Imagine you are Mary. Yes, the mother of Jesus. How do you see your son hanging on the cross? What emotions well up in you and how do they hit you? But Jesus did not forget his widow mother even at his last breaths. He entrusted his mother to John, his beloved disciple. “Woman, behold, your son.” “ ‘Behold, your mother.’ And from that hour onward the disciple took her into his home.”
If we read today’s gospel passage from a theological angel, we can understand Jesus was making this “woman”, the new Eve, the mother of the faith community or the Church of the beloved John the Apostle. The Johannine Christianity was handed down to us in writing through the Gospel and the Letters of John. This early Church had the Mother of Jesus accompanying them during its post-Ascension inception period.
Similarly, what we have read from today’s passage in the Acts of the Apostles, we are informed of an early faith community living in fears that they could also be persecuted. There they “devoted themselves with one accord to prayer.” In this prayerful and synodal spirit they waited in faith, hope and love for the day when their community would be filled with the promised gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially the gifts of truth and consolation.
Again, the mother of Jesus was there, accompanying and praying with them. What more would she be afraid of losing? Nothing, after what had happened to her dear son. But what she would be aware of was that, these disciples of her son would appreciate her accompaniment and consolation. We believe that Our Lady of China and Mary Help of Christians has been with the People of God in China all the time. Praying for and assuring them with her maternal consolation.
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