Without the Holy Sprit you cannot rightly understand the teachings of Jesus.  Without the Holy Spirit you cannot fulfill the Law of Love that Jesus taught us.  The whole purpose of the ministry of Jesus was to communicate the Holy Spirit to His disciples.  That’s why He said, “It is good for you that I go”.  Now, remember what the statement is saying.  Jesus was here.  Jesus was with us.  And He said, “It is good for you that I go, because if I do not go, the Holy Spirit will not come.  But if I go, I will send Him to you”.  That sums up what I’m trying to point out about the role the Holy Spirit should play in the life of every one of us.  So, an authentic Christian is one who is inspired by the Spirit of Jesus.

Now, about the Blessed Virgin Mary, I want to say that She is the One Who fulfills this role of being a Spirit-led Christian more perfectly than anyone of us.  And this can be seen at two different levels.  First of all, you can simply look directly at the pages of Scripture and see that is indeed the case.  It does not take much to recognize Mary in this role of Spirit-led Christian.  But then there is deeper level that presupposes acceptance of the Wisdom that the Church has acquired through its centuries of meditation of the mystery of Mary and through the insights of the mystiques.

So let’s look first simply at the pages of Scripture and see what we can recognize at directly about how Mary was a Spirit-led Christian.  It all begins, of course, at the Annunciation.  But what I want to point out about the Annunciation is something that I think is not often noticed - that the Angel Gabriel proclaimed the Gospel to Mary.  It was put very briefly, of course, but still the essence of it was there - that the Child to be born of Her was to be the Messiah, Who would sit on the throne of David, was to be the Son of God – that’s the Gospel that is proclaimed to Mary.  And Mary believed the Gospel.  Mary was the first Christian believer because She accepted the Gospel as it was presented to Her.  Jesus has not yet proclaimed the Gospel but Mary is already accepting it.  Now, the Holy Spirit is given to those who believe in the Gospel.  That’s the structure of a Christian life – believe what Jesus said and He will fill you with His Spirit.  And so you see this fulfilled, first of all, in the case of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Annunciation.

Then, secondly, Jesus was conceived in Mary by the action of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit is given to all of us to form Jesus in us.  But what a difference - He forms us in the likeness of Jesus but this is Jesus Himself that the Holy Spirit is forming in Mary.  We could reflect for a long time on that.  You might sum it up in this way – that the greatest fruit of the Holy Spirit was the fruit of Mary’s womb.

Mary went from Nazareth to the aid of her cousin Elizabeth.  And I think that we can assume without any question that this was not just a natural sisterly impulse on Her part.  Mary here was following the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  It was the Spirit Who led Her to Ein Karem to assist Her cousin Elizabeth in her need.  And this is what the Spirit is intended to be doing in all of us.  He is to lead us to be there where the Lord wants us to be, to be doing what the Lord wants us to be doing.

When Mary entered Elizabeth’s house, as you knew, at the sound of Mary’s voice, Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and John the Baptist likewise although he only felt it in the womb. And every one of us is called to communicate the Holy Spirit to others.  Our friendly relations, the conversations that we have, these are meant to be not just human conversations but also contact points for the Holy Spirit.  And I think in gatherings like this, people are often very sensitive of that fact that this is not just fun to be together but we are really sharing the Holy Spirit with one another.  Well, here you have the supremest of something – when at the sound of Mary’s voice, Elizabeth and John were filled with the Spirit.  And that is, of course, the beginning of the ministry that the Church recognizes in Mary from then on.

Mary’s response was the Magnificat – “My soul magnifies the Lord, and My spirit rejoices in God, My Saviour”.  But if you read this, in the line of the teaching of St Paul, surely this is the first and most perfect example of what St Paul speaks of spiritual canticles.  He is calling all of us to praise the Lord with spiritual canticles.  Here is Mary doing this under the immediate and direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  And likewise, we see and simplify the fact that when we serve the Lord in the Holy Spirit, we do not do so reluctantly, but we do it gladly, joyously, generously, as far as we can.  And certainly, there is the spirit of gladness and praise of God you see in Mary’s Magnificat.

For nine months, Mary carried Jesus in Her womb.  Now, any mother naturally finds in her whole psychology this focus on the child that she is bearing within her, and above all, in the case of our Mother Mary, Her first Child.  He is the focal point of everything that She thinks of, that She does.  This would be the case of Mary also, of course.  But in this case, Jesus is the One on Whom Her attention is focused.  It is Jesus, the Son of God and the Saviour, Who is the center of Her life and of everything that She does.

After nine months, Jesus was born, and Mary now not only thought of Him, worshipped Him, but now She could hold Him in Her hands, hold Him to Her breasts, She could see Him, She could hear His cries.  One day, a perceptive theologian has pointed out that this was where Mary discovered the reason for Her senses.  It wasn’t for seeing or hearing all the other things in this world, it was that She could see Jesus, and touch Jesus.  This was the reason for everything in Her.

Any mother is naturally devoted to the baby that she cares for.  But other mothers can be a little bit self-centered and self-seeking, even in this loving generosity of theirs.  Mary was One led by the Holy Spirit in all Her affections so that it was a pure disinterested devotion to Jesus.  The Jesus that She cared for was the Son of God, was Her God, and all of Her motherly devotedness to Him was a relationship with God.  Contrast Her situation with ours.  Jesus is given to us in the Blessed Sacrament.  And you know what a horrid time we have in paying attention to the Blessed Sacrament.  Even when we are in His presence, how easily we are distracted, how little fervor we feel most of the time.  Well, Jesus is Mary’s Sacrament.  Mary didn’t need other sacraments, at this time in any way.  Jesus Himself was Her Sacrament under the action of the Holy Spirit that was accorded to Her.

And so, in the course of the years, She cared for Him, feeding Him, washing Him, and clothing Him, as any other mother does with devoted care.  And the Holy Spirit did not, in any way, diminish Mary’s devotedness to Her Child.  On the contrary, He intensified it but He sanctified it.  Everything that Mary did in Her motherly care for Her Baby was an act of worship, was an act of religion.  And for all other mothers, Mary can be a role model.  No one else is given that privilege with Jesus Himself in Her arms.  All other mothers still can imitate Mary so far as they can in their caring for their little one.

Mary did not understand everything about Her Son.  When Jesus was lost in the temple, She asked Him, “Son, why have You done this to Us?”  Mary was living in faith as we all are living in faith.  Things could be a question for Her, things could be puzzling and disturbing to Her – that is part of a life of faith.  That is not a result of a fault or defect.  That is simply inherent in the life of faith that we live.  But the Holy Spirit inspired Mary so that She took into Her heart what Jesus said even when She did not understand it, and She meditated on it.  And She had done likewise with the news given to Her by the shepherds at Bethlehem.  She took all these things into Her heart and kept them there, reflecting on them.  This is what the Holy Spirit teaches us all to do about the words and the deeds of Jesus.

Mary saw Her Son pass from babyhood to childhood to youth to becoming a grown man.  As all of you mothers and fathers know so well – this is a kind of marvel and an education to see the development of your infant.  For Mary, it was likewise.  Only it was the mystery of the Son of God that was unfolding His petals before Her.  Every day was a new catechism lesson, if I can put it that way as Jesus grew and opened out and expressed Himself more fully to Her.

The time came when Jesus set to leave Her home and go about the preaching of the Gospel to others.  That must have been a very painful time for Mary but under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit we can have no doubt that Mary’s attitude there was a canticle with what as she had been at the moment of Annunciation, and as it would be on the hill of Calvary.  “Let it be done according to Thy Word”.  This is God’s will, and this Mary accepted without resistance, painful as it was.

During the months that Jesus was preaching the gospel, no doubt Mary was also able to be there as part of the crowd, but recognized the difference there was.  The apostles were there being instructed.  All the other people were there listening to what Jesus had to say, but Mary was the only one of the listeners who already had the Holy Spirit.  And the result is that nobody else understood what Jesus was saying, nobody else took Him on the right sense, only Mary was able, because no one could understand Jesus except by the Holy Spirit, and She was a unique member of that congregation that could take in His words in the sense in which He meant it.  

Those of you who are teachers can image what this meant for Jesus.  You know, it is very disheartening sometimes when you prepare the class carefully and then you got the impression that nobody out there is really understanding you.  But Jesus had to suffer that discouragement more than any of us.  He must have been continually delighted on those days when Mary was able to be there and when He knew that everything He said was being taken into Her heart and receive it.

Now I am not going to try to reflect on what the Holy Spirit did on Mary’s heart at the time of the passion, and the burial of Jesus, and His resurrection.  There we’re getting into a mystery that is a whole subject in itself.  We just know that of all these Mary went through, not as the others did, but led, supported, enlightened and strengthened by the Holy Spirit.  I would simply think this point that it was the Holy Spirit who gave Mary the strength to stand firm at the foot of the cross when the disciples had fled in terror.  And likewise, I would suggest that while Scripture does not tell us anything whatsoever about how Mary learned about the resurrection – we don’t know of any appearances of Jesus to Her - one thing I think we can infer without any question that whatever moment it was, in whatever way it was, the Holy Spirit flooded Mary’s soul with a joy that we couldn’t begin to put words into.

The last point I want to make in this little Spirit-filled history is about Pentecost.  The disciples have been told by Jesus to stay there in the city and wait until they were filled with the Holy Spirit.  And they were there praying for the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit was given in response, no doubt, to their prayer.  But Mary was the only One who was already praying in the Spirit.  It was the Spirit who led and inspired the faith that Mary offered and certainly for that reason we can say that it was Mary’s prayer that brought down the Holy Spirit at Pentecost far more than that of any of the others that were gathered there.

Those are the things that I could say that are easy to perceive simply as you read the Scripture in the light of the general teaching of what the Holy Spirit intends to do into our lives.  To go to a deeper level than that, it is necessary to accept the teaching of the Church on the Immaculate Conception of our Blessed Mother.  This is a doctrine which the Church reflected on for over a thousand years and very carefully discussed in way back and forth before finally defining it as a dogma of faith.  I am not going to justify it here, but it took the Church one thousand years to make up its mind and I don’t think you have time enough.  But if you do accept that the Church has been faithful to the Holy Spirit herself in pronouncing this dogma, then I think it is easy to see how this leads everything that we see about our Blessed Mother to a greater depth.

The Immaculate Conception means first of all that Mary had the Holy Spirit from the first instance of her life.  It wasn’t at the annunciation that Mary for the first time encountered the Holy Spirit.  She had been sanctified by the Holy Spirit from the very beginning.  And, on the other hand, the Immaculate Conception means that there were no flaws in our Lady.  There was no trace of sin to resist the action of the Holy Spirit.  

Now, you know what it is for us to try to follow the inspirations of the Holy Spirit.  Even when we’re determined and we want to be generous and loyal and faithful, you know how the sinfulness that is in us blocks us and stops us and confuses us in so many different directions when we already know where we are going.  Our appetites often took a bigger hold on us, and lead us rather than being led by the Holy Spirit.  Our fears or our laziness inhibit us even if we do have a sense of what the Holy Spirit has in store for us.  Our earthly preoccupations distract us from paying attention to the leading of the Holy Spirit.  Our self-centeredness controls us so that we are not sold to what the Holy Spirit wants of us.

But in Mary, there was none of them.  Mary was a pure human person filled with the Spirit of God.  And so She was fully human.  In fact, more human than sinners are, because sin does not humanize you, it dehumanizes you.  Mary was a unique case of a pure human being filled with the Spirit of Jesus even from the first moment of Her existence.  Even before She knew Him.  She did not know the Holy Spirit yet.  The Trinity was not known in the Old Testament.  It was Jesus who revealed to us the Trinity for the first time.  But Mary was already being led by the Spirit of God from the beginning of Her existence.

And so I think we can probably say that Mary was the greatest natural mystic that the world has ever seen.  By which I mean a person who from the beauties of nature, from all that nature provides, perceives the glory of God, and has a sense of God’s presence and of God’s wisdom.  Mary was likewise the One who fulfilled the Old Testament perfectly.  People in Israel were called to prepare the way for the Messiah but like the people of the New Testament, like ourselves, they are by and large unfaithful.  And in spite of all that the prophets had said and all the great works that have been done through Moses and Elijah and the rest of the prophets, still they were the people that were not ready.  But Mary is the One Who, by the Holy Spirit, live the life of the Old Testament to perfection.  She is the One Whom the whole Old Testament found its fulfillment.  She was ready for Jesus when He came.  Jesus was able to come into the world in spite of the misunderstandings, the lack of interest, all the disloyalty, and all the rest of these around, He was able to come into the world, at least to one person that was ready for Him and could receive Him as He wanted to be received.

Jesus generously bore the cross and allowed Himself to be subjected to all sorts of other suffering but -- I hope He doesn’t mind my putting it this way -- He at least had one little place where He could be received perfectly, lovingly, with the kind of response that He wants, and this was in the heart of Mary, the daughter of Zion, in Whom all the mission of Zion was fulfilled because of the action of the Holy Spirit.

Everything that I said about Mary’s relationship with Jesus during Her lifetime under the action of the Holy Spirit, if we go back over that in the light of the Immaculate Conception, we realize that it was all fulfilled with greater perfection.  We could not understand it otherwise, but I don’t think there’s time enough for us to review any of that now.

Jesus was Mary’s sacrament.  All of us, in our faith, our relating with Jesus, were given contact with Jesus through the sacraments - the simple humble signs by which He was made present to us.  But Mary did not need these sacraments.  Jesus was Her sacrament.

The history of the workings of God’s salvific grace among us is generally divided into those two periods, BC and AD, the time before Christ and the time after Christ.  But I want to point out that there is a third period, the time above Christ, which was the time of Mary alone.  Because the apostles and the other people that were present physically with Jesus during His lifetime were absent from Him in spirit.  They have not yet realized what was going on.  So Mary was the unique person who was present with Jesus in His ministry and lived the fullness of the reality that was there.  And so in between the period before Christ and the period after Christ, I think we have to recognize the age of our Blessed Lady.

Well, how can we sum up all of these?  There are people who speak about Mary as the Incarnation of the Holy Spirit – this, of course, is an exaggerated expression and everybody recognizes that.  The Holy Spirit was not incarnate in Mary the way the Son of God was incarnate in Jesus.  But still then, that is not the same thing – Mary was so totally led by the Holy Spirit and that in a sort of figure of speech, we can say that Mary was the Incarnation of the Holy Spirit.  However, there’s a better expression I think that Louis Bouille (?) has coined when he speaks of Mary as the Icon of the Holy Spirit.  You know how an icon is considered to be not only a picture of that which it represents but also a kind of point of contact so that the spiritual power of the mystery it represented is made present to us somehow mysteriously in the icon.  But certainly whatever you say about other icons, Mary was the One in Whom the Holy Spirit was present with power, and worthy to be attained.

But finally, I think that the best expression of all is the expression that was so dear to St Louise de Manfred (?), to Maximillian Kolbe, and to our present Holy Father – that Mary was the Spouse of the Holy Spirit.  Maximillian Kolbe tells it: “the Holy Spirit and Mary are two persons who live in such intimate union that they have one soul life.”  And therefore, he calls Her the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, and says: “the Holy Spirit wielded her soul from the very first instant of Her existence.  He penetrated Her being with such depths that to call Her the Spouse of the Holy Spirit is the use of a most inadequate, even though correct, comparison to express their union.  I am aware that there are some very fine theologians who object to that term “Spouse of the Holy Spirit”, and some of them are among us.  And there are certainly difficulties with the term that we can’t understand.

But, I think, finally, Maximillian Kolbe has put it very well – Mary’s bond with the Holy Spirit was so intimate, so intense, so complete that the expression “Spouse of the Holy Spirit” was not an exaggeration, rather it’s an understatement.