Why Was Mary Given the Title “Ark of the Covenant”?

The Litany of Loreto, or the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, contains the titles and invocations to the Blessed Mother of God. The Litany of Loreto is named after the Marian shrine of Loreto in Italy. It is there that the Litany is believed to have been used around 1531. Pope Sixtus V officially approved the Litany in 1587. The Litany of Loreto is the only approved Marian litany in the Catholic Church, although there are many other Marian litanies that are in use but for private devotion only.

These titles and invocations remind us of the Blessed Virgin’s exceptional privileges granted to her by God. One of Mary’s titles in the Litany of Loreto is that she is the “Ark of the Covenant”. But why do Catholics invoke her with this title? To answer this question, we have to take a quick journey to the Old and New Testaments.

The venerable Saint Augustine of Hippo once said that “the Old Testament is the New concealed, but the New Testament is the Old revealed” (De catechizandis rudibus 4:8). What happened in the Old Testament finds its fulfillment in the New Testament. Such a close connection between these two major divisions of the Sacred Scripture brings us to the biblical concept of typology. Typology is an important method of biblical interpretation that explains specific elements, e.g., people, events, and things, in the Old Testament that prefigures or foreshadows corresponding fulfilments in the New Testament. They are like a teaser for an upcoming new movie or a free small sample of a new product in a grocery store.

Let us look at some samples of biblical typology. The Passover lamb in the Book of Exodus prefigured Christ, the Lamb of God. The brazen serpent raised by Moses in the desert foreshadowed Christ. Melchizedek is the type of the priesthood of Christ. Israel’s crossing of the Red Sea prefigured baptism. And the list goes on.

The Ark of the Covenant in Exodus served as the physical manifestation and reminder of the presence and power of God in the people of Israel. The Letter to the Hebrews (9:4) relates to us the contents of the Ark of the Covenant: a golden jar holding the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant or the Decalogue.

Mary is invoked as the “Ark of the Covenant” because she bore in her womb the Second Divine Person of the Holy Trinity, the Eternal Logos who was made flesh. Christ is the “bread that came down from heaven” – reminiscent of the manna. Christ is the Eternal High Priest (cf. Hebrews 4:14) – symbolized by the rod of Aaron, who was the priest in the Old Testament – who mediates for us with the Father. Christ is the Word of God that is inscribed not on stone tablets like the Ten Commandments, but in the hearts of people.

As such, Mary is rightly called the New Ark of the Covenant, for she bore Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life, the Eternal High Priest, and the Word made flesh.