“Mary leads us to Christ, but Christ leads us to his Mother.”

We need Mary the Mother of God to keep us from turning Jesus into an abstraction … from reducing Jesus merely to his teaching, his message, or his example. For Jesus is not a philosophy to learn; he is a Person to love. And only the Mother of God loves Jesus the way that he deserves. Which is why St. John Paul II made the point that “Mary leads us to Christ, but Christ leads us to his Mother.”

Making things concrete is the very essence of motherhood. Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa comments that “God silently entered the womb of a woman. God comes down into the very heart of matter: [the word] mater [“mother”] comes from materia.” The Mother of God constantly returns us to the heart of the matter: the humanity of her divine Son.

As Bl. Guerric of Igny insists, “Mary is the Mother of the Life by which all things live.” There is nothing vague or speculative or impersonal about that life. The life we live is Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The more we look to the Mother of that life, the more we come to know and embrace life in its fullness. And if we want more life in our life, we need to have a Mother to give it to us. And she does.

Peter Cameron

www.aleteia.org