“Rejoicing in Hope” with Mary

A shortcut to hope

For a priest it is always heartening when a woman shares the news that she is expecting a baby, and asks for prayers for her and her new child at Mass. Motherhood is always a source of hope. An expectant mother embodies a living hope. It is the priest’s joy to bring this new life to the unending fountain of hope, the living Christ in his saving work, which is the Eucharist.

The Church contains within herself the antidote to the greatest malaise of secularism, namely the lack of hope in human hearts. By definition “secularism” excludes any hope which transcends this world (saeculum). This, as is often evident and sometimes tragically so, is profoundly unsatisfactory and ultimately unsustainable for human beings. Thankfully the Church has superabundant hope because, as a true mother, she holds within herself and offers to the world the only hope which “does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5).¹

The Church is bursting with hope because the Church has Mary who brings our Savior to us. Indeed, in the Bull of Indiction of the Holy Year of 2025, which is centered on hope, the Holy Father states that “hope finds its supreme witness in the Mother of God.”² The encounter with the Blessed Mother is an attractive and homely entrance into the fullness of hope because she is the shortcut to Christ who is “our hope” (1 Tim 1:1). In this sense Marian devotion is a great antidote to the despair which is inevitable in a worldview bereft of God, and which therefore lacks meaning, purpose or perspective. There are many reasons why the Blessed Virgin is the “Mother of Hope”³ but the foundation of them all is that Mary carries within herself and offers to the world the one hope which saves.⁴

To develop a personal relationship with Mary is thus to become immersed in the great hope of eternal life, since she brings Jesus into the world. For this reason, the Church salutes Mary as the “morning star.” She is the star which announces the arrival of the life-giving sun: Christ Jesus.⁵ In words of St John Henry Newman: “It is Mary’s prerogative to be Morning Star, which heralds in the sun. She does not shine for herself, or from herself, but she is the reflection of her and our Redeemer, and she glorifies him. When she appears in the darkness, we know that he is close at hand.”⁶

A Mother who arrives early

Mary’s personality is characterized by “getting there early” for the sake of her children. She ushers in the salvation for which we all deeply yearn. In her person she shows forth in advance the radiant beauty of redeemed humanity. In her life and actions, she spurs on the mission of her Son and is the first to rejoice in the salvation he brings. The Church aptly applies to her the words of the Song of Solomon 6:10: “Who is this that looks forth like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army with banners?” The “protoevangelium” or first announcement of the Good News follows immediately on the Fall, and the tradition of the Church has discerned there the presence of the Mother who will crush the serpent’s head (cf. Gen 3:15). Straight away, when her children need her, Mary is there. Mary is the new Eve, as the Fathers of the Church saw her,⁷ because through her free response to God, humanity is “recreated” in Christ.⁸

To have devotion to Mary is to enter into the light of Christ, and therefore to always have a reason, the ultimate reason, for hope. Devotion to the Morning Star is “poles apart” from secularist hopelessness. Someone once commented that people devoted to Our Lady seem to radiate a quiet serenity about them.

Hope personified

By having devotion to Mary, we touch in advance the fullness of our salvation. Mary transmits hope because in her very person she has been redeemed in anticipation of the saving Cross and Resurrection of her Son. Humankind’s recreation is carried out early in her. Thus in her very self she gives us a “preview” of redeemed humanity. The plan for the sanctification of Mary is so “early” that it precedes history. In the bull defining the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, Blessed Pius IX teaches that “From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only-begotten Son a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world.”⁹

Mary is conceived immaculate by a “prevenient” grace: a “grace that comes beforehand.”¹⁰ The Liturgy places the words of Proverbs 8:22–26 on Mary’s lips: “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old . . . before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth; before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world.”

The Blessed Virgin is living hope for the whole People of God because “in the most holy Virgin the Church has already reached that perfection whereby she is without spot or wrinkle.”¹¹ Hence in the contradictions and sufferings of our lives, and especially in a horizon narrowed and darkened by the cloud of secularism, the Immaculate Conception is a beacon of hope and joy. At the Eucharistic Celebration for the Sick during his visit to Lourdes in 2008, Benedict XVI pointed out: “Here in Lourdes, in the course of the apparition of Wednesday 3 March 1858, Bernadette contemplated [the] smile of Mary in a most particular way. It was the first response that the Beautiful Lady gave to the young visionary who wanted to know who she was. Before introducing herself, some days later, as ‘the Immaculate Conception,’ Mary first taught Bernadette to know her smile, this being the most appropriate point of entry into the revelation of her mystery.”¹² The first experience of a newborn child is the smile of his or her mother. In the Immaculate Mother, we see the smile of our rebirth as children of God.

In her Immaculate Conception Mary foreshadows and inaugurates the beauty of redeemed humanity. Ultimately all people hope for Beauty with a capital “B.” A secularist vison leaves no place for lasting beauty. In a self-enclosed “throwaway culture”¹³ everything passes, nothing endures. Even if something is attractive or pleasing for a time, it has no lasting value. To have a relationship with Mary is to be in communion with the most beautiful human being who has come from the hands of God, and this individual is our mother. Her very person, conversation with her, lead us also to hope and to move toward “God’s better beauty”¹⁴ which we long for. 

“Our Lady of Readiness”

Perhaps we remember how our mothers used to get up very early, earlier than anyone else, to help each and every member of the family. As a child I was dimly aware of this. As I grew up I became more aware of my mother working around the house long before we (we are a large family) were astir. Mary precedes us also in her action, moved by her motherly love.

No sooner than she has conceived the Savior in her womb, Mary sets out “with haste” (Lk 1:39) to the hill country of Judah to share the Good News, who is Christ, with her elderly cousin Elizabeth. She does not hesitate. The joy of Christ must be communicated without delay, and indeed Elizabeth and her unborn baby rejoice (vv. 41–44). Mary’s Magnificat at the Visitation (vv. 46–55), while drawing on Old Testament promises and expectations of a Messiah, is also a prophetic canticle projected toward the ultimate hope of humanity. It is a prophetic cry, an early shout of victory, a celebration in advance of the Resurrection of Jesus and the restoration of all things in him (cf. Eph 1:10). The Visitation is a visit of Our Lady to Elizabeth and also to each one of us. It is the first proclamation of the Gospel. Mary is indeed, as Pope Francis has named her, “the Virgin of readiness, Our Lady of Readiness. She is ready right away to come to our aid when we pray to her; when we ask for her help, her protection is in our favor. In many of life’s moments when we stand in need of her help, her protection, let us remember that she does not make us wait: she is Our Lady of Readiness, she immediately goes to serve.”¹⁵

An attentive and caring presence

Mary of Nazareth arrives early and moves quickly to bring forward the saving mission of Christ. We see her intervention at Cana of Galilee: “They have no wine” (Jn 2:3). Christ explicitly says: “My hour has not yet come” (v. 4). Mary does not wait for the “hour” to come but rather tells the servants: “Do whatever he tells you” (v. 5). Cana of Galilee is Jesus’ first miracle and it has many facets. It makes for a most enjoyable event. It is a celebration of romantic love. It is a prefiguring of the Passion with the fine wine evoking the generous pouring out of the Redeemer’s blood on Calvary. It benefits each and all of Mary’s children — the newlyweds, the guests, the steward of the feast, the disciples — who now begin to have faith in Christ (v. 11). It benefits the Lord himself since his mission has been launched. Occurring “on the third day” (v. 1), it foreshadows the joy of the Resurrection and the ultimate triumph of the wedding feast of the Lamb.¹⁶ But it is also a miracle which happens early, before time: the Lord’s “hour” has not yet come, but the “importunity” of his mother brings the saving joy forward. One of the hymns to Mary in the Liturgy of the Hours sings of how Mary not only answers our petitions but more often foresees and takes care of them.¹⁷

“They have no wine” (Jn 2:3). We see here a trait of the maternal love of Mary. She sees our needs before we do. She doesn’t just arrive on time. She arrives early, and she moves quickly for love of her children. With Mary we always have hope because we can rely on her watchful love. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins entitles one of his poems, “The Blessed Virgin Mary compared to the air we breathe.” This is Mary: life-giving, discreet, ready, early, attentive, preceding us. Sometimes we see how our earthly mothers can detect some upset in ourselves before we are fully conscious of it. This is all the more fully true of the Blessed Mother.

Bright hope in darkness

In the darkest moments Mary keeps faith and therefore Christian hope is always alive in her. It is traditional in the Church to mark Saturday as Our Lady’s day because on Holy Saturday, that dark and silent day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, while Christ sleeps the sleep of death in the tomb, she alone keeps alive the faith and hope of the Church: Christ will certainly rise again.¹⁸ Not surprisingly it is the opinion of many saints that the first person to whom the risen Jesus appeared was his mother. St. John Paul II recalled that “a fifth-century author, Sedulius, maintains that in the splendor of his risen life Christ first showed himself to his mother. In fact, she, who at the Annunciation was the way he entered the world, was called to spread the marvelous news of the Resurrection in order to become the herald of his glorious coming. Thus bathed in the glory of the Risen One, she anticipates the Church’s splendor.”¹⁹ In “welcoming the risen Jesus” says St. John Paul II, “Mary is also a sign and an anticipation of humanity, which hopes to achieve its fulfillment through the resurrection of the dead.”²⁰

Again, at this crucial moment of salvation history Mary arrives early. She shows that “hope does not disappoint us” (Rom 5:5). In this, she inspires us to keep faith and to “rejoice in hope” (cf. Rom 12:12) precisely in those moments when all seems lost, and hope seems pointless. One might wonder at how Our Lady reacts when we tell her repeatedly over the Easter season to rejoice: Regina Coeli, laetare! Perhaps she smilingly replies to us: “Who are you telling . . . ?”

The hope of Heaven

Mary is “early” also in her Assumption. She shares “early” in the resurrection of the body which we await (cf. 1 Cor 15:20) and which we profess in the Creed. By her Assumption our mother raises our hearts and minds toward heaven, our ultimate homeland. That is how the Liturgy addresses God the Father: “The Virgin Mother of God was assumed into heaven as the beginning and image of your Church’s coming to perfection and as a sign of sure hope and comfort to your pilgrim people.”²¹ Mary beckons us toward heaven.

With Mary there is always hope because with Mary we always meet Christ. It’s not surprising therefore that many people have recovered the joy of faith and of hope through Mary. Mary precedes us, she arrives early, she ushers on her Son’s mission, and she opens us up to undying hope in his love. Devotion to Mary gives us courage. She prepares us to receive God’s call and primes us to “do whatever [the Lord] tells us” (cf. Jn 2:5). As St Josemaría observed, “many conversions, many decisions to give oneself to the service of God have been preceded by an encounter with Mary.”²² This reality is attested to by the history of the Church and the vocations of many individuals.

“Mother of Hope”

Motherhood is the presence of a living and lasting hope. The lack of hope which characterizes secularism goes in tandem with its serious devaluation of motherhood. Loving mothers always nurture hope for their children, even when their children are well past childhood. I remember a very elderly lady who was close to death. She had just one regret: “I wish I could stay around a little longer to look after my kids.” Her children ranged in age from late sixties to mid-seventies, and were themselves grandparents! Mothers never stop hoping for their children. Mary, Mother of Hope does this unstintingly, always lifting our gaze beyond the myopia of a secularist squint to the broad and liberating vision of eternal life. “Man becomes smaller, not greater, when there is no longer room for an ethos that, in accord with his authentic nature, moves beyond pragmatism, when there is no longer room for a gaze that is turned towards God.”²³ Mary always reminds us of our dignity as beloved children of God (cf. 1 Jn 3:1). Devotion to Mary is a sure path to the eternal hope at the center of the Jubilee Year of 2025: Christ the Lord.