The month of August is traditionally dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary as a particular time to contemplate Mary’s deep maternal love for us, drawing closer to Mary, that we may find a deeper union with her son Jesus.
Oscott is dedicated to Mary, seat of Wisdom, and the beautiful statue that is situated in the Weedall Chantry reveals something of the intimate relationship that exists between Mary and Jesus, who is wisdom and is literally seated upon Mary. In the Main Chapel, there is the statue of Maria Lactans, or the nursing Madonna, which is above the chapel door and carries the inscription, “show yourself to be our mother.”
For many priests and seminarians, devotion to Mary has played, and continues to play, a significant part in our conversion story and our call to discernment and formation for the priesthood and within the priesthood. Perhaps through a pilgrimage to a Marian shrine, the prayer of the Rosary, or the Marian devotion in our parish.
In Sacred Scripture, we can recall the moment when through the beloved apostle, Jesus entrusts Mary to us as our mother. At the foot of the cross there is John and Mary. Jesus speaks to Mary, “This is your son” and to John he says, “This is your mother.” We know that through John, Jesus entrusts every human being to his mother Mary. But, as St John had just been ordained a priest on the previous evening, there is a particularly special relationship that Jesus intends his priests to have with Mary – both in our life and in our ministry.
“He took her into his home.” Pope Benedict reflects upon this saying that the original Greek offers a far deeper, richer meaning: we could say “he took Mary into his inner life, his inner being, into the depths of his being.” So, as priests, in a unique way, we are called to welcome Mary into the whole space of our interior life, to introduce her into the dynamism of our entire existence, including our apostolic work.
The priest needs the love of Mary’s feminine heart to bring him to the fulfilment of the masculine ideal: to be one who protects humanity from all that is detrimental to salvation. Let us for a moment, go back to the scene at Calvary. Mary does this at the Cross by drawing the priest out of his own pain to offer pure masculine love in the midst of her own feminine love. This scene becomes an icon of the relationship between the priest and the Church. God chose Mary to be a guardian of the priest’s dignity and vocation and so the Blessed Virgin Mary calls out of the priest this celibate agape to help him become a husband to the Church and a spiritual father – a strong father, even in his weakness. The priest hands himself over to the Church in her suffering and need – and in turn his life is shaped by hers. . . to be transfigured. . . Mary helps the priest to be a humble, obedient, and chaste minister who is able to witness to charity through complete self-giving.
Mary is with us in a special way as seminarians and priests. She who did not leave her son, even when he went to Calvary, remains with us in our particular mission. Mary knows how to lead and support the priest to victory through the Cross. She assists the priest in the discernment of God’s will, the purification of our intentions, the conformity of our mind to that of Jesus. Mary loves us so that, like Jesus, we may grow in wisdom, age, and grace before God and before men.
