Throughout the ages, the Church and her teachers often acknowledged that the fourfold Gospel offers only a limited number of passages that feature the Mother of Jesus. Undaunted, the great doctors of the early Church and the theologians of the Middle Ages found abundant resources for their meditation concerning Mary in the Jewish Scriptures and literature related to the New Testament. The theological premise that God is the principal author of the entire Bible led them to find hints and images of the Messiah everywhere. Recognizing that the link of Jesus to the people of Israel is Mary, his Mother, they rejoiced to find that her coming and her attributes are virtually as ubiquitous as the foreshadowings of Jesus.

Except for those who pray the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception with Mother Theresa's Missionaries of Charity, most Catholics seem to have forgotten the Marian interpretations of the Jewish Scriptures, or they do not consider this part of the heritage to be relevant to modern piety. Nevertheless, there may be ways to recapture these insights, to serve our need for integrating an understanding of God's plan of salvation into a biblically and liturgically grounded piety. It would, seem, however, that first we should explore the resonances of the biblical heritage and Jewish way of life that might cast light on aspects of Mary's life and her role in the divine plan.