Our Mother The Church

 

To My Readers: This week my guest poster, Dominic Caggeso, reminds us of how the Church is truly our Holy Mother, in fact, not merely as a pious title. Feel free to comment as usual. If you have a specific comment or question for me, I will respond as always, but it may take me a bit longer to do so this week. 

God bless you all, my dear readers---Introibo

Our Mother The Church

By Dominic Caggeso

Gratia non tollit naturam, sed perficit (Summa Theologiae, Part 1, Question 1, Article 8, Response 2). “Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it.” Another way to interpret this quote from St. Thomas Aquinas is with the phrase, “Grace builds upon nature.” Essentially, God’s grace perfects our natural temperaments and dispositions in our pursuit of holiness. Throughout Catholic history, saints have pursued holiness and perfection, each manifesting these virtues uniquely due to their individual characteristics and the diverse natural environments in which they lived. The natural world served as their starting point, but God’s grace elevated their natural traits towards heavenly goals and aspirations.

In a broader sense, the natural world provides a foundation for understanding the supernatural world. By using comparison and metaphor, we can build upon our understanding of the natural world to grasp supernatural realities. In this way, the expression “grace builds upon nature” applies not only to individuals but also to various aspects of the wider world.

In the Gospels, Our Lord often uses natural realities to illustrate supernatural truths. For example, the parables of the mustard seed, the sower, and the pearl of great price are metaphors from the natural world that help us understand the Kingdom of Heaven. 

By employing this method of analogy, frequently used to deepen our understanding of Faith, we can draw some striking comparisons to the natural realities of family and childbirth. These comparisons offer a way to view Our Heavenly Father, Our Mother the Church, and our birth into Eternal Life. 

The New Adam and New Eve

Our Lord is known as the “New Adam.” While the old Adam disobeyed God by eating from the tree, the New Adam gave His life in submission and obedience to God by being hung on a tree. The old Adam brought sin and death into the world, whereas the New Adam brought forgiveness of sin and eternal life.

Similarly, Our Lady is known as the “New Eve.” Just as Eve, through her disobedience, brought about the fall from grace, Our Lady, through her obedience, brought about our redemption. By saying “yes” to God’s plan at the Annunciation, She became the Mother of God.

Moreover, Our Lady is also considered a type of the Church, as she exemplifies the Church’s mission and identity. As Our Lady nurtured and brought forth Christ, the Church nurtures and brings forth “other Christs”. To illustrate this, let me quote St. Augustine:

“Come on now, friends, think of how the Church, which is plain enough, is the bride of Christ; what’s more difficult to understand, but is true all the same, is that she is the mother of Christ. The Virgin Mary came first as a representative figure of the Church. How, I ask you, can Mary be the mother of Christ except by giving birth to the limbs and organs of Christ? You people, to whom I’m speaking, you are the limbs and organs, the members, of Christ. Who gave you birth? I hear you answering to yourselves, “Mother Church.” This holy and honorable mother is like Mary in that she both gives birth and is a virgin. That she gives birth I can prove by pointing to you; you were born of her; she gives birth to Christ, because you are the members of Christ.”  (Sermons of St. Augustine 72a para. 8)

Thus, if Our Lady is a model for the Church, can we also say that the Church is a New Eve? Allow me to draw some analogies with the old Adam and Eve.

The first Adam was created by God before Eve was created. Adam was put into a deep sleep, and God opened his side to remove a rib, which He made into Eve. Eve was bone of Adam’s bone and flesh of his flesh. Similarly, Our Lord preexisted the Church, His Bride. When Our Lord died on the Cross, His side was opened, and from it flowed blood and water, which is what the Church was formed from. St. Bonaventure illustrates this by saying:

“It was a divine decree that permitted one of the soldiers to open his sacred side with a lance. This was done so that the Church might be formed from the side of Christ as he slept the sleep of death on the cross”

Thus, Adam was put in a deep sleep during which his side was opened. God formed Eve from his rib. Likewise, during the sleep of death, Our Lord’s side was opened from which was formed the Church. Both Adam and Our Lord went on to “wake up” to meet their brides. 

With the establishment of the Church as Our Mother, we can now draw comparisons between natural motherhood and the supernatural motherhood of the Church.

In the Womb of Our Mother

A natural mother carries her child in her womb, nourishing the baby through the umbilical cord. This nourishment, provided by the mother, fundamentally comes from her husband, the father of the child. The husband sustains the mother, who in turn, through her body, nourishes the child in utero.

Similarly, Catholics are carried in the bosom of our mother, the Church. We are nourished through the Sacraments, which sustain us spiritually and help us grow in grace and virtue. These Sacraments, provided by the Church, are fundamentally given by God. The graces from God come through the Sacraments, just as a baby’s nourishment comes from the father through the intermediary of the mother’s body.

A natural child in the womb intimately knows its mother. The child hears her voice directly, feels her touch, and is comforted by her heartbeat, which forms the background of life in utero. In contrast, the father’s voice is muffled and obscure. The child is familiar with the loving father’s voice but not as intimately as the mother’s. The child hears the mother’s interactions with the father’s voice, understanding their love, but it is the mother whom the child knows through firsthand experience.

Likewise, Catholics intimately know our mother, the Church. We hear sermons, smell incense, and ponder the heavenly wisdom spoken through the Church’s words and writings. We can touch the Church and, in a manner of speaking, know its heartbeat. However, the voice of our Heavenly Father is more challenging to discern directly. We know the Church and Our Lord love each other, and we witness the Church’s response to our Heavenly Father.

Born into a New World

In the womb, a child is content with its familiar environment, seeing no reason to leave the only life it has ever known. If one could communicate with a child in the womb, it would be impossible to describe the outside world. One might tell the child about the wonders and experiences awaiting outside the womb—walking, tasting food, breathing, speaking, meeting people, and smelling flowers. However, the child would have no way to understand or conceptualize any of this.

Similarly, Catholics are content in the womb of our mother, the Church. The thought of leaving this world can be frightening, as it is all we have ever known. If someone from Heaven tried to communicate the joys of Heaven to us, we would not be able to comprehend them. This is most eloquently expressed in 1 Corinthians 1:9

“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him.”

As the mother begins the process of giving birth, the child’s life in the womb changes dramatically. The womb contracts, causing distress for the child. The only home it has ever known starts to shrink around it. Signs of trauma are evident as the child’s heartbeat increases and its body is flushed with adrenaline. Pushed by the contractions, fearful and crying, the child is born into the world.

Similarly, on our deathbed, we may fear the unknown. Our bodies begin to shut down, pushing us toward death, much like contractions. We are forcibly removed from our life on earth, the only life we have ever known. Finally, we die and are born into the new world of eternal life.

Just after birth, the father is traditionally invited to cut the umbilical cord, as the baby no longer needs nourishment from it, having entered the world.

Similarly, the Sacraments of the Church are available to us only on Earth, while we are in the womb of Holy Mother Church. Once we are born into Eternal Life, we will no longer need the Sacraments.

Meeting Our Father Face to Face

The voice of the father, often heard obscurely while in the womb, will now be heard clearly and distinctly by the child. The child will finally see his father’s face, be held by him, and live in his house.

Likewise, once we are born into the eternal life of Heaven, we will see Our Heavenly Father’s face for the first time. We will live in the house He has prepared for us and experience the bliss of His loving care for all eternity. St. Paul indicated this in 1 Corinthians 13:12:

“We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known.”

Conclusion

God has blessed me with a wife and children. Though it has been a long time, I still remember the exhilaration and anticipation of my wife’s first pregnancy. As young parents, we followed the stages of our child’s development in utero, speaking and singing to him, and preparing our home for his arrival. The experience of childbirth is unforgettable—witnessing the actual birth and holding the child for the first time. What a grace God bestows on us to participate in the creation of a new soul that will exist for all eternity.

As great as this experience is, it is but a shadow of our supernatural end in Heaven. A nine-month pregnancy might seem long, especially for the mother, but it is just a brief moment in the child’s entire natural life on earth. Likewise, our time in this world might seem long, but compared to an eternity in Heaven, it is absolutely short. Therefore, let us focus on Eternal Life and not on this world.