Saturday, May 5, 2012

The Presence of Mary

May is specially dedicated to Mary. Perhaps one of the reasons is that May always includes the season of the resurrection. It is truly the great time of Mary's life, and yet the New Testament does not report any words she said. It merely indicates her presence, at the foot of the Cross, and in the upper room at Pentecost.

Everything that Jesus suffered on the Cross, Mary suffered in her heart. She embraced the whole mystery of Jesus at the beginning, when she said "yes" to the plan of salvation, when she called herself the "handmaid of the Lord" (Luke 1:38). She gave herself over entirely to Jesus. In His birth and in the first glimpses of His mission, we are told that "Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart" (Luke 2:19, see also 2:51).

And when Jesus gave Himself for us on the Cross, He gave us Mary as well, Mary the mother, Mary with her great heart. "Woman, behold, your son!.... Behold your mother! And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home" (John 19:27). Mary goes to stay with the disciple, to be with him, and to be with each of us, because the "yes" of her heart extends as far as the "yes" of Jesus.

Thus, the season of the resurrection is the season of Mary's silent presence with the disciples, a silence of the understanding and love of her maternal heart. The book of Acts simply refers to the presence of "Mary the mother of Jesus" with the disciples in those days leading up to Pentecost (1:14). Mary was present, her heart luminous with the glory of the resurrection, her soul "magnifying the Lord" (see Luke 1:46).

Her silence was full of maternal love, for the Church, and for the world to which the Church would be sent.