Mother of Salvation by Aemiliana Lohr

Readings for the Liturgy of the Hours.
Augustinian Press 1995
Night Office.

 

Mother of Salvation

TWENTY-FIRST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

WEDNESDAY

First Reading

WEDNESDAY

Ephesians      5:21-33

Responsory        Sg 2:10-12; Rv 19:9

My Beloved speaks and says to me Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for see, t the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. The flowers appear in the countryside.

V. Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding banquet of the Lamb. t The winter is past ...

Second Reading

From Mother of Salvation by Aemiliana Lohr

It would be wrong to think of God only as masculine and father. He who created man in his own image created him male and female. Both then, the female as well as the male, must have their prototype in him. "For in his ineffable being he is Father, but in his compassion for us he became a mother. It was through love that the Father became feminine, and the clearest proof of this is the Son begotten of him. The fruit of love is love." It sounds like a natural conclusion from these profound thoughts of Clement of Alexandria, when a Christmas trope praises Mary as "Mother of fatherly love."

Therefore, if the love of God, his maternal and womanly aspect, has become visible for us precisely in the Son who became man, it is certainly because even Christ himself - the faithful reflection of the Father - appeared as male and female like Adam when first created; he had the Church at his side, after all, hidden at first, but revealed by the cross; better still, he was enveloped by her as by his spiritual body. In his passion he suffered, endured and conquered as man, as God's servant and as Lord; and he has placed the distribution of the hard won treasure of salvation, in the form of a sacrament, in the womanly and maternal hands of his Church, who as his body and his spouse is nothing other than himself, Christus totus, the whole, the one Christ, the only Son of the Father, the one love of God who became man.

It is she, therefore, the Church, manifest image of what is motherly in God, that the author of the Apocalypse portrays for us in the great sign of the woman in labour. Yet, it must be admitted, it is Paul rather than John who proclaims this mystery, explaining in words what John presents in image. Paul is aware of the virginal marriage-bond between Christ and the Church, the great mystery from which all earthly marriage receives its meaning and consecration; he is aware of the Lord as head and saviour of his body; and he is aware of the Jerusalem above, the free woman, who is our mother. He who no longer knows Christ in a merely human way, but only as the glorified Lord, does not speak of Mary either, the earthly mother of Jesus, but only of the mother of his spiritual body, the Church. She, like Christ, is Paul's great and only love. For he is aware of the mystery: that the Church is Christ, and Christ is the Church; that they are both the same, one body and one spirit; she his body and he her head; he her Saviour and she the fullness of his being. It is only as both together that they are the whole man whom God desired, to whom he had already given, as it were, preliminary shape in Adam and his wife, but who has only now been brought to maturity in Christ, the new Adam, and the Church, his body and his spouse. In them we really see the true eternal ideal of man which was planned from the very beginning, the perfect and indissoluble unity of man and woman.

Responsory    Rv 19:7-8

Let us rejoice and exult and give glory to God, for the wedding-day

of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. t She has been given fine linen, bright and clean, to wear.

V. The fine linen is the good deeds of the saints. + She has been ...

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MARY'S ROLE IN GOD'S PLAN OF SALVATION

Monday, January 13, 2014

26. MARY'S ROLE IN GOD'S PLAN OF SALVATION

    Mary,s acceptance....  

Continuation from: 23. Mary - The Mother Of God

To understand the title "Mother of God," we must first clearly understand Mary's role as mother of our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

As Catholics, we firmly believe in the incarnation of Our Lord: Mary conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. 2Luke 1:26-38 And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, [27] To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin' s name was Mary. [28] And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. [29] Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. [30] And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. [31] Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. [32] He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. [33] And of his kingdom there shall be no end. [34] And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man? [35] And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. 36] And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: [37] Because no word shall be impossible with God. [38]And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her. and we can also refer to Matthew 1:18-25. 

Through her, Jesus Christ — second person of the Holy Trinity, one-in-being (consubstantial) with the Father, and true God from true God — entered this world taking on human flesh and a human soul. Jesus is true God and true man. In His divine person are united both a divine nature and a human nature. 

Mary did not create the divine person of Jesus, who existed with the Father and Holy Spirit from all eternity: "In fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly became her Son according to the flesh, was none other than the Father's eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Hence the Church confesses that Mary is truly 'Mother of God' (Theotokos)" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 495). As St. John wrote, "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we have seen His glory: The glory of an only Son coming from the Father filled with enduring love" John 1:14. Here Jesus was the Word from the beginning of time who is God and became flesh.

Mary Adoring  Her Son Jesus

Mary - Model of Purity and Goodness.

So who is Mary according to the Scripture?
In the Bible, based on the gospel texts, we may have erroneously formed an incomplete picture of Mary.
 
We probably imagined Mary as a

·                  young (to face the reality and hardship of life), 

·                  innocent (in ways of the world) and 

·                  timid (silly, incompetent, spineless) 

but Mary proved otherwise and she was far from all these,

Mary was a Picture of

·                  Beauty in and out - she was made pure and immaculate from the beginning of time in the sight of God. (Genesis 3:15 I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed:she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.) Even from the time of Adam and Eve, Mary the Mother of Jesus is already pre-destined to crush the head of the evil.

·                  Humility with singleness of purpose (Luke 1:38 And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.And the angel departed from her.)

·                  Initiative and Patience (John 2:3 And the wine failing, the mother of Jesus saith to him: They have no wine. [4] And Jesus saith to her: Woman, what is that to me and to thee? my hour is not yet come. [5] His mother saith to the waiters: Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye. 
[4] What is that to me: These words of our Saviour, spoken to his mother, have been understood by some commentators as harsh, they not considering the next following verse: Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye, which plainly shews that his mother knew of the miracle that he was to perform, and that it was at her request he wrought it; besides the manner of speaking the words as to the tone, and the countenance shewn at the same time, which could only be known to those who were present, or from what had followed: for words indicating anger in one tone of voice, would be understood quite the reverse in another.)

·                  Faith (in God's plan) & Obedience (to the will of God) Luke 1:38

·                  Willingness (to give up her own Son to be crucified) & Strength (to withstand the pain)

·                  Forgiveness (for those who crucified Jesus) & Love (for all mankind)

And Mary was all these