MEMORIAL OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, MOTHER OF THE CHURCH

 

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MEMORIAL OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, MOTHER OF THE CHURCH 

¹The Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, 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 November 21 1964, Pope Saint Paul VI, on 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 February 11, 2018, the 160th anniversary of the first apparition of the Virgin at Lourdes, he made this an obligatory memorial.

²The Church has traditionally portrayed the Blessed Virgin Mary together with the apostles and disciples gathered at that first Pentecost, joined in prayer with the first members of the Church. The title "Mater Ecclesiae" is found in the writings of Berengaud, bishop of Treves (died 1125). In his 1895 encyclical Adjutricem populi (Helper of the People) Pope Leo XIII wrote: "She is invoked as Mother of the Church and the teacher and Queen of the Apostles". Following the title's usage by Leo XIII, it was later used in the teachings of subsequent popes. In 2018, Pope Francis decreed that the Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church be inserted into the Roman Calendar on the Monday after Pentecost (Whit Monday) and to be celebrated every year.

The use of the Mater Ecclesiae title to the Virgin Mary goes back to Saint Ambrose of Milan in the 4th century.  

¹ Source: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/liturgical-holidays/memorial-of-the-blessed-virgin-mary--mother-of-the-church.html

² Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_of_the_Church