HEART OF MARY, SOURCE OF GIFTS
Mariologists, when contemplating Mary in the mystery of salvation, recognize a tight knit branch of relationships, and so many links they are obliged to display her as a woman open to reciprocity, as an expert in encounters, as a model of communion. It has been written accurately that “Mary is the woman of harmony who brings together in herself the sacred symbol of the universal relationships and integration of everything created in the mystery of the cosmic beauty which transcends all created things…” (R. Tomicha)
In the text that we are now commenting on, there emerges in the Claretian intuition the two relationships that caused the greatest conciliar controversies: Mary´s relationship to Christ compared to her relationship with the Church. The dispute was fruitful and gave as a result Chapter 8 of the Constitution “Lumen Gentium”, synthesis of the two tendencies: “By reason of the gift and role of divine maternity, by which she is united with her Son, the Redeemer, and with His singular graces and functions, the Blessed Virgin is also intimately united with the Church” (LG 63).
The Encyclical of Blessed John Paul II “Redemptoris Mater” makes even more explicit these perspectives. Let us limit ourselves to the text referring to faith: “The Mother of that Son, bears within herself the radical “newness“ of faith: the beginning of the New Covenant. it is not difficult to see in that beginning a particular heaviness of heart, linked with a sort of ‘night of faith’-to use the words of St. John of the Cross-a kind of “veil” through which one has to draw near to the Invisible One and to live in intimacy with the mystery” (RM 17b).
For some reason Claret also called her his “Godmother”. She is a teacher of the faith. I don’t know of any saint who has called her: “My Godmother”, who educated me in the faith, because she knows better than anyone the path of this pilgrimage.
