Today as we celebrate the memorial of Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, Anne O’Brien (Deputy Chief Executive Officer: Mission, People and Culture for St Agnes’ Catholic Parish), reads from the Gospel of John (19: 25-34) in which Mary, Jesus’s mother, stands near the cross as he is crucified.

Anne notes that in 2018, Pope Francis, whose devotion to Mary is well known, established a new feast for the Catholic Church devoted to Mary as the Mother of the Church. The decision was announced in a decree by the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. So, the memorial of Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church was inscribed into the General Roman Calendar on the Monday after Pentecost to highlight Mary’s collaboration with the mission of Jesus and her unity with the apostles and the other disciples at the birth of the Church.

As early as the 4th Century St Ambrose of Milan had regarded Mary as a model of the Church in her faith, love and union with Jesus from birth until his death on the cross.

In his apostolic letter, ‘Credo of the People of God’ in 1968, Pope Paul VI declares Mary as a mother of the church and mother of all Christians with these words, ‘joined by a close and indissoluble bond to the mysteries of the incarnation and redemption the Blessed Virgin, mother of the Church, continues her maternal role with regard to Christ’s members cooperating with the birth and growth of divine life in the soul of the redeemed’.

Mary is a model of faith and virtue. She is a perfect example of faith, she believed even when she did not fully understand. Her obedience, she followed God’s will. Humility, she never sought attention for herself. Love, she followed Jesus to the cross.

Anne says, we are all encouraged to imitate her virtues in our lives. Mary has a very strong presence in our Catholic devotions. She is a central figure in Catholic life through our prayers, like the Hail Mary and the Rosary; our feast days and solemnities, such as the Immaculate Conception, the Annunciation, and the Assumption; also, apparitions such as at Lourdes and Fatima, which call people to conversion and prayer.

Mary is very important to us because of her unique relationship with Jesus; her role in God’s plan; and her ongoing spiritual motherhood and intercession. She is honoured as the greatest of saints, a loving mother, a faithful disciple and powerful advocate before God.

In closing Anne invites us to finish our time together with the Hail Mary:

Hail Mary,

Full of grace, the Lord be with thee,

Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.

Holy Mary, mother of God,

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen