Automatic translation from Italian, under review.
Point of Light of December 2017
Dearest all,
I would like to go with you into a meditation that may help us deepen our Christian vocation as a Marian vocation. Recognizing Jesus present in every neighbor as “Son,” as the “Only-Begotten,” makes us able to love with the heart of Mary, origin and source of all motherhood and fatherhood; in communion with her, guided by the Spirit, we are called to become mothers and fathers of those whom God entrusts to us. Loving in this way asks us not to enter into contact generically with the whole, but with the person, with every person we meet in the present moment.
May only Mary and the Holy Spirit guide us on this road, which, by “Marianizing” us, makes us able to “generate” Jesus in and among hearts.
Let us go forward, then, together on this path of holiness, which is a way of Beauty.
The text that follows, in which I also touch on my personal experience, I hope may be a light to you on this path.
Remaining united with you, in Jesus and Mary,
Sr. Nunziella
THE MOTHER
If we live our Christian life intensely, all of us, without distinction, men and women, are called to love in such a way as to generate Christ in and among hearts. In communion with Mary, everything of hers is gradually shared with us, in a certain way even in our bodiliness, and little by little we become virgin mother; we are, so to speak, liquefied in her, we melt in the warmth of the Spirit…, but this is not the fruit of virtue. The human-divine motherhood of the young girl of Nazareth is shared with us, …it is what I too have experienced: one day I found myself feeling a mother’s heart vibrate in the smallness of my person; I intuited something of that abyss of tenderness which is the relationship between Jesus and Mary, I perceived her in me and me in her, and so I learned to love the Son with the Mother’s heart, in communion with her; the encounter with every neighbor became for me the encounter with the Son, with the Only-Begotten: Christ Jesus.
In Mary, taught by her and by the Spirit, I discovered my Christian vocation as a Marian vocation: that of being a mother of Jesus, small beside Mary, even if in her, small because Calvary was still far off for me and I was, so to speak, immersed in the enchantment of Nazareth…, in an exultation of joy and trepidation, I then dared to call Jesus: “My Son!”
“Whoever does the will of my Father is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Mt 12:50). To call Jesus “My Son!” meant to recognize him as such in every person, beginning with those whom God placed beside me; from that moment my relationship with my neighbor changed. For it is one thing to love Christ present in each one, and another to love one’s own “only Son” in every person whom God lets us meet.
Mary does not have many children, but only one, the Only-Begotten, and every child is unique in the Son.
Through the Spirit we are made able to draw from that ocean of tenderness with which this lovable Mother loves each one.
“By asking Mary to treat the beloved disciple as her son, Jesus […] wants to give Mary’s motherhood the greatest extension. He therefore chooses John as the symbol of all the disciples whom he loves. […] Moreover, by giving this motherhood an individual form, Jesus shows his will to make Mary not simply the mother of his disciples as a whole, but of each one of them in particular, as if he were her only son, taking the place of her only Son” (St. John Paul II).
Just as the Word took on all humanity because he became a particular man, historically identifiable, so Mary is mother of all because she was mother of one alone: Jesus…, for her the unity with the historical Christ is the window thrown wide open onto the mystical Christ, found again in a concrete person: John.
“It is essential to motherhood that it refers to the person. It always determines a unique and unrepeatable relationship between two persons: of the mother with the child and of the child with the mother. Even when the same woman is the mother of many children, her personal relationship with each of them characterizes motherhood in its very essence. Each child, in fact, is begotten in a unique and unrepeatable way, and this is true both for the mother and for the child. […]
It can be said that motherhood “in the order of grace” preserves the analogy with what “in the order of nature” characterizes the union of the mother with her child. In this light it becomes more understandable why in Christ’s testament on Golgotha the new motherhood of his mother was expressed in the singular, in reference to one man: ‘Behold, your son’” (St. John Paul II).
We understand why it is not possible to share in Mary’s motherhood toward the mystical Christ apart from the concrete relationship with the neighbor we meet.
The part is such if, so to speak, it is the whole, if it is in relationship with the whole and makes it present: if I see a branch of a tree from a window, I say: “There is a tree!” Every man, every woman is a sacrament of the whole Christ: in every neighbor we do not meet “a son,” but the Son; yet it is also true that we enter into relationship with a particular person, marked by certain characteristics, with whom we must relate in an appropriate way and not generically and the same for everyone. Only in this way can we draw upon the whole mystery; otherwise the experiential knowledge of the incarnate God will elude us forever.
When we give ourselves to Mary, consecrating ourselves to her entirely: body, soul, faculties, gifts of nature and of grace, then this sweetest Mother gives herself to us, to each one of us, and gives us, so to speak, her heart, to love the Son present in the Eucharist, …in the neighbor, …in humanity, …everywhere and always.
If Jesus can say of himself: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (cf. Jn 14:9), the Virgin can almost say of herself: “Whoever sees me sees the Holy Spirit,” given her inseparable relationship with the Paraclete. In order to be Mary, we must then make ourselves servants of Love, who is the Spirit, remaining, in some way, hidden and known only to God, loving in him each and every one.
We are called to love those whom God entrusts to us and the people we meet with a mother’s heart, letting ourselves be almost lived by Mary; in her and with her, the Holy Spirit will grant us to love with Love, generating Jesus in and among hearts.
Sr. Nunziella Scopelliti, Maria, incanto e mistero (Mary, Enchantment and Mystery), Effatà 2016, 45-48