Mary, from the Annunciation to the Eucharist

From the Annunciation to the Eucharist

The mystery of the Annunciation is summed up in a “yes” to the saving plan of the Father: “Behold, you will conceive a son, and you will give birth to him and you will call him Jesus… Here I am, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:31, 38). Mary possesses a great capacity for listening and, therefore, a great capacity for response: she listens (Lk 1:29), marvels (Lk 2:33), contemplates (Lk 2:19, 51), accompanies as intercessor and silently in self-giving (Jn 2:5; 19:25).

The saving plan of the Father has no frontiers in time or in space. God had already spoken in many ways in the history of humanity and especially in the history of Israel, but “in these days he has spoken to us through his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he also made the world” (Heb 1:2). Mary welcomed Jesus, the incarnate Word: in him the Father uttered the definitive word about man and his history. The angel told her that Jesus was the “Son of the Most High” (Lk 1:32), because “the child to be born will be holy and will be called Son of God” (Lk 1:35). This plan of the Father, communicated to Mary at the Annunciation, is God’s mercy “from generation to generation” (Lk 1:50). The saving plan of the Father becomes Mary’s mission. Thus she will proclaim the saving message in the house of Elizabeth, who carried the precursor in her womb (Lk 1:44); she will show Jesus to the shepherds and to the magi (Lk 2:16; Mt 2:11).

Mary’s faith will help to discover the meaning of the signs of Jesus, through which “his disciples believed in him” and followed him “with his mother” (Jn 2:11-12). Mary’s virginal conception took place “in the fullness of time“, when “God sent his Son, born of a woman… to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal 4:4-5). This conception will lead Mary to the decision to stand firmly “at the foot of the cross“, in order to hear in a new way the saving and missionary plan of the Father fulfilled by Jesus: “Woman, behold your son!” (Jn 19:26).

From the Annunciation to the cross, Mary listens, marvels, contemplates, intercedes, gives herself… The words of the angel and the words of Jesus reveal the saving plan of the Father. For Mary, the words “behold your son” meant seeing in every human being a “living Jesus” who must be born. She could recall the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper: “Father… you have loved them even as you have loved me… may the love with which you have loved me be in them, and I in them” (Jn 17:23, 26). Mary enters into the mystery of universal salvation: “Behold your son“… then you will love them as you have loved me… because I am in each one of them…

Mary, from the Annunciation on, becomes the Mother of the “bread of life“, because she receives Jesus in order to communicate him to all. Indeed, “the Virgin was called to offer her whole humanity and femininity so that the Word of God might take flesh and become one of us… Mary, in consenting to Gabriel’s message, lost nothing of her true humanity and freedom” (Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio no. 108). The ecclesial community always celebrates the Eucharist remembering Mary, in whose womb the bread of life was formed and whose presence is bound up with Christ immolated. The “remembrance” of Mary, “Theotokos“, “helps the ecclesial community to deepen the eucharistic ‘remembrance’ as presence, sacrifice, communion, special action of the Spirit, mission and eschatology. Mary is ‘the model of the spiritual attitude with which the Church celebrates and lives the divine mysteries” (Pope Paul VI, Marialis cultus no. 16).

The active presence of Mary in the community that celebrates the Eucharist

A Marian shrine is always centered on the eucharistic celebration. “Saint Mary of the Crib” (Sancta Maria ad Praesepe) is the mother of the “bread of life“, born in Bethlehem (“house of bread“), who is offered to all. Mary’s presence in the community leads to the listening to the Word and to association with Christ the Redeemer, whose sacrifice becomes present in the Eucharist. From the beginnings of Christianity, in the eucharistic celebration, Mary is the “remembrance” of a Church which, like her, desires to meditate on the Word of God in her heart (cf. Lk 2:19, 51) and also desires to be united spousally to Christ the Redeemer (Jn 19:25-27).

The Church follows the attitude of gathering, as in the Upper Room, “with Mary, the Mother of Jesus” (Acts 1:14). Today, as in the early ecclesial community, Mary is present in the celebration of the “breaking of the bread” (Acts 2:42). This eucharistic-Marian reality is manifested in a special way in Marian shrines, where the faithful come to hear the Word of God and to be associated with Christ, present in the Eucharist, under the guidance of Mary, who is associated with Christ the Redeemer.

If we look for the theological foundation of this eucharistic and Marian attitude of the Church, we must draw inspiration from the harmony of revelation and from the contents of the faith. When Jesus said “this is my body” (“my flesh“), “this is my blood” (Lk 22:19-20), it is a question of the “flesh of the Son of Man” (Jn 6:53). Whoever eats his body and drinks his blood shares in his very life: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him… he who eats me will live because of me” (Jn 6:56-57). The Church is aware of the echo of these words in the heart of Mary, who sees Jesus alive in every Christian who shares in the Eucharist. Now the same body born of Mary is glorified and present in the eucharistic sacrament. The Church professes this faith through the eucharistic hymn: “Hail, true body born of the Virgin Mary… Jesus, son of Mary” (fourteenth-century text).

By its nature, the Church is eucharistic and Marian. The glorified and eucharistic flesh of Jesus, virginally conceived by Mary, is flesh like ours, but in relation to glorification and to the new world restored by Christ. “Flesh“, in the Semitic mentality, means the living (human) being as a whole: the whole person in his dimension of limitation. But now this glorified flesh is “flesh for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51). When Jesus says “I am the bread of life” (Jn 6:48), he is communicating his life by offering his “flesh“. The Eucharist is the banquet given freely (Is 55:1-3), prepared for all peoples (Is 25:6-9).

Mary, figure of the Church, welcomes all peoples into her womb in order to communicate to them the bread of life. This happens through the Church: “The words uttered by Jesus from the Cross signify that the motherhood of her who bore him finds a ‘new’ continuation in the Church and through the Church, symbolized and represented by John” (Redemptoris Mater 24). “Mary embraces, with her new motherhood in the Spirit, each and every one in the Church and… through the Church” (Redemptoris Missio 47). From this Marian and ecclesial perspective, we can better understand the relationship between the wedding at Cana (Jn 2), the announcement of the bread of life (Jn 6), the manifestation of Mary as Mother and the open side of Christ (Jn 19). Mary is the “woman“, mother and figure of the community that nourishes us with the bread of life. Cana is the beginning of the sacramental signs, summed up in water, wine, bread, blood.

The Church is born from the open side of Christ, like the blood and the water that symbolize the sacraments. Jesus hands over to the Church: his mother, the gifts of the Spirit and the sacramental signs, among which the Eucharist stands out in a special way. Therefore, the Christian people live Mary’s spiritual motherhood in relation to the Eucharist. Mary always directs us toward the Eucharist, as the privileged and central sign of the whole ecclesial mystery:

“Her motherhood is particularly felt and lived by the Christian people at the sacred Supper, the liturgical celebration of the mystery of the redemption, at which Christ, his true body born of the Virgin Mary, is present. Rightly, the piety of the Christian people has always recognized a profound bond between devotion to the holy Virgin and the worship of the Eucharist: this is a fact observable in both the Western and the Eastern liturgy, in the tradition of the religious families, in the spirituality of contemporary movements, including those of young people, and in the pastoral ministry of Marian shrines. Mary guides the faithful to the Eucharist”

(Redemptoris Mater 44)

The reality of Mary, who gave flesh and blood to Christ, is in some way made present in the eucharistic celebration and in the whole ecclesial mystery. The mystery of the Incarnation is extended, in some way, in the eucharistic celebration. “The Virgin was called to offer her whole humanity and femininity so that the Word of God might become flesh and be one of us… begetting the Truth and guarding it in her heart, she shared it with all humanity forever” (Fides et Ratio 108).

The action of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist and in Mary

The coming of the Holy Spirit into the womb of Mary (cf. Lk 1:35) is a prelude to Pentecost and also to the action of the Holy Spirit in the eucharistic mystery, as a presence of the mystery of Christ the Redeemer. “It was from Pentecost that the ‘Acts of the Apostles’ began, just as by the working of the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary Christ had been conceived, and by the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ at prayer He had been impelled to begin his ministry” (Ad Gentes 4). We recall the words of John Paul II in the radio message of Sunday, June 7, 1981, after second vespers of Pentecost at the Basilica of Saint Mary Major: “The most magnificent work accomplished by the Holy Spirit through the incarnation… was brought to completion with the full consent and the humble ‘let it be done’ of her who, becoming the Mother of God, said of herself: ‘Here I am, I am the handmaid of the Lord’… Mary of Nazareth, the handmaid of the Lord of the line of David, became the true Mother of God: Theotokos“.

The invocation of the Holy Spirit (“epiclesis“) in the eucharistic celebration also recalls the mystery that took place in the womb of Mary and that, in the eucharistic celebration, takes place in a new way: to make Jesus present under the eucharistic species and to transform all of us, also in relation to Mary, Mother of the Church. Saint John Damascene explains the “epiclesis” with these words: “You ask how the bread becomes the body of Christ?… Know that it is by the action of the Holy Spirit, just as, thanks to the Most Holy Virgin and to the same Holy Spirit, the Lord, by himself and in himself, assumed human flesh“.

The “remembrance” of Mary in the eucharistic prayer (whose text goes back at least to the third century) therefore has a pneumatological and ecclesiological dimension. The mystery of the Incarnation, by the working of the Spirit in the womb of Mary, now takes place in a new way through the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, at the same time as Mary is present in the midst of the ecclesial community. The ancient Mass of January 1 (fourth century) says this in the prayer over the offerings: “Lord, may the gifts we offer on the altar be accepted through the goodness of the Holy Spirit, who filled the womb of Mary with the splendor of his truth“.

In invoking the Holy Spirit (“epiclesis“) to transform the bread and the wine into the body and blood of the Lord, the presence and the example of Mary are recalled. With her and like her, the Church says “yes” (“amen“), becoming a bearer of Christ. The relationship between the Eucharist and Mary is deepened in the light of the action of the Holy Spirit. The text of the Common of Holy Mary on Saturday in the season of Pentecost, and the votive Masses of the Virgin, allude to Mary as bearer of the Spirit, model of fidelity and figure of the action of the Spirit in the Church. “You willed, O Father, that at the announcement of the angel the Immaculate Virgin should conceive your eternal Word and, wrapped in the light of the Holy Spirit, should become the temple of the new covenant: grant that we may humbly adhere to your will, just as the Virgin trusted in your word” (Collect of December 20).

In the liturgical texts this relationship is recalled, especially during Advent. The prayer over the offerings on the Fourth Sunday of Advent says: “Accept, O God, the gifts we present at the altar and consecrate them by the power of your Spirit, who sanctified the womb of the Virgin Mary“. This prayer confirms the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the eucharistic sacrifice, while at the same time offering a perfect parallel between what happened at Nazareth with the Virgin Mary (the Incarnation of the Lord) and what happens in the eucharistic celebration. The same contents are gathered in the antiphon of Eucharistic Prayer II in Advent II/A: “From the virginal womb of the Daughter of Zion there sprang forth the one who feeds us with the bread of angels, and salvation and peace poured forth upon all humanity“.

In Common Preface VI, taken from Eucharistic Prayer II, we pray to the Father with these words: “He (Jesus) is your living Word… made man by the working of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary“. Therefore, in the Eucharistic Prayer, we ask that the same Holy Spirit who came into the womb of Mary for the virginal conception of Jesus “may gather us into one body“, that is, may transform us into Jesus “for communion with the body and blood of Christ”. The Eucharist is the “memorial of the death and resurrection” of the Lord (Sacrosanctum Concilium 47), and therefore, in its celebration, we remember the fruit of the redemption in Mary and in the saints, at the same time as we remember Mary’s collaboration in that same redemption.

In every historical age, including our own, the Holy Spirit impels the Church to pray “with Mary“, so as to become “of one heart and one soul“, courageous in evangelization, through the listening to the Word and the eucharistic celebration (cf. Acts 1:14; 2:42-47; 4:31-35). These eucharistic and Marian moments are the most fruitful in the history of the Church. Paul VI, in the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, stated: “On the morning of Pentecost she (Mary) presided with her prayer over the beginning of evangelization under the action of the Holy Spirit: may she be the star of the ever-renewed evangelization which the Church, obedient to the command of her Lord, must promote and accomplish, especially in these times that are difficult but full of hope” (EN 82).

Deepen your studies: explore MariologyMarian TheologyMarian apparitions and the Postgraduate Program in Mariology.

On Mary’s journey from the Annunciation to the Eucharist, see the Encyclical Redemptoris Mater of Pope John Paul II.