Love for the Virgin Mary in the Shalom charism

Our Lady is invoked in the Shalom Community as the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, Queen of Peace and Gate of Heaven. However, above all invocation, the feeling we have for her is the feeling of children of a unique, incomparable Mother who the Lord desired to leave us as a precious gift, she who is the Perfect Disciple and First Church. This month we are going to know why these titles of the Virgin Mary are part of our spirituality. Firstly, let’s look at the Virgin Mary in relation to her title “Spouse of the Holy Spirit.”

Spouse of the Holy Spirit

It is true that many people connect the title of Spouse of the Holy Spirit to the moment of the Annunciation. While without disregarding this reading at all, for us the title has always been more connected with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and in John 20. She is Full of the Holy Spirit because she is the Full of Grace, the Kecharitomene, not only in the Annunciation, but all throughout her life.

It is beautiful to follow Mary’s itinerary – as Raniero Cantalamessa says, the spiritual direction of Jesus towards His Mother – and to realize how she had such intimacy with the Holy Spirit and was so favored and assisted by Him that every reaction, behavior, posture and word were absolutely ruled by Him.

It is this Woman who is full of the Holy Spirit and at the same time an instrument of the Spirit in the life of the Church, whether as Mother, Intercessor, or as a most faithful disciple of Jesus Christ, the model we are called to follow as souls, spouses of the Holy Spirit, always available to Him and led by Him, experiencing His fruits and charisms to implant in the world the Shalom of the Father.

Translation: Ellen Lima