There are many expressions that the Christian people use to address Mary and all of them merit to be the object of meditation and prayer. It is enough to think of the Hail Mary, the Salve Regina, the Laurentian Litanies, Ave Maris Stella, etc. Many hymns and songs have been born in the two thousands years of Marian devotion, present in every time of Christianity, especially in the Second Millenium. I love thinking of Mary and addressing her with the titles of Queen and Mother.
Queen. I need an authoritative person with whom to speak, a woman who really existed and continues to exist with her transfigured body. It has been made visible on many dramatic occasions in history.
A woman to whom I can look as a fount of pure and extremely close light, a light which illuminates the particulars of my humanity and my daily life. A light that does not fear the dust and the earth of my life, but at the same time, offers me a patient strength to clean my home, so that it may be only her light to inhabit it.
A person like us, entirely inhabited by that grace that we invoke.
A light which multiplies the beauty of what is beautiful and invites (almost in a whisper, respectfully) to push away the shadows that are opposed to beauty and to charity.
Queen of light. This expression is very dear to me because it speaks to me of an ideal to which I can aspire, a person like us, entirely inhabited by that grace that, humbly, we invoke for ourselves.
Mother of sinners. This is the second invocation to which I feel tied. Rather, better, Mother of Us Sinners. The awareness of one’s own sin grows with the passing of years, because so too does our awareness of the good we have received grow.
Mother. We know that this word, which has a common root in an infinite number of languages, indicates the capacity to generate and, above all, to nurture, to foster growth in that which is generated. Alma Mater: mother who nurtures and brings to maturity.
Mary generated, thanks to the Spirit of God. Many reckon this birth to be a fable. Certainly, it is not the first step of Christian faith. Before all else comes faith in God the Creator. If God was able to create from nothing why could He not create something new? The conception of Jesus is truly a new creation, a re-creation, a renewal of the first, decayed and corrupt, to a higher level. Jesus is the new man.
And so we ask God that, through Mary, this new creation happen for us every day: regenerated by the Spirit, through the flesh of Jesus, through the Church: Come Holy Spirit, come through Mary.
