Mary: The Church at The Source by Ratzinger Joseph Cardinal

Author:Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal [Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9781586170189
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2011-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

3. Mary’s Education as Mother of the Church

At first it was the Mother who introduced the Son into the Old Covenant and thereby trained him for his messianic office. However, it was not she but his own knowledge of the Father’s mission in the Holy Spirit that showed him who he was and what he had to do. The relationship is thus reversed: from now on it is the Son who educates the Mother for the greatness of his task, cultivating in her the maturity she needs to stand under the Cross and, finally, to receive, at prayer within the Church, the universal gift of the Holy Spirit.

From the very outset, this education reflects Simeon’s prophecy that a sword would pierce the Mother’s soul. It is a pitiless process. All the episodes handed down for us are more or less brusque rejections. It is not as though Jesus had been disobedient for thirty years; we have an explicit affirmation to the contrary (Lk 2:51). However, the merely physical relationship to which faith was so intimately tied in the Old Testament is sovereignly, ruthlessly forced open. Henceforth faith in Jesus, the incarnate Word of God, is the only thing that counts. Mary has this faith—this is made especially clear in the scene at Cana, in which she says without wavering, “Do whatever he tells you.” At the same time, she, the perfect believer, has to be the one to serve the Son as an illustration of his separation from “flesh and blood” (anything can be formed out of her Yes), and it is precisely in this way that she herself is brought up to perfectly open faith. As we have seen, the response of the twelve-year-old child who opposes his Father to his putative earthly father is already brusque; only the first counts, whether Jesus’ earthly parents understand this or not. “And they did not understand” (Lk 2:50). Jesus’ response to his Mother’s observation at Cana, with its delicately implied request, is inconceivably sharp: “O woman, what have you to do with me?” Mary most likely did not understand this, either. “My hour has not yet come” (Jn 2:4), doubtless the hour of the Cross, when the Mother will be granted full right of intercession. Yet Mary’s imperturbable faith—“do whatever he tells you”—succeeds in bringing about a symbolic anticipation of her Son’s Eucharist, a foreshadowing of the same sort as the multiplication of the loaves. The scene in which Jesus, teaching those gathered around him in a certain house, refuses to receive the visit of his Mother, who is standing outside, seems almost unbearable to us. “Here are my mother and my brethren! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Mk 3:34-35). Jesus means her more than anyone, though he does not mention her by name. Yet who understands his meaning? Did Mary herself understand it? We have to accompany Mary in spirit as she makes her way home and try to imagine her state of mind.

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