How Mary is the Ark of the Covenant: A Biblical and Theological Reflection

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† The Virgin Mary as the new Ark of the Covenant:
The Ark of the Old Covenant contained the Decalogue (which is the Law/Word), a Pot of Manna (which was the bread from Heaven that sustained the life of the Hebrews during the Exodus), and Aaron’s Rod (which budded and convicted those who were grumbling against Moses). The Ark of the New Covenant, who is the Virgin Mary, contained Jesus (the Word of God and the Bread of Life – the new Manna from Heaven), and the Holy Spirit (which is Truth that convicts us).

The Gospel of Luke accounts for at least seven ways in which Our Lady Mary was prefigured to be the Ark of the New Covenant:

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† The Virgin Mary as the Ark in the Book of Revelation:
Revelation 11:15-17,19 through 12:6

“Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet. There were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world now belongs to our Lord and to his Anointed, and he will reign forever and ever.” The twenty-four elders who sat on their thrones before God prostrated themselves and worshiped God . . . Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder, an earthquake, and a violent hailstorm. A great sign appeared in the sky, 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 and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its head were seven diadems. Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth. She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. Her child was caught up to God and his throne. The woman herself fled into the desert where she had a place prepared by God, that there she might be taken care of for twelve hundred and sixty days.”

The Ark of the Covenant in the Temple of God, that the writer is speaking of here is one in the same with the first great sign that appeared in the sky, who was a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon (which is the serpent) under her feet and on her head a crown (as Queens wear) of twelve stars – this woman is none one other than the Queen Mother, the Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord our God. The new Eve had crushed the serpent and the Son, which she gave birth to, has redeemed humanity.

† The Virgin Mary as the New Eve:
At the prideful disobedience of Eve, humanity fell, but with the humble obedience of the Virgin Mary, humanity rose; for where Eve gave birth to death, Mary gave birth to He who is life (Jesus). Though Eve ate the food, which was a lie from the Father of Lies, Mary, through faith, accepted the truth from He who is Truth. While the first Adam obeyed the woman and ate of the forbidden fruit and blamed her, ”The woman whom you put here with me – she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it,” (Gen 3:12) the second Adam said, “Woman, how does your concern affect me?” (Jn. 2:4) and she called all servants to obey her Son, saying, “Do whatever He tells you” (Jn. 2:5).

The outcome of the original sin was that the Lord told us exactly how He was going to redeem us, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her; He will strike at your head, while you strike at His heel” (Gen 3:15). Indeed, throughout the Hebrew Bible, God went on reveal the names and character of several heroic women who crushed the head of the serpent beneath their feet. These women were prefigurements of Mary, the Mother of God.

It was Sisera who had opposed Israel for twenty years and the prophetess and judge of Israel Deborah, who prophesized to Barak, that Sisera would fall into the power of a woman (Cf. Judg. 4:9), and that woman was Jael, who had lured the serpent, with her charm into her tent, and when he had fallen asleep, she drove a peg, by the aid of a mallet, through his temple so deep that it went through his head and into the ground (Cf. Judg. 4:17-22). It was Abimelech, son of Gideon, who became a very evil serpent, and even killed great numbers of his own kinsmen (Cf. Judg. 9:5), but it was a certain woman who humiliated him by dropping the upper part of a millstone on his head and thus fracturing his skull, and leaving him to beg for his death, lest it be known that he fell to a woman (Cf. Judg. 9:53-54). It was the serpent Holofernes, general of the Assyrian army under Nebuchadnezzar, who made war against the Israelites in Judea, but it was the woman Judith, in her beauty and charm, who had been invited into his tent where she beheaded Holofernes, the serpent, as he lay prostrate in a drunken stupor. Nonetheless, these prefigurements were perfected by the Virgin Mary when she gave birth to the new Adam, who is Christ Jesus, as recounted in the book of Revelation.