Fathers and Sons as Living Metaphors

The angel Gabriel From Heaven Came: The angel Gabriel from heaven came, His wings as drifted snow, his eyes as flame; "All hail," said he, "O lowly maiden Mary,” - "Most highly favored lady!" Gloria. -  "For know a blessed Mother you shall be, all generations praise continually, Your Son shall be Emmanuel, by seers foretold" -  "Most highly favored lady!" Gloria. -  "Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head; "To me be as it pleases God!" she said.” "My soul shall laud and magnify his holy name." -  "Most highly favored lady!"  Gloria. -  

                All Mariology, all Marian devotion, must begin with solid theology.  For all that Mary does, and all that she is, flows from her relationship with God and her part in His divine plan.  She is His mother.  She is His spouse.  She is His daughter.  She is His handmaid.  We cannot begin to know her if we do not, first, have clear notions about Him-about God, and His dealings with His people.

                In the culture of ancient Israel, one's name was equivalent to one's identity.  At the end of Saint Matthew's gospel (28:19), Jesus command His disciples to baptize "in the name" of the Blessed Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Notice that He does not speak of these as three titles, but as a single name.  This single name, then, reveals Who God is from all eternity.  He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

                The earthly roles of father and son are living metaphors for something divine and eternal.  God Himself is, somehow, eternally, perfectly a family.  Pope John Paul II expressed:  "God in His deepest mystery is not a solitude, but a family, since He has in Himself fatherhood, sonship, and the essence of the family, which is love."  It is the mystery of God in Himself.  Thus, our understanding of God as a family should also affect our understanding of all His works

                The Catechism explains that God has revealed "His Trinitarian being" explicitly in the New Testament, but also left "traces...in His Revelation throughout the Old Testament' (no. 237).  The whole of the scriptures, then, can be viewed as the story of God's preparation for, and completion of His greatest work:  His self-revelation in Jesus Christ.  Saint Augustine said that the New Testament is concealed in the Old, and the Old is revealed in the New.  For all history was the world's preparation for the moment when the Word was made flesh, when God became a human child in the womb of a young virgin from Nazareth.  (gathered from Hail, Holy Queen by Scott Hahn) kvs