Maria new Eve

Publish date 26-02-2022

by Anna Maria Del Prete

In the Song of Songs we met the Sulamite, defined as the New Eve for her rediscovered ability to love, lost by the first Eve convinced by the lie of the serpent. It was a prophecy of the true new Eve: Mary, as defined by Justin (100-165) the greatest apologist of the second century and father of Mariology. With this name he wanted to contrast the disobedience of Eve with the obedience and faith of the new Eve, virtues that will lead her to become the mother of the new Adam and of all living beings. The catechism of the Catholic Church drew from him: «many Fathers and doctors of the Church see in the Woman announced in the" proto-gospel "the Mother of Christ, Mary, as the" new Eve "" (CCC411). Mary is prophetically foreshadowed in the promise made to her forefathers who have fallen into sin, as the victor of the serpent, a promise that expresses with full force the all-out struggle whose happy outcome is already looming: "I will put enmity between you and the woman ... she she will crush her head and you will sneak up on her heel "(Gen 3:15). Yet, Mary keeps herself humble and silent totally open to God. Her silence is broken only five times. Her first word, very brief though intense, is her yes of total adherence to the Lord, to the project which is difficult to understand. Being a mother without having "known" the betrothed: humanly incomprehensible, as her whole life will be.

The second word, which strengthens her availability to the Lord: "Here I am the handmaid of the Lord, be done to me according to her word", a total adherence to humility full of love . Thus she began to serve God in that Son that she already carried in her womb and that she will serve until the end, on Calvary. The third word is the Magnificat: a hymn to the Lord for the wonders with which he surrounded her and all her creatures, accompanying them in their history of every time and place.

A story interwoven with divine mercy, which aims at salvation. The fourth word is that of a mother in anguish over the loss of her son to whom, having found him after three days of frantic searching, she asks: "Son, why are we did you do this? " and she receives a harsh answer from Jesus who thus reveals her mission to her. The fifth word expresses a mother's attention to her children and even more to her Son whom she invites to begin her mission. At a wedding table there is no wine, essential for the joy of the spouses and diners. Here too Jesus' response is harsh: "My hour has not yet come." His hour is the hour of Love that sweeps beyond time, making it difficult for creatures - limited by time - to understand the presence of God and his interventions in Cana. The Mother, who knows her son, does not reply and goes directly to her servants: “Do whatever He tells you”. These are her last words that open our hearts to her trust and abandonment to her Son, exhorting us to follow her love for her who only wants our happiness in salvation.


Anna Maria Del Prete
NP November 2021

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