Articles / Special

Virgin in the parish church of St. Ulrich (18th century) in Gröden, Ortisei, Val Gardena, Italy.
Credit : Wolfgang Moroder, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church on May 29, reminds us how Jesus Himself, through an act of entrusting, willed that the divine maternity be extended to all men and women, that is, to the Church herself. In 2018, Pope Francis established the Monday after the Solemnity of Pentecost, the day on which the Church was born, as the date for this memorial.

The title is not a new one. In 1980, Saint John Paul II, invited the faithful to venerate Mary as Mother of the Church. Even before that, on 21 November 1964, Saint Paul VI, at the conclusion of the third Session of the Second Vatican Council declared Mary as the “Mother of the Church”. And in 1975, the Holy See proposed a votive Mass in honour of the Mother of the Church, without it becoming a memorial on the liturgical calendar.

Besides these recent dates, we cannot forget how much the title of Mary, Mother of the Church, was already present in the thought of Saint Augustine and Saint Leo the Great, of Popes Benedict XV and Leo XIII, up until Pope Francis when, on 11 February 2018, the 160th anniversary of the first apparition of the Virgin at Lourdes, he made this an obligatory memorial.

Why Monday after Pentecost was chosen?

It was because Pentecost is the public manifestation of the church. In Acts 1:14, the apostles gathered and Mary, our Mother was there to pray with them, holding in faith and hope, the promise of the Paraclete.

And when the Holy Spirit came, our Blessed Mother was together with the apostles. At the birth of the church, she was present. And so therefore, she is rightly the Mother of the Church as well.

- Article by CT Staff

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