Mary, Our Mother
Taken from the SECRET SCRIPTURE OF THE POOR
by Rev. John Henaghan
Imprimi potest -Joannes, Episcopus Midensis, 21 December, 1950

The Incarnation brought us the Man, jesus Christ, and Mary His Mother. Jesus came to win back a world that had gone astray. For that purpose He laid siege to the citadel of man's heart. He appeared before us as a Child in His Mother's arms, and as a Boy growing up by her side. In His dying hour we find that Mother standing by the Cross to which her Son was nailed. No honest, sincere, human heart can resist such an appeal or fail to be caught up in the impetuosity of such a love. Laws only bring about an outward reform; they do not touch the heart of man or change his nature. Christ achieved a victory, not so much by a renovation of man's intellect, as by an appeal to the heart, to those hidden sympathies that lie deeper than all arguments; and therefore along with Himself He gave us His Mother to soften the message of Calvary. Mary is, after Jesus, God's greatest instrument in winning back the truant heart of man.

She is part of the mystery of the Incarnation. The true God of true God is her Son. This doctrine keeps us from dreaming and drifting into vagueness about Our Lord: His features become clear and real when we know Him as Mary's Son. Those who today reject the Son began their infidelity by scoffing at the Mother. The Church has realized -----as has Satan too-----that she is essential to emphasize the full humanity and kindliness of God our Saviour. She is the tower to be taken, the tower of ivory; the house of gold for whom men do battle-----and around her is the armour of valiant men.

No human words or music could express what must have been her trembling joy when Jesus on her knees, in His Child's way, first called her-----Mother. Millions of Catholics bow in loyalty before her, but it is all as naught in comparison with the service and honours He gave in a little house in Nazareth. Between them there flowed a continual stream of love and understanding, so that no two souls were ever more closely knit-----one mind, one will, one heart, one agony of desire for the souls of men. With us, human love and sympathy repair the hurts and injuries of life. Many a poor man, misunderstood, contemned, inept, a butt for his companions, gains strength to endure because he knows there is waiting for him across the threshold of his home a love that understands him and crowns him. And in some such human way too was Jesus often consoled by Mary's love, when He was rejected, suspected and laughed at by men, for He knew that He should always find her faithful and true, that there was one soul on earth of whom He could be always sure.

What is Our Lady's place before Heaven and earth? Next to the human nature of Christ she is the most perfect work of God-----His masterpiece. To help us in our prayers, to confirm our hope, it is well that we see this truth plainly. No creature, not even the greatest of the angelic spirits before the throne of God, is equal in grandeur and sanctity to her whom we fondly call our Mother, who was one of us, one of our flesh and blood. She was in the secret of God, and stood in the full blaze of Divinity; the wonder is that any human soul could endure the splendours that beat down upon her. She had the fullest vision of the holiness and majesty of God that a created soul could have, and yet she walked this earth hidden and unknown with her tremendous knowledge buried in her heart. On peaks of honour where Angels had stumbled and fallen, amid intimacies closer than those of Angels, she walked with ease, by reason of her superb humility.

"When Jesus . . . had seen His Mother and the disciple standing whom He loved, He saith to His Mother: Woman, behold thy Son. After that He saith to the disciple: Behold thy Mother." In the darkening gloom of Calvary, when His Body and Soul were racked with pain, Christ gave His Own Mother to be our Mother-----Mother of sinners, Mother of outcasts, the joy of the world. Men need that touch of a mother: that sympathy that will understand, that pity that will make excuses, that love that will not abandon, that mother-instinct that is alive to the individual needs of every child. Mary mothers the world, her mother's eyes leveling all ranks and human distinctions. She stands for all that we mean by the word home-----love, refuge, retreat, sanctuary, pity, understanding. It is a Catholic instinct to look up to her; to love her as our mother is a test of the faith.

As we grow older, we can have no greater refuge against the gathering sorrows of the years than a tender loving trust in Mary. She is the mother of the pitying heart, for there is not a pang that the human heart endures that she has not also suffered. Step by step she followed Jesus up the hill of sacrifice to the foot of the Cross. Therefore she is today the comforter of the afflicted, the consolation of those who have seen all they love torn up by the roots. She is the stay of the old who have nothing to lean upon; she is the comfort of mothers who have lost their joy; the solace of men who have no reason for living on. She understands absolute loneliness. She knows the solitary ones, the destitute. At her name the sinner lying in the deepest pit can lift his head in confidence knowing that he shall find pity within that heart.

Amid the mysteries of life, against the darkness of our own nature, she holds us by the hand. Spotless and innocent among the ruins of a fallen world, her office is to save, to help, to inspire, to bring all within reach of the healing touch of her son. She is our friend in court. Until we realize her power, her influence, we have not realized all that Jesus meant when he said from the Cross: "Behold thy Mother." [Emphasis added.]

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