Madonna and Child, Luca Signorelli

“THE Immaculate Mother of God is the model for every mother; her motherhood is the ideal, the basis, the heart, and the goal of all creaturely motherhood. Here in a surprising new way the nature of woman proves once again to be the expression and image of God on earth. The polarity and complementariness of man and woman, which in the interdependence of their different and often opposite characteristics reflects the all-encompassing Oneness of God, appears here in the special relation of mother and child. This is probably the most intimate relationship that there can ever be between human beings.

“In this sense Mary’s Divine Maternity is the most perfect creaturely image and manifestation of the most intimate relation between Father and Son within the Most Holy Trinity. In Mary this is at the same time a spiritual and a bodily reality: bodily, since she is the physical mother of God, and Christ is flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood; spiritually, since she conceived Him “first in her heart and then in her body” (prius in mente quam in corpore). Thus in her own motherhood she becomes the prototype and ideal of all bodily and spiritual motherhood. If God Himself defines the most intimate possible relationship between Himself and a creature as the relation between mother and child, then we can say that all earthly motherhood finds its deepest meaning in connection with the Divine Maternity.

— Fr. Karl Stehlin, The Nature, Dignity, and Mission of Woman, Angelus Press. Kindle Edition

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