Maria is ready for everything, for the Messiah's fate must surely be a fate unheard of, but what this “everything” will specifically be, Maria does not know. And it is precisely this that plunges her entire life into a cloud of anxiety. Even before her Son can personally raise her, she is already being prepared.
The shame of a pregnancy, whose secret must not be revealed, and Joseph's embarrassment are a bitter prelude.
Symbolic speech speaks to her through the rejection in Bethlehem, as the time of birth approaches, and the subsequent flight.
This kind of symbolic language flickers in the prophecy of the sword that will pierce her heart.
And this sword is now in the hands of her Son. He is twelve years old when he gets lost to her – and as soon as she finds him, he gives her an answer that she does not understand. This misunderstanding then hangs ominously over her life.
When her Son leaves her, he gives her no information about what he will do; he introduces her to nothing, relying on what is whispered.
In Cana, even though he cares for the poverty of the hosts in spirit, she receives a terse rejection: his hour has not yet come, it is not the same as her hour (that will only be on the cross).
When his relatives think he is crazy and she visits him with them, she is not welcomed.
When a woman from the crowd blesses her breasts, Jesus immediately changes the subject: blessed are those who hear and keep the word of God. Surely, Maria received and kept it first, but now she is lost among all those who are to do it according to her; her bodily breasts, which nourished the Incarnate Word, are not worthy of mention now.
From darkness and loneliness, Maria is drawn out only at the final scene, at the cross she must be present, not to hear the final comforting word, but: “Woman, here is your son!” Her Son, who continually distanced himself from her, slips away definitively and presents her with another son. She no longer has any other form of community with her Son than the one that comes into play right now: Just as the Son is forsaken by the Father, so the Mother is forsaken by the Son – in this, they are now one.
(…)
It becomes clear why Maria also had to be raised by the Son for the “last” place. For only in this place, where the last sinner is reached, redemption occurs, and only in this place can the Church gain, understand, and fulfill its role.
(Hans Urs von Balthasar /1905–1988/, excerpt from the text Priestly Spirituality)
