7th Week of Ordinary Time B – Monday – Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church

Yesterday we spoke about how our life’s journey, aided by the Holy Spirit is meant to be a preparation for the next and how for this reason, through all the graces and help that God sends us, we work on the virtues and those things which will transform us into the people of blessedness which will be the modality of life in the hereafter. Because in the bliss of heaven, everything is perfect. No more pain, no more evil, no more death. The bliss of heaven—who can really describe it? No one really. Saint Paul says that it hasn’t dawned on the imagination of Man, even, what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Corinthians 2:9).

Such a mother, the Mother of God, would most definitely be foreshadowed in the prophets and the times of the Kings of Old Testament Israel, let alone inspired Scripture. 

For example, when we speak of the Davidic kingdom, in particular, that is, the time in which David reigned as king, his mother held an official position in the royal court, in which she shared in his reign and served as his counsellor and an advocate for the people. I can give you so many examples of her advocacy, but unfortunately our time for a homily is limited. I will let you know however, when some testimonies manage to go up on the site. Suffice it to say, her intercession, and “litigation” on our behalf is powerful.

We notice that so important was the queen mother that two prophecies were always connected to her in view of the coming Messiah who would be of a Davidic lineage— that is, not David himself but one who would descend from him. In our reading today, from Genesis 3:15 comes the first of these prophecies. A future Woman, who would have nothing to do with Satan (enmity = total separation from), neither her nor her offspring, and that together they would crush him. The second prophecy comes through the great Prophet Isaiah. The prophecy (7:14) involves the sign of a queen mother who will conceive and bear the future Davidic King, Immanuel. She would be a virgin, and yet bring forth a Son, and this would be a sign that the child born unto us was not coming to us from human agency of this world, but through the power of the Holy Spirit himself.

Edward Sri makes this observation: “Just like her Near Eastern neighbors, Israel bestowed great honor upon the mother of the ruling king. Roland De Vaux notes how the queen mother was given a special preeminence over all the women in the kingdom of Judah, even the king’s wife. He highlights the fact that although one particular woman from the royal harem usually held the king’s preference, “the king’s favor was not enough to give this wife official title and rank.” This is seen in the fact that throughout the entire Old Testament, the word queen (feminine form of melek, or “king”) is used only once in association with Israel, and even there it is used primarily poetically, not politically. On the other hand, the prestigious title gebirah was used often in the Old Testament to describe the mother of the king. Meaning “mistress,” “great lady,” or “queen,” gebirah is the feminine form of gebhir (“lord” or “master”). De Vaux notes how the term corresponds to adon (Lord), the feminine of which is not used in Hebrew. In the Old Testament, gebirah is often used as a title for the mother of the king, but it is never used to describe the wife of an Israelite king.” (1)

We notice how Saint Joseph is conspicuously not even mentioned: “. . . going into the house, they [the three Magi] saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him” (Matthew 2:11). Why does Matthew focus on Jesus and Mary, leaving Joseph out of the picture at this point? All throughout the narrative in Matthew 1–2, Joseph is much more prominent than Mary. Matthew traces Jesus’ genealogy through Joseph. The angel appears to Joseph three times. It is Joseph who leads the Holy Family to Bethlehem, to Egypt, and back to Nazareth. However, in this particular scene of the magi coming to honor the newborn King, Mary takes center stage, and surprisingly, Joseph is not mentioned at all in the entire retelling of the event. Obviously, the narrator is placing Mary within the role of the queen mother tradition while simultaneously linking her to the new Eve who will now be extolled by the nations for being the portal of true life that enters into the world through Jesus… Jesus who eventually identifies himself as “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” John 14:6. Indeed, if Jesus is the newborn “king of the Jews” in this scene (2:2), then Mary, as the mother of this King (cf. 2:11), could be understood as a queen mother.

In the act of adoration of the magi, St. Matthew, a good expert on the Davidic traditions, thinking of the readers of his gospel, does not omit the significant detail of showing ‘the child with Mary, his mother.’ In this way, he associates and confirms Mary as the gebirah of the messianic kingdom. Moreover, it is she who enthrones and presents the king-Messiah to the adoration of the magi, exercising one of the specific missions of the gebirah.

But her greatest mission would be revealed to her in time, from the cross. She would become a mother to all, especially in our greatest moments of need and suffering, and it is simply perfect, that this universal vocation which would span all time and even unto eternity, would be given to her from the agonizing Lord on the Cross. As Marie-Michel Philipon, O.P. says, “Mary, then, is queen, but queen in the way of a mother, serving all her children, guiding them in their most personal and intimate life, not so much by law and precept as by kindly prompting and persuasion, with an affectionate smile on her countenance as she goes about bestowing a mother’s tender care on all her children, on the lowliest no less than on the more fortunate. In fact, the more humble and lowly her children, the more mother she is to them. And the more we put ourselves in Mary’s guiding care, the more quickly she leads us up to God.” (2)

In agony does a mother bring forth her child, and in agony did our Lord declare Mary to be our Mother, from the Cross. Such is the preciousness of any gift that is born through struggle. And so too, may the suffering we go through in union with our Lord and his and our Mother, be a gift that we can offer for the good of others and their eternal destinies. We must remember, that Jesus said, he only did what was asked of him by the Father. Our Lord making her our Mother therefore, also is telling of the Eternal Father’s wish that she be considered as such.