Why do we call Mary the Ark of the New Covenant!

To understand why Catholics call Mary the Ark of the New Covenant, we need to go back to the Old Testament and understand a little about the Ark of the Old Covenant.

We know that God instructed Moses to build a tabernacle for him so that the people knew that God was abiding among them. Within the Ark of the Covenant was placed a golden jar holding the manna that the Israelites ate in the desert, Aaron's rod and the stone tablets of the covenant. When the Ark was completed, a cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of God filled the tabernacle.

If you fast forward to the New Testament you will see something similar happen when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, the angel told Mary that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and the power of the Most High would overshadow her. It was after this that she became a tabernacle for the living God. This living tabernacle was far superior to the old one. While the old Ark contained the word of God on stone tablets, the new Ark contained the incarnate Word of God. The stone tablets stood for the law, however in Mary's womb was the Lawgiver. The old ark contained manna that God provided for the Israelites, the new Ark contains the True Bread that came down from heaven. While the old Ark contained the rod of Aaron the high priest, the new Ark contains the eternal High Priest. It was through Mary that God came to abide among men.

Now lets go back to the Old Testament for a minute. You may have heard of how David, filled with the Holy Spirit danced before the Ark of the Covenant as it was brought into the City of David. In the same way when Mary with Jesus in her womb, went to meet her cousin Elizabeth. The child in the womb of Elizabeth leaped with joy and she was filled with the Holy Spirit. Luke in his Gospel is trying to draw our attention to the similarity between Mary and the Ark of the Old Covenant.

And this similarity doesn't just stop in the Gospel of Luke. If we go to the book of Revelations, we read something that would shock any Jew. We know that the Ark of the Covenant had been lost for centuries and hasn't been found till date, but in Revelations 11:9 John writes "Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple." How could this be? if we continue reading the following chapter John speaks of "a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars: she was with child." (Revelation 12:1-2). We know that the book of Revelations is highly symbolic. The ark of the covenant and the woman clothed with the sun, is interpreted to be Mary who is queen in heaven. The understanding of Mary becoming queen in heaven comes from the Jewish royal tradition where the queen of the kingdom was the mother of the King. Other interpretations of this text could also go to show the woman standing for Israel or the church. But Mary is also the mother of the church. We see this happen at the cross when Jesus asks his beloved disciple to treat her as mother, thus asking us who follow in the footsteps of his disciples to accept her as our mother.

The Ark of the Covenant was honored by the Israelites because God honored it by abiding in it, sanctifying it and making it a blessing to the Israelites. Thus we are also called to honor Mary as blessed through all generations.

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