It is well known that it is often difficult
in Holy Scripture to discover whether the direct reference (particularly
in Old Testament types) is to the Mother, or to the Church, of Christ. We are
taught by writers of great authority that our Lordy and the Church are merged
in the Sacred Writings into a mystic unity; for example, already in the second
century St Clement of Alexandria writes: “One only Mother Virgin. Dear it is to
me to call her the Church.” He was speaking in the first place of the Blessed
Virgin (Paed. i. 6). And St Augustine: “His Mother is the whole Church,
because through the grace of God, everywhere she gives birth to the faithful of
Christ” (De Sancta Virg. vi). It is also certain that our Lady represents
and personifies the Church, as for example in her obedience: “Behold the
handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to why word”; and in her
prayer as at Cana: “They have no wine”; and in her submission to Christ: “Whatsoever
he shall say to you, that do ye”; and in her faithfulness to our Lord to the
end. Therefore, we shall not be surprised if we find that some of the few
writers of antiquity who have written on this Vision in the Apocalypse refer it
in the first place to our Lady and others to there can be no doubt that
it is to the Church under the figure of the Blessed Mother of God, who is
represented to us as the Mother, not only of the Man-Child who was to rule the nations
with a rod of iron, but also of “the rest of her seed,” who are expressly
pointed out as Christians “having the testimony of Jesus Christ.” (O. R.
Vassall-Phillips, “Mary, Mother of God,” in The Teaching of the Catholic
Church: A Summary of Catholic Doctrine, ed. George D. Smith, 2 vols. [New
York: The MacMillan Company, 1927, 1961], 1:540 n. 1)
