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John's dazzling vision of heaven in chapter twelve of Revelation reveals “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Rev. 12:1). Then another astounding sight appears in the heavens, “a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads” (Rev. 12:3). The chapter goes on to portray the ensuing war between the woman and the dragon, between the woman's offspring and the dragon's evil minions. But who are the woman and the dragon, and what is this cosmic conflict all about?

We know the woman by the fruit she bears. “[S]he brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron” (Rev. 12:5). For those who have ears to hear (cf. Mt. 13:9), this description clearly discloses the child's identity. This is an unmistakable allusion to Ps. 2:8-9, where the Lord tells the promised messiah that He will rule all the nations:

Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

Undoubtedly, the woman's child is the long-awaited messiah. Since Jesus is the Messiah, the woman is none other than Mary.

But if the woman is Mary, the Mother of Jesus, why does Saint John simply refer to her as “the woman”? We could ask this same question regarding his reference to the child simply as the “one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron” (Rev. 12:5). Rather than giving us Jesus' name, John employs the rich symbolic language of Israel's prophetic tradition. This symbolism is not esoteric or confusing. Rather, it imbues John's description of the events of salvation history with a rich theological significance. Only the deeply symbolic language of Scripture can do justice to the profound meaning wrapped in the events of salvation history. Just as the description of the child “subduing the nations with an iron rod” draws on salvation history in order to reveal Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah, so the theological significance of the title “woman” is revealed by its allusion to an earlier biblical prophecy.

By calling Mary “woman,” John echoes an important prophecy of the Old Testament—the very first prophecy ever made! In the third chapter of Genesis, immediately after the fall of Adam and Eve, God curses the serpent by saying, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed,” thus describing the perpetual opposition and conflict between the forces of Satan and the descendants of the woman. The Lord continues speaking to the serpent, foretelling that the woman and her seed would conquer the serpent: “[H]e shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). This last line can be a bit confusing, but once it is remembered that the “you” is the serpent, it becomes clear that the “he” who strikes the serpent's head is the male seed of the woman. The serpent in turn can only strike at his heel, thereby signifying the ultimate victory of the woman's seed over the devil. Christian tradition has always seen this passage as the first prophetic promise that a messiah would arise and defeat the demonic enemy. This prophecy has been called the proto-evangelium; this Latin phrase taken from the Greek means the “first gospel,” the first announcement of the good news.

struggle between the serpent and the woman, between his followers (human and angelic) and her descendants. Is John comparing the woman of Gen. 3 (Eve) with the woman of Rev. 12 (Mary)? Yes. His comparison becomes even more obvious once a few of the similarities between Gen. 3 and Rev. 12 are brought into sharp focus. In addition to God, there are three main protagonists in Gen. 3: the serpent, Adam, and the woman. In Rev. 12, there are three main protagonists: the dragon (who in Rev. 12:9 is identified as “that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world”); the messianic child, Jesus (who is the “New Adam” [cf. Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:45]); and the woman. The correspondence is striking. Other details linking the two scenes are the conflict between the woman and the ancient serpent, and the pain of childbirth for both women (cf. Gen. 3:16; Rev. 12:2). John's point is that Mary is “the woman” and that her seed, Jesus, brings about the defeat of the ancient serpent. For John, there is no other way to describe such world-shattering events—the fulfillment of the proto-evangelium and the identification of the long-awaited “woman” and her messianic offspring—than by using the theologically rich symbolic language of Israel's prophetic tradition.

Saint John gives Mary the title “woman” in order to show us that Mary is the

New Eve, the woman prophetically foretold who would bear a child who would

defeat the dreaded dragon. The early Church Fathers, following the lead of Saints John and Paul, also perceived that since Christ was the New Adam, Mary was the New Eve. Saint Irenaeus wrote, “[T]he knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary: What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed through faith.”2 It is worth noting that Saint Irenaeus was a disciple of Saint Polycarp, who in turn was a disciple of Saint John, the beloved disciple. This patristic teaching of Mary as the New Eve traces back to Saint John himself. Thus Mary is the true Eve, the true “mother of the living” (cf. Gen. 3:20).

Eve is the biological mother of us all, but Mary's spiritual maternity surpasses Eve's physical maternity. Eve's glory is eclipsed by her disobedience, whereas Mary's glory rests on her obedience. One is the mother of our fallen nature, the other the mother full of grace. Eve comes at the beginning of creation, and her fall along with Adam's sets the tragic trajectory of the Old Covenant. Mary comes at the dawn of the new era, described in Is. 66:22 as “the new heavens and the new earth,” and her obedience, in harmony with the obedience of the New Adam, sets in motion the triumph of the New Covenant. Thus the ancient motto, “Death through Eve, life through Mary.”

In the contrast made between the Old and New Eve, it must be noted that Mary's faith and obedience are the cause of her fame. Mary is primarily honored for her faith, a faithful obedience through which she became the Mother of the Word. This perspective is important, as is demonstrated in the brief story often mistakenly used to downplay the significance of Mary. Some who misunderstand or are opposed to the dignity and honor paid to Mary cite the following passage as testimony that the role of Mary's motherhood of God is inconsequential to the plan of salvation:

While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brethren! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Mt. 12:46-50).

Some argue that Jesus is minimizing family blood ties (including motherhood) in favor of the call to obedience to the Father's will. This is true, but the conclusion that Mary is therefore insignificant or no greater than any other disciple of Christ is unwarranted and mistaken. The fact that merit is measured not by blood but by obedience to the Father actually affirms Mary's merit. Mary fulfilled the will of the Father perfectly in her life. Her fiat echoes this: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Lk. 1:38). Elizabeth testifies to this when she greets Mary and says, “[B]lessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Lk. 1:45). If Noah, Abraham, David, and many others were chosen to serve God in special ways because of their righteousness, is it not ridiculous to think that God chose His mother at random? Surely Gabriel singles Mary out when he greets her as “full of grace” and then tells her that he was sent because she has “found favor with God” (Lk. 1:28, 30).

It must also be remembered that Jesus said many things that seemed to downplay family ties. But Jesus was not anti-family. He was loosening the natural family blood ties to incorporate people into the true and ultimate family, His Father's family. Next to the Family of God, all other natural family bonds are of relative worth. This is illustrated by the following incident:

Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead” (Mt. 8:21-22).

Behind this seemingly outrageous command of Jesus is a radical revisioning of true family commitments. “The only explanation for Jesus' astonishing command is that He envisioned loyalty to Himself and His kingdom-movement as creating an alternative family.”3 Jesus was tearing down so as to build up. The old family of Adam was being reconstituted into the family of Christ. Far from being left behind in this new family, Mary is to be found at its forefront.

Through Baptism and the Eucharist, Jesus establishes His New Covenant family. In Baptism, we are spiritually born into the Family of God and, through the Eucharist, we partake of the body and blood of Jesus. Therefore all the faithful share the same blood. Christian brotherhood is not just a pious sentiment, but a true kinship bond in the blood of Christ. And since Jesus took His flesh and blood from the Virgin Mary, we who partake of the divine mysteries share a blood tie with Mary. We are truly her children. If we take Jesus as our brother, then we must have Mary as our mother. One of the very last acts of Our Lord was to give His mother Mary to us as our mother.

When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” (Jn. 19:26-27).

The Church has always understood this to signify that Mary was given to all of Christ's disciples, those whom He loves, and that Mary is therefore the mother of all Christians.

Some Protestants have argued against this view. They assert that Jesus is only giving Mary into John's protection and care because He is dying. Of course, Jesus is entrusting Mary into John's care, and vice versa. It is worth noting that this incident confirms the early Fathers' view that Mary did not have any other children, since Jesus would not have entrusted Mary into the care of John

if He had other siblings.

But there is a strong case for showing that more is going on than the conscientious care of a widow. First, Jesus was a prophet, and prophets were known for making symbolic actions. “Isaiah's nakedness, Jeremiah's smashed pot, and Ezekiel's brick come to mind as obvious examples,”4 as well as John the Baptist's living in the wilderness in sparse dress and baptizing in the Jordan. Jesus followed this prophetic tradition in many ways, such as in turning over the money-changers' tables and cursing the barren fig tree—both of which symbolized the forthcoming destruction of the Temple—and in choosing twelve apostles.

In light of these, we must be prepared to see that Jesus' handing over of His mother to His beloved disciple would have symbolic import. In fact, one must wonder why, in recording the greatest event in history, John included his own new relationship to Mary, unless he knew that it had important significance as such for the readers of his Gospel. John's careful description of the Passion of Our Lord puts great significance in every detail. If Jesus' action were not symbolic, why did He not use Mary's and John's names? The title “woman,” as we have already seen, has strong prophetic connotations. Jesus' action only makes sense when understood as the symbolic-prophetic sign that Mary is the mother of all Christians. Mary becomes the spiritual mother of the Body of Christ (the Church) at the Cross. This is clearly how John interprets Jesus' intention. In the last verse in chapter twelve of Revelation, he explicitly states who Mary's children are:

Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of

her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to

Jesus.

It is noteworthy that John is the only one of the twelve who follows Christ all the way to Calvary. Could it be accidental that the disciple closest to Mary was the one who had the courage to stand under the Cross? John was the first to take Mary as his spiritual mother. John therefore stands as a witness and sign that the fruit of Marian devotion is a love for Christ that is as strong as death. John shows that the disciple who takes Mary by the hand is able to follow Our Lord all the way to Calvary. As the Body of Christ goes through its corporate crucifixion, one may well wonder if the only disciples who will not flee in cowardice will be those who, like John, are children of Mary. We must beseech Mary that she will inflame our hearts with the same love and courage that John had on Good Friday.

We ceaselessly recall that nothing must ever make us forget the reality and the consciousness that we are, all of us, sons of the same Mother Mary, who lives in heaven, who is the bond of union for the Mystical Body of Christ, and who as the new Eve, and the new Mother of the living, desires to lead all men to the truth and the grace of her divine Son.5