..."Mary's place in the catechism is important, first and foremost because she is and has been the privileged person and partner of God's revelation in Jesus Christ, and is thus a permanent model and key for all catechisms." Mary is the one who helps us unravel divine revelation about the person of her Son Jesus. God did not speak into the void or into empty space. His word was meant for a human addressee in expectation of a positive answer. Thus, Jesus and Mary constitute the original dialogical situation upon which the catechism is grounded. Mary is the first and perfect example of the "person whom grace has transformed into a new creature." This person begins to follow Christ – says Catechesi Tradendae (#20) – and in the Church learns daily how "better to think like Christ, judge like him, act as his commandments require, and in whom he bids us to hope" (ibid.). It does not come as a surprise that Mary is regarded as teacher, she, who was the first disciple of Jesus ... "the first in rank, for no one became so profoundly docile to God as she" (Cat. Trad., #73). Not enough to identify Mary as disciple and teacher, the Pope sees in her person a "living catechism" and "the mother and model of catechists."(Underlining is mine; the Pope referred to is Bl. JPII who wrote Cat. Trad.)
It is a long article but has much to offer, not only in helping us to understand Mary as a “living Catechism” but also to better understand the gift of the CCC in general.