And we learn from Mary to have a heart that is open and universal in its outreach. We need to go a step further and perhaps this is another dimension that Mary teaches us as particularly relevant for today. And that is mutual love. In John’s Gospel we read that on the eve of his death, Jesus gave the new commandment of mutual love.

On the Cross, the following day, he entrusted Mary to John and John to Mary, thereby establishing the first cell of the Church marked by a mutuality of being for one another that was to characterise Christians throughout the centuries. St. Peter, for instance, reminds us that before everything else, ante omnia (1 Pet 4:8) we are to keep mutual love alive among us.

Before everything else… And Tertullian’s reporting of what was said of the early Christians is well known: “look how they love one another and each is ready to die for the other.” Apology, 39