peace. Ideologies breed death, faith brings forth life. Mary prevents us from becoming victimized by religious ideology and calls us unceasingly to a life of faith, a faith in him who became flesh in her, a faith that will make it possible for him to become flesh in us too.