There are two topics Catholic audiences are always eager to hear. One is the Eucharist, the inexhaustible riches of the Mass; the other is the Virgin Mary, the holy Mother of Jesus, Son of God, and our spiritual mother.
After their master's death and resurrection, his followers celebrated his memory, especially in liturgy, baptism and the Eucharist. They focused less on precise biographical details of our Lord's life and more on his mission and message, not simply the "life of Jesus," but Jesus as himself the "Word of life."
Given the paucity of details about the life of Mary, the lack of information about her childhood and old age and the comparative rarity of her appearances in the public life of Jesus, is it beside the point to talk about her life and times?
Quite the contrary is true. There is an extraordinary presence of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, in Christian memories from the very start. The Gospels say more about the Virgin Mary than about any other woman, She is part of the "good news" that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
What we know for certain is that the maiden of Nazareth came from a devout Jewish family. Elizabeth, her cousin, and Zachary were "upright in the sight of God." (Luke 1:6) Her husband, Joseph, was "an upright man." (Matthew 1:19). Every year the holy family went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover (Luke 2:41).
St. Luke gives us a wonderfully full "Gospel portrait" of the Virgin Mother of Jesus, present at capital stages in her Son's life--conception, birth, infancy, childhood and manhood. The Virgin of Nazareth, whose name is Mary, receives God's invitation through the message of the angel--the "angelic salutation," which begins the familiar prayer of the "Hail Mary."
In Mary's visit to her cousin, Elizabeth, who is unexpectedly pregnant with John the Baptist, we hear Elizabeth's praise of Mary's motherhood in faith, and her words are incorporated in our "Hail Mary," known by all the world as the "Ave Maria" and sung in countless settings.
When Jesus is twelve years old, he strays from the company of Joseph and Mary on the way home from the Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Mary expresses their anguish to hear her Son's mysterious words about being in his Father's house. Then the certain falls, and Mary shares with Jesus the silence of the long years in Nazareth until her Son begins his public ministry as he preaches about the kingdom of God.
At the end of her beloved Son's death, terrible passion and atrocious death, then his glorious resurrection and ascension, St. Luke tells us in the Acts of the Apostles that the Mother of Jesus was in the upper room with fearful apostles awaiting the outpouring of the Pentecostal Spirit. Hers was an extraordinarily significant presence to the fledgling Church.
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