The Adam and Eve sequence is completely reversed in the New Testament: Jesus (man) is born of Mary (woman) and receives virtue instead of vice from the woman, which is itself the free gift of the Jesus (the son), which results in time being overcome - the ultimate statement of divine sovereignty over creation, and the primacy of spirit over the physical.

Without Mary there is no Jesus, or to put it another way, God can only be found when male and female are brought to completeness.  The Church is built on this profound truth.

Faith and love, law and inspiration, Pharisee and Sadducee, Magisterium and Spirit represent the opposing principles which can only be reconciled through the virtue of Hope which is fully realised in the personhood of Jesus Christ.  As Jesus told Nicodemus on that night of long ago: “I say to you, no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above . . . .  No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.  What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit.”

This is the secret behind the vision of Saint John Bosco in which the bark of Peter slid between two pillars - one with the Eucharistic Christ, the other with Mary.  It is not surprising that the tomb of Saint Peter under the high altar of the Roman Basilica has etched on it the Chiro (the pascal symbol of Christ) with a large “M” imposed on it - a testimony to early Christian faith.

Throughout the history of the Church, it has been the female side which has often provided its vigour and vitality and more than once saved it from being eclipsed.  Saints Francis and Dominic in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the religious orders of the Counter-Reformation, the teaching orders of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are all part of this tradition.  Saint Thomas Aquinas developed his theology around a “male” view of church using Aristotelian philosophy; whilst his contemporary Bonaventure developed a “female” perspective built on Platonic philosophy - the list is endless.

Ancient Judaism focused on the male dimension, focusing on law, conformity and severe judgement of sin consonant with a patriarchal view of God.  Jesus brought love - the female dimension - and was crucified for it.  It is not for nothing that one of the enduring images of the Church is the “bride of Christ”.

When Christians focus on the male dimension to the exclusion of the female, they  inevitably backslide towards Old Testament views of religion, particularly with regards to ethics.  Both dimensions are needed and are reflected in the greatest commandment: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and all your soul, and your neighbour as yourself.  For on these two commandments hangs the Law and the prophets also.” Mary is indeed “the gateway to Jesus”and a vital dimension to the mission of the Church.