If We Ignore the Mother, We Can't See the Child (I)

At the time of the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel prophesied that all generations would call Mary blessed. In our generation, we need to fulfill that prophesy. We need to call her blessed. We need to honor her again, because God did. Jesus himself, as a faithful Jew, kept the Fourth Commandment and honored His mother. Since Christ is our brother, she is our mother too. Indeed, at the end of John's Gospel, Jesus named her as the mother of all of us beloved disciples. So we too have a duty to honor her. If we look back into the biblical history of ancient Israel, we discover that the Chosen People always paid homage not only to their king, but also to the mother of the king. The gebirah, the queen mother, loomed large in the affections of Israelites. In Matthew's Gospel especially, we find Jesus portrayed as the royal Son of David and Mary as the queen mother. The Wise Men, for example, traveled far to find the Child King with his mother. We find the mother of the Son of David portrayed in a similar way in the Book of Revelation, Chapter 12. There she is shown to be crowned with 12 stars, for the 12 tribes of Israel. The New Testament writers, you see, were careful to show us Mary's important place in the kingdom, and how we should love and honor her.