MARIALIS CULTUS 50th anniversary

Mary, the Virgin presenting offerings

Mary is, finally, the Virgin presenting offerings. In the episode of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, the Church, guided by the Spirit, (…) has detected in the heart of the Virgin taking her Son to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord a desire to make an offering, a desire that exceeds the ordinary meaning of the rite. A witness to this intuition is found in the loving prayer of Saint Bernard: "Offer your Son, holy Virgin, and present to the Lord the blessed fruit of your womb. Offer for the reconciliation of us all the holy Victim which is pleasing to God". This union of the Mother and the Son in the work of redemption reaches its climax on Calvary, where Christ "offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to God" and where Mary stood by the cross, "suffering grievously with her only-begotten Son. There she united herself with a maternal heart to His sacrifice, and lovingly consented to the immolation of this victim which she herself had brought forth" and also was offering to the eternal Father.

PAUL VI, MARIALIS CULTUS, February 2, 1974