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meditation of the day

Our Life-Saving Mother, the Church

The mystery of the Church is intimately bound to the mystery of Mary, the Mother of God and the Mother of the Church. Mary gives birth to us and takes care of us. So does the Church. Mary makes us grow. So does the Church. And at the hour of death, the priest accompanies us in the name of the Church, committing us to Mary’s embrace. A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars (Rv 12:1). This is the Church, and this is the Church our faithful people revere. Therefore when we speak about the Church we need to feel the same devotion as we do for the Virgin Mary.

We are born for holiness in a holy body, that of our holy Mother the Church. Both our vocation to be holy and irreproachable in his sight (Col 1:22) and our apostolic fruitfulness depend upon our disciplined desire to live in loving communion with this Body. The Church is holy: she remains in the world “as a sign—simultaneously obscure and luminous—of a new presence of Jesus, of his departure and of his permanent presence. She prolongs and continues him” (Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi); her holiness—“the life of prayer, of listening to the Word and the apostles’ teaching, charity lived in a fraternal way, the sharing of bread—this intimate life only acquires its full meaning when it becomes a witness, when it evokes admiration and conversion, and when it becomes the preaching and proclamation of the Good News.”

The holiness of the Church is reflected in the face of Mary, who is without sin, pure and without blemish; but she does not forget that within her womb she also bears the children of Eve, mother of sinful mankind. Love and devotion to our Mother the Church corresponds to love and devotion to each of her children in particular. And we have many saints in the Church—we are in contact with holy people every day. I often ask myself whether the bitter criticism of the Church, the pain and disappointment over her many sins, and the sense of hopelessness it tends to create in us, are not directly related to the fact that we are undernourished. That is, because we do not avail ourselves enough of this proximity to the Church’s lived holiness, which is a reconciling presence, for it is God visiting his Body.

Pope Francis

His Holiness Pope Francis was elected to the See of Saint Peter in 2013. / From In Him Alone Is Our Hope: Spiritual Exercises Given to His Brother Bishops in the Manner of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Fr. Vincent Capuano, s.j., Andrew Matt, Trs. © 2013, Magnificat, Yonkers, NY. All rights reserved.