When the bases of the interior life are considered, we cannot
discuss the action of Christ, the universal Mediator, on His mystical
body without also speaking of the influence of Mary Mediatrix. As we
remarked, many persons delude themselves, maintaining that they reach
union with God without having continual recourse to our Lord, who is
the way, the truth, and the life. Another error would consist in
wishing to go to our Lord without going first to Mary, whom the Church
calls in a special feast the Mediatrix of all graces. Protestants have
fallen into this last error. Without going as far as this deviation,
there are Catholics who do not see clearly enough the necessity of
having recourse to Mary that they may attain to intimacy with the
Savior. Blessed Grignion de Montfort speaks even of "doctors who know
the Mother of God only in a speculative, dry, sterile, and indifferent
manner; who fear that devotion to the Blessed Virgin is abused, and
that injury is done to our Lord by honoring too greatly His holy
Mother. If they speak of devotion to Mary, it is less to recommend it
than to destroy the abuses that have grown up around it." (1) They
seem to believe that Mary is a hindrance to reaching divine union.
According to Blessed Grignion, we lack humility if we neglect the
mediators whom God has given us because of our frailty. Intimacy with
our Lord in prayer will be greatly facilitated by a true and profound
devotion to Mary.To get a clear idea of this devotion, we shall
consider what must be understood by universal mediation, and also how
Mary is the mediatrix of all graces, as is affirmed by tradition and
by the Office and Mass of Mary Mediatrix which are celebrated on May
31. Much has been written on the subject in recent years. We shall
here consider this doctrine in its relation to the interior life.(2)
THE MEANING OF UNIVERSAL MEDIATION
St. Thomas says: "Properly speaking, the office of a mediator is to
join together those between whom he mediates: for extremes are united
by an intermediary. Now to unite men to God perfectly belongs to
Christ, through whom men are reconciled to God, according to II Cor.
5: 19: 'God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.' And,
consequently, Christ alone is the perfect Mediator of God and men,
inasmuch as, by His death, He reconciled the human race to God. Hence
the Apostle, after saying, 'Mediator of God and man, the man Christ
Jesus,' added: 'Who gave Himself a redemption for all'. However,
nothing hinders certain others from being called mediators, in some
respect, between God and man, forasmuch as they cooperate in uniting
men to God, dispositive or ministerially."(3) In this sense, adds St.
Thomas,(4) the prophets and priests of the Old Testament may be called
mediators, and also the priests of the New Testament, as ministers of
the true Mediator.
St. Thomas explains further how Christ as man is the Mediator:
"Because, as man, He is distant both from God by nature, and from man
by dignity of both grace and glory. Again, it belongs to Him, as man,
to unite men to God, by communicating to men both precepts and gifts,
and by offering satisfaction and prayers to God for men." (5) Christ
satisfied and merited as man by a satisfaction and a merit which drew
an infinite value from His divine personality. This mediation is
twofold, both descending and ascending. It consists in giving to men
the light and grace of God, and in offering to God, on behalf of men,
the worship and reparation due to Him.
As has been said, there is nothing to prevent there being mediators
below Christ, subordinated to Him as secondary mediators, such as were
the prophets and priests of the Old Law for the chosen people. It may
thus be asked whether Mary is the universal mediatrix for all men and
for the distribution of all graces in general and in particular. St.
Albert the Great speaks of the mediation of Mary as superior to that
of the prophets when he says: "Mary was chosen by the Lord, not as a
minister but to be associated in a very special and quite intimate
manner in the work of the redemption of the human race: 'Faciamus ei
adjutorium simile sibi.' " (6)
Is not Mary in her quality as Mother of God completely designated
to be the universal mediatrix? Is she not truly the intermediary
between God and men? She is, indeed, much below God and Christ because
she is a creature, but much above all men by the grace of her divine
maternity, "which makes her attain the very frontiers of the
divinity," (7) and by the plenitude of grace received at the moment of
her immaculate conception; a plentitude which did not cease to grow
until her death. Not only was Mary thus designated by her divine
maternity for this function of mediatrix, but she received it in truth
and exercised it. This is shown by tradition,(8) which has given her
the title of universal mediatrix in the proper sense of the word,(9)
although in a manner subordinated to Christ. This title is consecrated
by the special feast which is celebrated in the universal Church. To
have a clear understanding of the meaning and import of this title, we
shall consider how it is becoming to Mary for two principal reasons:
because she cooperated by satisfaction and merit in the sacrifice of
the cross; and because she does not cease to intercede for us, to
obtain for us, and to distribute to us all the graces that we receive.
Such is the double mediation, ascending and descending, which we ought
to ponder in order daily to draw greater profit from it.
MARY MEDIATRIX BY HER COOPERATION IN THE
SACRIFICE OF THE CROSS
During the entire course of her earthly life, the Blessed Virgin
cooperated in the sacrifice of her Son. First of all, the free consent
that she gave on Annunciation day was necessary for the accomplishment
of the mystery of the Incarnation, as if, says St. Thomas, (10) God
had waited for the consent of humanity through the voice of Mary. By
this free fiat, she cooperated in the sacrifice of the cross, since
she gave us its Priest and Victim. She cooperated in it also by
offering her Son in the Temple, as a most pure host, at the moment
when the aged Simeon saw by prophetic light that this Child was the
"salvation. . . prepared before the face of all peoples: a light to
the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel"
(11) More enlightened than Simeon, Mary offered her Son, and began to
suffer deeply with Him when she heard the holy old man tell her that
He would be a sign which would be contradicted and that a sword would
pierce her soul.
Mary cooperated in the sacrifice of Christ, especially at the foot
of the cross, uniting herself to Him, more closely than can be
expressed, by satisfaction or reparation, and by merit. Some saints,
in particular the stigmatics, have been exceptionally united to the
sufferings and merits of our Savior: for example, St. Francis of
Assisi and St. Catherine of Siena, and yet their share in His
suffering cannot be compared with Mary's. How did Mary offer her Son?
As He offered Himself. By a miracle, Jesus could easily have prevented
the blows of His executioners from causing His death; He offered
Himself voluntarily. "No man," He says, "taketh it (My life) away from
Me: but I lay it down of Myself. And I have power to lay it down: and
I have power to take it up again." (12) Jesus renounced His right to
life; He offered Himself wholly for our salvation. Of Mary, St. John
says: "There stood by the cross of Jesus, His mother," (13) surely
very closely united to Him in His suffering and oblation. As Pope
Benedict XV says: "She renounced her rights as a mother over her Son
for the salvation of all men." (14) She accepted the martyrdom of
Christ and offered it for us. In the measure of her love, she felt all
the torments that He suffered in body and soul. More than anyone else,
Mary endured the very suffering of the Savior; she suffered for sin in
the degree of her love for God, whom sin offends; for her Son, whom
sin crucified; for souls, which sin ravishes and kills. The Blessed
Virgin's charity incomparably surpassed that of the greatest saints.
She thus cooperated in the sacrifice of the cross by way of
satisfaction or reparation, by offering to God for us, with great
sorrow and most ardent love, the life of her most dear Son, whom she
rightly adored and who was dearer to her than her very life.
In that instant, the Savior satisfied for us in strict justice by
His human acts which drew from His divine personality an infinite
value capable of making reparation for the offense of all mortal sins
that ever had been or would be committed. His love pleased God more
than all sins displease Him.(15) Herein lies the essence of the
mystery of the redemption. In union with her Son on Calvary, Mary
satisfied for us by a satisfaction based, not on strict justice, but
on the rights of the infinite friendship or charity which united her
to God.(16)
At the moment when her Son was about to die on the cross,
apparently defeated and abandoned, she did not cease for a moment to
believe that He was the Word made flesh, the Savior of the world, who
would rise in three days as He had predicted. This was the greatest
act of faith and hope ever made; after Christ's act of love, it was
also the greatest act of love. It made Mary the queen of martyrs,
for she was a martyr, not only for Christ but with Christ; so much
so, that a single cross sufficed for her Son and for her. She was, in
a sense, nailed to it by her love for Him. She was thus the
coredemptrix, as Pope Benedict XV says, in this sense, that with
Christ, through Him, and in Him, she bought back the human race. (17)
For the same reason, all that Christ merited for us on the cross in
strict justice, Mary merited for us by congruous merit, based on the
charity that united her to God. Christ alone, as head of the human
race, could strictly merit to transmit divine life to us. But Pius X
sanctioned the teaching of theologians when he wrote: "Mary, united to
Christ in the work of salvation, merited de congruo for us what
Christ merited for us de condigno." (18)
This common teaching of theologians, thus sanctioned by the
sovereign pontiffs, has for its principal traditional basis the fact
that Mary is called in all Greek and Latin tradition the new Eve,
Mother of all men in regard to the life of the soul, as Eve was in
regard to the life of the body. It stands to reason that the spiritual
mother of all men ought to give them spiritual life, not as the
principal physical cause (for God alone can be the principal physical
cause of divine grace), but as the moral cause by merit de congruo,
merit de condigno being reserved to Christ.
The Office and Mass proper to Mary Mediatrix assemble the principal
testimonies of tradition on this point with their scriptural
foundations, in particular the clearcut statements of St. Ephrem, the
glory of the Syriac Church, of St. Germanus of Constantinople, of St.
Bernard, and of St. Bernardine of Siena. Even as early as the second
and third centuries, St. Justin, St. Irenaeus, and Tertullian insisted
on the parallel between Eve and Mary, and showed that if the first
concurred in our fall, the second collaborated in our redemption.(19)
This teaching of tradition itself rests in part on the words of
Christ, related in the Gospel of the Mass for the feast of Mary
Mediatrix. The Savior was about to die and, seeing "His mother and the
disciple standing whom He loved, He saith to His mother: Woman, behold
thy son. After that, He saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And
from that hour the disciple took her to his own." (20) The literal
meaning of these words, "Behold thy son," points to St. John, but for
God, events and persons signify others; (21) here St. John represents
spiritually all men purchased by the sacrifice of the cross. God and
His Christ speak not only by the words They use, but by the events and
persons whose masters They are, and by whom They signify what They
wish according to the plan of Providence. The dying Christ, addressing
Mary and John, saw in John the personification of all men, for whom He
was shedding His blood. As this word, so to speak, created in Mary a
most profound maternal affection, which did not cease to envelop the
soul of the beloved disciple, this supernatural affection extended to
all of us and made Mary truly the spiritual mother of all men. In the
eighth century we find Abbot Rupert expressing this same idea, and
after him St. Bernardine of Siena, Bossuet, Blessed Grignion de
Montfort, and many others. It is the logical result of what tradition
tells us about the new Eve, the spiritual mother of all men.
Finally, if we studied theologically all that is required for merit
de congruo, based not on justice, but on charity or
supernatural friendship which unites us to God, we could not find it
better realized than in Mary. Since, in fact, a good Christian mother
by her virtue thus merits graces for her children,(22) with how much
greater reason can Mary, who is incomparably more closely united to
God by the plenitude of her charity, merit de congruo for all
men.
Such is the ascending mediation of Mary in so far as she offered
the sacrifice of the cross with Christ for us, making reparation and
meriting for us. We shall now consider the descending mediation, by
which she distributes the gifts of God to us.
MARY OBTAINS AND DISTRIBUTES ALL GRACES
That Mary obtains for us and distributes to us all graces is a
certain doctrine, according to what we have just said about the mother
of all men. As mother, she is interested in their salvation, prays for
them, and obtains for them the graces they receive. In the Ave Maris
Stella we read:
Salve vincla reis,
Profer lumen caecis,
Mala nostra pelle,
Bona cuncta posce.(23) |
Break the sinner's fetters,
To the blind give day,
Ward all evils from us,
For all blessings pray. |
In an encyclical on the Rosary, Leo XIII says: "According to the
will of God, nothing is granted to us except through Mary; and, as no
one can go to the Father except through the Son, so generally no one
can draw near to Christ except through Mary." (24)
The Church, in fact, turns to Mary to obtain graces of all kinds,
both temporal and spiritual; among these last, from the grace of
conversion up to that of final perseverance, to say nothing of those
needed by virgins to preserve virginity, by apostles to exercise their
apostolate, by martyrs to remain firm in the faith. In the Litany of
Loreto, which has been universally recited in the Church for many
centuries, Mary is for this reason called: "Health of the sick, refuge
of sinners, comforter of the afflicted, help of Christians, queen of
apostles, of martyrs, of confessors, of virgins." Thus all kinds of
graces are distributed by her, even, in a sense, those of the
sacraments; for she merited them for us in union with Christ on
Calvary. In addition, she disposes us, by her prayer, to approach the
sacraments and to receive them well. At times she even sends us a
priest, without whom this sacramental help would not be given to us.
Finally, not only every kind of grace is distributed to us by Mary,
but every grace in particular. Is this not what the faith of the
Church says in the words of the Hail Mary: "Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen"? This
"now" is said every moment in the Church by thousands of Christians
who thus ask for the grace of the present moment. This grace is the
most individual of graces; it varies with each of us, and for each one
of us at every moment. If we are distracted while saying this word,
Mary, who is not distracted, knows our spiritual needs of every
instant, and prays for us, and obtains for us all the graces that we
receive. This teaching, contained in the faith of the Church and
expressed by the common prayers (lex orandi lex credendi), is
based on Scripture and tradition. Even during her earthly life, Mary
truly appears in Scripture as the distributor of graces. Through Mary,
Jesus sanctified the Precursor when she went to visit her cousin
Elizabeth and sang the Magnificat. Through His mother, Jesus confirmed
the faith of the disciples at Cana, by granting the miracle that she
asked. Through her, He strengthened the faith of John on Calvary,
saying to him: "Behold thy mother." Lastly, by her the Holy Ghost came
down upon the apostles, for she was praying with them in the cenacle
on Pentecost day when the Holy Ghost descended in the form of tongues
of fire.(25)
With even greater reason after the assumption and her entrance into
glory, Mary is the distributor of all graces. As a beatified mother
knows in heaven the spiritual needs of her children whom she left on
earth, Mary knows the spiritual needs of all men. Since she is an
excellent mother, she prays for them and, since she is all powerful
over the heart of her Son, she obtains for them all the graces that
they receive, all which those receive who do not persist in evil. She
is, it has been said, like an aqueduct of graces and, in the mystical
body, like the virginal neck uniting the head to its members.
When we treat of what the prayer of proficients ought to be, we
shall speak of true devotion to Mary as it was understood by Blessed
Grignion de Montfort. Even now we can see how expedient it is
frequently to use the prayer of mediators, that is, to begin our
prayer by a trusting, filial conversation with Mary, that she may lead
us to the intimacy of her Son, and that the holy soul of the Savior
may then lift us to union with God, since Christ is the way, the
truth, and the life. (26)
|
|
1. Blessed Grignion de Montfort, Treatise on the
True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, chap. 2, a. I, § I. See also
The Secret of Mary, by the same author. It is a summary of the
preceding treatise. 2 Cf. St. Bernard, Serm. in Dominic. infra.
Oct. Assumpt., no. 1 (PL, CLXXXIII, 429). Serm. in Nativ. B. V.
Mariae De aquaeductu, nos. 6-7 (PL, CLXXXIII, 440). Epist. ad
Canonicos Lugdunenses de Conceptione S. Mariae, no. 2 (PL,
CLXXXII, 333). St. Albert the Great, Mariale sive Quaestiones super
Evangelium: Missus est (ed. A. Borgnetj Paris, 1890-99, XXXVII, q.
29)' St. Bonaventure, Sermones de B. V. Maria, De Annuntiatione,
serm. V (Quarrachi, 1901, IX, 679). St. Thomas, In Salute. angel.
expositio. Bossuet, Sermon sur la Sainte Vierge. Terrien,
S.T., La Mere de Dieu et la Mere des hommes, III. Hugon, O.P.,
Marie pleine de grace. J. Bittremieux, De mediatione
universali B. Mariae V. quoad gratias, 1926, Beyaert, Bruges. Leon
Leloir, La mediation mariale dans la theologie contemporaine,
1933, ibid. P. R. Bernard, O.P., Le mystere de Marie, Desclee
de Brouwer, Paris, 1933, This excellent book ought to be meditated
upon. See also P. G. Friethoff, O.P., De alma Socia Christi
mediatoris, Rome, 1936. J. V. Bainvel, S.J., Le saint coeur de
Marie, 1919. P. Joret, O.P., Le Rosaire de Marie, an
annotated translation of the Encyclicals of Leo XIII on the Rosary,
1933.
3. See IIIa, q.26, a.1.
4. Ibid., ad 1um.
6 Ibid., a.2.
6. Mariale, 42.
7. Cajetan.
8. Ct. J Bittremieux, op. cit.
9. Ct. G. Friethoff, O.P., Angelicum (October, 1933), pp
469-77
10. See IIIa, q. 30, a. 1.
11. Luke 2:30-31.
12. John 10: 18.
13. Ibid., 19:25.
14 Litt. Apost., Inter sodalicia, March 22, 1918. (Act. Ap. Sed.,
1918, p. 182; quoted in Denzinger, 16th ed., no. 3034, n.4.)
15. See IIIa, q.48, a.2: "He properly atones for an offense who
offers somethmg which the offended one loves not less, or even more,
than he detested the offense. But by suffering out of love and
obedience, Christ gave more to God than. was required to compensate
for the offense of the whole human race. . . . First of all, because
of the exceeding charity from which He uffered; secondly, on account
of the dignity of His life which He laid down in atonement, for it was
the life of one who was God and man; thirdly, on account of the extent
of the Passion, and the greatness of the grief endured."
16. "Satisfactio B. M. Virginis fundatur, non in stricta justitia,
sed in jure amicabili." This is the common teaching of theologians.
17. Benedict XV, Litt. Apost., citat.: "Ita cum Filio patiente et
moriente passa est et paene commortua, sic materna in Filium jura pro
hominum salute abdicavit placandaeque Dei justitiae, quantum ad se
pertinebat, Filium immolavit, ut dici merito queat, ipsam cum
Christo humanum genus redemisse." Denzinger, Enchiridion, no.
3034, n4.
18. Cf. Piux X, Encyclical, Ad diem ilium, Feb. 2, 1904
(Denzinger, Enchiridion, 3034): "Quoniam universis sanctitate
praestat conjunctioneque cum Christo atque a Christo ascita in humanae
salutis opus, de congruo, ut aiunt, promeruit nobis, quae Christus de
condigno promeruit, estque princeps largiendarum gratiarum ministra."
It should be remarked that merit de congruo, which is based
in jure amicabili seu in caritate is a merit properly so called,
although inferior to merit de condigno. The word "merit' is
used for both according to an analogy of proper and not only
metaphorical proportionality.
19. St. Irenaeus, who represents the Churches of Asia where he was
trained, the Church of Rome where he lived, and the Churches of Gaul
where he taught, wrote (Adv. haeres., V, 19, I): "As Eve,
seduced by the discourse of the (rebellious) angel, turned away from
God and betrayed His word, so Mary heard from the angel the good
tidings of the truth. She bore God in her bosom because she obeyed His
word. . . . The human race, enchained by a virgin, was delivered by a
virgin. . .; the prudence of the serpent yielded to the simplicity of
the dove; the bonds which chained us in death were broken."
In a prayer used in the second nocturn of the Office of Mary
Mediatrix, St. Ephrem concludes from this parallel between Eve and the
Mother of God, that "Mary is, after Jesus, the mediator par
excellence, the mediatrix of the entire world, and that it is through
her that we obtain all spiritual goods (tu creaturam replesti omni
genere beneficii caelestibus laetitiam attulisti, terrestria
salvasti).
St. Germanus of Constantinople (Oratio 9, pa, XCVIII, 377 ff.,
quoted in the same nocturn of the Office) even says: "No one is saved
except by thee, O most holy; no one is delivered except through thee,
O most immaculate; no one receives the gifts of God except through
thee, O purest."
St. Bernard says: "O our mediatrix, O our advocate, reconcile us
with thy Son; recommend us to thy Son; present us to thy Son" (Second
sermon adventu, 5). "It is the will of God that we should have
everything through Mary" (On the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
no. 7). "She is full of grace; the overflow is poured out on us"
(Sermon II on the Assumption,
no. 1).
20 John 19:16f.
21. See Ia q. I, a.10: "The author of Holy Scripture is God, in
whose power it is to signify His meaning, not by words only (as men
also can do), but also by things themselves."
22. See Ia IIae, q.114, a.6: "It is clear that no one can merit
condignly for another his first grace, save Christ alone. . . inasmuch
as He is the head of the Church and the author of human salvation. . .
. But one may merit the first grace for another congruously; because a
man in grace fulfills God's will, and it is congruous and in harmony
with friendship that God should fulfill man's desire for the salvation
of another, although sometimes there may be an impediment on the part
of him whose salvation the just man desires."
23. The Jansenists altered this verse in order not to affirm this
universal mediation of Mary.
24. Encyclical on the Rosary, Octobri mense, September 11,
1891 (Denzinger, no. 3033).
|
