Assuming, of course, that we accept the tradition given to us in the church and take seriously the testimony of the gospels (and, in this context, particularly the Lucan testimony), we can say in a way that is not just poetical that Mary is truly the mother of justice and peace. For she is presented to us not only as giving witness to how God’s power can transform humanity, but as, in doing this, giving birth to that power, that life. She becomes the Mother of Christ; the ‘Mother of God’, as Ephesus declared her to be. By her active and willing cooperation with the divine plan, by her humility, courage and love of justice, she brings Jesus into the world and thus gives birth to the Christ. She is the Mother of the New Age, the New Heaven and the New Earth, and shows herself prepared to risk everything to see Christ embodied for us and in us so that the kingdom of God may be established on this earth. Her prophetic witness to the truth is not just a witness to what can be, nor to what God’s purposes might be in some future time; no, her witness makes the Truth present for us in such a way that reality becomes transformed by the mystery of God’s power on this earth, implementing justice and peace.