A short conversation on why Jesus came and the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the New Eve
Today’s readings might seem like a downer the day after our celebration of Pentecost, the culmination of the glorious Easter season. And yet, upon closer examination, they remind us why Jesus came and triumphed over sin, death, and the devil — so that he could send the Holy Spirit and transform our lives, enabling us to fully appropriate what he accomplished through his one Sacrifice of Calvary.
In our First Reading, we read how the first Adam broke communion with God, going his own way in committing the original sin that would negatively impact all of his descendants. And how his wife is ironically named “Eve,” because while she is “the mother of all the living” (Gen. 3:20), she and Adam conferred spiritual death upon their children through their disobedience.
But we see hope in Genesis 3:15, known as the Protoevangelium, “the first Gospel,” because the woman’s offspring will forever be opposed to the serpentine demon who caused disunity between God and mankind.
The New Eve
Mary appears as the “New Eve,” as St. Irenaeus of Lyon says, one who undoes the knot of our first mother in giving her “yes,” her fiat, to God’s will for her life. And her Son is the New Adam, as St. Paul states in Romans 5, because he atones for our collective sins through his one Self-Offering on the Cross. He is the New Covenant Passover Lamb, and that’s why none of his bones are broken, as an ensuing verse from today’s reading, John 19:36, affirms. And so, our spiritual emancipation through Christ is far greater than the exodus from mere physical bondage achieved by the offering of the first Passover lambs.
Indeed, Jesus comes to offer us abundant life (John 10:10), and he does so in collaboration with our spiritual mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, for we are “the rest of her offspring, those who keep God’s commandments and bear witness to Jesus” (Rev. 12:17).
[Readings: Gn 3:9-15, 20: Jn 19:25-34]
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