Une Minute avec Marie
Faire connaître et aimer Marie
One cannot contemplate Mary without being attracted to Christ, and one cannot look at Christ without immediately perceiving Mary's presence. There exists an inseparable bond between the Mother and the Son begotten in her womb by the work of the Holy Spirit, which we can sense in a mysterious way in the sacrament of the Eucharist, as the Fathers of the Church and theologians have pointed out since the first centuries.
St Hilary of Poitiers affirms: "The flesh born of Mary from the Holy Spirit is the bread that came down from Heaven".
We also read in the 9th century Bergomense Sacramentary: "Her womb made a fruit ripen, a bread filled us with the angelic gift. Mary has restored to salvation what Eve had destroyed by her fault."
And St. Peter Damian notes: "This body which the most blessed Virgin Mary begot, nourished in her womb with maternal tenderness, this body I say, this one and not another, we now receive from the holy altar and drink its blood as the sacrament of our redemption. This is what the Catholic faith believes, what the Holy Church faithfully teaches."
The bond of the holy Virgin with the Son, the sacrificial lamb who takes away the sins of the world, also applies to the Church, the mystical body of Christ. Mary," St. John Paul II observes, "is a Eucharistic woman" throughout her life; and the Church, considering her as its model, "is called to imitate her in her relationship with this most holy mystery.
From this point of view, it is even easier to understand why in Lourdes, the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary is associated with a strong and constant reminder of the Eucharist through daily Eucharistic celebrations, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and the blessing of the sick, which is one of the most important moments of the pilgrims' visit to the grotto of Massabielle.
The Missionaries of the Holy Eucharist
Message for the 16th World Day of the Sick
Article taken from the monthly Brasier Eucharistique n°176, January 11, 2008, page 19