The Prophecy of Our Lady’s Place in Salvation History

It’s hard to get the human mind around this scenario, but let’s imagine that we were given the power to create our own mother. It’s astonishing to imagine, isn’t it? But if we had the power to do that, would we make her anything less than the most radiantly beautiful woman ever created? I certainly wouldn’t!

Furthermore, we would endow her with the greatest intelligence, the most incredible talents, and the deepest virtues. Undoubtedly, we would spare no expense on our own mothers. All of those gifts, of course, would ultimately be put in the service of her future children, and we would benefit from everything we had given her in that one act of creation.

But the main concern would not be about us. We would want the best for her. We would want her to be the best woman that ever lived. It is in the heart of every child.

But it’s an impossible scenario, isn’t it? In order to create her, we would have to exist before her. We would have to be eternal, outside of time, not bound by the laws of the universe in order to create someone who would come after us and give us birth. Humanly speaking, that is impossible.

But for God, all things are possible.

And, God the Son did exactly that. He created His own Mother, and we all know the result of that magnificent, wondrous gift to humanity.

Can you imagine what it must have been like to meet Mary in person? Honestly, I don’t think I could have taken my eyes off of her any time I would have been in her presence because Jesus did in fact make her the most beautiful, the most intelligent woman on earth, full of truth, goodness, grace, and light. Why would Her divine Son make her anything less?

But we have to clarity an important point: as believers, we don’t think Mary takes the place of God. We don’t deify her. Nor, on the other hand, do we reduce her to just another disciple. Those ideas are foreign to our understanding of Mary. She is a creature, not a divine Person.

But at the same time, we know that she is His most exalted creation, which puts her in a category of one. She is “full of grace” (Luke 1:26) like no other human being ever was or ever will be, save Jesus Himself.

She was created for a distinct and holy purpose because Jesus knew the Plan for the salvation of the human race from all eternity. He knew the Plan of salvation would require a Mother, just as the original creation of Man also required a woman, and not just a maiden, but a mother. Eve was called Mother of all the Living (Genesis 3:20).

Mary is called the Mother of Life Himself (Luke 1:35).

The coming of our Savior was set out and announced by the holy prophets so that men would not be surprised or unaware of His identity when He came. The famous Catholic preacher, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, once said that Jesus was the only man whose existence was predicted from ancient times and who actually fulfilled those prophecies.

In reflecting on His life, the blessed evangelists often noted that what Jesus did and said was “to fulfill the Scriptures.” So, not only His coming into the world, but also His words and His actions were prophesied.

But a logical conclusion follows: if Jesus was predicted from ancient history, so also was Mary, even if we have to fill in some of the blanks about how that happened. We know that she became the New Eve from that foreshadowing in the Book of Genesis. In that same chapter, God predicted that the woman and her Offspring would crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). These were the key passages that the Fathers of the Church used in their explanations of the divine motherhood of Mary.

But we also see in Mary the fulfillment of all the ancient (female) images of Israel: she is the daughter of Zion (Psalm 87:1-3; 2 Kings 19:21); the Queen mother (1 Kings 2:13-21); the beloved bride of the Song of Songs; and even metaphorically, the Ark of the Covenant that contained the tablets of the Law, the Manna, and the Scepter of Aaron, the High Priest (Hebrews 9:4).

Mary was all of these images in living form. In a sense, she had to be the summation of all these figures of old in order to fulfill the greatest prophecy of all: to be the Mother of the Messiah Himself.

What a wonder, what a blessing, what a gift is Mary!

In the Christmas Season, we see how the Church emphasizes the vocation of Our Lady in this highest position of all women: she is the Mother of humanity’s Savior, He who came as a sweet and tender Infant through her.

He—the Exalted One—is the fruit of her womb, the blessing of the nations, the gift of the Father, the Redeemer who took human form from the human nature of His mother.

From all eternity He had created the woman who, in turn, created Him “in the fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4).

That is the deep and wonderful mystery we contemplate in this season of overflowing grace, and we must know that Our Lady is here with us, helping us to understand the gift we’ve been given. She is perhaps more spiritually present to us in the Christmas season than at any other time in the liturgical year.

Now we have to live up to this great grace of Christmas. But how will we do that? We can do no better than to consecrate ourselves to her during this season and especially on the great feast of her Motherhood which we celebrate on January 1st every year.

Like Mary, each one of us has also existed in the Mind and Heart of God for all eternity. Our Lady claims the most dignified place in His Plan, but in essence, we all have a place in that Plan!

So she is best suited to attune us to the Will of God more perfectly than any other saint or angel because she was perfectly conformed to His Will from the first moment of her existence.

In turning to Mary in every circumstance and concern of our lives, we find out that nothing in or around us is a random event. All has meaning. The Plan works itself in every detail of our existence and history.

Everything that happens to us or will ever happen to us is part of His mysterious Providence, even if we cannot understand it all in the moment. But Mary is with us, to help us understand why things happen and to apprehend the deeper meaning of our lives and our actions.

As reluctant as we are to admit it sometimes, we too are marvelous works of His creation, just like Our Lady. More importantly, she looks at us all with a mother’s love, just as she looked lovingly at every detail of the radiant Face of her newborn Infant in the manger on that blessed silent night.

It didn’t matter that He was born in poverty or obscurity. He was hers. And she was God’s precious Mother.

And that’s all that matters because she is our mother too, concerned about every little detail.