Mary hardly exists in the Bible. Is that so?!

Mary in the Bible: the presence of Mary in the Old and New Testament

Ready to begin a journey in this month of September with Mary in the Word? Let’s go!

Mary realizes in herself, in a perfect way, the Daughter of Zion and the complete beauty of the Church, bride of Christ and Mother of the redeemed. If we follow the Tradition in which the oral and written Word is set, we discover that, beginning from Creation and passing through Israel, everything converges upon the incarnate Word.

How many times have we already heard it said: “There is not much talk about Mary in the Bible! Or else, Mary was not important in the history of salvation or in the history of the Church, since there is hardly any talk about her.” However, in the writings of the Apostles and the evangelists we find a wellspring that over the centuries has not exhausted its meanings down to our own days. In the same way, in Mary the Word of God expanded progressively, for the Word is not static. If we wished to use an image, we could say that from the revelation of the Old Testament, passing through the incarnation of the Word in the fullness of time and now with the time of the Church that evangelizes, until we reach the eschatological fulfillment, we find an arc of light that rests upon the face of Mary. Let us then go through some points of the presence of Mary in history.

A witness of the person of the Risen One, Mary in the early Christian Church began to be the object of questions in the community of Jerusalem. Clarifications that came from the Paschal experience about the function and the identity of this sister, and that were gradually answered through the texts of the Old Testament. In fact, if we go through the New Testament we find a presence and a function of Mary inscribed in the lights and shadows of the prophecies, where the fullness of time would give concrete form to the Messiah and His Mother in a convergence of the ancient and ever new Covenant.

Let us think of the mothers of Israel, of Mount Sinai, of the City of Jerusalem, of the three prophecies about the woman-mother of the Messiah:

• Gen 3:15: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. She shall strike your head and you shall strike her heel”
• Is 7:14: “Well then, the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall give him the name Emmanuel”
• Mic 5:2: “Therefore God will abandon them until the moment when she who is to give birth gives birth. Then the rest of his brothers will return to the children of Israel”

If we look at Mary only through history, we easily notice the few conclusions the Evangelists reached: Mary is a Hebrew woman introduced into the Gospels together with Jesus, and she is part of a family group made up of brothers of Jesus that had a role both in the pre-Paschal community and in the post-Paschal community, even though in the development of the Gospels the Mother of Jesus disappears to give place to the twelve and to the disciples. However, the sobriety of the biblical narrative, when it is set against the midrashic forms of scriptural interpretation, reveals a richness of symbolism that illuminates the historical description and raises it to an inexhaustible depth.

Without erasing history, we stand before the Mother of the Word. Word is not an abstract term, for it translates the Hebrew term dabar, which does not mean discourse, dialogue, teaching, doctrine, but rather event, happening. In this sense, to say Mary and the Word of God means to say Mary and the event of God in history, above all how God acts in the mystery. The way in which the transcendence of God happens in history without losing its creative power, submitting itself to history, to our human profile.

We can then trace the events of God in the history of salvation in this way: the creative Word of the revelation of the time of Moses, the prophetic Word, the sapiential Word of the wise, the Word made flesh in Jesus, the apostolic Kerygma (proclamation), the witness of the Church, and the history of Mary. The mother of the living is related to all these words: from predestination to holiness in the creative act of God (the Immaculate One), the burning bush that burns without being consumed before Moses (Perpetual Virginity), the Wisdom of God upon a Throne (Throne of Wisdom), the God natus ex muliere of the kerygmatic preaching of Paul (Divine Motherhood), the Church that expands in divine filiation (Spiritual motherhood).

Do any doubts still remain about the relationship of Mary with the Word of God?

To deepen the biblical presence of Mary, consult the encyclical of John Paul II: Redemptoris Mater on Mary in the pilgrimage of biblical faith and in the history of salvation.

Deepen your studies: explore Mariology, Marian Theology, Marian apparitions, and the Postgraduate Program in Mariology.