Mary In The Liturgy

Mary In . . .

None    of the Gospel writers mention the presence of Our Blessed Lady . . .

. . . at the Resurrection of Christ or during the time that He spent with His apostles and followers until His Ascension into heaven.

We know from the Gospels that Christ appeared to many after He rose from the dead. He appeared to Mary Magdalene, to the Apostles, to the travelers on the road to Emmaus.  He made a special appearance to Thomas in order to convince him of the truth of His Resurrection. And St. Paul, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, tells us that Christ appeared to Peter, to James, to the other Apostles, to a group of five hundred people, and finally to Paul himself.

There is no reference whatever to Our Blessed Lady in all these accounts of Christ manifesting Himself to His followers. She seems to disappear from the Scriptural narratives of the great events of the Easter period. She is mentioned only as being present in the Upper Room where the Apostles were awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit after Christ’s Ascension into heaven. St. Luke mentions her in the Acts of the Apostles. “All these (the Apostles), with one mind, gave themselves up to prayer, together with Mary the mother of Jesus, and the rest of the women and his brethren.”

. . . The Liturgy

And so it is that there is no mention of Our Lady in the Scriptural readings of the Church’s liturgy during the Easter season. There are also no major Marian feasts during this period of the Church’s year. The only reference we have to Our Lady during this season is the prayer Regina Coeli Laetare (Queen of heaven, rejoice) which is recited in the Liturgy of the Hours, at the end of Night Prayer.

This dearth of liturgical reference to the Blessed Mother of God, at a time when the Church is celebrating the victory of Christ over sin and death, would appear, at first sight, to be somewhat of an anomaly.

During the Church’s liturgical year, in which we live the great event of our Redemption, she is clearly portrayed as closely associated with Christ. The Church shows us her union with Christ in the Incarnation, the Visitation, the birth of Christ in Bethlehem, the presentation of Christ in the temple, His finding in the temple of Jerusalem, at the marriage feast of Cana where He worked His first miracle at her request. And above all, we find her at Calvary, where she stood at the foot of the Cross, witnessing His suffering and death.

This lack of explicit reference to Our Lady in the liturgy of the Easter season has led some to conjecture that the association of Christ and Our Lady in the work of Redemption is now at an end. She has, they tell us, accomplished the work that God asked her to do. But her role is now over. She is no longer needed. She was indeed associated with Christ in some redemptive events, but she has no place in this supreme moment of Christs triumph.

Mary Has An Important Role

This notion, of course, betrays a lack of understanding of the Church’s liturgy, especially the liturgy of the Easter season. It is a totally unwarranted conclusion because it overlooks one important consideration. And that is this. The Easter liturgy is one that stresses, above everything else, a revival of faith in Christ as our Redeemer.

The Gospels tell us how the apostles fled from the scene on Calvary. The reason for their flight was that their faith in Christ had been shattered. Even though Christ had foretold His passion and death, and had assured them that He would rise again on the third day, they failed to believe Him.

Their actions, especially the three-fold denial of St. Peter whom Christ had appointed as head of His Church, clearly show that they had lost all trust in Him as the Messiah promised by God. The liturgy, particularly that of Passion-tide, manifests the apostles and followers of Christ as lacking the faith that Christ had hoped they would put in Him.

In the liturgy, the Church asks us to remember that we too have the same frailty and weakness that the Apostles had. Had we been in their place, we also would have fled with our weak faith in Christ turned to despair.

The liturgy of Easter, through the Gospel narratives, shows us the slow return, almost reluctant, of the faith of St. Peter and the Apostles. That return of their faith in Christ came about through the Resurrection. And the whole of the Easter liturgy stresses this rebirth of faith in Christ. The Church has us look through the eyes of the Apostles. Why? So that we can see the risen Christ as they saw Him. And to say, along with St. Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”

The Church Reawakens . . .

With this emphasis of the Easter liturgy on the reawakening of the faith of the Apostles and followers of Christ, it is understandable that there is little reference to Our Lady during the Easter season.

The Church has always portrayed her as “The Woman of Faith”.  And we can see from the Gospels the vast difference between her faith in Christ and the faith of the Apostles.

She did not recoil from the crucifixion of Christ as did the Apostles. St. John tells us that she “stood” at the foot of the cross. She did not collapse, nor did she faint with grief. She stood, the epitome of the “strong woman” of the Old Testament. There was no wavering of her faith in her divine Son. No doubt she had all the natural, normal feelings of a woman watching her son die this horrible death.

. . . Its Faith

Perhaps she had heard a report of her Son’s prediction that He was to suffer and die and rise again on the third day. There is no way we can be certain of that. But of one thing we can be certain: her faith in Christ never faltered. She had told the Angel years before; “Be it done unto me according to Thy word”. And whatever the “word” meant for her, she was more than willing to accept it.

The fact that she does not appear prominently in the Easter liturgy is the Church’s supreme compliment to her faith in Christ. The Resurrection of Christ and the Easter liturgy are intended to revive and revitalize our faith in Christ our Redeemer.

Our Lady is not really absent from the Easter Liturgy. She is ever present in the background. Her strong faith in sharp contrast to the weak faith of Christ’s Apostles, as the model of total and unyielding faith for the Apostles and for all of us.