No One is Like Mary

25 May 2026  Acts 1:12-14

Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church

“All these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, together with some women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.” (Acts 1:14)     

For some people considering Catholicism, Mary is a deal-breaker. They read the Bible, and point out that Mary never healed anyone, said very little (her Magnificat in Luke 1:46-55 is only 135 words, and after that her very few speaking parts are fewer than ten words each), and after Pentecost in Acts 2, she is never mentioned again anywhere in the New Testament. There is no Biblical evidence of her doing any kind of apostolic work at all. Mary is not a source of Catholic doctrine – she is a subject of it, but in no way a teacher of it. Her “teaching,” such as it is, is not summed up, but in fact limited to her last recorded words in the New Testament: “Do whatever He tells you” (John 2:5).

So why does Mary have such an outsized place in Catholic devotion, art, and music? Why do millions of people pray tens of millions of Hail Marys every day? Why do we not have a Hail Peter, or a Hail Paul? That stops a lot of people before the threshold of the Catholic Church.

Mary is described in the Bible as “full of grace” (Luke 1:28) – the only person in all of Sacred Scripture to be described that way. She was so abundantly endowed with the divine life that she was perfectly disposed toward God from conception.

Admittedly, ordinary Catholics seldom explain this very well, but Mary’s role in salvation history is utterly unique. Not only is there not anyone else like her, there can’t be. She is, by herself alone, Exhibit A of what every disciple can be, and in heaven will be.

Mary is described in the Bible as “full of grace” (Luke 1:28) – the only person in all of Sacred Scripture to be described that way. She was so abundantly endowed with the divine life that she was perfectly disposed toward God from conception. This was a divine gift, appropriate for the one who would bear the Son of God in her own womb. She could say No to God, but because she was so perfectly endowed with the divine life, she never would, and in the Bible she never did. Because of her, and because of her alone, there is human DNA in heaven right now. Mary is what a human in heaven looks like – a human person who wants first and only to do what Jesus tells her. Soren Kierkegaard had it exactly right: “Purity of heart is to will one thing,” and the one thing to will in heaven and on earth is just Jesus. That is what Mary is still doing.

That is why we pray the Hail Mary. Because of her, and her alone, being of completely pure heart is not an airy abstraction that is practically irrelevant. She (and her DNA which she shares with Jesus) is in heaven right now doing what she has always done – following Jesus. Perfectly. To have someone like that, in heaven, praying for us, is a powerful advantage indeed, and that is all we are asking for in the Hail Mary: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” That is a resource for faithful living that should be hard to pass up.

Sometimes people get a little mixed up and think of Mary as a source of divine grace rather than just a vessel of it. No one would be more appalled at such confusion than Mary herself, and to anyone so mixed up she would no doubt repeat her last recorded words: “Do whatever He tells you.”

Do whatever HE tells you.

It is the one time that getting the pronouns right makes all the difference in the world.