“How to further explain the tremendous emphasis on the role of the Virgin Mary within Catholicism? Usually in dire circumstances or need the first prayer that comes to a Catholic’s lips is the 'Hail Mary.' And how to explain the seemingly countless shrines and churches dedicated to Mary?
“There are many explanations, from piety to custom to Church teaching to history to the need for a feminine dimension to religion. But fundamentally, the answer to Mary’s role and popularity among believers is Christ himself. It is only in the mystery of Christ that the mystery of Mary is made clear.
“Just as she gives birth to Christ who is the head of the Mystical Body, so she gives birth to the Church itself, which is the Mystical Body of Christ.
“Christ came among us as God and man by means of a human birth through Mary, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit. In turn, we are born into new life in Christ through Mary who is Mother of the Church. In addition, Mary is also the image of what the Church herself is, namely, a new community whose bond is faith in Jesus Christ, Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary. We, then, as brothers and sisters of Christ, have Mary as our spiritual mother. We are spiritually reborn through the motherhood of Mary.
“Jesus says to us from the cross in the person of John the Evangelist, 'Behold your mother.' And to his mother he says, 'Behold your son' (or daughter, as the case may be). To believe that the spiritual motherhood of Mary is true for all of us takes the same kind of faith that Mary herself had when she said, 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.' That is the faith that is necessary for the new reality that is the Mystical Body of Christ. It is a faith in the word of God as it is received and acted upon in the Church. 'Be it done unto us according to your word, Lord, as it was done in your and our mother Mary.'
“Our Mother Mary. She is the image of the Church: virginal, yet always giving birth to Christ in those who believe, as she believed that God’s Word became flesh in Jesus, and in us who believe, and who, like Mary, believe that Jesus is the Word made flesh. The Incarnation happened through Mary’s faith that the word spoken to her by the Angel Gabriel was God’s Word. And it was Mary’s yes to that word that effected the enfleshment of the Word as the living flesh and blood of Jesus Christ who is both Eternal Word and the human being, Jesus, the Son of Mary.
“This is the theology, the teaching of the Church, that is behind the role and popularity of the Virgin Mary in salvation history. It is the reason we pray over and over again in the rosary, 'Hail Mary, full of grace …' ”
