The Blessed Virgin Mary’s maternal care for Jesus and his Church has been recognized for centuries.
Mary not only accompanied Jesus during the most important events in his life but worked alongside the Apostles to fulfill their mission after his Ascension into Heaven.
She accompanied the first Christians, praying and giving witness with them until her body and soul were assumed into Heaven where she continues to pray for us.
Pope Paul VI formally declared Mary as Mother of the Church in 1964 and Pope Francis established an obligatory memorial in 2018.
The Church celebrates The Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church on the Monday after Pentecost, one day after the Church was born.
Experiencing God’s love through the heart of Mary:
Mary is the mother of the Body of Christ:
When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, He said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
John 19: 26-27
The woman who is mother of all the redeemed:
Jesus gave his mother to the Church:
Her role in relation to the Church and to all humanity goes still further. “In a wholly singular way she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope, and burning charity in the Savior’s work of restoring supernatural life to souls. For this reason she is a mother to us in the order of grace.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church 968
Mary is integral to the plan of God:
She is the image of what the Church should be:
The first truth is this: Mary is the Mother of the Church not only because she is the Mother of Christ and his most intimate associate in “the new economy when the Son of God took a human nature from her, that He might in the mysteries of his flesh free man from sin,” but also because “she shines forth to the whole community of the elect as a model of the virtues.” Indeed, just as no human mother can limit her task to the generation of a new man but must extend it to the function of nourishing and educating her offspring, thus the blessed Virgin Mary, after participating in the redeeming sacrifice of the Son, and in such an intimate way as to deserve to be proclaimed by Him the Mother not only of His disciple John but – may we be allowed to affirm it – of mankind which he in some way represents, now continues to fulfill from Heaven her maternal function as the cooperator in the birth and development of divine life in the individual souls of redeemed men. This is a most consoling truth which, by the free consent of God the All-Wise, is an integrating part of the mystery of human salvation; therefore it must be held as faith by all Christians.
Pope Paul VI, Signum Magnum, May 13, 1967
We have a relationship with Mary through Jesus:
We are all one Church and Mary is our mother:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
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