Christ came among us as God and man by means of a human birth through Mary, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit. In turn, we are born into new life in Christ through Mary who is Mother of the Church. In addition, Mary is also the image of what the Church herself is, namely, a new community whose bond is faith in Jesus Christ, Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary. We, then, as brothers and sisters of Christ, have Mary as our spiritual mother.
We are spiritually reborn through the motherhood of Mary. Jesus says to us from the cross in the person of John the Evangelist, “Behold your mother.” And to his mother he says, “Behold your son” (or daughter, as the case may be). To believe that the spiritual motherhood of Mary is true for all of us takes the same kind of faith that Mary herself had when she said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”
—from the book Nourishing Love: A Franciscan Celebration of Mary
by Murray Bodo, OFM
