Mother of the Eucharist

                                             Pic:  Francesca Pollio Fenton/EWTN News

Yesterday, we celebrated the birthday of the Church. At Pentecost, the Church was born – not quietly, but with a kind of holy explosion, bursting forth into the streets of Jerusalem and spreading rapidly to Samaria, Antioch, Alexandria, Rome and beyond. The Good News went out in every direction, reaching Asia, Africa, and Europe.

In 2018, Pope Francis established that today, the Monday after Pentecost, be celebrated as the Memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church. This feast forms an important link in a long tradition that stretches back to the earliest centuries of Christianity.

At the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D., the Church proclaimed Mary as Theotokos—the ‘God-bearer’. In defending the full divinity and humanity of Christ, the Church declared that Mary gave birth to God made flesh, not to a merely human person separate from God. In other words, she is not only the mother of Jesus in a human sense, but truly the Mother of God incarnate – the one Person, Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man.

Centuries later, in 1964, SaintPaul VI solemnly proclaimed Mary as Mother of the Church, recognising her maternal role in relation to all the faithful.

Inthe decree establishing today’s memorial, the Church recalls that Mary was already exercising this role in the earliest days of the Church:

As a caring guide to the emerging Church, Mary had already begun her mission in the Upper Room, praying with the Apostles while awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 1:14)… and so she is rightly honoured as Mother of Disciples, of the Faithful, of Believers… and as ‘Mother of the Church.’

The decree goes on to say:

This celebration will help us to remember that growth in the Christian life must be anchored to the mystery of the Cross, to the oblation of Christ in the Eucharistic banquet, and to the Mother of the Redeemer and Mother of the Redeemed, the Virgin who makes her offering to God.

Here we find the key to today’s memorial: Mary, the Cross, and the Eucharist belong together.

Mary accompanied Jesus from the moment of the Incarnation through every stage of his life – right to his sacrifice on Calvary and his Resurrection. For this reason, she can rightly be called the first disciple. She is our model in discipleship: giving her complete 'yes' to God and remaining faithful throughout her life.

The woman who once cradled the body of Christ now embraces his Body, the Church. At the foot of the Cross, Jesus entrusted her to the beloved disciple—“Behold your mother” (John19:26–27). In him, she was given to all of us. We too can turn to her as our mother in faith, who guides us safely toward her Son.

There is also a profound Eucharistic dimension to her motherhood.  Mary gave Christ his body and blood at the Incarnation; and it is that same body and blood that we receive in the Holy Eucharist.  Saint John Paul II expressed this beautifully in Ecclesia deEucharistia:

In a certain sense Mary lived her Eucharistic faith even before the institution of the Eucharist, by the very fact that she offered her virginal womb for the Incarnation of God’s Word. The Eucharist, while commemorating the Passion and Resurrection, is also in continuity with the Incarnation. At the Annunciation Mary conceived the Son of God in the physical reality of his body and blood, thus anticipating within herself what happens sacramentally in every believer who receives the Lord’s body and blood under the signs of bread and wine.

Mary, then, is rightly called the Mother of the Eucharist, because she gave to the world the very body that we now receive on the altar.

As we celebrate this memorial, we are invited to remain close to her - especially at the Cross and in the Eucharist -  so that, like her, we may learn to offer our lives completely to Christ.

Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, pray for us who have recourse to thee.