Pope Benedict XVI entrusted the current Year for Priests, announced by him on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the death of St John-Mary Vianney, the Cure of Ars, to the Most Holy Virgin.

The Holy Father asked Mary to awaken in the heart of every priest a generous and renewed commitment to the ideal of complete self-oblation to Christ and the Church which inspired the thoughts and actions of the saintly John-Mary Vianney, who is the patron saint of parish priests.

Precisely because the Church is celebrating the Year for Priests, this year’s feast of Santa Marija, the day when Catholics the world over celebrate the Assumption of Mary, offers a good opportunity for sharing some reflections on Mary’s relationship to the priesthood.

This relationship derives primarily from the fact of Mary’s motherhood. Becoming the Mother of Christ by her consent to the angel’s message, Mary became the Mother of the high priest.

Pope John Paul II described this as “an objective reality”: by assuming a human nature in the Incarnation, the eternal Son of God fulfilled the necessary condition for becoming the one priest of humanity through his death and resurrection (cf. Heb 5:1).

The perfect correspondence between Mary and her Son at the moment of the Incarnation shows that a close relationship has been established between Mary’s motherhood and Christ’s priesthood. By that very fact a special bond exists between the priestly ministry and Mary. Moreover, this unique correspondence at the moment of the Incarnation of the Word is also found in the Upper Room at Jerusalem.

Queen of the Apostles

The concluding Mass of the International Priests’ Convention held in Malta almost five years ago (October 2004), which was celebrated in Gozo by Cardinal Angelo Sodano - then the Vatican’s Secretary of State – was in honour of “Our Lady, Queen of Apostles”. On that occasion, Cardinal Sodano invited priests to direct their gaze towards Jerusalem, to that Upper Room where the great mission of the Apostles began, to the day of Pentecost, which marked the beginning of the great missionary endeavour throughout the whole world.

“When the Holy Spirit descends upon the Apostles in the Upper Room, giving them an intense and living faith like Mary’s, she is there among them, praying for that gift. In this sense Mary is the Mother of the Apostles’ faith and the faith of all who believe in Christ. All generations ‘look’ towards her, they draw inspiration from her faith and come to believe in Christ. She was the first to believe in him and by her faith she conceived the Word first in her heart and then in her body, thanks to her ‘fiat’,” said Cardinal Sodano in his Gozo homily.

The Cardinal told priests that the voice that seems to come from the Upper Room in Jerusalem is a triple call: to faith, to holiness, to apostolic zeal. “That Upper Room remains in our hearts for ever: there Christ instituted the Eucharist and made us his ministers, there the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles gathered in prayer with Mary, from there the mission of Christ’s Church began, sanctified within by his Holy Spirit.”

A unique association

Mary was uniquely associated with Christ’s priestly sacrifice, sharing his will to save the world by the cross.

On Calvary Jesus entrusted a new motherhood to Mary when he said to her: “Woman, behold your son!” (Jn 19:26). One needs to keep in mind that when this motherhood was proclaimed, it was in regard to a “priest”, the beloved disciple. Indeed, according to the Synoptic Gospels, John too received from the Master at the supper on the previous night the power to renew the sacrifice of the cross in his memory. With the other apostles he belonged to the group of the first “priests”; now at Mary’s side he replaced the one, supreme priest who was leaving the world. John Paul II stated that without doubt, “Jesus’ intention at that moment was to establish Mary’s universal motherhood in the life of grace for every disciple, both then and for all ages. But we cannot ignore the fact that this motherhood took on a concrete, immediate form in relation to an apostle-priest.

And we can think that Jesus’ gaze extended beyond John to the long series of his priests in every age until the end of the world. As he did for the beloved disciple, he made that entrustment to Mary’s motherhood for them in particular, taken one by one.”

Jesus also said to John: “Behold, your mother!” (Jn 19:27). To the beloved disciple he entrusted the task of caring for Mary as his own mother, of loving her, venerating her and protecting her for the remaining years of her life on earth. But this was in the light of what was written for her in heaven, where she would be assumed and glorified.

These words are the origin of Marian devotion. Taking into account the significance of the fact that they were addressed to a priest, John Paul II asked: “Can we not then draw the conclusion that the priest is charged with promoting and developing this devotion and that he is the one primarily responsible for it?”

In his Gospel John thought it important to stress that “from that hour the disciple took her into his home” (Jn 19:27). Thus he responded immediately to Christ’s invitation and took Mary with him, with a reverence appropriate to the circumstances.

Servant and disciple

Writing on the formation of priests in the circumstances of the present day, John Paul II stated:

“Every aspect of priestly formation can be referred to Mary, the human being who has responded better than any other to God’s call. Mary became both the servant and the disciple of the Word to the point of conceiving, in her heart and in her flesh, the Word made man, so as to give him to mankind. Mary was called to educate the one eternal priest, who became docile and subject to her motherly authority.

“With her example and intercession the Blessed Virgin keeps vigilant watch over the growth of vocations and priestly life in the Church. And so we priests are called to have an ever firmer and more tender devotion to the Virgin Mary and to show it by imitating her virtues and praying to her often”( Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis, 1992).

Charles Buttigieg

is the former Curia PRO