Behold Your Mother!

The Blessed Virgin was not only the one who "advanced in her pilgrimage of faith" and loyally persevered in her union with her Son "unto the Cross", but she was also the "handmaid of the Lord", left by her Son as Mother in the midst of the infant Church: "Behold your mother". Thus there began to develop a special bond between this Mother and the Church. For the infant Church was the fruit of the Cross and Resurrection of her Son. Mary, who from the beginning had given herself without reserve to the person and work of her Son, could not but pour out upon the Church, from the very beginning, her maternal self-giving. After her Son's departure, her motherhood remains in the Church as maternal mediation: interceding for all her children, the Mother cooperates in the saving work of her Son, the Redeemer of the world.