Mother May I?

The February 2007 issue of First Things, a magazine that I firmly encourage everyone to read, has an interesting article by Timothy George entitled, Evangelicals and the Mother of God. I think the whole article is important for Catholics and our protestant brothers to read, but one part of the article stopped me in my tracks. It's actually a quote from Pope Benedict XVI (then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger) discussing the development of Christological doctrine:

The Christological affirmation of God's Incarnation in Christ becomes necessarily a Marian affirmation, as de facto it was from the beginning. Conversely, only when it touches Mary and becomes Mariology is Christology itself as radical as the faith of the Church requires.

God's divinity took up our humanity precisely through the surrender of Mary to God's will. It is through Mary's "yes" that God became Man, that divinity and humanity were forever more inseparably linked. This is why Mary is the Mother of the Church. And thus her "yes" echoes down through the centuries. For she isn't just Mother of the Church in a distant "theological" way; rather, in a very real sense she is our Mother, in this place and time--the Mother of All Disciples.

In this, she is our model. As her "yes" united divinity and humanity, so our "yes" continues to make divinity present within the world. We are the hands and feet of Christ. Our lives of intentional discipleship bring forth the love and provision of God for each man and woman on the earth.

I have often forgotten my Mother, this woman of pure discipleship. And yet she holds me, prays for me, lifts me up to Her Son. And so I ask today, Mother may I? May I have the grace through your Son, my Lord Jesus Christ, to follow Him--to surrender my heart to Him as you surrendered everything that you were.

Mother, may I?