Our Lady was predestined from all eternity for a singular and exclusive mission: to be the worthy Mother of the Redeemer. Mary is Immaculate, Her relationship with the Most Holy Trinity is truly special, and Her role in the History of Salvation is capital.
Newsroom (01/01/2022, 08:30, Gaudium Press) The Church chooses the first day of the calendar year to celebrate the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that we may begin the year through the glorious intercession of Mary.
That this feast coincides with the Octave of Christmas tells us that the best way to praise the Child Jesus is to exalt the qualities of His Mother and ours, just as the best way to praise the Mother is to celebrate the birth of Her Divine Son.
Elevated above all creation
Through Her Divine Maternity, Mary is so closely united to the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word that, even though She possesses a strictly human nature, She participates in a relative way in the highest degree of creation: the hypostatic order, which belongs in an absolute way to Christ alone.
Our Lady is therefore so far above all the other created planes – mineral, vegetable, animal, human, Angelic, and of grace – that it is understandable that there should be some difficulty in regarding Her as a mere human creature favoured with unsurpassable graces.
This makes us understand why, among Mary’s countless privileges – of which the abundant collection of titles accumulated by Catholic piety to praise Her gives us a slight idea – the principal one is that of being the Mother of God.
Compared to this title, all the others are insignificant! God could have chosen a different way to take on our nature and be among us, but He wanted to take Our Lady as His Mother.
A prerogative higher than this is impossible for a human person, and therefore, as St. Thomas teaches, She is in the category of perfect creatures, to which only two more belong: the most holy humanity of Jesus and the Blessed Vision. This privilege touches the deepest essence of Mary, and it is from this that the others flow.
Mary’s obedience opened the doors of grace
It is evident that She highly esteems this gift, and words are certainly not enough to tell of the lofty considerations that She expressed about it from the moment of Her “Fiat”, when She fully understood what it meant for Her to be the Mother of God.
Yet, as the Latin adage says, “Nothing great happens suddenly“. Far from being a sudden event that took Our Lady by surprise, St. Gabriel’s announcement was the culmination of a process, as St. Louis Grignion de Montfort endeavors to describe it:
“The divine Mary had, in fourteen years of life, such growth in the grace and wisdom of God, and such perfect fidelity to His love, that She excited with admiration not only all the Angels, but even God Himself. Her deep humility, carried to the point of annihilation, delighted Him; Her all-divine purity attracted Him; Her living faith and Her frequent and loving prayers compelled Him. Wisdom was lovingly overcome by such affectionate supplications.”
Yet any description, however full, is but a trace of that reality, so rich is it. By this act of obedience to the divine will, Mary caused the Son of God, eternal, begotten, and not created, to become the Son of God in time, begotten and created as to His human nature.
Our Lady then gave the Son the possibility of addressing the Father from His human nature and the joy of feeling inferior to the Father, of offering Him everything in His power, in complete obedience to Him.
And the Holy Spirit could offer nothing to the Father nor the Son, because, since the three Divine Persons were substantially identical from all eternity, everything was common to Them; yet, through Mary’s obedience, found the possibility of presenting Him with many sons and brothers: all men who through the grace of Baptism become by adoption sons and daughters of the Father and brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ.
Mary’s mission in eternity
Therefore, Her radical, docile, and enraptured submission to the will of the Father in the days of Her mortal life merited Her the most exalted throne in eternity and the title of Empress of the Universe. Together, with her Son Jesus, and forming with Him one Heart, the Virgin was established as the axis of History and thus divided men into two immense groups: that of the reprobates and that of the Blessed.
In effect, the Divine Master stated categorically about Himself: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on Earth. I have come to bring not peace, but the sword. I have come to bring division” (Mt 10:34-35) and again: “I have come to cast fire upon the earth” (Lk 12:49).
What is the meaning of this divine sword and fire? The dividing sword expresses the separation between those who belong to Christ and those who are His enemies. The fire which He brings represents the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the faithful, so that they may sanctify themselves and strive for the fulfilment of the prayer of the Our Father: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”
To make this world an image of the perfect order, harmony, and beauty that reign in the eternal abodes: that is the mission of Catholics. Both division and sanctification are accomplished by Jesus, with Mary, and through Her.
Prayer to ask for Mary’s maternal kindness
To Jesus, whose Christmas birth we celebrate this Octave, we turn our grateful gaze, and implore that the graces He brought to the world at His birth in Bethlehem may reach their fullness:
“Lord, You wish to reign over the earth in a solemn, majestic and, at the same time, maternal way. For this reason, You entrust Your Kingdom to Your Blessed Mother. We ask you, Lord, that Her mercy may triumph as soon as possible!
At this moment our hearts turn to Her, filled with the certainty that Her mercy and kindness for each of us is greater than that of any mother.
She is ready to embrace us, to take us into Her arms, and protect us, whether against the wickedness of men or against the wickedness that comes from hell.
In short, She is ready to do everything for us! Lord, do not hold Her back! Let Her mercy embrace us, for only thus will the horrors of the contemporary world not strike our souls.
We ask Thee, O Lord, that She unfold upon Thy children all Her maternal and merciful goodness, so that the kingdom of affection, the kingdom of maternal affection, the kingdom of the unsurpassable goodness of Mary Most Holy may be established on earth.
And may She appear smiling at the inauguration ceremony of this new historical era, saying to Her children: ‘At last My Immaculate Heart has triumphed!’.”
Msgr. João Scognamiglio Clá Dias, EP
Text extracted, with adaptations, from the Magazine Heralds of the Gospel n.193, January 2018.
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm
