#12 - St. JPII's Meditation on Mary

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Continuing with this meditation, we need to remember Mary, upon whom we meditate, is also Model for the entire Church. We used the expression “Mother Church” more often in the past, but we still refer to the Church using the pronoun “she”. When pondering Mary’s Motherhood and her perpetual virginity, let us keep in mind the Church, “Bride of Christ” and “Mother of the Children of God”. These are profound mysteries that deserve prayerful time and thought. Pope St. JPII continues his meditation:

Motherhood

18 . In order to share in this “vision”, we must once again seek a deeper understanding of the truth about the human person recalled by the Second Vatican Council. The human being - both male and female - is the only being in the world which God willed for its own sake. The human being is a person, a subject who decides for himself. At the same time, man “cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of self”. It has already been said that this description, indeed this definition of the person, corresponds to the fundamental biblical truth about the creation of the human being - man and woman - in the image and likeness of God. This is not a purely theoretical interpretation, nor an abstract definition, for it gives an essential indication of what it means to be human, while emphasizing the value of the gift of self, the gift of the person. In this vision of the person we also find the essence of that “ethos” which, together with the truth of creation, will be fully developed by the books of Revelation, particularly the Gospels.This truth about the person also opens up the path to a full understanding of women’s motherhood. Motherhood is the fruit of the marriage union of a man and woman, of that biblical “knowledge” which corresponds to the “union of the two in one flesh” (cf. Gen 2:24). This brings about - on the woman’s part - a special “gift of self”, as an expression of that spousal love whereby the two are united to each other so closely that they become “one flesh”. Biblical “knowledge” is achieved in accordance with the truth of the person only when the mutual self-giving is not distorted either by the desire of the man to become the “master” of his wife (“he shall rule over you”) or by the woman remaining closed within her own instincts (“your desire shall be for your husband”: Gen 3:16).

This mutual gift of the person in marriage opens to the gift of a new life, a new human being, who is also a person in the likeness of his parents. Motherhood implies from the beginning a special openness to the new person: and this is precisely the woman’s “part”. In this openness, in conceiving and giving birth to a child, the woman “discovers herself through a sincere gift of self”. The gift of interior readiness to accept the child and bring it into the world is linked to the marriage union, which - as mentioned earlier - should constitute a special moment in the mutual self-giving both by the woman and the man. According to the Bible, the conception and birth of a new human being are accompanied by the following words of the woman: “I have brought a man into being with the help of the Lord” (Gen 4:1).This exclamation of Eve, the “mother of all the living” is repeated every time a new human being comes into the world. It expresses the woman’s joy and awareness that she is sharing in the great mystery of eternal generation. The spouses share in the creative power of God!..

Come Holy Spirit, bring us into All Truth.
Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us.
Pope St. John Paul II, pray for us.