In the Spirit: Happy Mother's Day

In anticipation of Sunday, I wanted to wish all the mother's who join me here a beautiful and blessed Mother's Day.  I also want to encourage you to take this opportunity to establish a deeper relationship with the Mother of us all, Mary.

While both Muslims and Protestants respect Mary as a virtuous woman worthy of emulation, only Catholics ask for her intercession and honor her as our best example of human perfection.

Only Catholics believe that she was conceived without the curse of Original Sin.  This means that God, anticipating the great gift He would bestow upon her, preserved her from the inclination to sin that every man and woman has inherited since the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden.  Mary was still capable of sin, as were Adam and Eve, but she, like them, was not divided within herself (her intellect and will and passions were not at war) when she was born.  If God desired to begin the human race with a mother, Eve, who was pure at birth (though she fell), why would it be strange for him to renew the human race with a New Eve (a role emphasized by Christ when he called her "Woman" on several occasions) similarly blessed?  We also have evidence in the angel's greeting, "Hail, full of grace," and in early Church teachings that Mary was indeed given this privilege.

Catholics also see her as worthy of veneration (NOT worship!) in her reflection (and fulfillment) of the Ark of the Covenant.  In the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant was carried wherever the Jewish people went.  It was placed within the most sacred and hidden recesses of the Temple (once they established a permanent center of their kingdom) and was treated with great respect and celebration wherever it was carried.  The box was not special in itself, but it carried the spiritual Presence of God and several sacred objects from their past.  Mary, nothing on her own, was receptive to the Holy Spirit and embraced God Himself, physically and spiritually, within her womb.  It is for this reason that we should honor Mary, she who was entrusted to John (and by extension to all "beloved disciples") with Christ's last breath.

Finally, we honor Mary and ask for her intercession as Queen of Heaven.  In the Davidic line of kings, the wife of the king was not the queen, his mother was.  It was she who helped advise the king and who heard the petitions of the people and presented them before him.  In the new Kingdom established by David's greatest descendant, it would be logical to assume that Christ would grant the same role of honor and compassionate intercession to His mother.  During their lives on earth at the Wedding Feast at Canna, Christ already allowed His mother to induce Him to work a miracle for the hosts.  We believe that Mary is with Him in Heaven.  How much more would He desire to help those friends of hers that have asked for her prayers on their behalf?

Personally, I constantly find Mary to be a source of inspiration in prayer.  She trusted God completely, without demanding to know every detail, when He asked her to be a part of the salvation of the world.  She lovingly served her husband and son throughout many hardships, moves, persecutions, and daily circumstances.  She stood at the foot of the Cross, when nearly every disciple had abandoned Christ.  She comforted our dying Savior with her humble presence, the presence of the only human being never to have offended Him and added to His burden with her sin.  Finally, she lived out her days supporting and encouraging the disciples as they carried out her Son's divine commission.

I ask her to bless you in your daily vocation and bring you closer to the heart of her Son.


This image is the first of Mary that we have.  It was drawn in the catacombs around 170AD.  I saw her when I lived in Rome several years ago.