Fr. John-Mary: Father, the love of Catholics for the Blessed Virgin is well known. But isn't it dangerous? First of all is this devotion to the Virgin Mary founded in the Gospel? And secondly, isn't there a possibility of our love for Mary taking precedence over Jesus in our lives?

Fr. M.D. Philippe: We have tried to see how Jesus reveals the Father to us, and the Father could have given his Son to us in a different way from the one He chose. In fact, He wanted his Son to be also the flesh and blood son of the woman, of Mary. In St. Luke the mystery of the Annunciation is certainly one of the essential, if not most important, evangelical mysteries. When one sees the way the Father chose to tell his daughter of Zion, daughter of Israel, that she was to become the Mother of the Most High, the Mother of God! Tradition has always very carefully preserved this Gospel in its concern for understanding as profoundly as possible what Mary herself understood: the message of the angel; Mary's acceptance, the way that Mary entered into profound communion with the Holy Spirit with the Father by the gift of his Beloved Son. I believe that this text of St. Luke is of great importance. I would say that everything that St. Luke has to say about the hidden life of Jesus allows us to discover the very great mystery that is the divine maternity of Mary.
After the early Church proclaimed Jesus to be true God and true man, after it proclaimed this mystery of the hypostatic union, i.e., how the Word and Beloved Son of God assumed human nature in a personal way, the Church than felt the need of affirming Mary to be Theotokos, Mother of God, not mother of the human nature of Jesus, but human maternity ends up in a person. It is a great and very important mystery for today's world with its problems of maternity, of the child and of abortion. There is a personal bond between the mother and her little one; human maternity terminates in a human person. When that person is Jesus, the maternity of Mary terminates in the Word become flesh: hence she is truly Mother of God. God wanted her to enter that profoundly into the mystery of the Father, the mystery of the Holy Spirit, the mystery of the Son, she exists at the limits of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, St. Thomas says, following the Fathers of the Church. Here St. Thomas speaks precisely but not originally. She is at the limits of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, but remains a creature, of course. She is a creature that God, that the Father loved with a unique love.

The mystery of the Immaculate Conception is a kind of inspired anticipation of a special antecedent insight into the profundity of the mystery of her being Mother of God. In order for her to be a worthy Mother of God, she had to be exempt from all fault and free from the stain of original sin. I believe that this is the primary insight we should always have about Mary; the Father wanted his Son to have a Mother. He wanted his Son to know the intimacy of a tiny baby with his Mother; He wanted him to resemble his Mother in a unique way, as I have said. All the mysteries of the hidden life of Jesus show that, one could think that the early relationship of Jesus with Mary was reserved for Jesus, a mystery hidden from others. But is quite surprising to see in relation to the mystery of the Annunciation the news announced by the angel about Mary's cousin Elizabeth expecting a child; the woman everyone knew to be sterile was expecting a baby! This the angel tells Mary. When I look at the Gospel of St. Luke, I see that at the annunciation made to Zechariah, he was afraid, perhaps, that he was only imagining the realization of his desires. Hence he asked for a sign in order to be sure that it was from God. Then God gave him a corrective sign: he would not be able to talk but become the father of John the Baptist. Mary, on the other hand, does not ask the angel Gabriel for a sign even though his message to her is much more astonishing than that given to Zechariah. It is a realization of the very secret prophecy of Isaiah "the Virgin, the young virgin girl, will give birth" a passage which Mary knew. I am not saying that Mary wanted to be the Virgin who gives birth, but when the Angel told her that she would bear a child, it is impossible that she did not make the association in her heart between the message of the angel and the prophecy of Isaiah which was a part of her faith and her experience. How moving an experience this must have been for Mary. Her acceptance was the placing of her entire self in the hands of God. The angel gave her an added sign, one that Mary had not asked for: the miracle of her elderly, sterile cousin who is going to have a child. For Mary, each of the two miracles sheds light on the other.

We know how Joseph was later alerted in a dream that he should remain the spouse of Mary. "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife." Joseph was to be for Jesus his Father. He is often called foster father, but one need not become totally attached to that expression. He is Mary's spouse, wedded to her in a perfect way. He has the joy of seeing that the one she gives birth to, the one born of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is confided by Mary to him, a little baby who is his responsibility. In the eyes of God, in the eyes of Mary, in the eyes of man, Joseph is responsible for Jesus. Joseph hides the miracle from others. How beautiful! His love permits him to play a very difficult role of hiding, of being silent to hide the great miracle.

Mary is the Mother of Jesus, a maternity involving absolute poverty, for she is a creature having no rights over God. In faith, Mary always looked upon her son as the Son of the Most High. I believe that Mary realized very quickly that Jesus was not merely one sent by God or a prophet, but Son of God. The whole of Tradition has held this: it is only very recently that Mary's early faith in Jesus as the Son of God has been called into question. In order for Mary to be fully a mother from both a divine and a human point of view, she needed to know what was being asked of her. Otherwise God would have deceived her, and he could not have done that: she was too pure, too generous, too loving. Hence God must have revealed to her that she was truly the Mother of God. In order truly to be Mother of God, one must accept not having any rights over one's child. Hence she is the poorest of all mothers, for a little creature becoming the Mother of God must accept that the son given to her is the Son of God before being her son and since he is the Son of God and God is one, he is God himself. Since he is God, she is entirely relative to him. Normally a small child is entirely relative to his mother. Here the inverse is true - it is Mary who is from the first entirely relative to Jesus in love, in faith and in the poverty of hope. It is during the apostolic life of Jesus and above all at the Cross that we can discover what Jesus wants.

When he is crucified, when he has given everything to the Father and to mankind, he realized the mystery of the Last Supper, of the Eucharist, of the new covenant in his body and blood according to the sacramental mode of the Eucharist. But there was still something that he had not yet given: the treasure of his heart, the one that his Father gave him to be his Mother, the one that he formed in a unique way, for one can say - as the Gospel of St. John insists - that after Cana, Mary did not return to Nazareth. She went to Capernaum, and hence is the first of the holy women to follow Jesus and the apostles. In fact it may well have been because of Mary that the others were able to follow Jesus and the apostles. In following his apostolic life, she was the rich soil, keeping the Word of Jesus because it was the Word of her Son, because it was the Word of God. In the first place, it was the word of the Beloved Son the Father - "Listen to him," and Mary listened and kept this treasure of love in her heart. The more she listened to the word of Jesus, the more she was educated by Jesus in faith, in her hope and her love, in all her God-centered, divine life.

Mary was the exemplary lamb who followed the Good Shepherd in a unique way with so much love that she could understand what the others didn't - all the nuances of the voice of Jesus teaching her that his was a living Word both calling out for and constantly engendering ever-increasing love in her. Mary was present by Jesus at the Cross and, suspended on the Cross, Jesus gave her one last loving look and, as He did at Cana, called her "woman". This helps us understand the meaning of this striking term. "Woman" is the "Benjamin" or youngest child, the smallest creature, the poorest, most fragile and best loved because of being poorest, the most loving because she gives, has given everything, never refusing anything and never, never giving up. To understand the meaning of that "woman" we would have to have heard how the Holy Spirit, how Jesus said it at the Cross. We must ask the Holy Spirit for that grace, for according to the Gospel of St. John, the Holy Spirit is the voice. Let us listen in faith to the way Jesus said to Mary, "Woman, this is your son." That statement is shocking, in fact overwhelming from a human and psychological point of view. How could any loving and loved son in his last dying words to his mother point to a friend or follower, and say "Woman, this is your son". That would be impossible to understand from a strictly human point of view, Jesus is too considerate in heart and loves Mary far too much to say that to her. He knows that Mary, has only one Son, the one she loves so much, her own the Father's Beloved Son. She doesn't need any other sons, for this Son perfectly fulfills her motherly heart with both divine and human blessings. No doubt the last words of Jesus to Mary were given with a loving smile. In the 12'th century, people loved to picture Jesus smiling from the Cross, smiling at his Mother. And he may well have smiled at her. There is something that remains beyond and despite suffering and separation - and is a reason for smiling in saying "Woman, this is your son," and "This is your mother." The Church understood this very quickly; the Fathers of the Church: St. Ambrose, St. Augustine understood that this marked a new covenant, a spiritual family relationship never before experienced: to the Apostle he loved, the one who was faithful to the end Jesus gave his heart's treasure, the one who received everything, the rich soil which kept the Word of God. Jesus gives her to the Apostle He loves to be his Mother. I believe that Jesus could not have expressed his confidence in John more than in those words. The intimate union between Jesus and Mary was a simple, intense, profound union realized by the Holy Spirit in a unique way. When a mother and her son love each other very much, their relationship becomes one of unique simplicity. I think these are the simplest of all human relationships. Jesus wanted to show John all his confidence and all his love so he gave him the one that the Father had given him as his Mother. He wanted all the tenderness of Mary for Jesus and of Jesus for Mary to flow into the heart of Mary for John and of John for Mary - a love of a son for his mother joined to the love of a mother for the one that Jesus loved so much and chose above all others, his only faithful one.

Fr. John-Mary: I would like to know what meaning Jesus' gift of Mary to St. John has for us today. You know that not long ago the Holy Father proclaimed a Marian year and seems to be telling us that Mary has a special role in our world today. Could you explain that?

Fr. M.D. Philippe: The Tradition of the Church, and I am speaking precisely, for it is sustained by the Holy Spirit, is the Word of God in the heart of saints. And that word is fertile, a living word engendering love in the heart of John, a word planted by Jesus in the heart of John to foster a new bond with Mary. John had the highest esteem for Mary, the mother of his master, the mother of the one he loved so much.He would never have dared consider her as his mother; I believe that his flesh and blood mother was present at the Cross. She had asked Jesus that her sons John and James be the two seated at his right and left side in the Kingdom of heaven. But she must come to understand that Jesus was bringing about something infinitely greater for her son: he wanted Mary to be John's mother, thus raising his union from the level of power and authority to that of love. That is why Jesus wants us to understand. It is at the moment when Mary is living the mystery of the compassion, when she is most intimately united with him in faith, hope and love that Jesus reveals to us that because of the greatness of her union with him, she is John's mother and our mother. The words that Jesus addresses to John are addressed to us also, for they are addressed to all his faithful followers,to all those who want to be perfectly faithful to the end. Hence I would say that the mystery of Mary is not of necessity but of superabundance of love. In that new superabundance of love, Mary can intervene as a mediatrix of love, for she is our mother. A mother is not on the side of justice but on the side of mercy, of superabundance of love. That is, I believe, what we should understand today: that Mary is our mother in the superabundance of love.

What is most important today is not necessity or justice but the superabundance of love. And it is to the extent that we welcome Mary into our lives that she can share her maternal mercy towards us. This is what the Holy Father wants to teach us. Like St. Maximilian Kolbe and many others greatly devoted to Mary, he loves her very much. I would say that devotion to Mary is more than devotion because it is based on the Word of Jesus, for it is a matter of faith that Mary is our Mother. Her universal motherhood is not a matter of sentiment or private devotion but is an integral part of our faith, our hope and our charity. Jesus creates a new relationship with her so as to make her fully ours. No doubt all the apparitions of Mary have come about in order to convince us that something very special is happening and that we must renew our faith and hope in the second coming of Christ. That is the way we should look on Mary - as the one who comes to us as the Mother of the poor making us the poor children of the poor Christ.