Pope Francis set into the Roman Calendar in 2018, the Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, on the Monday following Pentecost Sunday. Pope Francis followed Pope Paul VI’s exhortation of this ‘tenderest of titles’ at the close of the Second Vatican Council, and Saint Pope John Paul II’s use of the title in reference to Mary, Mother of God. However, this title goes back to the earliest times of the Christian Church.

What an astonishing mystery! There is one Father of the universe, one Logos of the universe, and also one Holy Spirit, everywhere one and the same; there is also one virgin become mother, and I should like to call her “Church.”

– Saint Clement of Alexandria, as cited in the Cathechism of the Catholic Church § 813

In the Blessed Virgin Mary, present with the Apostles at the birth of the Church at Pentecost, we have a living sign revealing the Church as the universal Sacrament of Salvation in Christ (LG§48).

Mary is an image of the Church. Mary is the ultimate co-worker for God (1 Cor 3:9).

With Christ as the cornerstone determining the building plan for the kingdom of God, we are reborn, by Faith, in Baptism, into living stones, to fit into His plan.

Mary, conceiving Christ in Faith, is the archetype of the Church as virginal mother in the spiritual generation of the members of Christ’s body through Baptism and the ministries of Word and Sacrament.

Mary shares with the Church the patristic image of the moon, receiving all its light from sun, thereby pointing us to Christ.

In Revelation’s image of the woman clothed with the sun, with the moon, crushing the serpent’s head, daughter Zion becomes the new Ark of the Covenant bearing Emmanuel, ‘God with us,’ and becomes the mother of all the living, the People of God.

With Christ’s Church, as its institution, Mary extends from Creation as the new Eve; to the fulfillment of Israel’s history and prophecy; to the Incarnation of Christ and birth of the Church at Pentecost; and to the Assumption, revealing certain hope for the pilgrim people of God in being united with God in glory at the end (Acts 2).

Mary gave birth to Christ bodily, and to the body of Christ, the Church. Christ, Mary, and each disciple make personal decisions witnessing toward eternal life. The Church and its members are alive in the Holy Spirit, united in Eucharist and prayer (Acts 1:14). Mary is the first and model contemplative disciple hearing the Word of God and bringing Christ’s Church into being as virgin, spouse, mother. Her Immaculate Conception and Assumption guarantee and anticipate the holiness of the heavenly Church.

As Sacrament, the Church is the sign and instrument of Communion in Christ, containing and communicating the graces she signifies (CCC 774-775). The spiritual realities experienced by Christ’s disciples, and the building of the reign of God, are to be realized in the Church. Mary, the handmaiden servent, serves Christ and the Church in Sacrament, Grace, and beauty. Mary is the instituted sign, the first fruits from the Mystery of her Son’s redeeming Love, and our primary example of faithful discipleship in her Son’s Sacramental Church. Mary shows us, in image, institution, and in the Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, the way of discipleship in Word and in Sacrament, in truth, to life eternal, united in Christ.

Mary, Mother of the Church, ora pro nobis!