Monday after Pentecost--Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church

Last spring, Pope Francis decreed that “the ancient devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the title of Mother of the Church, be inserted into the Roman Calendar” on the Monday after Pentecost. Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, said “the Pope’s decision took account of the tradition surrounding the devotion to Mary as Mother of the Church.” The Holy Father “wishes to promote this devotion in order to ‘encourage the growth of the maternal sense of the Church in the pastors, religious and faithful, as well as a growth of genuine Marian piety.’”

The Scriptures for the day include either Gn. 3:9-15, 20, which is the promise to Adam and Eve that God will save them through the New Adam, son of the New Eve, Mary, or Acts 1:12-14, which mentions Mary as the mother of Jesus after the Ascension and before the Pentecost. The Gospel is from Jn 19:25-34, where Jesus gives his mother to the beloved disciple: “‘Woman, behold, your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother.’”

The Tradition that Mary is the Mother of the Church goes all the way back to Jesus and has been developed more fully through the ages. In 1964, “Pope Paul VI ‘declared the Blessed Virgin Mary as “Mother of the Church, that is to say of all Christian people, the faithful as well as the pastors, who call her the most loving Mother” and established that “the Mother of God should be further honoured and invoked by the entire Christian people by this tenderest of titles”’”. As our mother, Mary intercedes on our behalf to her Son, Jesus Christ. We are blessed with such a gracious, loving mother! Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us.