The Biblical Foundation of Consecration to Mary

Vatican II (1962-1965) and Paul VI (1970): Mary, an essential and indispensable element of the Christian faith

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) made a ‘biblical’ choice, treating the question of Mary not in a separate document but within the document on the Church. This has left us with two obligations: one cannot speak of the Church without speaking of Mary, and one cannot speak of Mary without speaking of the Church. The Mother of Jesus is thus an essential element for the Church.

Saint Paul VI, in 1970, said:

“If we want to be Christians, we must be Marian, that is, we must acknowledge the essential, vital, providential relationship that unites Our Lady to Jesus and that opens for us the way to know Him”.

Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church is convinced that Mary of Nazareth, the Holy Mother of the Lord, is not the center but is central to the Christian faith. To welcome the Mother of God is to answer the question that Jesus asks His disciples:

“But who do you say that I am”? (Mk 8:29. Mt 16:15. Lk 9:20)

The testament of Jesus on the Cross (Jn 19:25-27): the Christological question of Mk 8:29 and the Marian identity of faith

The question of Jesus finds its answer in the verses of Jn 19:25-27

“near the cross of Jesus there stood His mother, His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw His mother and, near her, the disciple whom He loved, He said to His mother: ‘Woman, behold your son’. Then He said to the disciple: ‘Behold your mother’”,

an identity of the most evident biblical testimony in favor of the ‘Marian’ dimension of our faith in Christ.

This is the testament of Jesus, who says to the Mother: “behold your Son” and to the disciple “behold your mother”.

Mary is beside, alongside, close to the Crucified One, together with other women and with the beloved disciple. They represent the remnant of the faith of Israel that embraces the tragedy of Calvary in the paradoxical love of God.

On the mount of death we see the sacrifice of the Son but also, existentially, the sacrifice of maternal love. (Compassion)

Beyond all the interpretations of filial love that would have Mary left entrusted to the disciple, there is a profound theological intention.

The profound intention of the Universal Savior

Jesus is the exegete of the Father:

“no one has ever seen God. The only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, is the one who has revealed Him [ἐξηγήσατο]” (Jn 1:18)

Jesus perfectly reveals the will of the Father to the world and is the spokesman filled with the Holy Spirit.

On the cross we find a twofold exegesis (revelation) of Jesus.

Jesus reveals to the Mother and to the disciple:

[Mother] All the disciples are her sons

[Son] The Motherhood of Mary is universal

These words, particularly moving, constitute a scene of revelation, for they reveal the profound sentiments of the dying Christ and contain a wealth of meaning for faith and for Christian spirituality. The crucified Messiah establishes the new relationships of love between Mary and Christians.

Jesus is the prophet of the Father

He sees, He says, Behold, Revelation

Jesus sees the Mother

 | He declares: Behold your Son

 | Jesus sees the disciple |

He declares: Behold your Mother | 

This is a revelation, but what is its object? Saint John Paul II answers: 

“Jesus entrusts not only the Mother to the disciple but the Disciple to Mary, giving her a new mission of motherhood”

Mary as the new Zion and universal Woman-Mother: Jn 6:63 and her constitution as spiritual Mother on Calvary

If we take Scripture as a whole, in Mary is recognized the figure of the new Zion, the New Jerusalem, Woman-Bride of the Lord, the universal Woman and Mother. On Calvary, the Son creates the Mother, for Jesus as God creates what He says, since His words are Spirit and Life:

(Jn 6:63) 

“it is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life”

In this sense Mary is constituted spiritual Mother of the disciple, and the disciple is constituted spiritual son of Mary. 

Saint John Paul II comments:

“With those words of His, Jesus founds the Marian cult of the Church, to which He makes His will understood: that Mary receive a sincere filial love from every disciple, of whom she is Mother by the institution of Jesus”

“Eis tà idia” (Jn 19:27b): welcoming Mary into the depths of one’s being, horizon of the apostolate

How does the beloved disciple respond to the testament of the dying Master?

The Evangelist writes the following: 

“From that hour, the disciple welcomed her into what was his own” (Jn 19:27b)

the original text says: among his own things. In a modern translation we could say: he received her into his intimacy. It seems a simple expression, but is the text of the Gospel something devoid of meaning?

Let us consider that this is the last will of the earthly Jesus before going to the Father, in the Gospel of John.

As Saint John Paul II said: 

“Entrusting himself filially to Mary, the Christian, like the apostle John, welcomes ‘among his own things’ the Mother of Christ and introduces her into the whole space of his own interior life, that is, into his human and Christian ‘I’: he took her to himself. It is the communion of life that is established between the two of them thanks to Christ”

Seeking a translation:

• “among his own things”: means a belonging or property of a moral, religious, spiritual, and very personal character. This is what other passages in the Gospel of John that carry this same expression indicate.
• “he received her into his home”: this attempted translation does not express the meaning of the text, or at least does not exhaust the meaning of the text, given the theological-spiritual density that rises far above a merely logistical sense.

• “he received her into an interior space”: this union of faith with Christ creates the vital environment for welcoming the inheritance of the Master, which is the Spirit and His Mother, who is received not by the disciple’s choice but by the integrity of faith.
• A spiritual home: Saint John Paul II in his Magisterium encourages us to WELCOME MARY into our own life, into your heart, into your life, into the home of our life, faith, affections, and tasks, into the home of the sacramental Priesthood, into the interior home of our baptismal priesthood.

The response of Benedict XVI

Saint John, the beloved son, took Mary ‘into his own home’. So it is in the translation. But the Greek text is much more profound, much richer. We could translate: he took Mary into the intimacy of his life, of his being, eis tà idia, into the depths of his being. To take Mary to oneself means to introduce her into the dynamism of one’s entire existence; it is not something exterior, and it is in all this that the horizon of the apostolate consists.

Pope Francis

These words of Jesus on the verge of death do not first of all express a concern of compassion toward His Mother, but above all a formula of revelation that manifests the mystery of a special salvific mission. Jesus leaves us His mother as our mother. Only after having done this could Jesus feel that ‘everything was accomplished’ (Jn 19:28). At the foot of the cross, in the supreme hour of the new creation, Christ leads us to Mary. He leads us to her because He does not want us to walk without a mother, and the people read in that maternal image all the mysteries of the Gospel. It is not pleasing to the Lord that His Church should lack a feminine figure.

To go deeper into the biblical theology of consecration to Mary, consult the apostolic exhortation Marialis Cultus by Paul VI on Marian devotion in the life of the Church.

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