Mary, Mother of the Church

 

St. Augustine

"But plainly (Mary) is, in spirit, Mother of us who are His members, because by love she has cooperated so that the faithful, who are the members of that Head might be born in the Church.  In body, indeed, she is mother of that very Head."  

On Holy Virginity, 6,6

Hugo Rahner

This is the fundamental doctrine, that Mary is the type or symbol of the Church, and everything we find in the Gospel about Mary can be understood in a proper biblical sense of the mystery of the Church

Our Lady and the Church, p. 13

Henri de Lubac

Everywhere the Church finds in [Mary] her type and model, her point of origin and perfection: ‘the form of our Mother the Church is according to the form of his Mother.’  Our Lady speaks and acts in the name of the Church at every moment of her existence . . . because she already carries the Church within her, so to speak, and contains her in her wholeness, in her own person.

The Splendor of the Church, p. 320

Lumen Gentium

She [Mary] is hailed both as a pre-eminent, and wholly unique member of the Church and as its type and outstanding model in faith and charity…

By reason of the gift and role of divine Maternity by which she is united with her Son, the Redeemer, and with His singular graces and functions, the Blessed Virgin is also intimately united with the Church. As St. Ambrose taught, the Mother of God is a type of the Church in the order of faith, charity, and perfect union with Christ. For, in the mystery of the Church which, itself, is rightly called mother and virgin, the Blessed Virgin stands out in eminent and singular fashion as exemplar of both virgin and mother…

The Church indeed—contemplating her hidden sanctify, imitating her charity, and faithfully fulfilling the Father’s will by receiving the word of God in faith—becomes a mother herself. By her preaching, she brings forth to a new and immortal life, the sons who are born to her in Baptism, conceived of the Holy Spirit, and born of God. She, herself, is a virgin who keeps, whole and entire, the Faith given to her by her Spouse. Imitating the Mother of her Lord, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, she maintains integral faith, firm hope, and genuine charity with virginal purity… The Mother of Jesus, in the glory which she possesses in body and soul in heaven, is the image and beginning of the Church as it is to be perfected in the world to come. Likewise, she shines forth on earth until the day of the Lord shall come (cf. 2 Pet. 3:10), assign of certain hope and comfort to the pilgrim People of God.

#53, 63, 64 and 68