Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament
by Fr. Francis D. Costa, S.S.S.
This name was first given to Mary in 1856 by Saint Peter Julian Eymard, the modern apostle of Eucharistic adoration. A few years later, he described what her statue should look like: "The Blessed Virgin holds the infant in her arms; and he holds a chalice in one hand and a host in the other." Speaking to his novices on the first of May 1868, Saint Eymard exhorted them to invoke Mary as follows: "Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, pray for us who have recourse to thee!" Later, Pius IX enriched the invocation with indulgences. Twice, Saint Pius X did the same.
"This title, Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, is perhaps the most meaningful of all," said Saint Pius X. A study of the reasons why Mary deserves this title would bear this out. She is still the mother of Jesus who is present in the Holy Eucharist; she had a unique share in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross; and as mediator of grace with Christ she obtains all the help we need to love and honor Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament at Mass, in Holy Communion, and through visits to the real presence.
MARY AND THE REAL PRESENCE
There is a strong natural tie between Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and Mary, his mother. Jesus is just as really her son now as he was when he was first born in the cave at Bethlehem. She was the first ciborium, the first tabernacle. In a sense, Mary gave us the Blessed Sacrament when she gave Jesus His body and blood.
Surely, no one could appreciate and love the Holy Eucharist as much as Mary did. More than anyone else she realized how much divine love is symbolized by it. And she foresaw the vast amount of spiritual good this sacrament would bring down upon the souls of all. Daily Mass and Communion consoled her after her son left this world. Her life became a continual thanksgiving or preparation for the gift of this sacrament. Her spotless purity was equaled only by her luminous faith that pierced the veils of the sacrament somewhat like the radar bean that sees through the fog or the darkness of the night. For her, the Holy Eucharist was a perpetual reminder of the humble hidden life of Jesus. It was a graphic reflection of the mortal life of her son. She saw again the child wrapped in swaddling clothes; she saw the poverty and simplicity of Nazareth; she saw his blood in the chalice and, as it were, his lifeless body in the hands of Saint John at the altar. And even now, when we look at the host in adoration, when we kneel in faith before the tabernacle, Mary is there with us. She is not there physically, bodily, she is there with us in thought and devotion; she is conscious of your acts of homage rendered to her son. More, she is influencing you by the interior inspirations of divine grace she has obtained from God for us. She has led us to the Blessed Sacrament. She is helping us grow in appreciation and love.
MARY AND HOLY COMMUNION
Saint Cyril of Alexandria and other fathers of the church compare the union of the communicant with Christ to the fusion of fire and metal when iron is melted into a white-hot liquid. Or they compare the act of Communion to the illumination of the air by the rays of the sun. This was best realized when Mary received Holy Communion. Her transformation into Christ cannot be equaled. Consider how there was a natural resemblance between Jesus and His mother. He took after her alone, having no human father. Now, by a reversal of influence, a supernatural resemblance is perfected in Mary by her son; Jesus transformed her soul more and more into His divine nature. He did this by increasing the divine life of grace in her soul. He was restituting to her, so to speak, the gift of life; the life He bestowed upon her, however, far surpassed mere human life. And he gave her this divine life abundantly. What Saint Thomas Aquinas, our leading theologian, wrote about the ideal growth of grace is applicable here. The degree of grace in the soul should increase not by simple addition of grace to grace but by geometric progression, like the speed of a falling stone, pulled to the earth by the force of gravity. The closer a soul comes to God, the more it is attracted to him. In other words, the more love of God you have, the more faith and devotion you will inject into your acts; and this in turn will win more abundant divine gifts for your soul. Mary's heart was full of love for God and so she always received a rich harvest of grace from every Communion. Mary is the model communicant. She teaches us to be hungry for this heavenly bread. We see our ideal in her frequent, fervent Communions.
MARY AND HOLY MASS
We all know that "it is the Mass that matters." We can expect then to learn something about the devotion to the Mass from the Blessed Virgin. In fact, it is easy to see that Mary should not be separated from the holy sacrifice because she enjoys a unique relationship to it as our co-redemptress. She played a sublime role at the foot of the cross of her son, and each Mass renews, re-presents the saving death of Christ. The only difference is in the manner in which the sacrifice is offered, namely, there is no shedding of blood on the altar; now Christ's death is sacramentally reenacted by means of the twofold consecration, first of the body of Christ and then of his precious blood. The principal priest and victim are the same ― Jesus, the son of Mary.
Mary's cooperation in the sacrifice of her son went beyond the physical fact that she was his mother. For the last hundred years particularly, the popes have several times pointed out that Mary was not a mere spectator or just a sympathetic, sorrowful mother on Calvary. No, she stood there as the associate of Christ our redeemer. She accepted the mysterious divine will of the Father; she echoed the obedience and love of Jesus; she, like her Son, submitted completely to the plan of God. She was the New Eve alongside the New Adam, restoring the life of grace to the world. And today Mary is still uniting her own sentiments to those of the priest-victim at every Mass, just as she renewed her sacrifice as she assisted at daily Mass celebrated by Saint John. Today she looks beyond the visible minister at the altar to the eternal high priest.
More than any other human being, Mary knew that the heart of sacrifice is the sacrifice of the relation to daily Mass; every personal sacrifice, every act of virtue, the duty of the moment, her social relations, even her moments of relaxation ― all this was accepted as the will of God and offered to Him in union with the holy sacrifice of the Mass. This is a precious secret. Here is a clear reason why "it is the Mass that matters."
The last time Mary is mentioned by name in the Scriptures is in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 1, verse 14: "All these (disciples) with one mind continued steadfastly in prayer with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." This was immediately after the ascension; they gathered together to await the coming of the Holy Spirit. Already Mary began in a limited way her function of mediatrix of grace. She is the only one mentioned by name; already she is the spiritual center of the Christian community. And in the next chapter of the Acts, we read the specification: "And they continued steadfastly in the teaching of the apostles and in the fellowship of the breaking of the bread and in the prayers." There is no doubt this phrase means what we today call Mass and Holy Communion; and Mary was there. The two verses are complementary. She belongs there because of her special share in the holy sacrifice. This is represented pictorially in some of the early paintings in the catacombs and in the earliest churches, for example, on the ancient door of Santa Sabina. Between the apostles Peter and Paul, Mary is shown standing, with arms outstretched in prayer (as an orante) to symbolize that she is the mediatrix, the channel, of those graces bought to us by Christ's ministers. And Mary is a special mother to all priests because she is the real mother of the high priest in whose name they offer sacrifice and administer the sacraments.
And we see from these texts from the Acts that Mary is also the model of Eucharistic action. Even though she was saddened by the departure of Jesus, she did not pass her time in nostalgic reverie or languid melancholy. Rather, she was active in the daily liturgy, and she preached by her example. As mediatrix of all grace, she had ample intentions to pray for.
The most valuable inscription, perhaps, to come down to us from Christian antiquity is the epitaph of Abercius, carved into stone in the year 216. It is now in the museum of Saint John Lateran in Rome. It is a beautiful witness to Christian faith in the Holy Eucharist, written in symbolic language so that only believers could decipher the Christian meaning. Starting with line twelve, we read:
And faith was my guide through all and everywhere (faith) gave me for food the fish, mighty, out of the spring, and pure, which the unsullied virgin took (or, conceived), and (faith) gave it to each of her friends forever, having the choicest wine and ministering it mixed together with the bread.
The meaning of this is absolutely certain. The "fish" is the common symbol of Christ in the early church. This is due to the Greek word for fish (ichthus), the letters of which stand for "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior." In the first and second centuries, a picture of a group around a table on which is a platter with a fish is at that time just as clear a sign of the Eucharist as is today a chalice surmounted by a host. (For instance, there is a marble slab from the third century which shows fishes eating consecrated wafers of bread. This means that Christians, who are "other Christs," have the privilege of receiving Holy Communion). Now, it is significant that our Blessed Mother is presented in close relation to Christ under the forms of bread and wine. She is the one who "caught" the fish; the Greek word also means "to conceive."
In 1921, the Sacred Congregation of Rites authorized the Blessed Sacrament Congregations to celebrate each year, on the 13th of May, a "solemn commemoration of the Blessed Virgin," with the intention of honoring Mary under the title of "Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament." And, of course, this feast is still celebrated today with great joy by all the spiritual sons and daughters of Saint Peter Julian Eymard.
When Saint Eymard was called by Mary to found the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, he was a Marist. In fact, he was second in dignity to the Superior General (who was also the Founder of that Institute). But Mary made it clear to him that he must sacrifice his happiness in the Marist Order and start the grueling work of organizing a group of men who would dedicate themselves to adoration of the Holy Eucharist. Saint Eymard reiterated this many times: it was Mary who led him to the priesthood; it was Mary who led him from the Diocesan priesthood to the her own religious Congregation (the Marists); and it was Mary who literally forced him to become her instrument in presenting to her son two new Congregations entirely dedicated to the honor and glory of the real presence. Thus, for personal reasons too, Saint Eymard was convinced that Mary is indeed "Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament."