(Excerpts from Saint John’s message The Entrustment to Mary, published in the book of Stefania Caterina and Tomislav Vlašić, Riscrivere la Storia – Vol. III – La Donna vestita di sole”1)

“Before His Passion, Jesus affirmed that He would have entrusted everyone to His Mother. At that time, I did not fully understand what that entrustment meant. The Blessed Mother was still among us, and therefore I assumed that He simply wanted to entrust us to Her motherly prayers. Only later, at the foot of the Cross, was I able to understand the entrustment to Mary. When Jesus, now dying, entrusted me to the Blessed Mother and entrusted the Mother to me, I understood that in that moment, I represented all the Apostles and that Mary was entrusted to all of us, just as we were entrusted to Her.

However, not even after Jesus’ Death and Resurrection did we understand the entrustment to Mary and the entrustment of Mary to us, for the Blessed Mother had not yet fully assumed her role as the Mother of humanity. We understood that immediately after Jesus’ Ascension to Heaven, when Mary’s Motherhood began to operate powerfully in the whole Church. … We understood that the entrustment to Mary was an indispensable passage not only for us Apostles but also for every Christian, for the whole Church, and for all humanity.

Through the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, all this became even clearer. … A fundamental aspect of Mary’s figure is Her Assumption to Heaven. If Mary had not been assumed into Heaven, Her Motherhood in favour of the Church would have remained restricted to Earth. … From the moment of Her Assumption into Heaven, Mary’s Motherhood became the Motherhood of a glorified being that had been assumed into the Most Holy Trinity. In this manner, Mary became the Mother of the Church to all effects.

Mary has always been the utterly exceptional new human being from the moment of Her conception. She had never any knowledge of sin, as She was destined to be the Mother of God, of humanity and the Church, and to be glorified. Therefore, She cannot be compared with any other human being, neither for Her creation nor for Her story, much less for Her mission. She is a being unto Herself.

I bless you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”