Mary in the upper room at Pentecost, Mary: Day 254

Mary in the upper room at Pentecost

Pope St. John Paul II explains how Mary’s role at Pentecost, and in the life of the Church ever since, is essential.

Among those who devoted themselves to prayer in the upper room, preparing to go “into the whole world” after receiving the Spirit, some had been called by Jesus gradually from the beginning of his mission in Israel. Eleven of them had been made apostles, and to them Jesus had passed on the mission which he himself had received from the Father. . . .

Mary did not directly receive this apostolic mission. . . . But she was in the upper room, where the apostles were preparing to take up this mission with the coming of the Spirit of Truth: She was present with them. In their midst Mary was “devoted to prayer” as the “mother of Jesus” (see Acts 1:13–14), of the crucified and risen Christ. . . . Now, at the first dawn of the Church, at the beginning of the long journey through faith which began at Pentecost in Jerusalem, Mary was with all those who were the seed of the “new Israel.” She was present among them as an exceptional witness to the mystery of Christ. . . .

Mary belongs indissolubly to the mystery of Christ, and she belongs also to the mystery of the Church from the beginning, from the day of the Church’s birth. At the basis of what the Church has been from the beginning, and of what she must continually become from generation to generation, in the midst of all the nations of the earth, we find the one “who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Lk 1:45). It is precisely Mary’s faith which marks the beginning of the new and eternal covenant of God with man in Jesus Christ; this heroic faith of hers “precedes” the apostolic witness of the Church, and ever remains in the Church’s heart, hidden like a special heritage of God’s revelation. —Pope St. John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

Jesus didn’t designate his mother as one of his apostles, yet she played a critical role in the life of the Church through her witness to her Son. What role can my witness to him play in the life of my parish and my community?

CLOSING PRAYER     

Holy Spirit, you came in tongues of fire upon Mary and the Apostles at Pentecost. Renew my heart, so that it blazes with love for Jesus and zeal for the mission he has given me.

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