Do you remember that scene in the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding in which the Greek mothers teach the Greek girl that the Greek father is the “head” of household, but that the mother is the “neck”?
They may have been Greeks, but they were reading from a Roman script – because a similar thing was said by Pope Saint Pius X in his encyclical Ad diem illum of 1904 (and also by Saint Bernard before him). According to Saint Pius X, the Blessed Virgin Mary is the “neck” that connects Christ the Head to the Church as His Body.
But Mary as St. Bernard fittingly remarks is the ‘channel’ or, even, the neck, through which the body is joined to the head, and likewise through which the head exerts its power and strength on the body. For she is the neck of our Head, by which all spiritual gifts are communicated to His Mystical Body.
I have often heard our Immaculate Mother referred to as the “neck” of the Church, but I had no idea that the concept appeared in a papal/magisterial document.
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