Teacher and model of faith

By Prof. Dr. Daniel C. Afonso · Updated 19 October 2026

Introduction

The maternal reality of Mary, which is fused with the mystery of Christ, brought forth for us into light and love, sustains our life as children, impels and develops our condition as disciples of Christ, and matures us to live the filial and fraternal life that the Lord desires for us, growing according to the divine creativity of the Spirit.

She teaches us how to receive the Word (Annunciation), how to bring it to birth (Nativity), how to present it to the world (Epiphany), how to keep it within us (life in Nazareth), how to believe in it (presence at Cana), how to share it (visiting others), how to be faithful to it in the hour of trial (at the cross), and how to bear witness to it in the communion of faith (Pentecost).

Mary, teacher and model of the Christian

This maternal reality of Mary in the Church takes concrete form in an effective and educative accompaniment, which always refers us back to Christ as the source and norm of the ethical life and discipleship of the Christian. This helps us make our adherence to God more conscious and revitalized, drawing us toward charity and the full realization of holiness. It invites us to become places that welcome the Trinitarian dew, the only one capable of making the desert we have become bloom. By following and imitating Mary, the love of God above all things becomes a gift and a commitment, faith becomes an experience of new and bestowed life, and following the Word becomes a transforming path and a generous service.

Mary, essentially, continues to present herself as the highest possible point in the process of identification with Christ, as His perfect mold. Therefore, we cannot live our spirituality deeply, sincerely and truly as Mary did, without faith. The problem of faith is the main challenge in all spiritual life, and the first role that the Mother of Jesus plays with us is to make us believe as she did, trust in God as she did, surrender ourselves to God as she did, grow gradually in faith as she did, and face even the “night of faith” as she did.

The Virgin teaches us to respond to the Word that continues to speak to human beings, asking to be heard and followed, desiring to penetrate the heart and the depths of conscience, like the good seed that, when it falls on fertile soil, makes grace and salvation flourish. At a time of great uncertainty that has led and continues to lead many to adopt nihilism and to move away from metaphysical certainties, the example of Mary and her experience of God show themselves as a constant to be reaffirmed, not only for Christians, but also for contemporary women and men who, despite the general disorientation and the universal scarcity of values, are called to give a qualifying meaning to their lives.

Modern man is often overwhelmed by earthly realities, treating them as if they were ultimate and definitive realities, forgetting that they are only penultimate and temporary realities. He sacralizes history and the world, losing the eschatological perspective that would give meaning and eternal significance to human life. Mary calls people back to God’s perspective, to look on high, not to let themselves be carried away by the illusory contingencies that empty them of meaning and aggravate their fragility in opening themselves to the Mystery. Even for the women and men of postmodernity, the Virgin offers a serene vision and a comforting word: the victory of hope over anguish, the triumph of fullness over the abyss of nothingness.

Her journey as a Christian woman concludes in glory, and in her, raised to the fullness of her being, is manifested the complete realization of the creature renewed by grace, blessed because she truly believed and because she received, in its totality, the redemption promised and accomplished by Christ for all people. In Mary, the eschatological future has already been realized. Mary is the bridge that links the future to the present. Mary anticipates in her present the reality of our future. The example of Mary leads the Christian and her imitator with the persuasive force and the hope of the ideal that has already become reality.

Mary and the challenge of faith

Mary presents herself to human beings, immersed in a world wrapped in darkness, sin, rationalism and relativism, as a paradigm of conduct, a prototype of openness to the ideals and values of the Transcendent God, an example of authentic service to Christ, the new Adam, and through him, to the humanity of all times. By looking at her journey, we understand that living our faith is always a call and a challenge: a call from God and a challenge in the “today” of existence.

Faith, as in the life experience of Mary, must be lived as a “response” in the personal “today”, which also becomes the “today” of God, who gives himself, penetrates and works in the concrete history of each one, transforming it into a history of salvation. We will then understand that, in the perspective of our existence, we are called to carry out the project that God has written into our personal being, a project of total humanization that finds its perfection in the total divinization of man, accomplished in the encounter with Christ through the continuous assistance of the Holy Spirit.

The experience of Mary sums up and anticipates the whole path that every creature is called to travel. Her effective presence, her direct and incisive help will make it possible to overcome the anxieties and fears that arise from the human condition. The “do not be afraid” addressed to Mary will extend, through her, to all those who wish to follow “her” path, fruitfully reaching the full accomplishment of the evangelical itinerary. Like Mary, every creature that accepts God will finally and truly feel free. In the face of the many mistaken interpretations of what freedom is and where it lies, it will understand that true freedom is firmly grounded in God.

We can affirm, in fact, that in the “Yes” of her faith, Mary shows how the creature’s original being for the Word finds its highest realization in its act of assent and unconditional trust in God. Just as she who was shaped by grace expresses her personal being in its fullest form in virginal acceptance, so the creature made in the image and likeness of God and restored by the Grace of the new beginning that is the Incarnation completes its deepest being in the free and conscious act of the assent of faith.

Benedict XVI emphasizes that believing is contrary neither to freedom nor to the intelligence of man. On the contrary, it implies and exalts both, in a wager of life that is like an exodus, that is, going out of oneself, out of one’s certainties, out of one’s mental schemes, to entrust oneself to the action of God who shows us his way to attain true freedom, our human identity, true joy of heart, peace with everyone. To believe is to trust totally and joyfully in God’s providential plan for history, as the patriarch Abraham did, as Mary of Nazareth did.

Faith is an assent in which our mind and our heart say their “yes” to God, confessing that Jesus is Lord. And this “yes” transforms life, opens the way to a fullness of meaning, makes it new, rich in joy and trustworthy hope. Mary’s exemplary and educative mission is not to dictate rules of conduct to us, but to offer us, in the reality of her person and in the concreteness of her maternal help, the fundamental orientation for how to insert ourselves, with all the fullness of our person, into the saving and sanctifying work of God. She is the key that, so to speak, opens the heart of the Christian to the whole mystery of Christ.

Conclusion

In observing and imitating Mary, we are not haunted by the fear or suspicion of being shaped by the work of God. Allowing it to shape us as it shaped Mary means, above all, committing ourselves generously to mission and proclamation, and attaining the full realization of ourselves. In fact, thanks to its full and incomparable success, Mary’s response to God’s plan for her shows all human freedoms in the making the fundamental contents of their own personal journey of maturation, different from hers in many respects, but identical in substance. For this reason, the Virgin presents herself as an eminent revelation and an inexhaustible inspiration of the saving behaviors to be adopted and developed in a specifically Christian practice of moral life.

As Pope Paul VI stated: Mary is the perfect model for us, the most holy. If we approach her with faith and tenderness, we almost see the rays of her beauty and holiness reflected in us. At her side, we will know how to be pure, good, humane, meek, patient: a whole powerful evangelical lesson of Christian life presents itself before us, if our purpose is to honor the Virgin.

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

To deepen your reflection on Mary as teacher and model of Christian faith, consult the Encyclical Redemptoris Mater of Pope Saint John Paul II.