John Garvey: Pope’s Encyclical Looks to Mary for Help in Seeing the World with Eyes of Wisdom

“Pope Francis says earth resembles ‘an immense pile of filth.’” When Pope Francis published his encyclical Laudato Si’ on June 18, much of the immediate media coverage focused on this passage and other colorful descriptions of environmental degradation.

John Garvey

Few outlets led with “Pope says Mary is ‘Mother and Queen of all creation.’” Maybe that’s because the passage on Mary comes at the very end of the encyclical. Or maybe it didn’t seem newsworthy. It is, after all, common for papal encyclicals to conclude with a nod to the Mother of God. But it’s a passage worth reflecting on, because Mary, as Pope Francis says, can help us “to look at this world with eyes of wisdom” (241).

How does Mary teach us to see the world? The gospels tell us that she contemplated the life of Christ, treasuring it in her heart. She must have seen his first smiles, watched him learn to walk, and heard his inarticulate gurgling slowly become words. Like any new parent, she must have marveled at the beauty of each perfect toe, the complexity of both tiny ears, the softness of his cheeks. But her experience was also unique. While contemplating the matter of her Son, she contemplated the Son of God, who took the material world to himself in the Incarnation. Those toes and ears and cheeks belonged to God.

This, Pope Francis says, is the proper way to see reality. Creation is not ours to do with as we wish. What was true about Mary’s observations in a unique sense is true about all of creation in another sense. As Pope Francis puts it:

The ultimate purpose of other creatures is not to be found in us. Rather, all creatures are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things. (83)

All of creation belongs to God. It is ordered toward God, and is shot through with his artistry. The first step in caring for creation, Pope Francis teaches in Laudato Si’, is recognizing it for what it is.

Mary, Queen of all creation, teach us to see the world with eyes of wisdom.

– John Garvey is president of The Catholic University of America.