In the Acts of the Apostles after the risen Lord's ascension into heaven,

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In the Acts of the Apostles after the risen Lord's ascension into heaven,

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Title: In the Acts of the Apostles after the risen Lord's ascension into heaven,

1

In the Acts of the Apostles after the risen
Lord's ascension into heaven,
the disciples returned to Jerusalem.
"When they entered the city they went to the
upper room where they were staying, Peter and
John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas,
Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus,
Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All
these devoted themselves with one accord to
prayer, together with some women, and Mary the
Mother of Jesus, and his brothers"
(Acts 112-14).

This is the first image of that community,
the communio ecclesialis,
which we see described in a detailed way in the
Acts of the Apostles.
It was a community gathered by the will of Jesus
himself, who, at the time he was returning to the
Father, ordered his disciples to remain united in
expectation of the other event he had announced
"I am sending the promise of my Father upon you.
But stay in the city until you are clothed with
power from on high"
(Lk 2449)

The evangelist Luke introduces us to that first
community of the Church in Jerusalem by reminding
us of Jesus' own exhortation
"Eating together with them, he enjoined them not
to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for
'the promise of the Father about which you have
heard me speak
for John baptized with water,
but in a few days you will be baptized with the
Holy Spirit'
(Acts 14).

The first Church community,
which was to be revealed in broad daylight on the
day of Pentecost by the coming of the Holy
Spirit,
results from an order of Jesus himself,
who gave the Church her own "form."
Jesus made this arrangement while
"eating together with them"
(Acts 14).

When returned to the Father,
the Eucharist became for all time the expression
of the Church's communion.
At this meal in Jerusalem
Jesus was visibly present as the risen Lord,
who celebrated with his friends the feast of the
bridegroom who had come back among them for
awhile.

After Christ's ascension, the little community
continued its life.
"All these the apostles devoted themselves with
one accord to prayer, together with some women,
and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers"
(Acts 114).
The first image of the Church is that of a
community which is devoted to prayer.
All were praying for the gift of the Holy Spirit
who had been promised them by Christ even before
his passion, and again, before his ascension into
heaven.

Prayer
--prayer in common
is the basic feature of that "communion" at the
time when the Church began,
and so it will always be.
This is evidenced in every century
--and today as well
by prayer in common, especially liturgical
prayer,
in our churches, religious communities and in
Christian families.

The author of the Acts of the Apostles
accentuates their being devoted to prayer,
a constant and,
one would say,
regular prayer,
well ordered and attended by the community.
This is another feature of the ecclesial
community which remains an example for all
generations to come.

Luke emphasizes the "unanimity" (homothymadon)
of this prayer.
This fact highlights the communal meaning of the
prayer.

10
The prayer of the early community --as would
always be the case in the Church expresses and
serves this spiritual "communion," and at the
same time it creates, deepens and strengthens it.
In this communion of prayer the differences and
divisions which come from other material and
spiritual factors are overcome. Prayer produces
the community's spiritual unity.
11

Luke also emphasizes the fact that the apostles
devoted themselves with one accord
"together with some women, and Mary the mother of
Jesus, and his brothers."
In this case, cousins related to Jesus are called
brothers and are mentioned in the Gospels at
certain moments in Jesus' life.

12
The Gospels also speak of the presence and active
participation of quite a few women in the
Messiah's work of evangelization.
13

Luke attests in his Gospel
"Accompanying him Jesus were the Twelve and
some women who had been cured of evil spirits and
infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, from whom
seven demons had gone out, Joanna,
the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, Susanna, and
many others who provided for them out of their
resources"
(Lk 82-3).

In Acts, Luke also describes how the situation in
the Gospel continued at the beginning of the
ecclesial community.
These generous women gathered in prayer with the
apostles.
On the day of Pentecost they were to receive the
Holy Spirit along with them.

In the early Church there was already a lively
experience of ecclesial community, in regard to
which the Apostle Paul would say,
"There is neither male and female
for you are all one in Christ Jesus"
(Gal 328).

Already the Church was being revealed as the seed
of the new humanity which was called in its
entirety to communion with Christ.
16
Luke wants us to note the presence of Mary, the
mother of Jesus, in that first community (cf.
Acts 114). We know that Mary did not
participate directly in Jesus' public activity.

However, John's Gospel shows she was present at
two decisive moments
at Cana in Galilee, when the "beginning of the
messianic signs" took place through her
intervention, and at Calvary.

Luke in his Gospel highlights Mary's importance,
especially at the annunciation, visitation,
birth, presentation in the Temple and during
Jesus' hidden life in Nazareth.
In Acts, Luke teaches us how Mary, having given
human life to the son of God,
is now in turn present at the Church's birth
present in prayer, silence,
communion and hope-filled waiting.

Gathering up the expressions of the 2000-year
tradition which began with Luke and John, Vatican
II, in the last chapter of the Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church,
highlighted the special importance of Christ's
mother in the economy of salvation which takes
concrete form in the Church.

She is the figure of the Church (typus
ecclesiae), principally in regard to union with
Christ.
This union is the source of the communio
ecclesialis. Therefore, Mary is with her Son at
the origin of this communion.

The presence of Christ's Mother in the apostolic
community on the day of Pentecost was prepared
for in a special way at the foot of the cross on
Golgotha, where Jesus gave his life
"to gather into one the dispersed children of
God"
(Jn 1152).
On the day of Pentecost this "gathering into one
of the dispersed children of God" started
occurring through the action of the Holy Spirit.

Mary
--whom Jesus gave as mother to the disciple whom
he loved and through him to the apostolic
community of the whole Church
was present in
"the upper room where they were staying"
(Acts 113),
to obtain and serve the strengthening of that
communio
which by Christ's will his Church was meant to be.

This is valid for all time,
for the present moment as well,
when we are especially aware of the need for
recourse to her who is the type and mother of the
Church's unity.

We read "The entire body of the faithful pours
forth urgent supplications to the Mother of God
and of men that she,
who aided the beginnings of the Church by her
prayers, may now, exalted as she is above all the
angels and saints, intercede before her Son in
the fellowship of all the saints,
until all the families of people, whether they
are honored with the title of Christian or
whether they still do not know the Savior,
may be happily gathered together in peace and
harmony into one People of God, for the glory of
the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity
(LG 69).

The Council urges us to this in a text which
summarizes Christian doctrine and tradition.
24

It is not surprising then that we read in a
recent article by Rev Charles Dicksona Lutheran
pastor for 30 yearsPublished in the July/August
'94 issue of The Catholic AnswerOur Sunday
Visitor200 Noll PlazaHuntington, Indiana
46750Phone (800) 348-2440

The agony that a mother experiences when her
children are squabbling and fighting among
themselves may be a fair analogy to describe the
agony the Blessed Virgin Mary must experience
amid the quarrels between the disciples of her
Son.
In view of this, it is not surprising that the
bishop of Osnabruck in Germany has suggested that
Mary be regarded as the patroness of ecumenism,
the rallying point where Christians of all
varieties may find unity, common goals and mutual
love.

26
A significant part of the divisiveness between
Catholic and Protestant traditions has indeed
been the place of the Virgin Mary in both faith
and practice.

Yet we must recognize that the split has been
magnified beyond its real dimensions
by misunderstandings on both sides,
with Protestants accusing Catholics of using Mary
to replace Christ and Catholics accusing
Protestants of completely ignoring her position
in Christian history.
In the long run, both accusations are unfounded
and serve only to further splinter the family of
Our Lord at a time when that family needs
desperately to pull together.

If healing is to take place,
both sides need to move beyond the point of
polemics and into the arena of honest dialogue.
When this happens,
we, the sons and daughters of one Lord and
Savior, will begin to experience the reality of a
family.

While present-day Protestants generally cringe at
the suggestion of the Blessed Virgin being a
viable part of faith, this was, ironically
enough, not a problem for the Protestant
reformers.
As Lutheran theologian Harding Meyer recently
observed,
"Luther, Melanchthon and Zwingli not only did not
question teachings about Mary, they explicitly
adopted them."

These teachings included
the Virgin Birth,
the doctrine of the Theotokos ("Godbearer,"
Mother of God),
the semper virgo (perpetual virginity) of Mary
and the sanctification of Mary as advocated by
St. Bernard, St. Thomas Aquinas and others.
And even as practices of Marian piety and
devotion emerged, with which they may have had
some questions, they did not view them as
problems of sufficient magnitude to divide the
Church.

Having said this, we now recognize that the
arguments about Mary which have served to divide
the Christian family are not those which emerged
from the concerns of the original Protestant
Reformers but rather from the petty bickering
that has arisen since their time.

The job for both Catholics and Protestants in our
day then becomes one of healing.
We need to search diligently for ways of
unburdening the Mariological problem that has so
splintered our efforts at unity.

These efforts are crucial when we realize that
our divisiveness not only affects high-level
theological discussions but also the everyday
lives of the laity in areas as fundamental to
life as marriage and the Eucharist.
In all these efforts,
the Blessed Mother of Our Lord waits with open
arms for her children to cease their quarrels and
become a family again.
She can truly be the bridge for Christian unity.

The starting point for building such unity is the
recognition by all that Jesus is our Savior and
Lord.
Mary, by God's decree, is always a part of that
relationship.
Jesus was and is God, perfectly human and
perfectly divine.
Mary, by never being divine or never having been
considered a deity, lends her person to being
human in the same sense as you and I.
She does not belong to Catholics and Orthodox
alone.
She belongs to all of us who profess her Son as
Savior.

The Marian festivals of the early and medieval
Church were Christ-centered, and the Reformers
wished to continue them.
They viewed them as opportunities to focus on the
Incarnation and not as some type of evil practice
inconsistent with the Christian Faith.
These included the Purification of Mary (Feb. 2),
the Annunciation (March 25)
and the Visitation of Mary (May 31),
as well as Advent and Christmas.
Subsequently, all but the last have been dropped
from most Protestant observances and, with this,
an opportunity to emphasize not only the central
act of the Incarnation but the role of the
Blessed Virgin in salvation history as well.

Luther referred to Mary as
"God's workshop"
and went on to say,
"As the Mother of God, she is raised above the
whole of human kind"
she "has no equal."
Contrast this with the modern Protestant attitude
that criticizes Marian devotion in the belief
that it detracts from the central and unique
place Christ occupies in human salvation,
and one begins to get a picture of the current
crisis of division.

What Protestants have had difficulty
understanding are the intentions of Catholic
teachings about Mary.
In the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption
teachings, it has not been the intention of the
Catholic Church to elevate Mary to divine status
but rather to show her as the shining model of
Christian hope, indeed the hope for all mankind.
Such a rereading and enlightened understanding on
the part of the Protestant community will help to
refocus the attention of the entire Christian
world on Mary, not as a point of division but as
the real bridge of unity for us all.

The Second Vatican Council is slowly but steadily
eroding the Protestant misconception that
Catholics replace Christ with Mary as the world's
redeemer.
Pope John Paul II, in a homily at the Basilica of
St. Mary Major, said that
"Mary's role is to make her Son shine, to lead to
Him, and to welcome Him."
Such a statement can hardly be conceived of as
some form of Mariolatry
rather, it is a genuine expression of a
Christ-centered faith made more real by devotion
to His Blessed Mother.

What both Catholic and Protestant communities
must overcome to accomplish what Harding Meyer
calls an "unburdening" of the past is to refocus
on the Blessed Virgin as a source of unity rather
than division.
The basis of this "fundamental consensus" is Mary
as the Theotokos, or Mother of God, deserving of
praise and devotion.
Moving from this point, we can allow for the
different practices of Marian faith and piety
that appear in the Church, and we can exhibit the
flexibility that does not view such different
practices as worthy of dividing Christ's one,
holy, catholic and apostolic Church.