08-16-2022, 07:36 AM
PART II - Mary, Mother of all Men
Her Universal Mediation and Our Interior Life
INTRODUCTION TO PART II
Having considered the Blessed Virgin as Mother of God, and the fulness of grace which was given her that she might be God’s worthy mother, it remains to speak of her relations with men. Tradition attributes to Mary three titles, Mother of the Redeemer, Mother of all men, and Mediatrix, to express her relations with men as yet on their way to eternity. In regard to the blessed she has especially the title, Universal Queen.
Theology teaches us that these titles correspond to those of Christ the Redeemer.215 He performed His redemptive work as Head of the humanity He was to regenerate, as First Mediator Who has the power by His priesthood to sacrifice and to sanctify, and to exercise teaching authority, and finally as Universal King, Who legislates for all men, judges the living and the dead, and governs all creatures not excluding the angels. Mary, in her quality of Mother of the Redeemer, is associated with Jesus in those three roles. She is associated with Him as Head of the Church by being spiritual Mother of all men; she is associated with Him as First Mediator by being a secondary and subordinate mediatrix; and she is associated with Him as Universal King by being Queen of the universe. That is Mary’s triple mission to men which we are about to consider in this part of the book.
We shall speak first of Mary as Mother of the Redeemer and as Mother of all men; then of her universal mediation on earth and in heaven; finally of her universal queenship.
All these titles, but especially that of Mother of God, are the justification of the cult of hyperdulia of which we shall speak in the last place. At no time shall we endeavor to put forward original views, or those of individual authors—nor have we done that in the earlier part of the book—but rather will it be our aim to expose the common teaching of the Church, transmitted by the Fathers and explained by theologians. It is only on such a foundation that one can safely build.
Because of the method we have chosen, a superficial reader may think our treatment of the different questions banal or elementary. But it is well to recall that the most elementary philosophical truths, such as the principles of causality and finality, and the most elementary religious truths, such as those contained in the Our Father, are found to be the most profound and vital when they are examined carefully and put into practice. In the present matter as elsewhere it is necessary to advance from what is known and certain to what is less well known, from what is easy to what is difficult; were one to embark on a premature consideration of more difficult problems, especially if they were presented in the form of dramatic and striking paradoxes, the result might be—as has happened to so many heretics—to end up by denying evident truths and obvious conclusions. The history of theology and philosophy shows that this is no fictitious danger. Finally it should not be forgotten that though in human matters, where truth and falsity, good and evil, are jumbled together, simplicity is superficiality and exposes one to error; in the things of God, where there is but the true and the good, simplicity alone will reveal the greatest heights and the most secret depths.216
CHAPTER 1. THE MOTHER OF THE REDEEMER AND OF ALL MEN
These two titles are evidently connected. We shall consider them in the order indicated.
ARTICLE 1 - THE MOTHER OF THE SAVIOUR ASSOCIATED WITH HIS REDEMPTIVE WORK
The Church calls Mary Mother of the Saviour as well as Mother of God. In the Litany of Loreto, for example, after the invocations, “Holy Mother of God,” and “Mother of the Creator,” we find the other, “Mother of the Saviour, pray for us.” Though some have thought the contrary,217 the fact of these two titles is no reason for believing that Mariology labors under the defect of a duality of distinct principles: “Mother of God” and “Mother of the Saviour, who is associated with His redemptive work.” Mariology is a unity, for Mary is “Mother of God the Redeemer or the Saviour.” In much the same way the two mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption do not take away from the unity of Christology, for its central point is the redemptive Incarnation. The motive of the Incarnation is sufficiently indicated in the Creed which says that the Son of God came down from Heaven for our salvation.
Let us now see how Mary became Mother of the Saviour by her consent, and how, as Mother of the Saviour, she was to be associated with His redemptive work.
MARY BECAME MOTHER OF THE SAVIOUR BY HER CONSENT
Mary gave her consent to the redemptive Incarnation when, on the day of the Annunciation, the angel said to her: “Thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus”—the name to be given to her Son meaning “saviour.” Mary was not ignorant of the Messianic prophecies—most particularly those of Isaias—which foretold the redemptive sufferings of the promised Saviour. Thus, when she uttered her fiat she accepted in advance for herself and for her Son all the sufferings which the redemption would involve.
She learned something still more explicit about them a few days later when Simeon spoke to her: “Behold this child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted; And thy own soul a sword shall pierce.” A little earlier he had spoken of Jesus as . . . thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples.” Mary, we are told, kept all these words in her heart. The divine plan became gradually clearer to her contemplative faith, lit up as it was by the illumination of the gift of understanding.
Mary therefore became freely Mother of the Redeemer in His role of Redeemer; she grew in her appreciation of the fact that the Son of God became Man for our salvation. She united herself to Jesus as only a mother, and a very holy mother, could in perfect oneness of love for God and souls. That was her way of fulfilling the great precept of the law—and what more perfect way could there be? Tradition is clear on Mary’s union with the Redeemer; it never tires of repeating that as Eve was united to the first man in the work of perdition Mary was united to the Redeemer in the work of redemption.
Mother of the Redeemer, she grew too in her appreciation of the manner of our redemption. It was sufficient for her to call to mind and meditate on the prophecies which all knew so well. (Isaias 53:1–12) announced the sufferings and humiliations of the Messiah, saying that they would be borne to expiate our sins by Him Who is innocence itself, and that by His Death He would justify many. She knew too David’s psalm (Ps. 21) “O God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” describing the prayer of the Just One, His cry of anguish in His abandonment, and His confidence in Jahve, His apostolate and its effects in Israel and among the gentiles. There was finally Daniel’s prophecy of the Son of Man (Dan. 7:13–14) and of the power that would be given Him: “And he gave him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve him: his power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken away: and his kingdom, that shall not be destroyed.” All Tradition has seen the Messiah promised as Redeemer in the Man of Sorrows of Isaias and the Son of Man of Daniel.
Mary, who was not ignorant of these prophecies, became therefore Mother of the Redeemer in His role of Redeemer at the Annunciation. From her consent “Be it done to me according to thy word” follows all the rest of her life, just as all Jesus’ life followed from the consent He gave to His Father’s will on entering the world: “Holocausts for sin did not please thee. Then said I: Behold I come to do thy will, O God.” (Heb. 10:6–9). The Fathers could say that our salvation depended on Mary’s consent, and that she conceived her Son spiritually before she conceived Him corporeally.218
It may be objected that a divine decree such as that of the Incarnation could not depend on the consent of a creature who was free not to give it. To this theology answers that God has efficaciously willed and infallibly foreseen everything that will happen in the course of time. Therefore, He willed efficaciously and foresaw infallibly Mary’s consent to the realization of the mystery of the Incarnation. From all eternity God, who works with strength and gentleness, decided to give Mary the efficacious grace which would move her to consent freely and meritoriously. Just as He makes the trees to bear their blossoms, so He makes our wills to produce their free acts; and far from doing them any violence He is the author of their freedom, for that too is a reality, a form of being. The “how” of all this is the secret of God Omnipotent. Just as Mary conceived the Saviour by the operation of the Holy Ghost without losing her virginity, so she uttered her fiat infallibly under the motion of efficacious grace without prejudice to her complete liberty—rather did her will, under the divine motion, flower spontaneously into the free consent she gave in the name of all mankind.
Mary’s fiat belonged entirely to God as First Cause and entirely to Mary as secondary cause. In it we find a perfect example of what St. Thomas speaks of (Ia, q. 19, a. 8): “Since the will of God is supremely efficacious it follows that not only do the things that God wills (efficaciously) happen, but that they happen in the way in which He wills. But it is His will that some things should happen of necessity and others freely.” By her fiat, then, Mary became voluntarily the Mother of the Redeemer.
Tradition recognizes that Mary consented to be Mother of the Redeemer in His redemptive role by calling her the New Eve. The first Eve, by consenting to temptation, led the first man to commit the sin which lost original justice for mankind. Mary is the New Eve by her consent to be the Mother of the Redeemer for the sake of the work of redemption.
Some non-Catholics have objected that Mary’s parents could equally well have been entitled father or mother of the Redeemer and regarded as associated with Him in the work of redemption. It is not hard to find an answer to this objection. Mary alone received the light required for the consent of which we speak. Her parents did not know that the Messiah would be born of their family. St. Anne could not foresee that her child would be the mother of the Messiah.
HOW WAS THE MOTHER OF THE REDEEMER TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH HIS WORK?
According to what the Fathers of the Church tell us about Mary as the New Eve whom many saw foretold in the words of Genesis, it is common and certain doctrine, and even fidei proxima, that the Blessed Virgin, Mother of the Redeemer, is associated with Him in the work of redemption as secondary and subordinate cause, just as Eve was associated with Adam in the work of man’s ruin.219
The doctrine of Mary as the second Eve was universally accepted in the 2nd century. The Fathers who taught it then did not regard it as the fruit of personal speculation but as the traditional doctrine of the Church supported by the words of St. Paul which describe Jesus as the second Adam and oppose Him to the first as the Author of salvation to the author of the fall. (2 Cor. 15:45 sqq.; Rom. 5:12 sqq.; 1 Cor. 15: 20–23). They fitted St. Paul’s words into the context of Genesis’ account of the fall, the promise of the redemption, and the victory over the demon, as well as St. Luke’s account of Mary’s consent at the Annunciation. It is necessary therefore to regard the doctrine of Mary as the second Eve, associated with the redemptive work of her Son, as a divinoapostolic tradition.220
The Fathers who speak most explicitly of this matter are St. Justin,221 St. Irenaeus,222 Tertullian,223 St. Cyprian,224 Origen,225 St. Cyril of Jerusalem,226 St. Ephrem,227 St. Epiphanius,228 St. John Chrysostom,229 St. Proclus,230 St. Jerome,231 St. Ambrose,232 St. Augustine,233 St. Basil,234 St. Germanus of Constantinople,235 St. John Damascene,236 St. Anselm,237 St. Bernard.238 In later times the theologians of the middle ages and of our own day have maintained the same doctrine.239
What, according to Tradition, is the sense in which Mary, the New Eve, was associated with the work of redemption?
It was not merely by having conceived the Redeemer physically, by having given Him birth and nourished Him, but rather was her association moral, through her free, salutary, and meritorious acts. Eve contributed morally to the fall by yielding to the temptation of the devil, by disobedience, and by leading up to Adam’s sin; Mary, on the contrary, co-operated morally in our redemption by her faith in Gabriel’s words, and by her free consent to the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation and to all the sufferings it entailed for her Son and for herself.
Clearly, Mary is not the principal and perfective cause of the Redemption: she could not redeem us in justice, de condigno, since for that a theandric act of infinite value which could belong only to an incarnate Divine Person was required. But she is really a secondary cause of salvation, dispositive, and subordinate to Jesus. She is said to be subordinated to Jesus not merely in the sense that she is inferior to Him, but also in the sense that she concurred in saving us by a grace which proceeded from His merits, and therefore acted in Him, with Him, and by Him. We must never forget that Jesus is the Universal Mediator. He redeemed Mary by preserving her from original sin. Similarly, it is through Him that she contributed to saving us. She is not the perfective cause of salvation, but a dispositive one, disposing us to undergo the action of her Son, who it is achieves our salvation and is our Redeemer.
Mary’s association with Jesus in the redemption is therefore not like that of the Apostles, but is something still more intimate. That is what St. Albert the Great formulated so happily when he said: “The Blessed Virgin Mary was chosen by God not to be His minister but to be His consort and His helper—in consortium et adjutorium—according to the words of Genesis: Let us make him a help like to himself.” (Mariale, q. 42).
We can now see that the unity of Mariology does not suffer from the defect of having two distinct principles. There is one principle which dominates it: Mary is Mother of God the Redeemer and is by that fact associated to His work. In the same way, the two mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption do not constitute a duality so as to take from the unity of Christology, for they find themselves united in the idea of the redemptive Incarnation; and their union in it is expressed in the Creed in the words “ . . . qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis, et incarnatus est.”
Jesus’ natural sonship of God or His grace of hypostatic union is greater than His fulness of created grace and our redemption. In the same way Mary’s motherhood of God is greater than her fulness of grace which overflows on us, as has been shown in the first chapter of this book. The unity of theological knowledge contributes to its certainty, since, because of its unity, it uses subordinated and not co-ordinated principles. All the different treatises, too, which go to make it up are subordinated in their totality to some supreme truth.
ARTICLE 2 - THE MOTHER OF ALL MEN
Tradition ascribes to Mary the titles Mother of Divine Grace, Mother most amiable, Mother most admirable, Mother of Mercy. The Fathers have often spoken of Mary as Mother of all Christians, and even as Mother of all men. In what sense is this maternity to be understood? When did Mary become our Mother? How does her maternity affect all the faithful, even those who are not in the state of grace, and all men, even those who have not the true faith? These are the questions we shall try to answer in this section.
IN WHAT SENSE IS MARY OUR MOTHER?
Evidently Mary is not our mother in the ordinary sense of the term since she did not give us natural life. Considering our natural life, it is Eve who deserves to be called the mother of all men. Mary is our mother rather in a spiritual sense and through adoption, for, by her union with Jesus the Redeemer, she has communicated to us the supernatural life of grace. She is very much more than a sister in grace: we say, on the analogy of natural life, that she has given us birth to a divine form of life. St. Paul could say, speaking to the Corinthians, “In Christ Jesus, by the gospel, I have begotten you.” (1 Cor. 4:15). With still more truth can we speak of Mary’s spiritual maternity—a maternity which is source of a life destined to endure not sixty or eighty years, but all eternity.
Mary’s maternity is adoptive, as is God’s fatherhood of the just. It is, however, much more intimate and fruitful than in ordinary human adoption. Human adoption constitutes a person legally the child and heir of another. But all this is in the legal order; and even though it is a sign of the affection bestowed on the adopted child, it does not produce any interior change in it. Divine adoption, on the contrary, produces sanctifying grace in the soul of the just, thereby making it to participate in the divine nature and to have within itself the germ of eternal life. The soul which is endowed thus with grace is agreeable in God’s eyes and is His child, called to know Him face to face and to love Him for all eternity. St. John speaks of this in his prologue when he describes those who believe in the Son of God made man as “Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:13). Mary’s maternity participates in the fruitfulness or fecundity of the divine Paternity: in union with the Redeemer, she has truly and really communicated to us grace, the germ of eternal life. She can therefore be called Mother of grace, Mother of mercy. That is what the Fathers meant when they called her the New Eve, and said that she had co-operated voluntarily in our salvation as Eve had cooperated in our fall.
The points of doctrine just outlined are found in the Church’s preaching from the 2nd century on. The references are the same as those given a short while ago in connection with the doctrine of the New Eve. St. Ephrem, in the 4th century, is a particularly eloquent witness. He calls Mary “Mother of life and of salvation, Mother of the living and of all men” since she gave us the Saviour and united herself to Him on Calvary.240 Similar expressions are found in St. Germanus of Constantinople,241 St. Peter Chrysologus,242 Eadmer,243 St. Bernard,244 Richard of St. Laurence,245 St. Albert the Great246 who calls Mary “Mater misericordiae, Mater regenerations, totius humani generis mater spiritualis,” and in St. Bonaventure.247
Every day the liturgy repeats: “Hail holy Queen, Mother of mercy . . . Show thyself a mother . . . Hail, Mother of mercy, Mother of God and Mother of pardon, Mother of hope and Mother of grace.”
WHEN DID MARY BECOME OUR MOTHER?
The different texts we have quoted indicate that Mary became our mother by consenting freely to be the Mother of the Saviour, the Author of grace and of our spiritual regeneration. By that act she conceived us spiritually and would have been our adoptive mother as its result even had she died before her Son. But that was not to be. Instead she lived on to unite herself to Jesus in the sacrifice of the Cross and by that great act of faith, hope and love of God and souls, she became our mother in a still more perfect way and contributed more directly, more intimately, and more profoundly to our salvation. Besides, it was on Calvary that Jesus proclaimed Mary our mother, when He addressed to Mary the words: “Woman, behold thy son,” and to St. John, who personified all the redeemed, the words: “Behold thy mother.” Tradition has always understood the words in that sense: they do not refer to a grace peculiar to St. John alone, but go beyond him to all who are to be regenerated by the Cross.248
The words of the dying Saviour, like sacramental words, produce what they signify: in Mary’s soul they produced a great increase of charity and of maternal love for us; in John a profound filial affection, full of reverence for the Mother of God. There is the origin of devotion to Mary.
Mary continues to exercise her motherly functions in our regard by watching over us so that we grow in charity and persevere in it, by interceding for us and by distributing to us all the graces we receive.
WHAT IS THE EXTENSION OF MARY’S MATERNITY?
She is first of all Mother of the faithful, of those who believe in her Son and receive through Him the life of grace. But she is also Mother of all men, since she gave the world the Saviour of all men and since she united herself to the oblation of her Son Who offered His precious blood for all. This is what has been affirmed by Popes Leo XIII, Benedict XV, and Pius XI.249
She is not the Mother of all men in a general way, as may be affirmed of Eve in the natural order, but of each man in particular, for she intercedes for each and obtains for each all the graces he receives. Jesus says of Himself that He is the Good Shepherd who “calleth his own sheep by name.” (John 10:3). Something the same may be said of Mary who is the mother of each individual man.
However, Mary is not Mother of the faithful and of infidels, of the just and sinners, in exactly the same way. The distinctions which are made in regard to the members of Christ’s Mystical Body must be made here also.250 Mary is Mother of infidels in that she is destined to engender them to grace, and in that she obtains for them the actual graces which dispose them for the faith and for justification. She is Mother of the faithful who are in the state of mortal sin, in that she watches over them by obtaining for them the graces necessary for acts of faith and hope, and for disposing themselves for justification. Of those who have died in the state of mortal sin, she is no longer the mother: she was their mother. She is fully the Mother of the just, since they have received sanctifying grace and charity through her. She cares for them with tender solicitude so that they may continue in grace and grow in charity. She is in an eminent way the Mother of the blessed who can no longer lose the life of grace.
All this makes clear the meaning of what the Church sings every day at Compline: Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of mercy; Hail, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs in this vale of tears . . .
St. Grignon de Montfort has explained the consequences of this doctrine very beautifully in his Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, ch. 1, art. 1, no. 2: God wishes to make use of Mary for the sanctification of souls. He sums up thus in the Secret of Mary (First Part: Why Mary is necessary for us):
“She it is who has given life to the Author of grace, and on that account she is called Mother of grace. In giving her His Son, God the Father, from whom all good things descend, gave her all graces: as St. Bernard says, God’s will is given her in Him and with Him.
“God has chosen her to be treasurer and dispensatrix of all His graces. All His graces and all His gifts pass by her hands. . . . Since Mary has formed the Head of the predestined, Jesus Christ, it pertains to her to form also the members of the Head, who are the true Christians. . . . She has received from God a special power to nourish souls and to make them grow in Him. St. Augustine goes so far as to say that the predestined in this world are enclosed in Mary’s womb and that they come to the light only when their good Mother brings them forth to eternal life. It is to her that the Holy Ghost has said ‘Take root in my elect’ (.Eccl. 24:13)—roots of profound humility, of ardent charity and of all the virtues.
“Mary is called by St. Augustine, and is in fact, the living mould of God—forma Dei. In her was the Man–God formed . . . and in her alone can man become deiform. Whoever is in this mould and allows himself to be shaped there, takes on the appearance of Jesus Christ, true God, in a manner adapted to his human weakness, without excess of pain and labor. This is a sure way, without danger of illusion, for Satan never had and never will have power over Mary, holy and immaculate, stainless and sinless.
“What a difference there is between a soul formed in Jesus by the method of those who, like sculptors, rely on their art and their industry, and a soul which, relying in nothing on itself, and freed from all attachments and submissive in all things, throws itself into Mary’s hands, there to be shaped by the action of the Holy Ghost. What stains, what defects, what darkness, what illusions, what an amount of the merely natural there is in the first soul, and how the second one is pure, divine, and like to Jesus . . . !
“A thousand times happy is the soul to whom the Holy Ghost reveals the secret of Mary and to whom
He opens this enclosed garden. That soul will find God alone in that most lovable creature—God infinitely holy and infinitely condescending, yet proportioned to its weakness. . . . God lives in her and, far from causing souls to rest in herself, she leads them to God and unites them to Him.”
Thus Christian doctrine becomes the object of a penetrating faith for St. Grignon de Montfort, of a contemplation which issues in a true and strong charity.
MARY, EXEMPLARY CAUSE OF THE ELECT
Jesus is our model. His predestination to natural divine sonship is the exemplary cause of our predestination to adoptive sonship for “whom he foreknew he also predestined to be made conformable to the image of his Son; that he might be the first-born among many brethren.” (Rom. 8:29). Similarly Mary our Mother, associated with her Son, is the exemplary cause of the life of the elect. It is in that sense that St. Augustine and St. Grignon de Montfort after him say that she is the mould or the model according to which God forms the elect. One must be marked with Mary’s seal and reproduce her characteristics to have a place among those loved by Our Lord—which is the reason why theologians teach commonly that a true devotion to Mary is one of the signs of predestination. Blessed Hugh of Saint-Cher even says that she is, as it were, the book of life,251 or the mirror of that eternal book, since God has written in her the names of all the elect, just as He willed to form, in her and by her, Jesus Who is the First of the elect.
St. Grignon de Montfort writes:252 “God the Son said to His Mother ‘Let thy inheritance be in Israel.’ (Eccl. 24:13). It is as if He had said: God, My Father, has given Me for heritage all the nations of the earth, all men good and evil, predestined and reprobate; I shall lead some by a rod of gold and others by a rod of iron; I shall be the father and advocate of some, the just chastiser of others, and the judge of all; but you, My dear Mother, you shall have for your heritage only the predestined who are prefigured by Israel, and as their mother, you will give them birth, nourish and rear them; as their Queen you will lead, govern and protect them.”
It is in that same sense that we must understand the words of St. Grignon de Montfort a little further on in the same work, when showing that Mary, like Jesus, makes her choice always in accordance with the divine good pleasure: “The Most High has made her His treasurer and the dispenser of His favors, to ennoble, raise up, and enrich whom she wills, to allow whom she wills to enter on the narrow way of Heaven, to make whom she wills pass through the narrow gate of life in spite of everything, and to give the throne, the sceptre, and the kingly crown to whom she will. To Mary alone has God given the keys of the cellars of divine love, and the power to enter on the highest and most secret ways of perfection and to lead others thereto.”
Those words make clear the scope of Mary’s spiritual maternity by which she forms the elect and leads them to the term of their predestination.
Her Universal Mediation and Our Interior Life
INTRODUCTION TO PART II
Having considered the Blessed Virgin as Mother of God, and the fulness of grace which was given her that she might be God’s worthy mother, it remains to speak of her relations with men. Tradition attributes to Mary three titles, Mother of the Redeemer, Mother of all men, and Mediatrix, to express her relations with men as yet on their way to eternity. In regard to the blessed she has especially the title, Universal Queen.
Theology teaches us that these titles correspond to those of Christ the Redeemer.215 He performed His redemptive work as Head of the humanity He was to regenerate, as First Mediator Who has the power by His priesthood to sacrifice and to sanctify, and to exercise teaching authority, and finally as Universal King, Who legislates for all men, judges the living and the dead, and governs all creatures not excluding the angels. Mary, in her quality of Mother of the Redeemer, is associated with Jesus in those three roles. She is associated with Him as Head of the Church by being spiritual Mother of all men; she is associated with Him as First Mediator by being a secondary and subordinate mediatrix; and she is associated with Him as Universal King by being Queen of the universe. That is Mary’s triple mission to men which we are about to consider in this part of the book.
We shall speak first of Mary as Mother of the Redeemer and as Mother of all men; then of her universal mediation on earth and in heaven; finally of her universal queenship.
All these titles, but especially that of Mother of God, are the justification of the cult of hyperdulia of which we shall speak in the last place. At no time shall we endeavor to put forward original views, or those of individual authors—nor have we done that in the earlier part of the book—but rather will it be our aim to expose the common teaching of the Church, transmitted by the Fathers and explained by theologians. It is only on such a foundation that one can safely build.
Because of the method we have chosen, a superficial reader may think our treatment of the different questions banal or elementary. But it is well to recall that the most elementary philosophical truths, such as the principles of causality and finality, and the most elementary religious truths, such as those contained in the Our Father, are found to be the most profound and vital when they are examined carefully and put into practice. In the present matter as elsewhere it is necessary to advance from what is known and certain to what is less well known, from what is easy to what is difficult; were one to embark on a premature consideration of more difficult problems, especially if they were presented in the form of dramatic and striking paradoxes, the result might be—as has happened to so many heretics—to end up by denying evident truths and obvious conclusions. The history of theology and philosophy shows that this is no fictitious danger. Finally it should not be forgotten that though in human matters, where truth and falsity, good and evil, are jumbled together, simplicity is superficiality and exposes one to error; in the things of God, where there is but the true and the good, simplicity alone will reveal the greatest heights and the most secret depths.216
CHAPTER 1. THE MOTHER OF THE REDEEMER AND OF ALL MEN
These two titles are evidently connected. We shall consider them in the order indicated.
ARTICLE 1 - THE MOTHER OF THE SAVIOUR ASSOCIATED WITH HIS REDEMPTIVE WORK
The Church calls Mary Mother of the Saviour as well as Mother of God. In the Litany of Loreto, for example, after the invocations, “Holy Mother of God,” and “Mother of the Creator,” we find the other, “Mother of the Saviour, pray for us.” Though some have thought the contrary,217 the fact of these two titles is no reason for believing that Mariology labors under the defect of a duality of distinct principles: “Mother of God” and “Mother of the Saviour, who is associated with His redemptive work.” Mariology is a unity, for Mary is “Mother of God the Redeemer or the Saviour.” In much the same way the two mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption do not take away from the unity of Christology, for its central point is the redemptive Incarnation. The motive of the Incarnation is sufficiently indicated in the Creed which says that the Son of God came down from Heaven for our salvation.
Let us now see how Mary became Mother of the Saviour by her consent, and how, as Mother of the Saviour, she was to be associated with His redemptive work.
MARY BECAME MOTHER OF THE SAVIOUR BY HER CONSENT
Mary gave her consent to the redemptive Incarnation when, on the day of the Annunciation, the angel said to her: “Thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus”—the name to be given to her Son meaning “saviour.” Mary was not ignorant of the Messianic prophecies—most particularly those of Isaias—which foretold the redemptive sufferings of the promised Saviour. Thus, when she uttered her fiat she accepted in advance for herself and for her Son all the sufferings which the redemption would involve.
She learned something still more explicit about them a few days later when Simeon spoke to her: “Behold this child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted; And thy own soul a sword shall pierce.” A little earlier he had spoken of Jesus as . . . thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples.” Mary, we are told, kept all these words in her heart. The divine plan became gradually clearer to her contemplative faith, lit up as it was by the illumination of the gift of understanding.
Mary therefore became freely Mother of the Redeemer in His role of Redeemer; she grew in her appreciation of the fact that the Son of God became Man for our salvation. She united herself to Jesus as only a mother, and a very holy mother, could in perfect oneness of love for God and souls. That was her way of fulfilling the great precept of the law—and what more perfect way could there be? Tradition is clear on Mary’s union with the Redeemer; it never tires of repeating that as Eve was united to the first man in the work of perdition Mary was united to the Redeemer in the work of redemption.
Mother of the Redeemer, she grew too in her appreciation of the manner of our redemption. It was sufficient for her to call to mind and meditate on the prophecies which all knew so well. (Isaias 53:1–12) announced the sufferings and humiliations of the Messiah, saying that they would be borne to expiate our sins by Him Who is innocence itself, and that by His Death He would justify many. She knew too David’s psalm (Ps. 21) “O God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” describing the prayer of the Just One, His cry of anguish in His abandonment, and His confidence in Jahve, His apostolate and its effects in Israel and among the gentiles. There was finally Daniel’s prophecy of the Son of Man (Dan. 7:13–14) and of the power that would be given Him: “And he gave him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve him: his power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken away: and his kingdom, that shall not be destroyed.” All Tradition has seen the Messiah promised as Redeemer in the Man of Sorrows of Isaias and the Son of Man of Daniel.
Mary, who was not ignorant of these prophecies, became therefore Mother of the Redeemer in His role of Redeemer at the Annunciation. From her consent “Be it done to me according to thy word” follows all the rest of her life, just as all Jesus’ life followed from the consent He gave to His Father’s will on entering the world: “Holocausts for sin did not please thee. Then said I: Behold I come to do thy will, O God.” (Heb. 10:6–9). The Fathers could say that our salvation depended on Mary’s consent, and that she conceived her Son spiritually before she conceived Him corporeally.218
It may be objected that a divine decree such as that of the Incarnation could not depend on the consent of a creature who was free not to give it. To this theology answers that God has efficaciously willed and infallibly foreseen everything that will happen in the course of time. Therefore, He willed efficaciously and foresaw infallibly Mary’s consent to the realization of the mystery of the Incarnation. From all eternity God, who works with strength and gentleness, decided to give Mary the efficacious grace which would move her to consent freely and meritoriously. Just as He makes the trees to bear their blossoms, so He makes our wills to produce their free acts; and far from doing them any violence He is the author of their freedom, for that too is a reality, a form of being. The “how” of all this is the secret of God Omnipotent. Just as Mary conceived the Saviour by the operation of the Holy Ghost without losing her virginity, so she uttered her fiat infallibly under the motion of efficacious grace without prejudice to her complete liberty—rather did her will, under the divine motion, flower spontaneously into the free consent she gave in the name of all mankind.
Mary’s fiat belonged entirely to God as First Cause and entirely to Mary as secondary cause. In it we find a perfect example of what St. Thomas speaks of (Ia, q. 19, a. 8): “Since the will of God is supremely efficacious it follows that not only do the things that God wills (efficaciously) happen, but that they happen in the way in which He wills. But it is His will that some things should happen of necessity and others freely.” By her fiat, then, Mary became voluntarily the Mother of the Redeemer.
Tradition recognizes that Mary consented to be Mother of the Redeemer in His redemptive role by calling her the New Eve. The first Eve, by consenting to temptation, led the first man to commit the sin which lost original justice for mankind. Mary is the New Eve by her consent to be the Mother of the Redeemer for the sake of the work of redemption.
Some non-Catholics have objected that Mary’s parents could equally well have been entitled father or mother of the Redeemer and regarded as associated with Him in the work of redemption. It is not hard to find an answer to this objection. Mary alone received the light required for the consent of which we speak. Her parents did not know that the Messiah would be born of their family. St. Anne could not foresee that her child would be the mother of the Messiah.
HOW WAS THE MOTHER OF THE REDEEMER TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH HIS WORK?
According to what the Fathers of the Church tell us about Mary as the New Eve whom many saw foretold in the words of Genesis, it is common and certain doctrine, and even fidei proxima, that the Blessed Virgin, Mother of the Redeemer, is associated with Him in the work of redemption as secondary and subordinate cause, just as Eve was associated with Adam in the work of man’s ruin.219
The doctrine of Mary as the second Eve was universally accepted in the 2nd century. The Fathers who taught it then did not regard it as the fruit of personal speculation but as the traditional doctrine of the Church supported by the words of St. Paul which describe Jesus as the second Adam and oppose Him to the first as the Author of salvation to the author of the fall. (2 Cor. 15:45 sqq.; Rom. 5:12 sqq.; 1 Cor. 15: 20–23). They fitted St. Paul’s words into the context of Genesis’ account of the fall, the promise of the redemption, and the victory over the demon, as well as St. Luke’s account of Mary’s consent at the Annunciation. It is necessary therefore to regard the doctrine of Mary as the second Eve, associated with the redemptive work of her Son, as a divinoapostolic tradition.220
The Fathers who speak most explicitly of this matter are St. Justin,221 St. Irenaeus,222 Tertullian,223 St. Cyprian,224 Origen,225 St. Cyril of Jerusalem,226 St. Ephrem,227 St. Epiphanius,228 St. John Chrysostom,229 St. Proclus,230 St. Jerome,231 St. Ambrose,232 St. Augustine,233 St. Basil,234 St. Germanus of Constantinople,235 St. John Damascene,236 St. Anselm,237 St. Bernard.238 In later times the theologians of the middle ages and of our own day have maintained the same doctrine.239
What, according to Tradition, is the sense in which Mary, the New Eve, was associated with the work of redemption?
It was not merely by having conceived the Redeemer physically, by having given Him birth and nourished Him, but rather was her association moral, through her free, salutary, and meritorious acts. Eve contributed morally to the fall by yielding to the temptation of the devil, by disobedience, and by leading up to Adam’s sin; Mary, on the contrary, co-operated morally in our redemption by her faith in Gabriel’s words, and by her free consent to the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation and to all the sufferings it entailed for her Son and for herself.
Clearly, Mary is not the principal and perfective cause of the Redemption: she could not redeem us in justice, de condigno, since for that a theandric act of infinite value which could belong only to an incarnate Divine Person was required. But she is really a secondary cause of salvation, dispositive, and subordinate to Jesus. She is said to be subordinated to Jesus not merely in the sense that she is inferior to Him, but also in the sense that she concurred in saving us by a grace which proceeded from His merits, and therefore acted in Him, with Him, and by Him. We must never forget that Jesus is the Universal Mediator. He redeemed Mary by preserving her from original sin. Similarly, it is through Him that she contributed to saving us. She is not the perfective cause of salvation, but a dispositive one, disposing us to undergo the action of her Son, who it is achieves our salvation and is our Redeemer.
Mary’s association with Jesus in the redemption is therefore not like that of the Apostles, but is something still more intimate. That is what St. Albert the Great formulated so happily when he said: “The Blessed Virgin Mary was chosen by God not to be His minister but to be His consort and His helper—in consortium et adjutorium—according to the words of Genesis: Let us make him a help like to himself.” (Mariale, q. 42).
We can now see that the unity of Mariology does not suffer from the defect of having two distinct principles. There is one principle which dominates it: Mary is Mother of God the Redeemer and is by that fact associated to His work. In the same way, the two mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption do not constitute a duality so as to take from the unity of Christology, for they find themselves united in the idea of the redemptive Incarnation; and their union in it is expressed in the Creed in the words “ . . . qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis, et incarnatus est.”
Jesus’ natural sonship of God or His grace of hypostatic union is greater than His fulness of created grace and our redemption. In the same way Mary’s motherhood of God is greater than her fulness of grace which overflows on us, as has been shown in the first chapter of this book. The unity of theological knowledge contributes to its certainty, since, because of its unity, it uses subordinated and not co-ordinated principles. All the different treatises, too, which go to make it up are subordinated in their totality to some supreme truth.
ARTICLE 2 - THE MOTHER OF ALL MEN
Tradition ascribes to Mary the titles Mother of Divine Grace, Mother most amiable, Mother most admirable, Mother of Mercy. The Fathers have often spoken of Mary as Mother of all Christians, and even as Mother of all men. In what sense is this maternity to be understood? When did Mary become our Mother? How does her maternity affect all the faithful, even those who are not in the state of grace, and all men, even those who have not the true faith? These are the questions we shall try to answer in this section.
IN WHAT SENSE IS MARY OUR MOTHER?
Evidently Mary is not our mother in the ordinary sense of the term since she did not give us natural life. Considering our natural life, it is Eve who deserves to be called the mother of all men. Mary is our mother rather in a spiritual sense and through adoption, for, by her union with Jesus the Redeemer, she has communicated to us the supernatural life of grace. She is very much more than a sister in grace: we say, on the analogy of natural life, that she has given us birth to a divine form of life. St. Paul could say, speaking to the Corinthians, “In Christ Jesus, by the gospel, I have begotten you.” (1 Cor. 4:15). With still more truth can we speak of Mary’s spiritual maternity—a maternity which is source of a life destined to endure not sixty or eighty years, but all eternity.
Mary’s maternity is adoptive, as is God’s fatherhood of the just. It is, however, much more intimate and fruitful than in ordinary human adoption. Human adoption constitutes a person legally the child and heir of another. But all this is in the legal order; and even though it is a sign of the affection bestowed on the adopted child, it does not produce any interior change in it. Divine adoption, on the contrary, produces sanctifying grace in the soul of the just, thereby making it to participate in the divine nature and to have within itself the germ of eternal life. The soul which is endowed thus with grace is agreeable in God’s eyes and is His child, called to know Him face to face and to love Him for all eternity. St. John speaks of this in his prologue when he describes those who believe in the Son of God made man as “Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:13). Mary’s maternity participates in the fruitfulness or fecundity of the divine Paternity: in union with the Redeemer, she has truly and really communicated to us grace, the germ of eternal life. She can therefore be called Mother of grace, Mother of mercy. That is what the Fathers meant when they called her the New Eve, and said that she had co-operated voluntarily in our salvation as Eve had cooperated in our fall.
The points of doctrine just outlined are found in the Church’s preaching from the 2nd century on. The references are the same as those given a short while ago in connection with the doctrine of the New Eve. St. Ephrem, in the 4th century, is a particularly eloquent witness. He calls Mary “Mother of life and of salvation, Mother of the living and of all men” since she gave us the Saviour and united herself to Him on Calvary.240 Similar expressions are found in St. Germanus of Constantinople,241 St. Peter Chrysologus,242 Eadmer,243 St. Bernard,244 Richard of St. Laurence,245 St. Albert the Great246 who calls Mary “Mater misericordiae, Mater regenerations, totius humani generis mater spiritualis,” and in St. Bonaventure.247
Every day the liturgy repeats: “Hail holy Queen, Mother of mercy . . . Show thyself a mother . . . Hail, Mother of mercy, Mother of God and Mother of pardon, Mother of hope and Mother of grace.”
WHEN DID MARY BECOME OUR MOTHER?
The different texts we have quoted indicate that Mary became our mother by consenting freely to be the Mother of the Saviour, the Author of grace and of our spiritual regeneration. By that act she conceived us spiritually and would have been our adoptive mother as its result even had she died before her Son. But that was not to be. Instead she lived on to unite herself to Jesus in the sacrifice of the Cross and by that great act of faith, hope and love of God and souls, she became our mother in a still more perfect way and contributed more directly, more intimately, and more profoundly to our salvation. Besides, it was on Calvary that Jesus proclaimed Mary our mother, when He addressed to Mary the words: “Woman, behold thy son,” and to St. John, who personified all the redeemed, the words: “Behold thy mother.” Tradition has always understood the words in that sense: they do not refer to a grace peculiar to St. John alone, but go beyond him to all who are to be regenerated by the Cross.248
The words of the dying Saviour, like sacramental words, produce what they signify: in Mary’s soul they produced a great increase of charity and of maternal love for us; in John a profound filial affection, full of reverence for the Mother of God. There is the origin of devotion to Mary.
Mary continues to exercise her motherly functions in our regard by watching over us so that we grow in charity and persevere in it, by interceding for us and by distributing to us all the graces we receive.
WHAT IS THE EXTENSION OF MARY’S MATERNITY?
She is first of all Mother of the faithful, of those who believe in her Son and receive through Him the life of grace. But she is also Mother of all men, since she gave the world the Saviour of all men and since she united herself to the oblation of her Son Who offered His precious blood for all. This is what has been affirmed by Popes Leo XIII, Benedict XV, and Pius XI.249
She is not the Mother of all men in a general way, as may be affirmed of Eve in the natural order, but of each man in particular, for she intercedes for each and obtains for each all the graces he receives. Jesus says of Himself that He is the Good Shepherd who “calleth his own sheep by name.” (John 10:3). Something the same may be said of Mary who is the mother of each individual man.
However, Mary is not Mother of the faithful and of infidels, of the just and sinners, in exactly the same way. The distinctions which are made in regard to the members of Christ’s Mystical Body must be made here also.250 Mary is Mother of infidels in that she is destined to engender them to grace, and in that she obtains for them the actual graces which dispose them for the faith and for justification. She is Mother of the faithful who are in the state of mortal sin, in that she watches over them by obtaining for them the graces necessary for acts of faith and hope, and for disposing themselves for justification. Of those who have died in the state of mortal sin, she is no longer the mother: she was their mother. She is fully the Mother of the just, since they have received sanctifying grace and charity through her. She cares for them with tender solicitude so that they may continue in grace and grow in charity. She is in an eminent way the Mother of the blessed who can no longer lose the life of grace.
All this makes clear the meaning of what the Church sings every day at Compline: Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of mercy; Hail, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs in this vale of tears . . .
St. Grignon de Montfort has explained the consequences of this doctrine very beautifully in his Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, ch. 1, art. 1, no. 2: God wishes to make use of Mary for the sanctification of souls. He sums up thus in the Secret of Mary (First Part: Why Mary is necessary for us):
“She it is who has given life to the Author of grace, and on that account she is called Mother of grace. In giving her His Son, God the Father, from whom all good things descend, gave her all graces: as St. Bernard says, God’s will is given her in Him and with Him.
“God has chosen her to be treasurer and dispensatrix of all His graces. All His graces and all His gifts pass by her hands. . . . Since Mary has formed the Head of the predestined, Jesus Christ, it pertains to her to form also the members of the Head, who are the true Christians. . . . She has received from God a special power to nourish souls and to make them grow in Him. St. Augustine goes so far as to say that the predestined in this world are enclosed in Mary’s womb and that they come to the light only when their good Mother brings them forth to eternal life. It is to her that the Holy Ghost has said ‘Take root in my elect’ (.Eccl. 24:13)—roots of profound humility, of ardent charity and of all the virtues.
“Mary is called by St. Augustine, and is in fact, the living mould of God—forma Dei. In her was the Man–God formed . . . and in her alone can man become deiform. Whoever is in this mould and allows himself to be shaped there, takes on the appearance of Jesus Christ, true God, in a manner adapted to his human weakness, without excess of pain and labor. This is a sure way, without danger of illusion, for Satan never had and never will have power over Mary, holy and immaculate, stainless and sinless.
“What a difference there is between a soul formed in Jesus by the method of those who, like sculptors, rely on their art and their industry, and a soul which, relying in nothing on itself, and freed from all attachments and submissive in all things, throws itself into Mary’s hands, there to be shaped by the action of the Holy Ghost. What stains, what defects, what darkness, what illusions, what an amount of the merely natural there is in the first soul, and how the second one is pure, divine, and like to Jesus . . . !
“A thousand times happy is the soul to whom the Holy Ghost reveals the secret of Mary and to whom
He opens this enclosed garden. That soul will find God alone in that most lovable creature—God infinitely holy and infinitely condescending, yet proportioned to its weakness. . . . God lives in her and, far from causing souls to rest in herself, she leads them to God and unites them to Him.”
Thus Christian doctrine becomes the object of a penetrating faith for St. Grignon de Montfort, of a contemplation which issues in a true and strong charity.
MARY, EXEMPLARY CAUSE OF THE ELECT
Jesus is our model. His predestination to natural divine sonship is the exemplary cause of our predestination to adoptive sonship for “whom he foreknew he also predestined to be made conformable to the image of his Son; that he might be the first-born among many brethren.” (Rom. 8:29). Similarly Mary our Mother, associated with her Son, is the exemplary cause of the life of the elect. It is in that sense that St. Augustine and St. Grignon de Montfort after him say that she is the mould or the model according to which God forms the elect. One must be marked with Mary’s seal and reproduce her characteristics to have a place among those loved by Our Lord—which is the reason why theologians teach commonly that a true devotion to Mary is one of the signs of predestination. Blessed Hugh of Saint-Cher even says that she is, as it were, the book of life,251 or the mirror of that eternal book, since God has written in her the names of all the elect, just as He willed to form, in her and by her, Jesus Who is the First of the elect.
St. Grignon de Montfort writes:252 “God the Son said to His Mother ‘Let thy inheritance be in Israel.’ (Eccl. 24:13). It is as if He had said: God, My Father, has given Me for heritage all the nations of the earth, all men good and evil, predestined and reprobate; I shall lead some by a rod of gold and others by a rod of iron; I shall be the father and advocate of some, the just chastiser of others, and the judge of all; but you, My dear Mother, you shall have for your heritage only the predestined who are prefigured by Israel, and as their mother, you will give them birth, nourish and rear them; as their Queen you will lead, govern and protect them.”
It is in that same sense that we must understand the words of St. Grignon de Montfort a little further on in the same work, when showing that Mary, like Jesus, makes her choice always in accordance with the divine good pleasure: “The Most High has made her His treasurer and the dispenser of His favors, to ennoble, raise up, and enrich whom she wills, to allow whom she wills to enter on the narrow way of Heaven, to make whom she wills pass through the narrow gate of life in spite of everything, and to give the throne, the sceptre, and the kingly crown to whom she will. To Mary alone has God given the keys of the cellars of divine love, and the power to enter on the highest and most secret ways of perfection and to lead others thereto.”
Those words make clear the scope of Mary’s spiritual maternity by which she forms the elect and leads them to the term of their predestination.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre