By Andrew Winter
1. Mary the Mother of God has many titles, and some are so obscure that they are celebrated only in one small region of the world. Some of these more obscure titles of Mary include: Our Lady of the Bush, Our Lady of the Slain, Our Lady the Helper and Mother Inviolate. The following are some titles readers may know.
2. Ark of the Covenant: In the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant carried the Ten Commandments and a jar of manna, the precursor of the Eucharist. As Mary bore Jesus in her womb, the Promise of the New Covenant, she is the Ark of the New Covenant. In the East, this title is confirmed by the ancient title “Theotokos,” which means “God-bearer.”
3. Undoer of Knots: The devotion to Our Lady under this title began when Johann Georg Schmidtner painted the famous picture of Our Lady untying “knots,” or problems, in the soul of the faithful Christian. The idea of Mary untying the knotty problems of our lives goes back to St. Irenaeus in the second century, who wrote that Mary undid the “knot” of the Fall, which Eve first tied.
4. Our Lady of Champion: This title, named after Champion, Wisc., is the name of the only approved Marian apparition in the United States. Mary appeared several times to a young woman named Adele Brice, telling her to teach the children in the area about the faith. In 1871, the shrine of Our Lady of Champion miraculously escaped an enormous fire when all the land around it was engulfed in flame. The bishop of Green Bay approved this apparition in 2010.
5. Morning Star: In spring and summer, the planet Venus appears before the rising of the sun. According to John Paul II’s encyclical Redemptoris Mater, this “morning star,” which heralds the coming of a new dawn, represents Mary, who heralded the coming of the Redeemer at the first Christmas. Venus is the licentious goddess of love, and Mary replaces her with the pure love of her perpetual virginity.
6. Our Lady of Loreto: In legend, flying angels carried the house of Loreto, where the Annunciation occurred, from Nazareth to Italy. Mary lived in this house, and conceived the Christ child in this house. Our Lady of Loreto is the patroness of the United States Air Force, and of all who travel by air.
7. Cause of Our Joy: Mary is great only because of her divine motherhood and role in the Redemption of Christ, and this title celebrates this fact. Without her, Christ would not have been born into the world, and could not have saved humanity, so Mary is—indirectly—the cause of our joy.
8. Our Lady of the Pillar: This title refers to the very first apparition of Mary in 40 A.D., while the Blessed Virgin was still alive. St. James the Apostle was laboring to convert souls in Zaragosa, Spain, but without success, so the Blessed Virgin bilocated to visit him, and left a miraculous statue of herself, mounted on a pillar. St. James then built the first Marian shrine. The original image still stands on its pillar of granite, and the specific type of granite can be found nowhere else on earth.
9. The Vatican released a doctrinal note Nov. 4, Mater Populi Fidelis (“The Mother of the Faithful People of God”), which addressed titles for Mary. In the note, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith said when an expression requires frequent explanation to maintain the correct meaning, it becomes unhelpful. The dicastery encouraged the use of other expressions for Mary, specifically titles referring to her motherhood, including Mother of the Faithful People of God: “She is the mother who gave the world the author of redemption and of grace, who stood firm at the foot of the cross (cf. John 19:25), suffering alongside her son and offering the pain of her maternal heart pierced by the sword (cf. Luke 2:35),” the document said. “From the Incarnation to the cross and the Resurrection, she was united to Christ in a way that is unique and that far surpasses any other believer.”
