One time, I was at Adoration with a group of very mature in the faith Catholic women. This was in a private chapel. We said the rosary together and during the rosary, it was clear that all of us were being moved in a special way. In my mind's eye, I could see Mary, Our Mother, kneeling before the Eucharist and bowing her head. Others felt very keenly the Presence of God, the Holy Spirit. Mary was in the room, like she was at Pentecost with the apostles.
Mary did not need to receive the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. She lived her entire life, in her entire being in the Trinity. Quite rightly is Mary the Co-Redemptrix, the Mediatrix of All Graces.
I hope this present pope declares this as a dogma. A new life would enter the Church in great power if this dogma were declared to the entire world.
The Holy Eucharist is the Bread that comes from our Heavenly Mother. It is Bread produced by Mary from the flour of Her immaculate flesh, kneaded into dough with Her virginal milk. St. Augustine wrote, “Jesus took His Flesh from the flesh of Mary.“
We know, too, that united to the Divinity in the Eucharist there is Jesus' Body and Blood taken from the body and blood of the Blessed Virgin. Therefore at every Holy Communion we receive, it would be quite correct, and a very beautiful thing, to take notice of our Holy Mother's sweet and mysterious presence, inseparably united with Jesus in the Host. Jesus is always the Son She adores. He is Flesh of Her flesh and Blood of Her blood. If Adam could call Eve when she had been taken from his rib, “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh“ (Gen. 2:23), cannot the holy Virgin Mary even more rightly call Jesus “Flesh of My flesh and Blood of My blood“? Taken from the “intact Virgin“ as says St. Thomas Aquinas, the flesh of Jesus is the maternal flesh of Mary, the Blood of Jesus is the maternal blood of Mary. Therefore it will never be possible to separate Jesus from Mary.
For this reason at every Holy Mass which is celebrated, the Blessed Virgin can repeat with truth to Jesus in the Host and in the Chalice, “You are My Son, today I have generated You“ (Ps 2:7). And justly St. Augustine teaches us that in the Eucharist “Mary extends and perpetuates Her Divine Maternity“, while St. Albert the Great exhorts with love, “My Soul if you wish to experience intimacy with Mary let yourself be carried between Her arms and nourished with Her blood“ ... Go with this ineffable chaste thought to the banquet of God and you will find in the Blood of the Son the nourishment of the Mother.
Many Saints and theologians (St. Peter Damien, St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, St. Bernadine ... say that Jesus instituted the Eucharist above all for Mary and then through Mary, the Universal Mediatrix of All Graces, for all of us. And from Mary therefore Jesus comes to be given to us day by day; and in Jesus is always the Immaculate flesh and the Virginal blood of His Most Holy Mother which penetrates into our hearts and inebriates our souls. In an ecstasy during the celebration of Holy Mass, St. Ignatius of Loyola contemplated one day the reality revealed by this most sweet truth and he remained celestially moved for a long time.
Furthermore, if we reflect that Jesus, the Fruit of Mary's immaculate womb, constitutes all of Mary's love, all of Her sweetness, all of Her tenderness, Her whole riches, Her whole life, then we see that when we receive Him we cannot fail to also receive Her who, by ties of the highest love, as well as by ties of flesh and blood, forms with Jesus one unity, one whole, as She is always and inseparably “leaning upon Her Beloved“ (Cant. 8:5). Is it not true that love, and above all divine love, unites and unifies? And aside from the Unity in the bosom of the Blessed Trinity, can we think of a unity more close and total than that between Jesus and the Virgin Mary?
Mary's purity, Her virginity, Her tender ways, Her sweet manner, Her love, and even the very features of Her heavenly face — all these we find in Jesus; for the most holy humanity assumed by the Word is wholly and only Mary's humanity, on account of the great mystery of the virginal Conception accomplished by the Holy Spirit, Who made Mary Jesus' Mother, while consecrating Her as a Virgin that would be forever undefiled and glorious in soul and body.
And thus “The Eucharist,“ writes St. Albert the Great, “produces impulses of a love that is angelic, and It has the unique power to put in souls a holy feeling of tenderness toward the Queen of Angels. She has given us what is Flesh of Her flesh and Bone of Her bone, and in the Eucharist She continues to give us this sweet, virginal, heavenly banquet."
Finally, in the eternal generation of the Word in the bosom of the Trinity, the Father gives Himself wholly to the Son, Who is “Mirror of the Father“, similarly in the temporal generation of the same Word in the bosom of humanity, the Mother of God gives Herself wholly to the Son, to Her Jesus, “the virginal Flower of the Virgin Mother“ (Pius XII). And the Son in His turn gives Himself wholly to the Mother, making Himself similar to Her and making Her “fully Godlike“ (St. Peter Damian).
St. Peter Julian Eymard, that Saint so totally devoted to the Eucharist, declared that even in this world, after Jesus' Ascension into Heaven, the Blessed Virgin “lived a life in and by the Blessed Sacrament“; and thus he liked to call Her “Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament.“ And Padre Pio of Pietrelcina would sometimes say to his spiritual children, “Do you not see the Madonna always beside the tabernacle?“ And how could She fail to be there — She who “stood by the cross of Jesus“ on Calvary (John 19:25)? Therefore St. Alphonsus Liguori, in his book of devotions, used to always join a visit to the Blessed Virgin Mary to each visit to Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. And Saint Maximilian M. Kolbe used to recommend that when we go before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, we never fail to remember Mary's presence, calling on Her and associating ourselves with Her, at least seeing to it that Her sweet name comes to mind.
