The Marian character of the Lenten Season (1)

This is the first post in a series for Lent 2009. It introduces a basis for seeing how the position of the Virgin Mary in the life of the Church can be related to the season of Lent, and indicates the themes that will be taken up in later posts. Expect one post a week, as these are going to be the allocutios for our Legion of Mary praesidium during the coming weeks.

The Marian character of Lent

The Second Vatican Council, in indicating the principles for the reform of the Sacred Liturgy, teaches that:

The season of Lent has a twofold character: primarily by recalling or preparing for baptism and by penance, it disposes the faithful, who more diligently hear the word of God and devote themselves to prayer, to celebrate the paschal mystery. This twofold character is to be brought into greater prominence both in the liturgy and by liturgical catechesis.[1]

Under the heading, “Mary the sign of created hope and solace to the wandering people of God”, the Second Vatican Council also teaches:

In the interim just as the Mother of Jesus, glorified in body and soul in heaven, is the image and beginning of the Church as it is to be perfected in the world to come, so too does she shine forth on earth, until the day of the Lord shall come, as a sign of sure hope and solace to the people of God during its sojourn on earth.[2]

And Pope Paul VI, at the closing of the third session of the Second Vatican Council, solemnly decreed that the Virgin Mary should be invoked as “Mother of the Church”, a title to which he referred again in the solemn profession of faith that he gave on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul in 1968:

“…we believe that the Blessed Mother of God, the New Eve, Mother of the Church, continues in heaven her maternal role with regard to Christ’s members, co-operating with the birth and growth of divine life in the souls of the redeemed”.[3]

Pope Paul VI’s references to the “birth and growth of the divine life” indicate how the maternal role of the Virgin Mary can be related to the two-fold nature of the Lenten season. This becomes more explicit in Pope Paul VI’s Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus:

Mary is also the Virgin-Mother ….. exemplar of the fruitfulness of the Virgin-Church, which "becomes herself a mother.... For by her preaching and by baptism she brings forth to a new and immortal life children who are conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of God."The ancient Fathers rightly taught that the Church prolongs in the sacrament of Baptism the virginal motherhood of Mary.[4]

Expressions of the Marian character of the Lenten season

The Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary contains five Masses for use during the season of Lent. These suggest the following themes in reflection on the Marian character of the Lenten season (1) Mary as a disciple of the Lord (one Mass), (2) the Virgin Mary standing at the foot of the cross (two Masses), (3) the mutual entrusting of Mary and the members of the Church expressed in the dialogue “Behold your son … Behold your mother” (one Mass) and (4) Mary as the Mother of Reconciliation (one Mass).

Though not presented in the context of the season of Lent, two Masses of the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, also reflect a baptismal nature of Lent.

The Way of the Cross, a devotion associated with the Lenten season, contains two stations that are particularly linked to the Virgin Mary: the fourth station (Jesus meets his Mother) and the thirteenth station (Jesus is taken down from the Cross).

In the Mysteries of the Rosary, the Mysteries of Light can be associated particularly with the period between Christmas and the Easter Triduum. Of these, the third mystery (the preaching of the kingdom and the call to repentance), the fourth mystery (the Transfiguration) and the fifth mystery (the institution of the Eucharist) have a connection to the season of Lent.

[1] Vatican II Sacrosanctum Concilium n.109
[2] Vatican II Lumen Gentium n.68.
[3] Pope Paul VI Credo of the People of God n,15
[4] Pope Paul VI Marialis Cultus n.19.