"In Mary is born a man who is totally present to God"

Father Maurice Zundel, who was born in Switzerland in 1897 and died there in 1975, was not only a theologian, but also a poet of poverty. Not spiritual poverty, which is the lot of us all, but material poverty, which Christ loved. In fact, material poverty is also our lot, but it comes later, when our health fails us. The poverty of which Zundel speaks has its model in the Virgin Mary.

Zundel recounts on several occasions that he had a personal encounter with Mary when he was fifteen, and that this encounter determined his life. Mary appeared to him that day as the total Virgin, "virginizing" because she was radically stripped of herself in a total offering to God. 

Mary, Zundel says,creates in us this unlimited space where God can give himself. By stripping us bare, she reveals the maternity of God, while leading us to Christ. In so doing, Mary is indeed the mother of mankind, not of a sentimental maternity, but of a total and divine love. “God is always already here. It is man who is absent. In Mary, a man is born who is totally present to God, a new humanity." 

Mary begets us all to this total presence of God. "It is impossible to say 'Mary' without her answering 'Jesus'.” 

Mary, Zundel shows, embodies the femininity of God himself.

Aleteia