Jesus, Mary

Ad Jesum per Mariam. "To Jesus through Mary." The Latin inscription is over the altar of a small parish church in Quebec near where I was born. The phrase appears frequently in Catholic architecture and devotional literature. One might object that it should be Ad Mariam per Jesu. After all, our access to Mary and all the saints, both living and dead, is "through Christ." But the two ways of saying it are not in contradiction nor even in tension. At least, they need not be. We have said that to think about Jesus is to think about Mary.  Even more it is the case that to think about Mary is to think about Jesus. From the very beginnings of Christianity, what Christians have said about Mary is a consequence of what they said about Christ. - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon.


"What we have said" is stuff I haven't written about here, but Fr. Neuhaus has already made the case that it is necessary to consider Mary in considering Jesus if we are to enter into any meaningful reflection into how he could have been both fully God and fully man. As I have written, just earlier today, his mother was there at the very beginning and at the very end of Jesus' earthly life, so there is that to think about.

It was the role of Mary - as it is true of every saint - to bear Christ into the world.  In looking to follow Christ and to fulfill our mission and calling, it is good for us to consider how others have done so, and marveling over the work which Christ has done includes being amazed at how he has worked in the lives of others.  God's grace transforms, and seeing how he transforms others allows us to participate in his transformation of us.