Lessons for life from the Mother of God

Monsignor James P. Moroney
Special to The CFP
 
This reflection is an attempt to learn lessons from Mary, the Mother of Life. For she is, quite literally, the mother of him who is our way, our truth and our life. And because we are his brothers, she is our mother as well. Indeed, this New Eve is, in the words of Pope St. John Paul II, the “mother of all who are reborn to life. She is in fact the mother of the life by which everyone lives, and when she brought it forth from herself, she in some way brought to rebirth all those who were to live by that life.” Thus, she is “the incomparable model of how life should be welcomed and cared for” (Evangelium Vitae, 102).

The Annunciation
Mary, in her littleness, of all the great palaces and places upon the earth, was the only one worthy to embrace the Son of God as the fruit of her womb. This confused and frightened little girl was alone, full of grace. This handmaid of the Lord surrendered all to the will of God. She alone was worthy, and she alone was “a fit dwelling place” for the Son of God.
This is why we call Mary “the Ark of the Covenant,” for just as in the former dispensation God and his commandments dwelled in an ark of acacia wood and gold, so too, the Christ lived in the Blessed Virgin’s womb, as her flesh was quite literally joined with his. And herein lies the pre-eminent reason why we call her blessed among women, for no other woman will ever experience this kind of communion in the flesh with God.
The first lesson we learn from Mary is that accepting life is the only road to happiness. She, “who accepted life in the name of all and for the sake of all,” magnified the Lord and is called blessed by all generations.
So too does every mother, coming to feel the quickening of that little child within her own body, come to know the inestimable joy of co-creating life with God.  
Now, admittedly, the annunciation of every birth is sometimes met with trepidation. The Blessed Mother could well understand this, for when the angel first announced to the one conceived without sin that she was to be a mother, her reaction was one of fear. Which is why the angel says to her, “Be not afraid! For with God, nothing is impossible!”
The Church, dependent upon the intercession of the most blessed among women, must be a word of comfort to all who find themselves in frightening circumstances, especially those who have learned that they now carry within their womb, a new life, utterly dependent upon them.
It is our obligation as a Church and as apostles for life to reply to the insistence of the prophet Isaiah for every expectant mother: “Comfort! Comfort my people,” says the Lord.

The Visitation
A practical application of this ministry, of this comfort, is given to us in the Visitation.
Picture Mary, if you will, having learned from the Angel Gabriel that she has become the mother of the savior of the world. Imagine the feeling and thoughts that must have been racing around her heart and her mind. Yet what is the first thing she does?   
In the words of Pope Benedict, “Before worrying about herself, Mary instead thought about elderly Elizabeth, who she knew was well on in her pregnancy and, moved by the mystery of love that she had just welcomed within herself, she set out ‘in haste’ to go to offer Elizabeth her help.”
Elizabeth recognized the immaculate holiness of her cousin. Then something truly extraordinary happens. At the sound of Mary’s voice, the infant Baptist leaps for joy, and his mother declares: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” (Luke 1:41-42).
Notice that the first person, other than Mary, to recognize and acclaim the Christ is an unborn child!
So, if we learn from Mary to comfort all women blessed to carry a child with a word of comfort, allaying their fears, another lesson is to rejoice, and to acclaim the child of their womb as a gift from God to them and to us.

The birth of Christ
All of which leads us to the birth of Jesus in a manger, the central event of human history.
By this Incarnation, Christ reveals to us “that every human life has a very lofty and incomparable dignity.” Just as we come to adore this baby in a manger, so we stand in awe at the birth of every baby.
Herein is found the basis of our dignity, that God became man, inviting us into friendship with him, calling us brothers, that we might be sons and daughters of our heavenly Father.

Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI reflected beautifully on this reality when he urged us: “Let us be aware of the value of every human person’s incomparable dignity and of our great responsibility to all. ‘Christ, the final Adam,’ the Second Vatican Council states, ‘by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear… by his Incarnation, the Son of God has in a certain way united himself with each man’” (Gaudium et Spes, n. 22). Encountering the child in the manger means, therefore, “seeing man in a new way, with trust and hope…entitled not to be treated as an object to be possessed or a thing to be manipulated at will, and not to be exploited as a means for the benefit of others and their interests.”
While “cultural trends exist that seek to anesthetize consciences with spurious arguments,” that little baby on the lap of his virgin mother becomes a mirror in which we see who we really are, created in the image and likeness of God and called to reflect him to the world.
For, ultimately, what Mary teaches us is that our work for life is not an essentially political act. This is not one more issue of civic importance on which reasonable men and women might well disagree. It is not a question of power or governance.
 It is an intimate question of human relationships, motivated not only by our love for the unborn child, but for the mother who carries that child as the fruit of her womb. It is a work of seeing other human beings as opportunities to love. “In a world which views others as things to be used, or occasions for instant satisfaction,” we face, in the words of Pope John Paul II, “a conspiracy against human life.”  
He continues, that the only way to combat a culture of death, is “with the radical affirmation of the value of every human life that is the center of the Gospel of Life.” This is never done with aggression or resentment, but only with love, mercy and prayer.