Home of the Mother

The Eucharist and Our Lady

By Fr. Jesús Castellano, OCD

Father Jesús Castellano is a discalced Carmelite, Professor of Sacramental Theology and Spirituality in the Teresianum Faculty. He is also a consulter for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Office of the liturgical celebrations of the Pope. Recently, he has taped a series of interviews for HM Radio on the Eucharist, due to the Year of the Eucharist proclaimed by the Pope on October 17, 2004. From these interviews, we have selected these articles for HM Magazine.

-Does a real relationship exist between the Virgin Mary and Christ’s Sacrifice which is made present in the Eucharist?

As the Pope reminds us in the sixth chapter of the encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, there are some very strong relationships between Mary and the Eucharist. All this does not depend on a type of devotion, but has very deep roots: first of all, by recognizing in the Eucharist the Body and Blood of the Lord. In the Eucharistic Prayers and in the professions of faith, it is always said that what we have in the Eucharist is the very Body of Christ, born of the Virgin Mary. This is a key to the relationship between the Eucharist and the Virgin Mary, because what we have in the Eucharist is what we have received from Mary: the Body and Blood, that is to say, our own humanity. This is why it is not strange that St. Augustine wrote this
phrase, “The flesh of Christ is the flesh of Mary.” It is what St. Thomas also sings in his hymns for Corpus Christi: “This Body, born from a generous womb.” Also in the Ave Verum, “Ave, Verum Corpus natum ex Maria Virgine.” So, therefore, this would be the first of the keys. As there is a relationship between the Incarnation and the Eucharist, there is a relationship between Mary – the protagonist of the Incarnation – and the Eucharist.

There is definately another indissoluble tie between the Virgin Mary and the Eucharist: the presence of Mary at the foot of the Cross. Since the Eucharist is the memorial of Christ’s sacrifice, we cannot ignore Mary’s presence there. It was not simply a presence but rather, as many times we are told in Church documents, a union to the very oblation of Her Son, including offering the Sacred Victim – Vatican II says – and offering Herself as well with Him. This is why Paul VI also reminds us in Marialis Cultus that Our Lady offers, Our Lady makes the oblation.

Lastly, we have a reminder from the Pope: The Virgin Mary lived in the early Church after Pentecost and participated with the Church in the breaking of the Bread.
A fundamental fact is that in all of the Eucharistic prayers there is a mention of Mary. At least one mention, many times there are more.
The oldest – the one from the apostolic tradition – mentions Her when it recalls that the Lord was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. Also, when we commemorate the saints we ask for the intercession of the Virgin Mary, as it is in the Roman Canon: “United in one communion, we venerate the memory, first, of the glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of our God and Lord Jesus Christ.” This is present in all the Eucharist prayers in the East and West.

The most living presence of Mary in the Church, the most objective, the most real, is that which takes place every time we celebrate the Eucharist. This is why we remember Her and ask Her intercession.

There is also a very curious and beautiful fact. In the Oriental, Byzantine, liturgies, both that of St. John Chrysostom and of St. Basil,
when mention of Our Lady is made in the preface, a solemn incensation of the Body and Blood of our Lord is done and a “theotokos” is sung, that is to say, a Marian antiphon in honor of Our Lady.

In the Ethiopian Church, in the preface, there is a mention of the Virgin Mother of God and another of Mary Daughter of God, where this mystery of the Virgin Mary is also sung.

Also, in the Akatistos hymn, in the 21st verse, it says that Mary is the life of the Sacred Banquet. I love to stress some very simple prayers, very beautiful prayers, which show great filial devotion. For example, in the Ethiopian liturgy, it is said to Our Lady in the Eucharist, “You are the basket of this Bread of burning flame, and You are the chalice of this wine; oh, Mary, you have produced in your womb the fruit of this which is now our oblation.” And also, “Oh, Virgin, You have made bear fruit this which we are now going to eat, you have made come forth from You that which we are now going to drink. This is the Bread which comes from You, it is the Bread which gives life and salvation to all who eat with faith.”

There has always been in the Eastern and Western Church this profession of the relationship between the Virgin Mary and the Eucharist, both in what we refer to as the Presence and also in the Sacrifice. And we can also say, in a unexaggerated form, that when we receive in Communion the Body and Blood of Our Lord we cannot ignore
that, with Christ, we are also in communion with the Virgin Mary. And this seems to me to be fundamental for an authentic devotion.

-The proclamation of the Year of the Eucharist was proceeded by the Year of the Rosary. During this year the Pope insisted that we have recourse to the Blessed Virgin in order to meditate on the Mystery of Jesus Christ. What does the homage paid to Mary contribute to that paid to the Eucharist, and vice versa?

There is such a reciprocity between the mystery of Christ and the mystery of Mary, that this following of the Year of the Rosary by the Year of the Eucharistcan favor a better knowledge of Our Lady and of Christ. Our Lady is the only person who is a witness of the entire Mystery of Jesus, from the moment when He descends to Her womb in the Incarnation until He ascends to His Father. She alone is the one who guards all the secrets of Her Son’s life. She guards them in Her heart and afterwards transmits them to others. Mary is the evangelizer of Jesus. The apostles received much from her, above all about the early years of His life, about the Incarnation and His life in Nazareth.

No one understands Jesus like She does, no one can teach us like She. Maybe it is for this reason that John the evangelist, is the one who has the deepest and most perfect knowledge of Jesus: the depth of the meaning of His divinity, who the Incarnated Word is, who Christ is as Light and Life. Maybe this is fruit of the fact that John was entrusted to Our Lady. A renovation of the homage paid to Our Lady, a better appreciation of who She is, is also a guarantee that we will be able to better know Jesus, that we may be contemplators of His mystery and be able to live much more united to Him. She helps us to enter into a profundity which only Mary can have in the comprehension of Her Son, and which She wishes to give to those who want to penetrate into the mystery of Jesus, into the intimate life of Jesus.

-Can the undervaluation of the homage paid to Our Lady imply an undervaluation of the Mystery of the Eucharist, as has happened in the churches separated from us?

It could be. I do not know whether the lack of Eucharistic worship is a consequence of the lack of Marian veneration. What I can say is that a Catholic vision, an orthodox vision of Mary’s place in the Church is what takes us to an understanding of the totality of the Mysteries. We can never think about Mary without the Church, nor about the Church without Mary. We need to remember always how, at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, we are told that Mary was with the apostles in union, in communion, persevering in prayer. Mary is the one who gives the profound meaning to that which is the Mystery of Her Son. As John Paul II tells us in Redemptoris Mater, Mary takes all the members of the Church to the Eucharist, because the greatest desire of the Mother is to take the children, whom Jesus has given her, to the complete knowledge of Christ. And I believe that we do not have a complete knowledge of Christ until we discover the Eucharist. This is why Our Lady is a guarantee of faith in the Eucharist, of the communion of the Church, of the totality of the mystery. And with the same realism with which Mary felt that within Her womb was present the Word of God made flesh, She invites us to see Jesus truly present in the Eucharist. And with the same contemplative gaze with which Mary saw Her Son on the Cross, She helps us to contemplate the Mystery of the Eucharist as a mystery of the great Love of Jesus, who gave His Body and Blood for us. And as Mary rejoiced in the resurrection of Her Son and is now glorious and resurrected like Christ in the presence of the Father, She helps us to understand this presence of the risen Christ in the Eucharist. Mary brings us to a complete comprehension of the Eucharist.