Mary's spiritual maternity
Christmas is spent heavily devoted to the beautiful teaching and images of the nativity and of Mary’s Divine motherhood, and following on from the passage of the wedding at Cana used by the Church last Sunday, the saints and theologians take particular effort to expand on Mary’s role as spiritual mother of the Church. St. Alphonsus Ligouri, writing on the wedding at Cana, further notes how Mary is “called the salvation of all who invoke her aid.” For her turning to her Son at the wedding shows her role of a mother: firstly the mother of Christ but also as mother of the Church, who cares for her children and wishes them to receive the ultimate good – union with God. In his work The Glories of Mary, Ligouri writes that Mary’s love for her children is intensified through her love for Christ, since He entrusted her to us, and us to her. “Our mother loves us much, because we were recommended to her by her beloved Jesus, when He before expiring said to her, ‘Woman behold they so
