St John, in a state of rapture, beheld a great vision consisting of a series of scenes shown to him by the Holy Spirit, which he recorded for us in the Book of the Apocalypse, including this one described for us in the first reading of today’s Mass: ‘A great sign appeared in the heavens, a woman clothed with the sun, standing on the moon, and a crown of twelve stars upon her head.’ The vision of the unnamed woman is understood by the Church to be a sign of the Mother of God, for even though there are clearly some discrepancies between, on the one hand, the figure of the woman here and her son, and on the other hand, the Mother of God and her divine Son, the prophetic nature of the vision allows different applications to be made. The Church has no hesitation in seeing this woman as in some sense symbolic of the Mother of God for a very important reason.
The first of those reasons lies in the place the woman occupies here: she is a sign in heaven, and a sign points to some other, greater reality than itself. She is the sign of victory, of God’s victory, and of mankind’s sharing in it. Yet the image of the woman also stands for Eve, whom we first encountered at the opposite end of the Scriptures, in the beginning of the Book of Genesis, where she was described as both the Mother of all the living, and the victim of Satan’s deceit, for she was drawn by him into the rebellion against God which has marked him from his creation and will see him eternally damned. His hatred was the motive that brought him to seek the destruction of mankind, made in God’s image. And he was successful, as we learn in Genesis, or so he thought. For God was not prepared to leave the matter there. He promised Eve that her offspring would succeed where she had failed, and that a descendant of hers would crush Satan’s head even though Satan, the serpent, would bruise that descendant’s heel. Hence in Eve’s motherhood lay hidden the promise of her future salvation.
This is why the figure of the woman in the Apocalypse is seen to be about to give birth to a male child. This is why Satan, no longer the serpent but a huge red dragon, seeks to destroy that child in whom is based the entire hope of Eve’s progeny that they will defeat their ancient hateful foe.
When we are told that the woman is in birth pangs, again we understand that this does not refer directly to the Mother of God, as she brought forth her divine Son without the pangs of childbirth due to sin, but rather it refers to her in her role as Mother of the Church and her children in baptism for whom she feel the spiritual pangs of childbirth. For until that time when the entire race has passed through its time of travail, until the Second Coming of her Son and the bringing together of all creation in Him, Blessed Mary will continue to be a Mother full of solicitude and care for us and all her offspring, constantly and relentlessly under attack from the dragon who is Satan.
Eve and Mary: the two women who are both called ‘mothers of all that live’. Yet as Eve’s fall to the devil’s malice was devastating, it is also finite. For her descendant, Mary’s Son Jesus, has won a greater destiny for mankind, which is infinite. St Paul tells us that ‘where sin abounded, grace abounded even more’, and nowhere is this more truly seen than in the contrast between Eve and Mary. For Mary has undone by her obedience all that Eve lost by her disobedience. Mary’s triumph is infinitely greater than Eve’s fall, and as Eve has passed on the effects of her fall to us, so Mary passes on the effects of the triumph she shares with her Son to all of us who accept Him, to whom Jesus gave power to become the children of God.
Over a century ago, Our Blessed Lady appeared to three little children in Fatima over the course of several months. But in the last of these appearances she manifested her power and glory in a ‘signum magnum’, a great sign, seen by a great host of witnesses, many of whom had previously been totally sceptical. It is highly significant for us that that great sign in the heavens was the miracle of the sun. For in the Apocalypse, as we heard in the first reading, St John tells us that the woman he saw was clothed with the sun. The golden sun is her vesture, just as we have also just heard described in the Responsorial Psalm, which in the words of ps. 44 said that ‘the daughter of the king, exceedingly beautiful, is bedecked with golden robes’, and we can hear the amazement of the angels as they gaze in wonder, crying out, ‘who can this be, who sets forth like the sun itself?’ At Fatima the sun did her bidding, at the will of her divine Son, the Lord of creation, and its extraordinary motion, seen by thousands, was described by them as a kind of ‘dance’. Whatever this sign means, it is truly a sign both of power and of joy. For who is this woman, ‘who comes forth like the dawn, resplendent as the sun, and terrible as an army in battle array?’ (Cant. 6:10)
It is to greet her that, as today’s Alleluia verse before the Gospel so ecstatically proclaims, that ‘the angels rejoice’, and there is a text from St Andrew of Crete which adds, ‘let the angels rejoice and let them dance!’ at the triumphal entry to heaven of the sinless Mother of God, the Mother of Grace, the Mother of all that live in Christ, the Mother of eternal life. And as Mary’s grace abounded far more than Eve’s sin, then Mary’s triumph becomes also the promise of Eve’s triumph too, and of all her progeny. So then, if the angels rejoice at this, and sing and dance like the sun at Fatima, how can we, who are Mary’s children and destined to follow her, not also sing and dance with joy on this wonderful festival, the triumph of Mary, and her entry into eternal light and glory? For Mary is our mother, and her triumph is our triumph, for which may God her Son be eternally thanked and praised. Amen.
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