Readings:
✠ Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 24:14–16
✠ John 19:25–27
“From the beginning, and before the world, was I created, and unto the world to come I shall not cease to be… I took root in an honourable people, and in the portion of my God, His inheritance: and my abode is in the full assembly of saints.”
— Ecclus 24:14,16
“When Jesus therefore had seen His mother and the disciple standing whom He loved, He saith to His mother: Woman, behold thy son. After that, He saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother.”
— John 19:26–27
✠ Introduction
On this Saturday in the Fourth Week after the Octave of Easter (Sabbato infra Hebdomadam IV post Octavam Paschæ), Holy Church gives us a striking pairing of texts. The wisdom of Sirach, personified and radiant, roots herself among God’s people, speaking with a voice echoing eternity: “Before the world I was created.” This eternal figure of Wisdom, traditionally understood by the Fathers to refer mystically both to Christ and to the Blessed Virgin Mary, meets us again at Calvary—silent and steadfast beneath the Cross—where Christ, the Eternal Word, gives her to us as our Mother.
Today’s reflection is centered on Mary as Mater Pulchrae Dilectionis, Mother of Fair Love (Ecclus 24:24, in the Vulgate), and how the Church Fathers saw in both Wisdom and the Woman at the Cross the embodiment of divine charity, humility, and maternity.
✠ Wisdom Incarnate, Wisdom Maternal
Ecclesiasticus 24 is one of the loftiest passages in the Old Testament, and its words have been the subject of profound commentary by the Fathers. St. Ambrose, in his Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam, sees the figure of Wisdom as a type of the Blessed Virgin: “In the person of Wisdom, the Holy Spirit foreshadowed Mary, for Wisdom chose to dwell in her, and through her brought forth the Word.”
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, drawing on the richness of Marian typology, wrote:
“Consider how rightly Mary is compared to Wisdom… For Wisdom built herself a house, and this house is the Virgin Mary, most pure and most adorned with grace.”
Thus, when we read in Sirach, “I took root in an honourable people”, the Church reads this not merely as the settling of divine Wisdom among the Israelites, but as the Virgin’s own spiritual rooting in the people of God, the fulfillment of Israel in her fiat. Her dwelling is with the saints because she is the Queen among them—chosen from before the ages.
✠ At the Foot of the Cross: A New Maternity
The Gospel scene in John 19 is a mystery of silence and power. While creation itself trembles at the Crucifixion, Mary stands. She is not merely present; she is given. The beloved disciple receives more than a filial responsibility—he receives the Church’s Mother.
St. John Chrysostom sees this not as a gesture of human tenderness alone, but a divine act:
“He does not say, ‘Behold the mother of James,’ or ‘Behold My kinswoman,’ but ‘Behold thy mother.’ He bestows a gift that is spiritual, a relationship that transcends blood. She is given to all who love Christ.”
And as St. Augustine explains in De Sancta Virginitate,
“Mary is the Mother of Christ, and therefore she is the Mother of the members of Christ, for by love she cooperated in the birth of the faithful in the Church.”
This moment at the Cross is the blossoming of the seed sown in Sirach 24. Just as Wisdom took root in God’s inheritance, so now does Mary, embodiment of that Wisdom, become the fertile soil of spiritual motherhood for all the redeemed.
✠ A Liturgical Echo of Eternal Wisdom
In this paschal season, the Church contemplates the Resurrection, yet she does not do so in isolation from Calvary. She remembers the One who suffered and the Mother who shared in that suffering. In the traditional liturgy, Saturdays are often kept in honor of the Blessed Virgin. On this Saturday of Paschaltide, the readings gently draw us to contemplate Mary not only in her joy but also in her sorrow.
The Resurrection did not undo the Cross—it fulfilled it. Likewise, the gift of Mary at Calvary was not temporary or limited to John; it is fulfilled each time the faithful turn to her as Mother, as Queen of the Church Militant.
✠ Devotional Application
Let us take up today’s readings as an invitation:
- To dwell with Wisdom by reciting the Litany of Loreto, pondering especially the title Mater Pulchrae Dilectionis;
- To make a brief Act of Consecration to Our Lady, entrusting ourselves anew to her maternal care;
- To reflect during the Holy Rosary, particularly the Sorrowful Mysteries, on how Mary’s presence beneath the Cross flows into her maternal care over each of us.
As St. Louis de Montfort reminds us,
“Mary is the safest, easiest, shortest, and most perfect way of approaching Jesus.”
✠ Conclusion
Today’s Scriptures do not merely narrate—they unveil. The Eternal Wisdom, hidden in shadow and prophecy, bursts forth at the Cross, not only in the redeeming blood of Christ but in the silent offering of the Mother He gives us. Mary stands not as a relic of the past but as a living inheritance: the dwelling place of Wisdom and the womb of the Church.
May we, the portion of her God, learn to dwell with her, to be formed by her, and to know her as our own—Mother of Christ, and in Christ, our Mother.
“And I took root in an honourable people, and in the portion of my God, His inheritance.”
—Ecclus 24:16
“Behold thy mother.”
—John 19:27
✠ Regina Sapientiae, ora pro nobis.