Rediscovering "Our Blessed Mother"

An unfortunate fact about Mary's relationship to her Son's mystical body is this: While most Christians admire and respect Mary, they don't relate to her as our spiritual mother, which she is by virtue of our union with Jesus. Even though this union with Mary’s Son is authenticated by Scripture, only a minority of Christians cultivate the spiritual and emotional intimacy with Mary that is implicitly mandated as a result.

Did you ever notice that awareness of this Marian relationship is found only among those with deep Marian devotion? They are the only ones who refer to Mary as "Our Mother." Others who simply admire and respect her refer to her as "the Virgin Mary"; they feel awkward calling her “mother” – except as Jesus’ mother. As members of Christ's body, however, our relationship with Mary should involve more than mere admiration and respect; it should reflect warm and loving spiritual intimacy that characterizes any wholesome mother-child relationship.

Another indicator of our awareness regarding Mary's relationship to us as members of her Son's mystical body: Do we refer to her as 'Blessed Mother"? Only those who with a deep awareness of the scriptural implications of this truth, those who appreciate her as God's masterpiece, refer to Mary in this way. In calling her "blessed" they imitate the angel Gabriel and Elizabeth (Lk 1:.28, 42). These Christians are in the minority, but they alone fulfill the biblical prophecy: "All generations will call me blessed" (Lk 1:48).

Even rarer than the use of that scriptural word, "blessed," in referring to Mary is the use of the word "our." Calling Mary the "Blessed Mother" says much about our love for her; calling her “Our Blessed Mother" bespeaks an added devotional element, which is similar to the effect of using the plural pronoun in the "Our Father. The "our" implies that we are clustered together, as it were, under the maternal mantle of "Our Blessed Mother." When any group becomes aware that all its members share in Mary’s maternal love, they find it delightful to converse and discourse about her together as a community or assembly. Although all liturgical celebrations are, by nature, communitarian, Marian liturgical celebrations provide special occasion fir joyous praise to God for "our tainted nature's solitary boast." Publicly, "her children arise and call her blessed" (Prv 31:28).

This nurtures a thriving devotion to Mary that fosters faith in her prayer before the Lord for our needs. Just as her intercession at Cana persuaded Jesus to work his first public miracle for an assembly, she intercedes for our needs today.

One final result of our membership in the mystical body of Mary’s Son: we are all united in God's all-embracing redemptive love. God certainly loves us individually but he also loves us corporately, as Christ's body, the Church. Thus hugged together in divine embrace, we should network that love to each other. As John explains in a heartwarming exhortation: "God sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.... If we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us" (1 Jn 4:10-12). John highlights the communitarian dimension of our growth in spiritual maturity, reminding us of an often overlooked theological principle: to have God's saving love "made complete" in us, we must allow it to manifest itself in us as a sanctifying love.

In this, Mary is our example and encouragement. Charity is called the queen of virtues, and it is in charity that our virtuous Queen excelled, by her incandescent love for God in her fellow humans, her children one and all. Reminding us of God's magnanimous love for each of us, she urges her children to let his divine love be made complete in us by our love one another in Jesus.

Mary's pleading for her children to love one another is a dominant theme in her many reported apparitions through the centuries. Thus she urges the members of her Son's body to cultivate charity, the virtue that God's Word places above all others as the capstone of holiness: "Over all these virtues put on love, which binds all together in perfect unity” (Col 3:14).

This excerpt is from the book The Art of Loving God by John H. Hampsch, C.M.F., originally published by Servant Publications, 1995. This and other of Fr. Hampsch's books and audio/visual materials can be purchased from Claretian Teaching Ministry, 20610 Manhattan Pl, #120, Torrance, CA 90501-1863. Phone 1-310-782-6408