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"The heart of the Virgin,” wrote St. Lawrence Justinian, “was created to
be a very clear mirror reflecting the passion of Christ and a perfect
image of his death."(1)
Let us say
further: Mary’s heart shared in a unique way in the sacrifice of our
Redeemer. We could summarize and synthesize the teaching of Vatican
Council II on this subject in the following affirmation: Mary was redeemed
in advance in order that she might be our unique co-redemptrix under, and
with, her and our sole Redeemer, Jesus. Lumen Gentium explicitly affirms
that Mary’s role in our redemption had been merited by Christ; that it was
privileged, even unique; physical and spiritual, sorrowful and maternal.
(2) It delineates the essence and intimate nature of her maternal
cooperation as a sorrowing, loving consent to Jesus’ death, a consent
which ratified and prolonged the consent she had made at the time of the
Annunciation. Her participation included the simultaneous exercise of the
moral virtue of obedience and of the three theological virtues. In brief,
it shows us Mary’s part in the work of redemption, springing from her
heart.
This seems to be
an accurate interpretation of the following conciliar text: “. . .
suffering grievously with her only-begotten Son, she united herself
with a maternal heart to his sacrifice, and lovingly consented to the
immolation of this Victim which she herself had brought forth.” (3) Above
all it throws light upon this most important doctrinal paragraph: “. . .
united with in suffering as he died on the cross, in an utterly
singular way she cooperated, by her obedience, faith, hope and burning
charity, in the Savior’s work of restoring supernatural life to souls. For
this reason she is a mother to us in the order of grace.” (4)
The doctrinal
affirmation of the 1964 Council regarding Mary’s singular cooperation in
the work of the Redeemer brings to mind, almost irresistibly, the dogmatic
definition of 1854 concerning the lofty mode of Mary’s own redemption:
“Redeemed in the most sublime manner . . . she cooperated in a unique way
in the work of the Savior.”
Blessed Duns
Scotus demonstrated that the Immaculate Conception and the universal
redemptive mission of Jesus were not opposed, and that Jesus redeemed the
Immaculate One. In a parallel movement, Vatican Council II suggests that
the redemption (passive) of Mary by Jesus and her privileged and unique
cooperation in the active redemption of all the other offspring of Adam,
not only are not opposed, but are firmly united by the bond of final
causality. This is clear in the conciliar text already quoted: “Impeded by
no sin, she gave herself totally as a handmaid of the Lord. In
subordination to him and along with him she served the mystery of
redemption.” (5) How can we fail to conclude from these texts that Mary
was redeemed by the crucified Christ in a unique and exceptional manner
precisely in order that she could be the sole sub-redemptrix,” the one
“Co-redemptrix” of the Church and of humanity, in dependence upon their
and her unique Redeemer? How can we fail to conclude that she was redeemed
by her Son and Lord to the point of receiving the grace of being Co-redemptrix?
The suffering
heart of Mary, pierced with a sword(6) of sorrow by men who loved darkness
better than light, (cf. Lk. 2:35 and Jn. 3:19) thus played a decisive role
in their passage from the darkness of hatred to the light of love, from
death to life (cf. I Jn. 2,9 and 3:14). Scheeben had already expressed in
biblical and patristic imagery what Vatican Council II was to teach in
more abstract terms:
“In the
image-language of Scripture and the Fathers the redemption of the world
was effected through the blood of the Lamb, the ransom, and through the
sigh of the Dove, prayer sanctified by the Holy Spirit and offered in the
name of the redeemed that the ransom might be accepted. Or again, this
redemption was realized by the act of the Head and his priestly power, and
on the other hand by the love of the heart and the groans of the spouse.
This heart was itself a perpetual sacrifice through its loving
participation in the sufferings of the Lamb... .Mary’s collaboration in
the sacrifice of Christ receives its perfect expression when we consider
her heart as a living altar erected for humanity. Upon this altar the
oblation sprung from her womb is offered by Christ.... In this manner
Christ the Victim is only taken from humanity and offered by it,
but is offered within it.
“Mary, ‘Theotokos,’
is also ‘the one who offers the Victim’: an after-type of the Ark of the
Covenant when she carries Christ beneath her heart and nourishes him with
her blood, an after-type of the throne of propitiation when she carries
him in her heart while he sheds his blood and sprinkles her with it.”(7)
Jesus dies with
the full and loving consent of his mother; but this new and supreme
consent, ultimate ratification of the Ecce ancilla Domini of the
Fiat of the Annunciation,(8) is merited and wrought by his very death
itself.(9) Jesus Christ offers Himself to the Father for all his brethren
on the altar of the immaculate and broken heart of Mary, through the
holocaust of her maternal freedom. The visible sacrifice of Jesus is the
sacrament, or sacred and efficacious sign, of the invisible sacrifice of
Mary and of humanity.
We may say to the
compassionate heart of Mary standing at the foot of the cross (Jn. 19:25)
what St. John Damascene said to the Virgin of the Annunciation: “Be
joyful! You are the ewe giving birth to the Lamb of God, you are the
instrument of our salvation.”(10)
In the grievously
loving exercise of her activity as Co-redemptrix, Mary places all the
powers granted to her divine motherhood, state and dignity entirely at the
Redeemer’s disposal for the triumph of his redemptive work. By her faith
in his saving Blood, and in his Divinity and future Resurrection, she
enters freely into the sacrifice of her agonizing Son, assenting to the
immolation of the body, she had engendered according to the flesh. Hence,
she merits to bring to spiritual birth, in tears, grief and love, the
members of the only Son of her virginal heart. With the hour of Jesus,
Mary’s hour has come (cf. Jn. 16:21 and 2:4). Her heart, which had
conceived the universal Church at the time of the Annunciation, now brings
it to birth and gives it to the world. Jesus crucified proclaims her
Mother of the Church, symbolized by John; (11) Behold your Mother!
(Jn. 19:27). His proclamation declares, rather than establishes, a fact.
In the same way Pope Paul VI’s proclamation in 1964 simply made this same
fact manifest. In consenting anew, Mary freely accepts to be the servant
of this universal Church which she had conceived in joyous faith, before
having brought it to birth in tears. The new Eve is united with the new
Adam.
But Mary at the
foot of the cross is not merely the Mother of the Church. She is its
principal and supereminent member. At this moment Mary’s heart is, in a
very special way, the heart of the Church. When almost all the other
members are unfaithful to the Head, the heart remains more vitally united
to Him than ever in the name of the entire Body. If St. John symbolizes
the Church — daughter of Mary according to the teaching of St. Laurence
Justinian — Mary herself symbolizes the Church(12) seen as a community
bonded in charity, a society of love. She is its transcendent type. In the
Church she is the heart watching in faith while many sleep the sleep of
unbelief. She is the heart which causes the blood, that is, charity, to
flow throughout the body. Mary’s heart, at the foot of the cross, is the
loving heart of the loving Church.
Alone, standing
at the foot of the cross, Mary preserves faith in redemptive Love totally
and perfectly.(13) She personifies the Church participating in its own
salvation, as she, at the same time, efficiently causes this
participation. “God has willed that the redeeming act of Christ the Head,
who represents us before the Father, should be accompanied by Mary’s act
of adherence, in which she represents the Church.”(14)
The Church is a
hierarchical communion established in faith, hope and love, and these
three find their source in the believing and hoping love of Mary, its
mother and heart. Mary, “model of the Church in the matter of faith, hope
and perfect union with Christ,” according to the teaching of Vatican
Council 11,72 is not only a type of the Church but its model. She is also
its type because, especially on Calvary, she was personally engaged in
bringing about in the other members of the ecciesial community what Christ
crucified had already typically effected in her through his compassion for
her: the triumph of love’s sacrifice and oblation.(15)
In the tabernacle
of her womb Mary clothed the Word of Life in the priestly garment of his
mortal flesh, so that He might officiate as our Sovereign Priest on the
altar of the Cross.(16) On Golgotha she becomes — and here we return to
Scheeben’s thought(17)— the deaconess of Christ’s priestly sacrifice. She
is both the representative of the People of God and, through her divine
motherhood, the consecrated minister of the Sovereign Priest — heart and
mother of the Church. “In this way Mary is given a true share in the
sacrifice of Christ,” a share which in no way denies “the independence and
authority of Christ’s action,” wrote Scheeben (ibid~). The expression
“share” calls for immediate qualification.
Without going
into a technical study of the doctrine of Marian co-redemption,(18) I may
say that the Church, in venerating and loving Mary’s wounded and glorified
heart, loves and venerates with filial gratitude, her meritorious and
atoning love. Mary, as Co-redemptrix, offered to the Father the sacrifice
of the one Redeemer for all the children of Adam. The Church venerates
this created, redeemed and co-redeeming love of the one who gave her birth
and ever maintains her in life. She loves her own heart, that heart which
gives her the Blood, price of her redemption and her immortal libation.
No man ever
hates his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it
(Eph. 5:29). The Church reaches the heights of love proper to her when she
loves her own heart, Mary her mother, the maternal heart of the universal
Church. How can she ever forget what her mother has suffered in order to
give her life (cf. Sirach 7:27)? “Through you, Virgin Mary, we draw from
the fountains of salvation, from the wounds of Christ.”(19)
ENDNOTES
(1) “Factum est Cor Cirginis speculum clarissimurn passionis Christi,
et imago perfecta mortis eius”: St. Lawrence Justinian, De Triumphali
Christi Agone, Ch. XXI.
(2) See the
justification for these affirmations in LG, 60, 61, 58, 61-2.
(3) LG, 58.
(4) LG, 61.
(5) LG, 56; See
Carol, Mariologia (BAC), Madrid, 1964, pp. 797-8.
(5) See P.
Benoit, O.P.: “Un glaive transpercera l’ame,” Catholic Bible Quarterly,
Vol. XXV, 1963, pp. 25 1-61.
(6.) Scheeben,
op. cit., pp. 181-2 and 185-6.
(7) LG, 62.
(8) LG, 60.
(9) St. John
Damascene, Ch. III, 5 (V, 195).
(10) See St.
Lawrence Justinian, De triumphali Christi Agone, Ch. 18; see the text in
Marianum, 26 (1964), 320-1.
(11) St. Ambrose
in Lucam, Bk. VII, 5; ML, 15, 1787.
(12) See Binder,
Maria et Ecciesia (Rome, International Marian Academy, 1959), Vol. III,
“in passione Domini fidem Ecclesiae in B. Virgine sola remansisse,” pp.
389-488 and especially p. 486.
(13) C.
Dillenschneider, C. Ss. R., Marie dans la creation renovee, Alsatia,
Paris, 1957, p. 242. The pastor De Saussure (Contemplation de Ia Croix,
pp. 73-4) wrote: “God made man, you have loved in her your Church made
woman. Image of God invisible, you have restored for us in her the image
of the invisible Church: behold your Mother.”
(14) LG, 63. St.
Bernard calls Mary “Mater charitatis” (ML, 183, 933). See on this subject
the article of P. Narciso Garcia Garces, C.M.P.: “El Corazon de Maria
visto por S. Bernardo,” Estudios Marianos, XIV, 11-36.
(15) See the
considerations of Schillebeeckx (op. cit. pp. 128-9) on the dynamic and
active character of the notion of type as applied to Mary in relation to
the Church.
(16) See St.
Bonaventure, Sernon IV de Annuntiatione.
(17) Scheeben,
op. cit., pp. 184-5.
(18) See on this
subject Dillenschneider (op. cit., 161-76) and Carol (Mariologia, BAC,
1964, p. 794).
(19) Third
Nocturn of Matins of the Office of the Seven Dolors of the Virgin Mary,
September 15.
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