Below is Pope Francis’ catechesis at Wednesday’s General Audience on the “unique and eternally indestructible” bond between the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
Among the various means by which the Holy Spirit carries out his work of sanctification in the Church – the Word of God, the Sacraments, prayer – there is one very special one: Marian piety. In the Catholic Tradition, there is always a motto, a saying: “To Jesus through Mary.” Our Lady makes us see Jesus, and she opens the doors for us. Our Lady is always the mother who leads us by the hand to Jesus. Our Lady never points to herself, she always points to Jesus. And this is Marian piety. To Jesus, through the hands of Mary.
St. Paul defines the Christian community as “a letter from Christ, written by us, not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, a letter not engraved on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” ( 2 Cor 3:3). Mary, as the first disciple and figure of the Church, is also a letter written by the Spirit of the living God. Precisely for this reason, she can be “known and read by all people” (2 Cor 3:2), even by those who cannot read books of theology, by those “little ones” to whom Jesus says the mysteries of the Kingdom, hidden from the wise, are revealed (cf. Mt 11:25).
In saying her “ yes ,” when Mary accepts and says to the angel “yes, may the will of the Lord be done” and accepts being the Mother of Jesus, it is as if Mary were saying to God: “Here I am, a writing tablet: let the Writer write what he wills, let the Lord of all things do with me what he wills.” In those days, people used to write on waxed tablets; today we would say that Mary offers herself to God as a blank page on which He can write whatever He wants. Mary’s “yes” – as a well-known exegete has written – represents “the apex of all religious behavior before God, since she expresses, in the highest way, passive availability combined with active availability, the deepest emptiness that accompanies the greatest fullness.”
This is how the Mother of God is an instrument of the Holy Spirit in his work of sanctification. Amidst the endless profusion of words spoken and written about God, the Church and holiness (which very few, if any, are able to read and understand in their entirety) she suggests only two words that everyone, even the simplest, can say on any occasion: “ Here I am ” and “ fiat ”. Mary is the one who said “yes” to God and by her example and intercession she encourages us to also say our “yes” to him every time we find ourselves before an obedience to fulfill or a trial to overcome.
At every moment of its history, but especially at this moment, the Church finds herself in the situation in which the Christian community found itself after the Ascension of Jesus to heaven. She has to preach the Gospel to all nations, but she is waiting for the “power from on high” to be able to do so. And let us not forget that, at that moment, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples were gathered around “Mary, the mother of Jesus” ( Acts 1:14).
It is true that there were other women with her in the cenacle, but her presence is different and unique among all. Between her and the Holy Spirit there is a unique and eternally indestructible bond, which is the very person of Christ, “conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary” (as we recite in the Creed ). The evangelist Luke intentionally underlines the correspondence between the coming of the Holy Spirit upon Mary at the Annunciation and his coming upon the disciples at Pentecost, using some identical expressions in both cases.
Francis of Assisi, in one of his prayers, greets the Virgin as “daughter and handmaid of the most high King and heavenly Father, mother of our most holy Lord Jesus Christ, spouse of the Holy Spirit.” Daughter of the Father, Mother of the Son, Spouse of the Holy Spirit! Mary’s unique relationship with the Trinity could not be illustrated in simpler words.
Like all images, this one of “the spouse of the Holy Spirit” should not be absolutized, but taken for the part of truth that it contains, and it is a very beautiful truth. She is the spouse, but she is, before that, the disciple of the Holy Spirit. Spouse and disciple. Let us learn from her to be docile to the inspirations of the Spirit, especially when she suggests that we “rise quickly” and go help someone in need, as she did immediately after the angel left her (cf. Lk 1:39). Thank you.