Mary and the First Advent

Mary and the First Advent: The Humanity’s Expectation

In Mary, the hope of peoples from the beginning of humanity to its entire journey among peoples, and in particular the people of Israel, reaches its culmination. All the preparations, prefigurations, and graces that filled the Old Testament converge in Mary. It can be said, with full right, that on the eve of Christ’s coming, Mary takes within herself and fulfills the expectation of all the centuries that preceded her. Thus, she can magnify the Lord’s name and recognize that through her and in her, the Lord has extended the power of his arm: “He has helped Israel, his servant, remembering his mercy, as he promised our fathers, to Abraham and his descendants forever” (Lk 1:54-55).Mary represents the apex of God’s entire educational work in favor of Israel.God’s work in the Old Testament essentially consisted in leading the chosen people from a condition, carnal, gross, and different from his purpose, to a more spiritual condition, of greater availability, purity, and conformity with his word, in such a way as to make them a Temple, a worthy dwelling place, to receive the Savior and experience and celebrate the last events of redemption and the gift of the messianic spirit at the time of its realization. This work is accomplished in Mary.Throughout the Old Testament, a long and progressive educational action took place to introduce Israel to true faith, to the faith in the one God. Just consider Israel’s great confession of faith:«”Listen, Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might”» (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).At the same time, God’s educational work aimed to make ever clearer that the divine plan was a universal plan that extended beyond the limits of the Israelite race, beyond the boundaries intended by the Jewish people. Enough to recall the great announcements of the prophets:«”Arise, dress yourself in light, for your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you… The nations will walk in your light, kings in the radiance of your rising”» (Isaiah 60:1.3-4).This educational work, intended to make clear that God is one and must be loved above all things, intended to reveal God’s plan for humanity, a universal plan of salvation, culminates in the heart of the Virgin.If, on the one hand, Mary was prepared throughout the journey of the Hebrew people and represents the “wonderful flower that blossomed in Israel” at the end of God’s action in the hearts of the patriarchs and holy women,in contrast, the Old Testament, in the prophets and wise men of Israel, converges and meets in Mary in a more ardent inspiration, in a more complete and immediate spiritual preparation for the coming of the Redeemer.In Mary, we can contemplate the magnificent result of God’s educational action. The Mother of Jesus expresses the fullness and completion of all the change that God’s presence would bring. As Isaiah says, «”All valleys shall be lifted up, all hills and mountains shall be made low. The rugged terrain shall be made level”» (Isaiah 40:4). With Mary’s coming, one can now say with all truth that every valley is filled, every hill is lowered. The Virgin is the path by which the Lord can come to present Himself to humanity, to bring good news of salvation to all.«How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings good, who proclaims salvation!»“Hear the salvation, what says Zion: Your God reigns!” (Is 52:7).Thanks to this Daughter of Zion, the promise made to Israel, and its full manifestation, is fulfilled, as announced by the prophets.Mary inaugurates the fullness of times:

“As he had promised our fathers, Abraham and his descendants, forever” (Lk 1:55).Mary constitutes the already ongoing inauguration of the fullness of times:

“When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, so that they might receive the adoption as sons” (Gal 4:4-5).Notice how, in this passage, the birth of the Son of God from a woman is linked to the birth of adopted children: we pass from the fullness of times in which the Son of God is born from a woman to our birth, to be redeemed, freed, and now introduced into the adoption as sons of God.

“Born under the law to redeem those under the law, so that they might receive the adoption as sons” (Gal 4:5).Already in this text, we see how Mary’s mystery is inextricably linked not only to the mystery of the coming of the Savior into the world, but also to the mystery of our liberation and our baptismal rebirth as sons. “Children in the Son”, as Saint Augustine liked to repeat. And here we must strive to grasp the reality of the mystery of God who became man in history, due to Mary’s fiat.With the Incarnation, the decisive event in history occurs in Mary, and through Mary, in the world. We may be too accustomed to contemplating this mystery that we no longer marvel at it. In reality, the fact that the Son of God, through Mary, bursts into history is the decisive and absolutely unique event in history. Nothing will ever be as important as this event. No evolution, no scientific progress, no invention, no revolution can bring anything remotely comparable to the Incarnation, so great, so decisive for human condition, as the coming of God among us. St. John expresses this ineffable mystery in a verse of less than ten words: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14).Just one verse to express the fundamental event, absolutely unique and decisive in the history of the world: an event that qualitatively and ontologically changes the condition of man on earth, since it is the event that makes it possible for man to participate in the life of God, in the life of the Only-Begotten Son of God:> “But to all who received him, he gave the power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name. Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn 1:12-13).The mystery of Mary is at the center of this event. She is the first to benefit from it, just as this event unfolds in history, through the Virgin of Nazareth, so also through her, each one of us can benefit from it.> The *presence of Mary* in Advent worshipAnd this is the reason for our profound veneration of Mary, the unique and historic task she had in the economy of salvation, a task absolutely unrepeatable. The presence of Mary in worship does not derive, as some would have it believe, from some kind of sublimation of femininity or motherhood, in analogy to what occurs in certain natural religions.The presence of Mary in the worship of the Church arises from the historically proven, absolutely singular and unrepeatable fact that this woman was called to be the Mother of the Only-Begotten Son of God made man. This is the reason for the presence of Mary in worship, and nothing more: it derives from the fact that she is the Theotokos, as the faith of the Church has affirmed since the earliest centuries.This is the essential and decisive fact, the motivation for our veneration and the presence of Mary in our liturgy. “He was born of the Virgin Mary,” we proclaim in the Apostolic Creed. “He became man in the womb of the Virgin Mary,” we repeat in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.The ways of God know no turn or repentance, Mary maintains for every man and for every member of the Body of Christ the same task she had for Christ and for the accomplishment of his salvific mystery.God is faithful.The task that Mary once had in history continues to this day, and will continue forever. Just as she had an eminent mission at the birth of Christ, so she maintains an eminent mission at the birth of the new children of God in the baptism of the Church.Mary is perpetually Mother, Mother of the Church, and Mother of each one of us. But to understand this mystery of Mary’s present motherhood, one must for a moment refer to her universal motherhood, through which Mary is Mother of the peoples. Only then can one comprehend the magnitude of Mary’s motherhood as referred to each baptized, each man who “is born of water and the Spirit” (Jn 3:5) and to the baptismal and spiritual path of each baptized.Prayer of the day, December 21Listen, Lord, to the prayer of your people, who rejoice in the coming of your Son in the humility of our flesh, and grant us the gift of eternal life when He comes in His glory. He who is God and lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.To deepen the role of Mary in the first Advent and in the history of salvation, consult the encyclical *Redemptoris Mater* by John Paul II, on Mary in the pilgrimage of faith.Further your studies: explore Mariology, Marian theology, Marian apparitions, and a Postgraduate degree in Mariology.