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 thirty-fourth invocation: Gate of Heaven, pray for us.
What does it mean to say that Saint Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mother of God is the Gate of Heaven”? Here we consider both aspects, Heaven and the gate. In Genesis 28:17 Jacob’s ladder is identified as the “gate of Heaven” upon which the angels of God ascended and descended. While Matthew 7:13 has the Lord Jesus directing us to enter by the narrow gate to Heaven and not by the broad way and gate which leads to destruction. Matthew 16:18 has the Lord Jesus promise Saint Peter that the gates of Hell would not prevail against the Church. The Lord Jesus Himself identifies as “the gate” in John 10:9 through which we are to enter as the sheep of His flock. Yet, He came to us through Mary. There are more than six hundred verses of Sacred Scripture which mention “heaven.” The Hebrew word shamayim and the Greek word ouranoi are translated as “Heaven(s)” referring to the abode of God and the hosts of angles (cf. Psalm 11:4; 103:19-21; Isaiah 66:1; Revelation 4:2; 5:11). Saints such as Ambrose (+397), The Consecration of a Virgin and the Perpetual Virginity of Mary and De Institutione Virginis, Augustine (+430), De Annunt. Dom., Jerome (+420), Commentarium in Evangelium Lucae and Dialogus contra Pelagianos, and John Henry Newman (+1890), Meditations and Devotions) all have interpreted Ezekiel 44:1-3 as referring to Our Lady, the gate through which only the Lord may enter. Our friends at Merriam-Webster remind us of different aspects of gates: an opening in a wall or fence; an entrance to a city or castle often with defensive structures such as towers, an area for departure or arrival.
The Latin Porta Caeli translates as gate of Heaven. Compline or Night Prayer includes references to Our Lady as the Gate of Heaven. The antiphon Ave, Regina caelorum includes a reference to Saint Mary as the gate we hail (salve, porta), while the Alma Redemptoris Mater antiphon just calls Our Lady the gate of Heaven (caeli porta). Marian consecration as preached by Saint Louis de Montfort (+1716) in his True Devotion to Mary is very much based upon the axiom: ad Jesum per Mariam (to Jesus through Mary). “It was through Mary that the salvation of the world was begun and it is through Mary that it must be consummated.”
Jesus Christ, Lord and King of Heaven and Earth, came among us through Our Lady, Saint Mary, she is the gate of Heaven through which He came to us.
Father John Arthur Orr