Homily for Monday, 10 June 2019– Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church

Readings of the day: Acts 1:12-14; Psalm 87:1-2, 3, 5, 6-7; John 19:25-34

Monday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time

What is the most important ministry in the Church?

My doctoral research in Paris is focused primarily on the development of ordained priestly ministry and how the Church expresses and understands the ministry of priests through its ordination rituals since Vatican II. Yet I am fascinated by the diversity of officially-recognized ministry, of both women and men, dating back to the earliest days of the Church. Very early in the Church, there were not only bishops, elders (or presbyters, the forerunners of today’s priests), and deacons, but women and men consecrated to focus their lives on particular forms of service for the good of the Church and the world. And then there were orders of virgins and widows, the minor orders (which persisted until after Vatican II) of porter, lector, acolyte, and exorcist, all with official rituals to install people into those ministries.

But do any of us notice that, in all this diversity of ministries, there is not and has never been a ministry of mothers officially recognized or marked by a formal ritual in the Church? This, I think, is why our Church’s veneration of Mary, mother of Jesus, under many titles, devotions, and feast days, is so significant. Not only is Mary celebrated as “Mother of God,” particularly on the first day of each calendar year, January 1, but since just last year Mary has been celebrated throughout the whole Catholic Church as “Mother of the Church” on this, the first Monday after Pentecost.

The Church herself is often called “Mother Church.” But what aspects of motherhood—the motherhood of Mary, the motherhood of the Church, the motherhood of mothers among the Church’s faithful—do we celebrate with this feast of Mary, Mother of the Church? How do these aspects of motherhood we celebrate on this day apply not only to Mary, but to each of us, whether we are actual mothers or not?

The portrayal of Mary, mother of Jesus and mother of the Church, “standing by the cross” in John’s Gospel from which we hear today, coupled with the specific mention in the Acts of the Apostles of Mary’s presence among the apostles and disciples of Jesus in “the upper room” in Jerusalem after Jesus’ ascension to heaven, stand out to me.

In both places, Mary shows motherhood to be a ministry of “standing with”; of praying with; of solidarity and empathy with those who are joyful; those who are waiting with hope; those who are suffering. This is a ministry to which each of us is called, sisters and brothers, whether or not we are actual mothers.

The motherhood of Mary, mother of the Church; the motherhood of the Church itself; the “motherly” ministry of each member of the Church’s baptized faithful, is a ministry that intentionally seeks out somebody to stand with and pray with and for, as Mary did beneath the cross and then in the upper room. Does each of us know somebody who is suffering in any way? Do we know people whose faith needs strengthening? Do we know anybody who is joyfully and energetically doing great work to better the Church or the world, who could benefit from our prayer and more vocal and deliberate recognition?

These are a few ways in which we could and maybe already do exercise our motherly ministry as Church. These are but a few ways in which we might emulate Mary, Mother of the Church, ways in which we stand and pray with one another, in times of joy as in the upper room and in times of sorrow as at the foot of the cross. Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us.