My dear parishioners,
Peace! On the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, 7 October, 2019, Pope Francis established the feast of Our Lady of Loreto, to be observed each year on the 10th of December. At the same time Pope Francis proclaimed a Lauretan Jubilee Holy Year to run from 8 December, 2019 through 10 December, 2020. There are fifty-one invocations in the Litany of Loreto. The following is a reflection on the fourth invocation: Mother of Christ, pray for us.
Saint Mary is the Mother of Christ. Jesus Christ, true God and true man is the Son of Mary, born in the fullness of time. The title “Christ” means anointed one (Greek: Christos; Hebrew: masiah). Jesus Christ is the Anointed One par excellence, while we His followers are anointed ones in Him.
Saint Cyril of Alexandria (+444) vigorously defended Saint Mary’s prerogative to be called Mother of God (Theotokos/Mater Dei). Saint Cyril did so in the face of the heretical Patriarch of Constantinople Nestorius (+450) who would only call her the mother of Christ. While more contemporary Christology attempts to dissect the “Jesus of history” from the “Christ of faith” Nestorius denied the hypostatic union centuries before.
Jesus Christ, true God and true man, has a human body in which He was able to be anointed bodily (cf. Luke 7:46). The spiritual anointing was no less real in the case of the Lord (cf. Isaiah 61:3; Psalm 45:7; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; Hebrews 1:9).
In the encyclical letter of Saint John Paul II (+2005) Redemptoris Mater (25 March, 1987) the invocation “Mother of Christ” is found twenty-two times. Repeatedly the Polish Pontiff invokes Our Lady as “model in faith, hope and charity” (RM, 2), having a “unique presence” in history (RM, 3), as the “exceptional ‘daughter of the human race,’ that extraordinary ‘woman’” who helps us to know our true selves because she introduces us to the Incarnate Word (cf. RM, 4; Gaudium et Spes, 22). As “Mother of Christ” Saint Mary is united in a particular way with the Church “which the Lord established as His own body” (RM, 5). The Mother of Christ, Saint Mary, serves “as the spokeswoman of her son’s will, pointing out those things which must be done so that the salvific power of the Messiah may be manifested” as when she says “Do whatever He tells you” (John 2:5; RM, 21). She who is the “Mother of Christ” is no less the “mother of mankind” and “clearly the mother of the members of Christ” (cf. John 19:27; RM, 23). The deeper Mother Church ‘“enters into the supreme mystery of the Incarnation’ she thinks of the Mother of Christ with profound reverence and devotion” (RM, 27; Lumen Gentium, 65).
For his part, Saint Paul VI (+1978) also invoked Our Lady, Saint Mary the Virgin as Mother of Christ in his encyclical Christi Matri (15 September, 1966; cited in RM, 2) once, when encouraging the prayer of Our Lady’s “Rosary into mystical garlands” in her honor (CM,1).
Father John Arthur Orr