The Question We Must Answer

In our last meditation, we discovered something essential: The Holy Spirit gives the life of Christ to us. The Holy Spirit forms Christ within us. The Holy Spirit directs the Christian life. So a question arises: If the Holy Spirit does everything, then why do we need Mary? To answer that, we need to better understand who the Holy Spirit is and how He works.

The Catechism gives us the first insight: God “made all things by himself, that is, by his Word and by his Wisdom,” that is, by the Son and the Holy Spirit. (CCC 292) The Holy Spirit is identified with Wisdom. About Wisdom, Jesus says something striking. He said, “Wisdom is justified by her children.” (Luke 7:35)

Jesus describes Wisdom as a mother. So we must ask, “What does this reveal about the Holy Spirit?”

Wisdom 

In the Old Testament, especially in Proverbs, Sirach, and Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom is not presented as an abstract idea, but as a person, speaking, acting, and relating to us. There are many different legitimate ways of understanding Wisdom. However, one really rich and interesting way is to see Wisdom as the Holy Spirit. 

In Sirach 24:18–19, Wisdom is described as a mother who is the source of grace and virtue. “I am the mother of beautiful love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope. In me is all grace of the way and of the truth; in me is all hope of life and of virtue.”

Here, Wisdom is not only personal, she is maternal. She contains the fullness of grace. She generates love, knowledge, and hope within us. This same reality is deepened in the Book of Wisdom chapter seven, which describes the Holy Spirit this way, “And so I prayed, and understanding was given me; I entreated, and the spirit of Wisdom came to me. I esteemed her more than scepters and thrones; compared with her, I held riches as nothing. I reckoned no priceless stone to be her peer, for compared with her, all gold is a pinch of sand, and beside her silver ranks as mud. I loved her more than health or beauty, preferred her to the light, since her radiance never sleeps. In her company all good things came to me, at her hands riches not to be numbered.”

Then Scripture makes a stunning statement, “All these I delighted in, since Wisdom brings them, but I did not yet know she was their mother.” (Wis 7:12)

Wisdom is described as our mother and the source of all grace.

What Wisdom actually does

Now we must look closely at what Wisdom actually does: She can do all things. She is all-powerful. She is unchanging, she is immutable. She makes all things new. She passes into holy souls. She makes them friends of God. She makes them prophets. The New Testament describes the Holy Spirit in the very same way: The Spirit is all-powerful and unchanging. The Spirit makes us new -Titus 3:5. The Spirit enters holy souls and makes us temples of God (Rm 8:9). The Spirit makes us not only friends of God but sons and daughters of God (Rm 8:14-15).

The Creed tells us the Holy Spirit has spoken through the prophets. Wisdom 8:1 says, “She deploys her strength from one end of the earth to the other, ordering all things for good.” Now listen to what Paul says about the Holy Spirit in Romans 8. Everyone moved by the Spirit is a son of God. The Spirit helps us in our weakness and intercedes for us according to the will of God. Then immediately Paul writes, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God.” (Rom 8:28)

In other words, the providential ordering attributed to Wisdom in the Book of Wisdom is attributed to the Holy Spirit in Romans. In other words, what Scripture attributes to Wisdom, it attributes to the Holy Spirit. Scripture therefore reveals that the Holy Spirit acts in a profoundly maternal way, not from the outside, but by entering within, forming, nurturing, and bringing to birth the life of God within us.

A Pattern Emerges

Finally, in Sirach 15:2, Scripture says of Wisdom, “She will come to meet him like a mother and receive him like a virgin bride.” Here, Wisdom or the Holy Spirit is described with four characteristics, feminine, maternal, bridal, and virginal. This reveals something essential about how the Holy Spirit acts: receptively (like a virgin bride who receives), fruitfully (like a mother who gives life), and interiorly (forming that life from within).

These four characteristics reveal how the Holy Spirit acts in a maternal way by receiving, by giving life, and by forming that divine life from within. Where do we see this receptive and fruitful action made visible?

The Question Deepens

Now we return to our question. If the Holy Spirit gives the life of Christ, forms the life of Christ, and directs the life of Christ…and if Scripture reveals that the Spirit acts in a maternal way…then how does this hidden action become visible?

Where do we see the maternal work of the Holy Spirit concretely lived out? And here the Church gives us an important clue. The Catechism teaches us: The Church’s Tradition has often read the most beautiful texts on Wisdom in relation to Mary. (CCC 721) That is striking.

Scripture reveals the Holy Spirit as Wisdom, which acts in a maternal and life-giving way. And the Church reads those same passages in relation to Mary. Therefore, Mary has a unique relationship with the Holy Spirit. What is hidden in the Holy Spirit becomes visible and concrete in Mary. 

So the question is no longer, if we have the Holy Spirit, why do we need Mary? But how does the Holy Spirit carry out a maternal mission through her? 

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