Mary, Mother of Mercy

O noblest Queen of the world, Mary ever Virgin, who didst bring forth Christ the Lord, the Savior of all, pray in our name for mercy, peace, and salvation.




Today, we celebrate the feast of Mary, Mother of Mercy. After the fall, man became subject to sin, misery, disease and death. God, Who is rich in mercy, gave us two persons filled with compassion and mercy: Jesus, Our Lord and Savior, and Mary, Our Blessed Mother. Jesus became like one of us, choosing to know the profoundest depths of sorrow. Mary, the Mother of Sorrows, became the loving Mother of mankind beneath the Cross. From her witness of the mercy of the cross, she is full of compassionate mercy. Let us entreat her help to ease the suffering of mankind, through her mercy as the Mother of God. As Saint Alphonsus Liguori wrote, “Mary is not only called the Mother of Mercy, she is the Mother of Mercy. And she proved that she is by the loving tenderness with which she helps us all.”

From Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, “Rich in Mercy:”

“These words of the Church at Easter re-echo in the fullness of their prophetic content the words that Mary uttered during her visit to Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah: "His mercy is...from generation to generation.” At the very moment of the Incarnation, these words open up a new perspective of salvation history. After the resurrection of Christ, this perspective is new on both the historical and the eschatological level. From that time onwards there is a succession of new generations of individuals in the immense human family, in ever-increasing dimensions; there is also a succession of new generations of the People of God, marked with the Sign of the Cross and of the resurrection and "sealed" with the sign of the Paschal Mystery of Christ, the absolute revelation of the mercy that Mary proclaimed on the threshold of her kinswoman's house: "His mercy is...from generation to generation."

Mary is also the one who obtained mercy in a particular and exceptional way, as no other person has. At the same time, still in an exceptional way, she made possible with the sacrifice of her heart her own sharing in revealing God's mercy. This sacrifice is intimately linked with the cross of her Son, at the foot of which she was to stand on Calvary. Her sacrifice is a unique sharing in the revelation of mercy, that is, a sharing in the absolute fidelity of God to His own love, to the covenant that He willed from eternity and that He entered into in time with man, with the people, with humanity; it is a sharing in that revelation that was definitively fulfilled through the cross. No one has experienced, to the same degree as the Mother of the crucified One, the mystery of the cross, the overwhelming encounter of divine transcendent justice with love: that "kiss" given by mercy to justice. No one has received into his heart, as much as Mary did, that mystery, that truly divine dimension of the redemption effected on Calvary by means of the death of the Son, together with the sacrifice of her maternal heart, together with her definitive "fiat."

Mary, then, is the one who has the deepest knowledge of the mystery of God's mercy. She knows its price, she knows how great it is. In this sense, we call her the Mother of mercy: our Lady of mercy, or Mother of divine mercy; in each one of these titles there is a deep theological meaning, for they express the special preparation of her soul, of her whole personality, so that she was able to perceive, through the complex events, first of Israel, then of every individual and of the whole of humanity, that mercy of which "from generation to generation" people become sharers according to the eternal design of the most Holy Trinity.

The above titles which we attribute to the Mother of God speak of her principally, however, as the Mother of the crucified and risen One; as the One who, having obtained mercy in an exceptional way, in an equally exceptional way "merits" that mercy throughout her earthly life and, particularly, at the foot of the cross of her Son; and finally as the one who, through her hidden and at the same time incomparable sharing in the messianic mission of her Son, was called in a special way to bring close to people that love which He had come to reveal: the love that finds its most concrete expression vis-à-vis the suffering, the poor, those deprived of their own freedom, the blind, the oppressed and sinners, just as Christ spoke of them in the words of the prophecy of Isaiah, first in the synagogue at Nazareth and then in response to the question of the messengers of John the Baptist.

It was precisely this "merciful" love, which is manifested above all in contact with moral and physical evil, that the heart of her who was the Mother of the crucified and risen One shared in singularly and exceptionally - that Mary shared in. In her and through her, this love continues to be revealed in the history of the Church and of humanity. This revelation is especially fruitful because in the Mother of God it is based upon the unique tact of her maternal heart, on her particular sensitivity, on her particular fitness to reach all those who most easily accept the merciful love of a mother. This is one of the great life-giving mysteries of Christianity, a mystery intimately connected with the mystery of the Incarnation.

‘The motherhood of Mary in the order of grace,’ as the Second Vatican Council explains, ‘lasts without interruption from the consent which she faithfully gave at the annunciation and which she sustained without hesitation under the cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. In fact, being assumed into heaven she has not laid aside this office of salvation but by her manifold intercession she continues to obtain for us the graces of eternal salvation. By her maternal charity, she takes care of the brethren of her Son who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties, until they are led into their blessed home.’”

Mary wants us to think of her as our mother, our Heavenly Mother. Mary, the Blessed Virgin, appeared to Saint Faustina, a mystic who encountered Our Blessed Mother repeatedly throughout her life. In her diary, Saint Faustina wrote: “Once, the confessor told me to pray for his intention, and I began a novena to the Mother of God. This novena consisted in the prayer "Hail, Holy Queen" recited nine times. Toward the end of the novena I saw the Mother of God with the Infant Jesus in her arms. ... I could not stop wondering at His beauty. ... I heard a few of the words that the Mother of God spoke. ... The words were: ‘I am not only the Queen of Heaven, but also the Mother of Mercy, and your Mother’” On another occasion, Our Blessed Mother said to Saint Faustina: "Out of the depths of God's Mercy, I am your Mother.”

Similarly, Our Lady spoke to Saint Bridget of Sweden, whose feast day we celebrated just this week: " I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the door through which sinners are brought to God."

In short, the reason we rightfully call Mary our "Mother of Mercy" is that by God's grace, He created her soul to be the masterpiece of His Mercy in the world. That is, this special gift of grace within her was the foundation of His whole work of mercy in the world—namely the birth, life, Passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Everything about Mary was fashioned by Divine Mercy and for the work of Divine Mercy. No other creature, therefore, so completely manifests God's mercy as does Mary, immaculately conceived, Our Blessed Mother.

Prayer of Mary, Mother of Mercy (written by Saint Augustine of Hippo):

Blessed Virgin Mary, who can worthily repay you with praise and thanks for having rescued a fallen world by your generous consent! Receive our gratitude, and by your prayers obtain the pardon of our sins. Take our prayers into the sanctuary of heaven and enable them to make our peace with God.


Holy Mary, help the miserable, strengthen the discouraged, comfort the sorrowful, pray for your people, plead for the clergy, intercede for all women consecrated to God. May all who venerate you feel now your help and protection. Be ready to help us when we pray, and bring back to us the answers to our prayers. Make it your continual concern to pray for the people of God, for you were blessed by God and were made worthy to bear the Redeemer of the world, who lives and reigns forever. Amen.