Honoring Mary, Mother of the Church: From the Garden to the Cross

June 12, 2025 | Liturgical Reflection

On this day, the Church commemorates Mary, Mother of the Church—a title that connects deeply with both the origins of sin and the birth of the Church through Christ’s Passion. The readings offer two powerful paths of reflection: one tracing the first moments of human failure in the Garden of Eden, and the other highlighting Mary’s prayerful presence with the Apostles and at the foot of the Cross.

First Reading Option 1: The Fall and the First Promise of Redemption

(Genesis 3:9–15, 20)

We are taken back to the Garden of Eden, immediately after the fall of Adam and Eve. When God confronts them, both attempt to shift blame—Adam to Eve, and Eve to the serpent. God then speaks to the serpent, pronouncing a curse that not only defines its humiliation but also delivers the first promise of redemption:

“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
He will strike at your head,
while you strike at his heel.”

This passage, known as the Protoevangelium—the first Gospel—points toward the eventual defeat of evil through the offspring of the woman. Christian tradition has long seen this “woman” as a figure foreshadowing Mary, whose Son would crush the power of sin through His death and resurrection.

First Reading Option 2: Mary in the Upper Room

(Acts 1:12–14)

Alternatively, we see Mary in the company of the Apostles after Jesus’ Ascension. They gather in the upper room, united in prayer and awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Mary’s presence here is not passive; she is Mother of the Church, praying for the community that her Son had just entrusted to the world.

In both readings, Mary is positioned as a spiritual mother—first, symbolically, in the Garden through God’s promise, and then concretely, in the Church’s earliest days.

Responsorial Psalm: The City of God

(Psalm 87)

“Glorious things are said of you, O city of God!”
This Psalm celebrates Zion, the spiritual home of God’s people. The Church Fathers often applied the imagery of Zion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, through whom God’s presence became incarnate. Just as Jerusalem is home to God’s people, Mary is the spiritual home from whom Christ emerged and in whom the Church finds maternal care.

Alleluia Acclamation

A joyful cry rings out:
“O joyful Virgin, who gave birth to the Lord;
O blessed Mother of the Church,
who nurture in us the Spirit of your Son Jesus Christ!”

This brief verse encapsulates the day’s central theme—Mary not only bore the Son of God but continues to nurture His Spirit within the Church.

Gospel: At the Foot of the Cross

(John 19:25–34)

The Gospel brings us to Calvary. As Jesus nears His final breath, He looks down and sees His mother and the beloved disciple. In one of His final acts, Jesus entrusts Mary to John and John to Mary:

“Woman, behold your son.”
“Behold, your mother.”

From this moment, Mary becomes mother to all disciples, not by blood, but through the Spirit. This solemn scene gives birth to her role as Mother of the Church—a mother who suffers, remains present, and supports the body of Christ even in its darkest hours.

The Gospel concludes with the soldier piercing Jesus’ side, from which blood and water flow—symbols of the Eucharist and Baptism, the sacraments that nourish the Church. Mary is there to witness not only her Son’s sacrifice but the very outpouring of grace that would give life to the Church.

Reflection: A Mother for All Times

Today’s liturgy draws together the entire arc of salvation history—from Eve to Mary, from sin to redemption, from the Fall to the birth of the Church.

Mary, as the new Eve, undoes the disobedience of the first woman with her faithful “yes” to God. As Mother of the Church, she guides and intercedes for all believers. Her presence at the foot of the Cross and in the upper room reminds us that she continues to accompany us in our trials and in our mission to bring Christ to the world.

Let us turn to her today with trust and gratitude, asking her maternal intercession as we walk the path of discipleship, ever supported by the Spirit of her Son.