By Daniel Cerqueira Afonso
Rome, November 2, 2026: Almost every year from 1979 to 2005, Saint John Paul II wrote a letter to the priests of the whole world for Holy Thursday.
The letter of 1988, dated 25 March, the solemnity of the Annunciation, was written in the middle of the Marian Year, and it is the one in which he joined most closely the two mysteries that every priest carries: the Eucharist born in the Upper Room, and the Mother who stood at the foot of the cross.
Mother who was not at the Supper
After recalling the Upper Room, the letter makes a sober observation: “There is no indication that the Mother of Christ was present in the Upper Room at the Last Supper. But she was present on Calvary, at the foot of the cross” (n. 2). The Pope does not invent a Marian presence where the Gospels are silent.
He goes instead to the place where the sacrifice of the Supper is consummated, and there he finds Mary, who, in the words of the Council, was “uniting herself with a maternal heart to his sacrifice, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of this victim which she herself had brought forth” (n. 2, quoting Lumen gentium 58).
Then comes a sentence that every priest can take to the altar: “How far the fiat uttered by Mary at the annunciation had taken her!” (n. 2).
The yes of Nazareth leads to Golgotha. And priests, who “when we celebrate the Eucharist and stand each day on Golgotha” need, the Pope writes, “to have near us the one who through heroic faith carried to its zenith her union with her Son” (n. 2).
Disciple who took her into his home
The heart of the letter is the scene of John 19:26-27: “Woman, behold, your son!… Behold, your mother!” John Paul II notices what is easily overlooked. The disciple who received Mary at the cross is the same one who, the evening before, heard the command “Do this in memory of me.”
In the Pope’s words, all that Mary lived on Golgotha “was entrusted to the man who in the Upper Room received the power to make this sacrifice present through the priestly ministry of the Eucharist” (n. 3).
From this he draws the consequence: “If John at the foot of the cross somehow represents every man and woman for whom the motherhood of the Mother of God is spiritually extended, how much more does this concern each of us, who are sacramentally called to the priestly ministry of the Eucharist in the Church!” (n. 3).
Mary and the motherhood of the Church
Citing Lumen gentium 63, the letter recalls that “the Mother of God is a ‘type’ of the Church in the matter of faith, charity and perfect union with Christ” (n. 4). At the foot of the cross, “the disciple took to his own home” Mary, and the Council’s teaching shows “how much the whole Church has taken Mary into ‘the Church’s own home’” (n. 4).
The motherhood of the Church, which brings forth children through preaching and Baptism, is modelled on Mary’s. The Pope adds that these words concern all the baptized, and then: “But these words refer in a special way to us” (n. 4), that is, to priests.
Interior home of the priesthood
The most personal invitation of the letter is in its sixth section: “Let us also take Mary as Mother into the interior ‘home’ of our priesthood” (n. 6). The reason is the friendship of the Upper Room: “No longer do I call you servants…, but I have called you friends” (Jn 15:15).
Such a friendship, the Pope writes, “involves a commitment”, and the Mother of God, who “cooperates, with a mother’s love, in the rebirth and the training of all those who become brothers of her Son”, “will do everything in her power so that they may not betray this holy friendship” (n. 6).
On the same road
The letter closes by returning to the pilgrimage of faith, the great theme of the Marian Year.
Mary “goes before, presenting herself in an eminent and singular way to the whole People of God”, and the Pope asks: “Should not we priests unite ourselves with her in a special way, we who as pastors of the Church must also lead the communities entrusted to us along the path which from the Upper Room of Pentecost follows Christ throughout human history?” (n. 7).
The last word is thanksgiving. Celebrating the Eucharist “at so many altars throughout the world”, priests are invited to make their own the words of the Magnificat: “The Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name” (Lk 1:49), and to give thanks to Mary “for the indescribable gift of the priesthood” (n. 8).
Nearly forty years later, the letter keeps its freshness. It does not offer priests a Marian devotion added to their ministry from outside. It shows them that the altar and Calvary are one place, and that at that place the Mother is always present.
The full text of the letter is on the Vatican website:
Sources: Latin text in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 80 (1988), pp. 1280-1291. Enchiridion Vaticanum 11, nn. 255-282, under the title “Apud crucem cum Maria”. The quotations above follow the official English translation published by the Holy See.
This article was first published by Locus Mariologicus, a Catholic institute for the teaching of Mariology, Angelology and Josephology.