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CHIARA! / MARY, MOTHER AND MORE

MARY, OUR MOTHER

MAMMA MIA, MARY! DO YOU REALLY KNOW HER?

· Published · 2 minute read

She asks questions, travels, sings and searches for her son. In the Gospels, Mary is anything but a motionless holy picture.

Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child with Two Angels.

The angel speaks, and Mary answers with a question. In Luke’s Annunciation, her yes comes through a real conversation: she is troubled, wants to understand and asks how it will happen. Before imagining her forever silent and still, listen to her.

Nazareth, without an identity card

Luke introduces her in Galilee, betrothed to Joseph. He gives neither her birth date nor her age at the Annunciation. Many childhood details come from later traditions. Painters’ clothes, rooms and lilies are artistic choices, too: they communicate meaning rather than photograph her home.

A song that raises its voice

Mary travels into the hills to visit Elizabeth. In the Magnificat she sings of mercy, the lowly lifted up, the powerful brought down and the hungry fed. What energy! She names Abraham and the promises to the ancestors: Mary belongs to the Jewish faith into which Jesus is born.

A mother who searches and asks questions

When twelve-year-old Jesus stays in Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph search for him. Luke says plainly that they do not understand his answer. She treasures everything in her heart: loving someone leaves room for questions, too.

At Cana in John’s Gospel, Mary notices that the wine has run out and tells Jesus. She then tells the servants to do what he says. This leads to Jesus’s first sign and the theme of his “hour”: read the story to its final line.

Three titles worth understanding

“Mother of God” describes who Jesus is, truly God and truly human; it does not mean Mary created God. The Immaculate Conception concerns Mary’s conception, preserved from original sin. The Assumption concerns the completion of her life, body and soul in heavenly glory. These are Catholic beliefs; the Catechism distinguishes veneration of Mary from worship, which belongs to God alone.

Muslims also honour Mary, as the conciliar document Nostra aetate recalls, while not recognising Jesus as God. Shared ground opens dialogue; differences still deserve understanding.

Your first stop? Luke 1 and 2, then John 2. Afterwards, look at a painting: you will recognise the Gospel’s Mary and the details the artist chose to tell her story.

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING

Photo credits

ONE MORE STORY?

The Young Virgin by Francisco de Zurbarán, a devotional painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
TO DISCOVER

MARY WAS A LITTLE GIRL TOO.

Every so often, a photograph turns up. An uneven fringe, shiny shoes, a very serious expression in front of a birthday cake. You look at it and struggle to remember that the little girl is you. People who know you now see the things you do: working, accompanying, deciding, organising. In that photograph, so much was still ahead of you.

La Presentazione di Gesù al Tempio, dipinto di Álvaro Pires d’Évora conservato al Metropolitan Museum.
TO DISCOVER

MARY LISTENS TO TWO OLDER PEOPLE. AND DISCOVERS SOMETHING NEW.

You already know how the story begins. You have heard it so often: that workplace, the old family home, going out to make a phone call. Coat in hand, another appointment waiting, you almost finish the sentence for them.

The statue of Our Lady in the Massabielle grotto at Lourdes. Archive photograph.
TO DISCOVER

Mary, the most powerful woman in the world, is our mother

She comforts us when we are sad, embraces us in the darkness and shares our joy in the light. Mary’s strength comes from a love that reaches us everywhere. The Rosary gives us a prayer to accompany even our hardest struggles.