Mary and the Eucharist, the renewed understanding in the Third Millennium

When we speak of Mary and the Eucharist we can find at least three connections between these two great gifts offered by the Father to humanity along the way:

• Christ the Redeemer present in the Eucharist.
• Mary, Mother of the Lord.

1. The incarnation, foundation of the relationship between the Eucharist and Mary

The first bond between the Eucharist and Mary is given by the mystery of the incarnation. Precisely by the work of the Holy Spirit, Mary gives human nature to the Son of the Most High, that is, the body and the blood that he will offer on the Cross for the salvation of the world. 

The same body and blood begotten by Mary will be given as food and drink to the faithful in the Eucharist. For this reason, Saint John Paul II prostrates himself before the Son of Mary present in the sacrament of the altar and adores him with profound faith and with great wonder, as he testified when he affirmed that:

Allow me, my dear brothers and sisters, to hand on, with intimate elevation, in the company and comfort of your faith, my testimony of faith in the Most Holy Eucharist:

Hail, true body born of the Virgin Mary, who truly suffered and was sacrificed on the cross for man! (Ecclesia de Eucharistia 59).

This means that we would not have the Eucharist without Mary, because it was his Mother who gave Jesus the body and the blood that he would offer as food and drink to his disciples. At the roots of the sacrament we therefore find the Virgin of Nazareth, who can repeat the words of Wisdom, made his own by Jesus:

“Come, eat of the bread and drink of the wine that I have prepared” (Prov 9:5).

2. Mary, Eucharistic Woman

The second relationship of Mary with the Eucharist can be traced indirectly from her interior attitude, wholly related to the person of Christ and his mysteries, and therefore also to the greatest sacrament of his presence:

Mary is a Eucharistic woman throughout her whole life. Looking to Mary as her model, the Church is also called to imitate her relationship with this most holy mystery (Ecclesia de Eucharistia 53).

In the spiritual portrait drawn by the evangelists Luke and John, Mary appears as a profoundly religious woman who welcomes the Word of God with exemplary faith and is attentive to what happens around her Son, preserving and meditating on everything in her heart (cf. Jn 2:5; Lk 2:19, 51).

When Mary heard what her Son said about the bread of life that he was going to offer, the Virgin grasped those mysterious words and constantly pondered them in order to penetrate their meaning. Present at the Last Supper, Mary precedes the apostles in faith in the Eucharistic mystery and then at Pentecost takes part with the Christian community in the breaking of the bread with joy and simplicity of heart (cf. Acts 2:46). The whole Church enters the school of Mary, Eucharistic woman, so as to learn from her the dispositions and attitudes to be adopted toward the Eucharist.

3. Mary present in the liturgical celebration

Mary is not merely a woman of the history of the Gospels, of the historical Jesus and of the early Church, by whom we ought to be inspired and with whom we can identify. She is a living person who, together with all the saints, but in a special way, intervenes and intercedes in the celebration of the Eucharist. For this reason Pope Saint John Paul II wrote:

“Mary is present, with the Church and as Mother of the Church, at each one of our Eucharistic celebrations” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia 57).

For this reason, we should not be surprised that in all the Eastern and Western rites the offering of the Eucharist is carried out in communion with the whole Church, heavenly and earthly, with all her members living and deceased, in a special way with Mary.

The Mother of Jesus is invoked as the Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary, because the self-giving/consecration that she made to the Lord is analogous to the giving of our life that is always renewed in the Eucharistic sacrifice. As we can see, the more we place ourselves in the school of the Mother and let ourselves be accompanied by her (Ecclesia de Eucharistia 57), the better we will be able to celebrate and to live the Eucharist. 

In a phrase: who will teach us more about the Eucharist than Mary? 

Conclusion

After having conceived Christ in her virginal womb by the work of the Holy Spirit, the Mother of the Lord does not keep him for herself in the intimacy of the house of Nazareth. She sets her missionary feet in haste toward the hill country to bring him to Elizabeth and Zechariah, who await the Messiah as the rising sun from on high to enlighten those who are in darkness and in the shadow of death (Lk 1:78-79). In the same way, we Christians, once we have received the Eucharist, are invited to return to our own surroundings, in contact with the secularized culture that breathes the forgetfulness of God and cultivates the vain self-sufficiency of man. 

Our task consists in awakening in consciences the need for the Creator, without whom the creature disappears (cf. Gaudium et Spes 36), and in the urgent invitation to fraternity and to dialogue, because “we are not afraid to speak of God and to bear the signs of faith. The culture of the Eucharist promotes a culture of dialogue, which finds in it strength and nourishment” (Mane nobiscum Domine 26).

To deepen the Marian dimension of the liturgical celebration, we recommend reading the apostolic exhortation Marialis Cultus by Paul VI.

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