Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church
Yesterday's feast of Pentecost leads naturally today's feast, which focuses on Mary, the Blessed Mother, as mother of the Church.
At the Annunciation, Mary experienced the descent of the Holy Spirit. The angel Gabriel had said to her: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you" (Luke 1:35). Gabriel told Mary that the Lord God would give her Son the throne of David, and that his Kingdom would last forever. But fast forward thirty-three years: Mary's Son had died at a very young age, falsely accused of being a criminal after being betrayed or abandoned by his friends.
But Mary's hope did not die even after her Son died on the cross. After Jesus's ascension to heaven, she led the disciples in preparing for Pentecost in the upper room. She sat with the disciples to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit, even though she had already been overshadowed by the Spirit, such that one could already call her "a temple of the Holy Spirit" (see 1 Cor 6:19). Saint Luke writes in the Acts of the Apostles that "they were all filled with the Holy Spirit" in the upper room in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (2:4). At the Annunciation, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary; now, at Pentecost, Mary watches over the birth of the Church as the Holy Spirit brings forth new life in the disciples. So, on this special day, let us pray that Holy Mother Mary, as the Mother of God and Mother of us all, might lead many people to new birth as God's children by Holy Spirit.