Behold Your Mother: Mary, and the New Jerusalem
“But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.”
— Galatians 4:26
At the foot of the cross, in a moment heavy with both agony and glory, Jesus turned to His mother and said, “Woman, behold your son.” And to the beloved disciple: “Behold your mother.” (John 19:26–27)
For centuries, these words have echoed through the Church. But few stop to ask: What kind of “mother” was Jesus revealing? And to whom? Was He initiating a Marian cult? Or was He unveiling something deeper—a covenantal mystery stretching from Eden to Zion, from the seed of the woman to the heavenly city?
In the Gospel of John, Mary is not merely venerated—she is veiled, clothed in biblical memory, and placed at the center of redemptive history. But in the hands of Rome—Edom by another name—she has been taken captive, exalted beyond Scripture, and transformed into something she never was: a throne. A queen. A cultic object. The true Mary, the one who leads us into the New Jerusalem, has been buried beneath marble, gold, and theological accretions.
It’s time we behold our mother again—on her own terms.
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The Mother Without a Name
John’s Gospel never calls Mary by name.
John’s Gospel never calls Mary by name.
She appears twice: once at a wedding in Cana (John 2), and once at the crucifixion (John 19). In both instances, she is addressed not as “Mother,” but as “Woman.” This is no accident. John, the most symbolic of the Evangelists, is drawing on deep currents of Scripture. The woman at Cana is not just a mother at a wedding; she is Eve restored, Zion waiting, a womb preparing for water turned to wine, shadowing the mystery of new covenant life.
At the cross, her anonymity becomes even more charged. She is silent, standing. Jesus does not say, “Mother, behold your son,” but “Woman”—again calling forth the ancient promise of Genesis 3:15. The woman and her seed. The serpent and the enmity. The seed is bruised—but the serpent is crushed.
In this moment, Jesus unveils the Woman—not just Mary of Nazareth, but the mother of the redeemed. She is a figure of the covenant community, a sign of Zion, a symbol of the New Jerusalem.
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Mary as Zion: The City in the Wilderness
Paul writes in Galatians 4:26, “The Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.”
Paul writes in Galatians 4:26, “The Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.”
He’s not speaking metaphorically. He’s unveiling a spiritual reality—a city, a sanctuary, a mother who gives birth not by biology but by promise.
Just as Sarah was barren and gave birth through faith, so Zion—the city of God—gives birth to a nation in a day (Isaiah 66:8).
Revelation 12 picks up the thread: “A woman clothed with the sun… she was pregnant and crying out in birth pangs.” The dragon stands ready to devour her child, but the child is caught up to God, and the woman flees into the wilderness, preserved.
This is Mary, yes—but not as a marble Madonna.
This is Mary as Mother Zion, the covenantal woman through whom Messiah comes, and through whom a people of promise are born. The seed is Christ—but also those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus (Rev 12:17). She is the mother of us all.
And yet, where is she? Not on a throne. Not in a chapel. Not bathed in incense and adorned with a golden crown.
She is in the wilderness.
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Rome, Edom, and the Capture of the Woman
Edom, the brother who became a rival, always wanted what Jacob had: the birthright, the blessing, the covenant. Rome, the empire that once crucified the seed of the woman, has since tried to enthrone the woman herself. But not as Zion—not as the covenantal mother in exile. Rome needed something safer. Manageable. Usable.
Edom, the brother who became a rival, always wanted what Jacob had: the birthright, the blessing, the covenant. Rome, the empire that once crucified the seed of the woman, has since tried to enthrone the woman herself. But not as Zion—not as the covenantal mother in exile. Rome needed something safer. Manageable. Usable.
And so it created a Marianism that is less about Mary and more about control.
It made her Immaculate, not in the sense of covenantal purity, but of metaphysical sinlessness that separates her from the human story.
It crowned her Queen of Heaven, a title once reserved for Ishtar and Astarte.
It gave her temples, rosaries, and apparitions—transforming her from humble servant to semi-divine mediator.
This is not the woman of Revelation 12. This is Edom’s Mary—a captive figure, adorned in imperial theology, used to reinforce a hierarchical Church that positions itself between God and man.
Rome took the mother and turned her into a monument, a means of access, an object of superstition. But in doing so, it missed her actual glory: that she is part of the people of God, not above them.
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The True Mary: Signpost to Zion
The true Mary is not a throne but a witness. She is the firstfruits of faith—the woman who said yes in quiet submission, who pondered mysteries in her heart, who watched her son rejected by the temple and crucified by the empire.
The true Mary is not a throne but a witness. She is the firstfruits of faith—the woman who said yes in quiet submission, who pondered mysteries in her heart, who watched her son rejected by the temple and crucified by the empire.
She is not seated above the Church—she is within it. She is not our mediator—she points to the Mediator. She is not Queen of Heaven—she is daughter of Zion, clothed with the sun, standing in the wilderness, awaiting the restoration of the city whose architect is God.
To turn Mary into an object of veneration is to miss her symbolic vocation. Like the ark of the covenant, she carried the Word. But she did not become the Word. She held the seed of promise in her body, and in doing so, became a sign of what the Church herself would one day become: a people filled with the Spirit, a bride prepared for the Lamb, a city descending from above.
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Behold Your Mother
When Jesus said, “Behold your mother,” He was not inaugurating a cult. He was unveiling a mystery. He was connecting the beloved disciple—and all who would follow—to a deeper reality. That those who are born of the Spirit, who are grafted into the promise, now have a new mother.
When Jesus said, “Behold your mother,” He was not inaugurating a cult. He was unveiling a mystery. He was connecting the beloved disciple—and all who would follow—to a deeper reality. That those who are born of the Spirit, who are grafted into the promise, now have a new mother.
Not one made of stone. Not one crowned by men. But one who waits in the wilderness. One who bears children in exile. One who points not to herself, but to the Lamb.
Mary is not Rome’s to possess. She is Zion’s.
And Zion is not found in St. Peter’s Basilica or Santa Maria Maggiore. She is in the hills of suffering. The upper rooms of prayer. The underground places of exile and witness. She is the mother of the meek, the persecuted, the faithful remnant. She is not seated in a basilica—she is weeping at the tomb, watching for resurrection.
To behold your mother is to remember that we are children of promise, born not of flesh, nor of empire, but of G-d.
