Scripture Readings

• First Reading: Rev 21:1-5a

• Responsorial Psalm: Judith 13:18bcde, 19 (Vulgate 13:23bc-24a, 25abc)

• Alleluia Verse: Luke 1:38

• Gospel: John 19:25-27

Reflection on Today’s Feast

By Fr. Tom Feely, SJ

We are used to seeing images of Mary as a young mother holding her infant son, as a woman in the prime of life devastated by this death, or as a heavenly presence assumed into her risen Son’s glory. These images have never spoken to me, and that troubled me. Devotion to Mary was integral to Ignatius’ spiritual life, but I found it lacking in mine.

 Then a wise spiritual director suggested that I contemplate Mary at Ephesus. The artistic talent in my family passed from my father to my brother but bypassed me. Still, I do share their pictorial imagination, and Ignatian contemplation has always appealed to me. So, I began to imagine Mary at Ephesus: Mary in old age, Mary the matriarch dedicated to the daily tasks of caring for the disciples’ children and grandchildren, Mary established in a modest house in the city that her adopted son, the Beloved Disciple, had chosen as the center of his evangelizing activity.

 In the image I formed, Mary is a grandmotherly figure, seated near a window with sun streaming in. Her skin is wrinkled, her hair is gray, but her eyes are clear and bright. She is momentarily distracted from working the handloom set up in front of her by the antics of a group of toddlers gathered around her chair. Whatever it is they are up to, it has caused her to smile broadly and ruffle the hair of one of them.

 This image of Mary spoke to me. I was blessed to be raised in daily contact with a loving grandmother who ran the household for her working, widowed daughter and who cared for my brother and me as grandparents care: with attentiveness, with wisdom, with indulgence, and with joy. For me, to see Mary in that light helped me feel a devotion to her that I had not felt before.

 I think of a grandmother’s love as a mother’s love without a mother’s anxiety. It is a serene love, a love that watches over a child’s growth but leaves the direction of that growth in the hands of others. It is a reconciling love, a love that helps smooth out misunderstandings. It is a comforting love, a love that knows how to make a child who feels defeated still feel somehow invincible. Most of all, it is a joyful love, a love that takes simple delight in watching growth take place, a love that makes a child glow with the knowledge of being a source of joy.

 In September of 1540, Pope Paul III approved the Formula of the Institute of the Society of Jesus. On April 22, 1541, Saint Ignatius and his companions took their solemn vows as members of the recently approved Society. They pronounced their vows in the Basilica of Saint Paul in Rome before an image of Mary. Today, Jesuits celebrate April 22 as the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Society of Jesus.

 Although it is not liturgically accurate, I like to think of April 22 as the Feast of Mary at Ephesus, Matriarch of the Society of Jesus. I like to imagine Mary holding the Society as a whole and each Jesuit as an individual in a grandmotherly embrace, loving us with a serene, reconciling, comforting, joyful love. Love like that is very empowering, and it seems to me that the love of Mary for all her Son’s brothers and sisters and all their children and grandchildren is just that, an empowering love.

Fr. Tom Feely, SJ, serves as the superior of the Xavier Jesuit Community and as a pastoral minister at St. Francis Xavier Church in New York City.