After His Resurrection Jesus Christ will establish the Reign of the Spirit: the Church. This is not a human institution but a community of people who are born, not because of the desires of the flesh or from blood but of God Himself. (John 1:13) It is a group of people who are children of God and born of the Spirit.
When the Spirit comes on Pentecost, there will be a new birth. For the second time Jesus will be born, but this time not according to the flesh as He was in Bethlehem, but in the spirit. You cannot have a birth without a mother. If the birth was spiritual, the mother would have to be spiritual. Mothers, humanly speaking, are delightful realities. But that sweet reality would have to die in a transforming evolution because all humans who are born must also die.
Mary would have to leave behind her maternal role in the realm of the flesh, and would have to enter into the field of faith. All this is necessary because Christ needed a mother in the spirit for His second birth on Pentecost Sunday. The Church is the living prolongation of Jesus, revealed, surging and enveloping all of history.
If Mary wants to continue in communion with Jesus of Nazareth, she will not do this like a human mother, but will have to enter into a new relation with Him, one of faith and of the spirit.
The stark scene speaks silently until we hear the words recorded by the eye witness, John. (John19: 25, 28) “Behold, this is your son; here is your Mother.”… this is the genesis of the spiritual maternity of Mary.
That was His last will; His most precious gift; He left the best until last. In His last act Jesus entrusted His Mother to the Church in order that the Church would take care of her, and treat her with faith and love. And, in turn, He handed the Church over to the Mother in order that she would care for the Church with maternal concern and lead her on the journey to salvation.
Extracted from the book “The Silence of Mary” by Ignacio Larrañaga, OFM
