A Note From Pope John Paul II: With Her, the Church of Christ Begins
Saint Pope John Paul II
With Her, the Church of Christ Begins
On On December 11, 1983 . . .
. . . the Third Sunday of Advent, the Holy Father offered the following reflections before leading the recitation of the weekly Angelus, speaking once again about the role of Mary’s Immaculate Conception in the divine plan of salvation.
The Great Event of Salvation
On this Sunday of Advent that follows the feast of the Immaculate Conception and precedes, by just a short time now, the celebration of Christmas, and therefore the beginning of our redemption, our thoughts still linger on the rich significance of that great event of salvation that refers not only to the person of Mary, but also to the beginning of the new People of God, the Church of Christ, and the beginning of a new mankind that with her becomes the family of God.
Mary, in fact, if she is considered in the fullness of the Church’s mystery and its mission, expresses not only its autonomous personality, at the vertex and the beginning of the Church, but in the dynamics of the history of salvation, she is also so intimately joined with the Church that she seems to be an embodiment and a living image of the mystical personality of the Church itself, the Spouse of Christ, signifying from the first moment of her existence all the wealth of grace that animates the Church.
The Beginning of the Newborn Church
With regard to this, there comes to mind the precious information in the eighth chapter of “Lumen Gentium” which, interpreting St. Luke’s perception, tells us: ”. . . With her, the exalted Daughter of Sion, and after a long expectation of the promise, the times were at length fulfilled and the new dispensation established.” That is, after the meeting between the Old and the New Covenant, Mary is the end of the messianic Church of Israel and the beginning of the newborn Church of Christ. It is she who is the ultimate and perfect expression of the ancient People of God, born of Abraham, and the first, sublime realization of the new People of children of God born of Christ.
With Mary, therefore, the promises, the prefigurations, the prophecies and the spirituality of the Old Testament Church come to an end and there begins the New Testament Church, without stain or wrinkle, in the fulness of the grace of the Holy Spirit.
It is this ecclesiological dimension, proclaimed by the Second Vatican Council, that is the new itinerary that allows us to read and to understand in all its width and depth the mystery of Mary. Considered in this dimension, the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God and our Mother acquires a richer ecclesial significance. With her, the masterpiece of God the Father and the purest reflection of the grace of the Holy Spirit, the Church of Christ begins.
In Mary we see the immaculate conception of the Church, the temple and the spouse without stain or wrinkle. It is in her that the Church feels it has attained its highest perfection, without a shadow of sin; and it is in her as the prototype, sign and help, that the ecclesial community, still a pilgrim on earth, is inspired and strengthened to advance in sanctity and in the struggle against sin.
M1984.11
