Behold, your mother
REFLECTIONS TODAY
On Feb. 11, 2018, the memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, Pope Francis decreed that the memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, be inserted into the Roman Calendar on the Monday after Pentecost and be celebrated every year henceforth. Besides being the Mother of God (Greek Theotokos) as pronounced in the Council of Ephesus, Mary is venerated as “Mother” in the community of believers. Referring to Mary gathered with the Apostles and some disciples on Pentecost, Pope Leo XIII writes, “She is invoked as Mother of the Church and Teacher and Queen of the Apostles.” St. John Paul II refers to Mary’s role as type or model of the Church: “Mary is present in the Church as the Mother of Christ, and at the same time as that Mother whom Christ, in the mystery of the Redemption, gave to humanity in the person of the Apostle John. Thus, in her new motherhood in the Spirit, Mary embraces each and every one in the Church, and embraces each and every one through the Church. In this sense Mary, Mother of the Church, is also the Church’s model” (Redemptoris Mater, 47).
First Reading • Genesis 3:9-15, 20 [or Acts 1:12-14]
After Adam had eaten of the tree, the Lord God called to him and asked him, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.” Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? You have eaten, then, from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!” The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.” The Lord God then asked the woman, “Why did you do such a thing?” The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.”
Then the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you shall be banned from all the animals and from all the wild creatures; on your belly shall you crawl, and dirt shall you eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.”
The man called his wife Eve, because she became the mother of all the living.
Source: “366 Days with the Lord 2024,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.