John

Chapters

1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
5. 5
6. 6
7. 7
8. 8
9. 9
10. 10
11. 11
12. 12
13. 13
14. 14
15. 15
16. 16
17. 17
18. 18
19. 19
20. 20
21. 21

In the maps

• John 1:1

  John begins as Genesis begins. Pitre sets the two openings side by side and then counts John's days to the wedding at Cana 'on the third day' (2:1) — seven days in all — to show that John presents Jesus' first week as a new creation (pp 29–30). In that new creation Jesus is the new Adam and his mother is the 'Woman.'

• John 1:11

  The Word came 'to his own,' and his own did not receive him. Pitre cites this as the parallel that fixes the meaning of John 19:27 (p 162): when the disciple took Mary 'to his own' (eis ta idia), John did not write 'home' (oikos) but the broader word for what is one's own — family, people, possessions. The disciple takes Mary as his own mother.

• John 1:12

  Those who receive Christ become children of God, born not of blood but of God. Pitre uses this to show that our relationship to Mary is not a blood tie but a spiritual one: we become her children in the same way we become God's, through Jesus' passion. That is the sense in which she is Mother of the Church.

• John 1:14

  The Word becomes flesh and 'tabernacles' among us, and his glory is seen. Pitre's ark argument uses this in two ways: the tablets of the word rested in the old ark, and the Word made flesh rested in Mary; and the flesh in which the Word tabernacled was taken from her. Mary is the ark that carried the living Word.

• John 1:19

  John marks day one with the Baptist's testimony, then 'the next day' three times, then 'the third day' — four days plus three, a week that ends with a wedding. Pitre's table of the seven days (p 30) shows John modelling Jesus' first week on the week of creation, which likewise ends with the union of the first man and woman. Cana is the new creation's wedding, and Mary is its 'Woman.'

• John 2:1

  John opens with 'In the beginning,' like Genesis, then counts off days until a wedding on 'the third day' — the seventh day of a new creation week. Pitre reads Cana as a new-creation scene in which the Woman of the new creation appears at a wedding, as Eve did at the first. It is the first of the two scenes in John where Jesus calls his mother 'Woman.'

• John 2:4

  Jesus addresses his mother as 'Woman' and speaks of his 'hour.' Pitre argues that the strange title is deliberate: it marks Mary as the Woman of Genesis 3:15, the New Eve, and the 'hour' points forward to the cross, where he will call her 'Woman' once more. Cana and Calvary are the two bookends of John's Gospel, and Mary stands at both.

• John 2:5

  Mary's last recorded words direct the servants to obey her Son. Pitre sees the New Eve in action: where Eve led Adam into disobedience, Mary leads others to obedience, and where the queen mother brings petitions to the king, Mary brings the wedding's need to Jesus and he acts. Her intercession at Cana is the model of Marian intercession — it ends in 'do whatever he tells you.'

• John 6:53

  Jesus, having called himself the true bread from heaven, insists that his flesh must be eaten. Pitre lines this up with the contents of the ark: the ark held the manna, and Mary held the Bread of Life, the true manna, in her womb. The ark's three treasures — word, bread, priesthood — are all fulfilled in the one Son she carried.

• John 11:52

  Jesus dies to gather the scattered children of God into one. Pitre quotes John Paul II's use of the verse (p 156): the evangelist himself presents the Church's birth as the fruit of the cross, and Mary, uniting herself to her Son's sacrifice, contributes to it 'in the form of labour pains.' She is Mother of the Church not because she bore Jesus but because she shared his passion.

• John 12:31

  Jesus announces that at his 'hour' the ruler of this world will be cast out. Pitre identifies this as the moment Genesis 3:15 is fulfilled: the Woman's seed crushes the serpent's head at the cross. And it is precisely at the cross that Jesus calls his mother 'Woman' again, completing the Eve–Mary parallel at the very point where the serpent is defeated.

• John 13:23

  The disciple whom Jesus loved reclines at his side and is never named. Pitre proposes that the anonymity is deliberate: he is the new Benjamin, the 'beloved' second son given to the New Rachel, and because he is unnamed every reader can stand in his place and receive Mary as mother. He is also the disciple who takes Mary 'to his own' after the cross.

• John 15:8

  'As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.' Pitre uses this Last Supper saying to explain why the disciple at the cross is unnamed (p 163): every true disciple is a beloved disciple. The reader is meant to stand in his place, hear 'Behold thy mother,' and take Mary as his own.

• John 16:16

  'A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me.' Pitre reads the whole passage (16:16–25) as Jesus' figurative description of his death and resurrection (pp 128–130): the disciples' sorrow will turn to joy like a woman's when her child is born. The figure is fulfilled at the cross, where 'the woman' and her 'hour' reappear in John 19:25–27.

• John 16:20

  Jesus tells the disciples their sorrow at his passion will turn into joy, and in the next verse compares it to a woman in labour whose hour has come. Pitre reads the passion as a birth: the Church is born from the sorrow of the cross, and Mary, whose soul is pierced there, is the woman in travail. Our bond to her is that we are children of the birth pangs she bore at Calvary.

• John 16:21

  The woman in labour has sorrow because 'her hour' has come, but forgets the anguish for joy once the child is born. Pitre notes that John's words — 'the woman,' 'her hour,' 'anguish' — are the vocabulary of Mary at the cross and of the Jewish 'birth pangs of the Messiah.' Mary's real travail is at Calvary, and what is born is the new people of God.

• John 19:23

  The soldiers divide Jesus' clothes and cast lots for his tunic. Pitre uses the scene to set up Jesus' last words (pp 161–162): a condemned man could declare his will from the cross, and Jesus has nothing left — no money, no land, not even his clothes. His only remaining earthly 'possession' is his mother, and he gives her away too, dying in complete poverty.

• John 19:25

  Mary stands at the foot of the cross with her sister, Mary of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Pitre's Eve–Mary parallel reaches its third point here: Eve stood with Adam at the tree of the fall; Mary stands with Jesus at the tree of the cross. The verse also names 'Mary of Clopas,' the other Mary whose sons are called Jesus' 'brothers.'

• John 19:26

  From the cross Jesus calls his mother 'Woman' and gives her a new son. Pitre draws several threads together here: 'Woman' completes the New Eve typology at the hour the serpent is crushed; the adoption makes Mary the disciple's mother in a legally real sense; and the fact that Jesus entrusts her to a disciple rather than a brother shows she had no other sons. The scene is the birth of Mary's motherhood of the Church.

• John 19:27

  The beloved disciple takes Mary 'to his own' — as his own mother, Pitre argues, not merely into his house. Because the disciple is left unnamed, every reader is invited to stand in his place and receive Mary as mother. Acts 1:14 shows the result: Mary in the midst of the apostles at the birth of the Church.

• John 19:28

  Only after giving his mother to the disciple does Jesus know that everything is accomplished and say 'It is finished.' Pitre stresses the order: the gift of Mary as mother is part of the finished work of the cross, not an afterthought. Making her Mother of the Church is one of the last things Jesus does before he dies.

• John 19:30

  Only after giving his mother to the disciple does Jesus know that all is accomplished (19:28), say 'It is finished,' and give up his spirit. Pitre stresses the sequence (p 163): the gift of Mary as mother is part of the finished work of the cross. Making her Mother of the Church is among the last things Jesus does before he dies.