The Essential Mary

If you want to get the deepest insight into a person’s character, listen to her speak. Her own words will reveal much about the essence of who she is. Hence, the Blessed Virgin Mary’s words, as reported in the Bible, can well serve as revealing indicators about herself. In fact, many scripture commentators, through the centuries, have studied the passages where Mary speaks. Some, like the 15th-century Franciscan St. Bernardine of Siena, have distilled her words into “seven” phrases. This friar-mystic recognized in the Heart of Mary seven burning furnaces, giving rise to seven flames, which are seven acts of love, expressed in the seven “words” of Our Lady in the Gospels.

These “love words” of Mary are to be found in the first and second chapters of the Gospel of St. Luke and the second chapter of the Gospel of St. John. They express the Virgin Mary’s self-undestanding, at the same time as they show her personality and her religious function. Their sum total presents the “essential” Mary: her prayer-dialogue with God, her identity as God’s servant, her supernatural faith, her supernatural charity, her Christ-focus, her Eucharistic focus, and her mission of discipleship.