4TH DISTINCTION

4th Distinction : Her Unique Maternity

 

Mary had a unique, and never-to-be-repeated, distinction; the unfathomable, highest dignity, of being the Mother of her own Creator!

What divine humility!  The Supreme Being, whom all the universe cannot contain, makes Himself small and lives for nine months in the womb of Mary.

The wonders of this God-child's dependence on His human mother!  She must supply Him with oxygen.  It is her liver which removes waste products from His blood. 

Our little child Jesus is enveloped in the placenta, which catches nutrients from Our Lady's blood and transports them to Him.  Besides obtaining nutrition from what Our Lady herself eats and drinks, the Lord receives nutrition from Our Lady's own body.

After His birth, He drinks from the milk of her breasts, as the painting above shows.  God, the Source of Life, drinks from the body of His own creature whom He has made His Mother!

In all this, our Lord is redeeming fallen humanity.  Not only is humanity brought back to its original innocence, it is raised to an even higher dignity, for a woman, a daughter of Adam and Eve, is made Mother of God.

She is not Mother of God in the sense that she gave Jesus His divine nature.  She is Mother of the One who was conceived in her womb; of the One who was born from her womb.  In her womb, she carried God Himself, not just the human nature of Jesus.  Otherwise, why did Elizabeth say to Mary, "But whom am I, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" (Luke 1:42)

Elizabeth, inspired by God the Holy Ghost, acknowledges that Mary is not mother just of the human Jesus, but also of Jesus who is Lord.

She carried all of Jesus, who is God made man.  He is man thanks to her maternity.

Our Mother, too

Mary never stopped being a mother.

She loved her Son forever more; following Him, suffering with Him, burying Him, reigning with Him.

Because her Son married a Bride, the Church, she became Mother of the Church.

She remains in heaven interceding for us, just as she did for the wedding party in Cana.

To paraphrase Saint Bonaventure, God could have made a more majestic and beautiful world, with more amazing landscapes, vegetation and animal life.

But God couldn't have made a more beautiful Mother.  She was to be Mother of the Perfect God-man Jesus.  She had to be, as far as a human mother of a divine Son can be, a perfect Mother.

And she is ours!