Book References

MMS – Mariology by M.J. Scheeben, Volume One, translated by Rev. TLMJ Geukers, T. Herder Book Co., London, 1946

TDT – Theo-Drama Theological Dramatic Theory III. Dramatis Personae, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Ignatius Press, S.F, 1978

ST III – Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas, Tertia Pars, translated by the Fathers of the English Dominical Province

Home and Tabernacle

It is hardly the situation that a mother’s womb provides no more than a “container” for the growing foetus, the human foetus does not merely do its own growing! (Neither is the nefarious view true that the human foetus is a parasite true, the human child does not invade the woman’s body from the outside, it is grown intentionally, within by the perfectly natural biological processes of the woman herself, processes that are the reason there is a human race at all!) The womb, contrary to all aspersions cast on it, all too often with various secondary intentions, is a place of protection and of nurturing for the developing human foetus, in other words, the “family home”. One who is returning home would never say “I’m going to the building”, because a home is not “just a building”, and so also is the womb not “just a vessel”. The word “just” here is again all-too-often employed in order to falsely equivocate a mother’s role with that of an empty container (Imagine if the acceptance speeches at awards ceremonies “I would like to thank the woman who contained me…”!)  Consider that the pro-abortion lobby employs precisely the same ploy of another false equivocation, in calling the foetus “just a blob tissue”. Truly, were a mother “just a vessel”, then this would be the case! Mary on the other hand seemingly provided Jesus a home through his growing years and even well into his adulthood, an episode of Jesus’ life that will apparently remain completely hidden for all ages.

“So far as Protestantism still believes in the divinity of Christ, it regards Mary only as the earth from which the first Adam has been taken, and not as a person who has the closest, mutually spiritual relations with Christ” (Scheeben MMS, 33).

The term “just a vessel” with respect to any object implies a delineation of that object to the role of “containment”. It denotes a lack of interaction/participation with that which is contained. The addition of the intensifier “just” pre-empts any wilful extension of this role. The only vessels which do interact with their contents and are constructed for the specific additional purpose of such interaction, like a wine or whisky barrel or indeed an incubator. A regular vessel that would fit the description of “just a vessel” is entirely indifferent to its contents: it is “multipurpose”, its only necessary feature is that of enclosing a space. This then is the Protestant allowance for the role of Mary in our salvation. Any goodness that is found in her is related to her own personal salvation and stops short at this.

An “instrument” on the other hand, is purposed for a task, is task-specific, and this is what Mary truly is, in line with the terminology of Paul ,when he calls our bodies by that which they were truly purposed by God, as “instruments of righteousness”. The term “vessel” misses the central theme of the Incarnation which rather than that God was merely contained in a human being, (which is “spiritual indwelling” which we see in the Old Testament already),  is instead God assuming human flesh from a Woman. The simple and natural holds terminology on the other hand remains true to the sentiment of the Incarnation, that Mary is “just the mother” of Jesus.

Ark of the Covenant, Mother of God and our Mother

I think it is necessary to take these major themes of Ark of the Covenant, Mother of God along with the Mother of the faithful (Rev.12:5) together due to the manner in which they are interlinked first in the Gospel of Luke wherein Elizabeth herself (v1:43) ties up the Ark narrative with the narrative of the Mother of God, and the same link is maintained in Revelations 11:9-12:1-5 ending with “to make war upon her children”. The two ends can be said then, to be hinged upon “behold your mother” (Jn.19:27).

“Rise up, O Lord, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might.” (Ps. 132:8)

Again, a well-known prophecy of the Incarnation refers to this as God’s “coming into his Temple”. This can only either be a prophetic reference to the very body of Mary, else that of a hitherto unfulfilled Third Temple. Christian must necessarily hold to the former, as the same verse contains the reference to John the Baptist:
“See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” (Mal.3:1,2)

“All of creation rejoices in you, O full of grace: the assembly of angels and the human race. You are a sanctified temple and a spiritual paradise, the glory from whom God was incarnate and became a child; our God, existing before all ages. He made your womb a throne, and your body more spacious than the heavens. All of creation rejoices in you, O full of grace. Glory to you.” -From the anaphora (offerings) of the Divine Liturgy of St Basil the Great.

Indeed Mary is the new Tabernacle of God. For in the pronouncement of the Angel: “the Holy Spirit will overshadow you” is the direct reference to God descending in the cloud as His Shekinah glory on the Mount Sinai, in the Tabernacle in the Holy of Holies in the Tent of Meeting in the desert wanderings of the Israelites, and in Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. The Old Ark of the Covenant becoming lost forever, Mary is the New Tabernacle which contains the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus. (I heard someone aptly state that Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, that is the first Eucharistic Procession!) Mary is “just” the Tabernacle, the Temple of the Living Lord, the Ark of the Covenant for us.

Through all the desert years it is in the Ark of the Covenant that God Presence dwells with the Israelites. “There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the covenant law, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites” Ex 25:22, and it is the place where God dwells with his people. Indeed when it is when the Ark is present that God is present, so much so that the Ark must be carried with the Israelites into battle if they are to be victorious, and when the Ark is brought into the Temple of Solomon, the Glory of God descends upon it as the Cloud of Smoke.

Finally the Ark is lost never to seemingly be recovered, but the story of its last earthly dwelling is told in 2 Maccabees 2:4-8 “ It was also in the same document that the prophet, having received an oracle, ordered that the tent and the ark should follow with him, and that he went out to the mountain where Moses had gone up and had seen the inheritance of God. Jeremiah came and found a cave-dwelling, and he brought there the tent and the ark and the altar of incense; then he sealed up the entrance. Some of those who followed him came up intending to mark the way, but could not find it. When Jeremiah learned of it, he rebuked them and declared: “The place shall remain unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows his mercy. Then the Lord will disclose these things, and the glory of the Lord and the cloud will appear, as they were shown in the case of Moses, and as Solomon asked that the place should be specially consecrated.”

Indeed this event comes to fruition when the angel declares to Mary “the Holy Spirit will overshadow you…” The next appearance of the Ark is only in the Book of Revelations.

Tim Bergsma speaking about his conversion says that this is the passage which convinced him about Mary being Queen of Heaven and the Ark of the Covenant. The verse about the Woman occurs right after the vision of the Ark in Heaven, so it is hard not to draw a correlation, also given that the chapter-breaks are not in the original manuscripts anyway.

^“Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail. A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” (11:19,12:1)

The Woman , “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and crowned with twelve stars…” is obviously a heavenly description, and also obviously a queen, being crowned after all. Further the obvious referent of the number 12 not just in the Bible but also in the book of Revelations itself is to the 12 tribes and therefore the queenship of Israel, and God’s holy people as a whole. Psalm 104:2 “you are clothed with honor and majesty, wrapped in light as in a garment” The JBC21C notes with references “these attributes are typical of high godesses in the ancient world, such as Isis…” (p.1873).

The child is clearly Jesus, the Messiah of Israel, who is to “rule all the nations with a rod of iron” (12:5), a reference to “I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill…you are my son, today I have begotten you…you shall break (the nations) with a rod of iron…” (Psalm 2:4-9) and “The scepter will not depart from Judah” (Ex.49:10). There is no other woman that gives birth to a Messiah other than Mary. As confirmation Rev.19:15 correlates this with the “Rider on the white horse”: “..’;he will rule them with a rod of iron…”

Objection- does Mary endure pain in childbirth?

The most significant objection to this strong Marian reference in Revelations is that the woman has pain in labor, when in fact labor pains according to the book of Genesis are a sign of the fallen state of man. This would therefore seem to go against the Church’s own official teachings, that Mary could not have had pain in her labor, being immaculately conceived and therefore not fallen.

Personally, I think that this might be over-reaching, and it might be OK for me to say this because this is not taught dogmatically by the Church. Personally I would have thought that God can protect his Mother from sin, without protecting from bodily pain, as were the case with Jesus who suffered pain but did not sin. But the Genesis passage refers to the fact that the Paradisal state of original innocence is presumably, in a way that we cannot understand, pain-free, just like Heaven is pain-free, because there are no noxious stimuli. Fire in Heaven does not burn through our limbs because we were not attentive to it, and so on. My point is that the passage in Genesis does not merely refer to the pain of the woman in childbirth rather to pain of the human state in general (vv.15-19).

However the Church holds that Mary conceived without even loss of the bodily signs of her virginity. Jesus emerged without hymenal tear, is what this specifically implies. This is the full sense of what “ever-virgin” is taken to mean, even though this seems at first glance an over-literalistic take on virginity”. The over-arching sentiment is seemingly that it is unthinkable that Jesus cause pain to his Mother, be it even at childbirth, through no direct intent. We can see that the Church seems to pronounce strongly and even quite convincingly on this, so my mental difficulties will have to remain as difficulties rather than objections:

The Virgin Mary did not suffer pain in childbirth:

But as the Conception itself transcends the order of nature, so the birth of our Lord presents to our contemplation nothing but what is divine. Besides, what is admirable beyond the power of thoughts or words to express, He is born of His Mother without any diminution of her maternal virginity, just as He afterwards went forth from the sepulchre while it was closed and sealed, and entered the room in which His disciples were assembled, the doors being shut; or not to depart from every-day examples, just as the rays of the sun penetrate without breaking or injuring in the least the solid substance of glass, so after a like but more exalted manner did Jesus Christ come forth from His mother’s womb without injury to her maternal virginity (…) To Eve it was said: In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. Mary was exempt from this law, for preserving her virginal integrity inviolate she brought forth Jesus the Son of God without experiencing, as we have already said, any sense of pain.

CATECHISM OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT PART 1: THE CREED Article III: We can also know what the Church believes from her prayers: In the preface of the votive Mass in honor of Mary at the foot of the cross, we read the words: “She who had given Him birth without the pains of childbirth was to endure the greatest of pains in bringing forth to new life the family of the Church.”
http://www.cst-phl.com/marian.html

On the contrary, Augustine says (Sermone de Nativitate supposititious), addressing himself to the Virgin-Mother: “In conceiving thou wast all pure, in giving birth thou wast without pain.”
I answer that, The pains of childbirth are caused by the infant opening the passage from the womb. Now it has been said above (Q28,A2, Replies to Objections), that Christ came forth from the closed womb of His Mother, and, consequently, without opening the passage. Consequently there was no pain in that birth, as neither was there any corruption; on the contrary, there was much joy therein for that God-Man “was born into the world,” according to Isaiah 35:1,2: “Like the lily, it shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise.”
SUMMA THEOLOGICA Q35,A6

Having said that, this reference in Genesis was apparently powerful enough to convince some Church Fathers (sorry I cannot name them at present) that Mary was not Immaculately Conceived rather than give up on the Queen of Heaven typology.

The Catholic Exchange website does a great job with this (quoted from that website here through to the end of this section).

“…the woman in Revelation 12:2 has more than one meaning. On a most basic, literal level, we observe a woman, a child, and a dragon. However, the information conveyed indicates that these are Mary, Jesus, and the devil, respectively. In a spiritual sense, she is also Zion, Jerusalem, with her 12 stars, bringing forth the messianic era with the pangs of childbirth (cf. Isaiah 26:17). The woman is also the Church who gives birth to children of God (Mary herself is a figure or image of the Church). Mary is also the Mother of the Church that was born on Calvary, clearly in Mary’s pain (cf. Luke 2:34-35; Catechism, no. 766).

Thus, the Blessed Virgin Mother does not have pangs at Jesus’ miraculous birth into the world; rather, her “birth pangs” are deferred to the suffering she shares with Him on the Cross, as he is born into eternal glory. Indeed, Jesus takes up His throne only after he is glorified through His victory on Calvary. By sharing in her Son’s suffering, Mary also becomes the Mother of all His followers, i.e., the Body of Christ (Revelation 12:17), and thus the Mother of the Church. For those who argue for a more literal interpretation of Revelation 12, saying that Mary did have such labor pains, they would also have to believe that the devil was present in Bethlehem at Jesus’ birth as a dragon, ready to devour Jesus; that Jesus was swept up to heaven to safety upon His birth; and that Mary took refuge in the wilderness because of the devil’s threat. None of this, of course, is substantiated in the infancy narratives of the gospels. Given the figurative nature of the Book of Revelation, we need to rely on the God-given Magisterium to properly interpret it (Catechism, nos. 84-87).

“Through the years the Church fathers have given many enriching exegeses of this passage. You may wish to consult a Catholic commentary on the Scriptures for insight into these and other interpretations. The Church teaches that the virgin birth was also a painless birth, without defining it dogmatically. However, as its inclusion in the Catechism of the Council of Trent affirms, it is a logical conclusion from the Church’s definitive teaching regarding Mary’s Immaculate Conception and Virgin Birth: “To Eve it was said: In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. Mary was exempt from this law, for preserving her virginal integrity inviolate she brought forth Jesus the Son of God without experiencing, as we have already said, any sense of pain.”

The Catholic Answers website goes into more details of the Church teaching on the issues without touching upon the relation to Revelations 12: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/evidence-for-marys-painless-childbirth. Again, on there it affrims:

Though this teaching has never been the object of a formal definition of the Church and therefore is not infallible, the Catechism of the Council of Trent gives perhaps the clearest example of the general understanding of the Church through centuries past:

But as the Conception itself transcends the order of nature, so also the birth of Our Lord . . . just as the rays of the sun penetrate without breaking or injuring in the least the solid substance of glass, so after a like but more exalted manner did Jesus Christ come forth from his mother’s womb without injury to her maternal virginity. From Eve we are born children of wrath; from Mary we have received Jesus Christ. . . . To Eve it was said: In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. Mary was exempt from this law, for preserving her virginal integrity inviolate she brought forth Jesus . . . without experiencing, as we have already said, any sense of pain.”

Jesus Born “of the Flesh of Mary”

The Holy Spirit himself inspires Elizabeth to call Mary the Mother of her Lord, and to “bless the fruit of (her) womb”: “And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry…” (Lk 1:41): Indeed a fruit grows as “taking flesh” form the tree. She was not inspired to state “blessed is the holy resident of your womb…”, it seems evident that Jesus is being treated at least in some sense as the “Fruit of Mary”, and this is his Flesh. Christianity does not see God as simply “passing through” Mary, as through a portal. The central claim of Christianity cannot be watered down for convenience: God was born of a woman, truly, and in every sense. Anyone debating this is really debating the reality of the Incarnation itself and that’s a challenge to Christianity as a whole.

Scientifically we know of the biological intimacy shared by mother and child. In the majority of normal pregnancies, fetal cells enter into the mother’s blood in varying amounts. That the blood of a baby flows into the mother’s circulation is more the norm than the exception. The literature from various studies giving figures of as high as 95% of pregnancies showing evidence of what is called “foeto-maternal hemorrhage, lowest estimate ranging down to 39% at the least.

The central event of our Salvation is the precise moment when the God of Infinite Holiness “takes flesh” from Mary. That very Flesh derived from a Woman, heretofore for all Eternity, is the very Person of Jesus sitting at the right hand of the Throne in Heaven, this is the Will of the Father. Christianity seemingly has with a single twist, utterly disregarded and discarded for what has hitherto been held sacrosanct and inviolable even in pagan religions: the immortality of God and his “otherness”, and this is the import of the event which we describe. A Christian must be careful that he does not in his partisan zeal, water down its very essence so as to blend once again with what has been superseded.

“…she was no less a party to the production of her fruit than is a natural mother. In another respect she is even more active than an ordinary mother. For, though she acts less upon the forming of her fruit, on the other hand she receives no material influence whatever from an external source (i.e. a husband- own addition); she is by herself the sole and complete material principle of her offspring (…) In natural production the seed becomes a fruit at the very first moment that the determination is received from an outer source, and the maternal process in the very origin of the fruit is essentially only to receive the principle that will complete what the mother by her activity has prepared for this purpose.”- Scheeben MMS p83,84

Belief in a “de novo” Incarnation, one where the Flesh of Jesus has no “real” relation to the flesh of Mary as a child has to a mother, seems to go against the biblical passages asserting Mary’s motherhood, from the words of the Angel:

“You will conceive a child” (Lk.1:31)

or ““Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. (Matt. 1:20)”

and consider the three times we have seen in the previous section that the phrase “child and his mother” is used by the inspired author. Again the literal meaning of the prophecy “born of the line of Judah“, “born of a virgin” are, one would suppose require a literally fulfilment when the people cry out: “hosanna to the son of David!“ or the truth of Paul’s words when said “he was like us in every way…” or that He was “Born of woman” (Gal.4:4).

Genuine Birth is also the Authenticity of the Incarnation

But even more than the semantics, which arguably are just that ( for it could be argued that “born of a woman” should also imply the presence of a human father), is the theological significance of Jesus really taking human flesh.

If Jesus came to redeem us in the flesh, then one would expect that he really would take on what could truly be called “our flesh”, only then could be he be “of one nature” with us. This is expressed by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that in order to authentically redeem fallen human nature, it was necessary for Jesus to assume authentic human nature. Of course no one expected God to redeem human flesh in this literal manner, but now that he has done so, it feels right to take God for his word literally as well.

Did Jesus not take flesh from Mary then it would seem that it were also not our flesh that he redeemed. On the contrary, the book of Hebrews states that Jesus “shared the same flesh and blood as us”, thus “becoming  like (us) in every respect”. I’ve slightly rearranged the words, but they are faithful to the meaning of the verse, as you can examine for yourself:

^“Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things (…) Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect,so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.” (Hebrews 2:14,17)

 The crux of our salvation is that “sin is condemned in the flesh” by Jesus who is “sent in…the flesh”: ^“…by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom8:3)

God as God reaches out to flesh as Flesh. If the aesthetics of this are not pleasing to anyone, they need not worry, for God preserved his Mother from sin from her very Conception. As we get into in the next section.

This is not to mistake the Flesh of Christ as “belonging” to Mary, of course, the flesh of a child belongs to that child alone, rather the signification of the authenticity of human lineage. The question here is one of authenticity of God becoming Man by assuming that which is truly human, and it is the authenticity of the Incarnation that is brought into focus in this consideration, hence its importance.

Sinlessness of Mary

Most non-Catholic Christians find it necessary deny the sinlessness of Mary, which position has the added advantage of not having to hold that Jesus took Flesh from her in  biological process. Yet consider that were God to be so repulsed By Mary’s flesh would have dwelt in her womb at all? This is the God who asked Moses to take his sandals off in his Presence:

“for the ground on which you stand is holy”.

Were God to sanctify the very land where he appeared, how much more the womb which carried him!

“In (Mary’s) case, however, this preservation did not take the form of a later removal, but rather of an anterior exemption and preservation by the complete restoration and the unchangeable confirmation of the integrity of the original state. (p. 226) The words, “by an intuitive cognition of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race,” indicate the ground on which the granting of this privilege is based. In Mary’s case, no less than in that of others to whom it was later granted, this liberation from the stain of original sin must be referred to the merits of salvation through the Redeemer. This, of course, presupposes that Mary too stood in need of this merit of redemption in order to obtain (p.236) Through it Mary was saved from an evil not already present, but imminent; she was liberated and redeemed from the necessity of incurring that evil. In colloquial language, not only the removal of a present evil, but also the prevention from an imminent evil is considered a salvation and redemption.” (p.237, Scheeben MMS)

Finally, through the action of the Holy Ghost, Mary, through the original holiness of her soul, was disposed to act, in conjunction with this Holy Spirit, as His instrument in the formation of the flesh of Christ (242) God owed it to His own dignity and holiness to safeguard Mary against sin (…) Because of this relation also, all graces necessary to preclude sin are virtually ensured and guaranteed to Mary in and through the principle of this grace. completely taken up in God, enveloped and filled by Him, on the analogy of the grace of union and in the sense of the figure of the “Woman clothed with the sun.” (298 Scheeben MMS)

It is certainly within God’s power to preserve a human being from sin. Adam and Eve were born in such a pure original state, and neither have the angels sinned, they are preserved from sin in the beatific vision.  Aquinas considers reasons from Scripture as to why Christ could not possibly take on sinful flesh: “…because of the singular affinity between her and Christ, who took flesh from her: and it is written (2 Cor. 6:15): “What concord hath Christ with Belial?”…because of the singular manner in which the Son of God, who is the “Divine Wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:24) dwelt in her, not only in her soul but in her womb. And it is written (Wis. 1:4): “Wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins.” We must therefore confess simply that the Blessed Virgin committed no actual sin, neither mortal nor venial; so that what is written (Canticles 4:7) is fulfilled: “Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in thee,, etc…” [ST III Q.27, Art.4]

Let’s quote those again: “Wis. 1:4): “Wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins.”

(2 Cor. 6:15): “What concord hath Christ with Belial?”

It would seem impossible not to see Mary as the new Ark of the Covenant in the Bible, as we discuss further in the next section, from his intimate relationship with her in her womb for 9 months. Further consider the Psalm, the immediate context of which is the building of the Temple of Solomon:

“Rise up, O Lord, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might.” (Psalm 132:8)

or the following verse, which displays the holiness of the Ark which is directly related and in fact equated to the holiness of God himself. Could it really be that a wooden box be the vessel of such holiness but the human vessel that carried Jesus not be? This is also a powerful contemplation of the perpetual virginity of Mary:

“When David’s men came to the threshing floor of Kidon, the oxen stumbled, and Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the Ark. The Lord was angry with Uzzah and killed him, because he had touched the Ark. So Uzzah died there in the presence of God.” (1Chron.13:9-12)

“Mary, who is cleansed of original sin prior to the birth of Christ, receives a “degree of purity than which (apart from God), no greater can be imagined (…) the most perfect form of redemption through Christ is preservation from all hereditary sin; Mary needs the Passion not because of the sins she has committed, but because of those that she would have been able to commit is she had not been preserved from them in advance…” (Balthasar TDD 321,322)

The story of Mary is a powerful analogy, of how sin came through the Fall, and the confirmed by the Queen in Revelation. Eve, though created sinless disobeys. Mary, created sinless, obeys.

The usual counter-argument that is seen in response is to quote the single verse from the book of Romans “all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God” (3:23). St. Paul is simply not doing Mariology here- this is a generalisation, while Mother Mary is a special case. Paul’s intent here is to teach about the nature of sin and Redemption. There really isn’t any development of Mariology in the Bible, all we are given is the verses about Mary to contemplate.

Mother Mary, through the merits of her Son, could not but be the most blessed among women, or else who is it among human beings that has received a higher blessing? She could not but be full of grace, for who indeed has been graced as she has? Mary is the figure that is central in the Incarnation, the central event of our Salvation. It takes away from Jesus. To believe that Jesus took flesh of sinful flesh. To believe that the womb that bore him bore impure children. To believe that the womb that bore Him saw decay. If you truly love your Friend, you will treat his mother like a Queen. At the very least you will treat her like your own mother. If you truly honor God, you will treat your own mother like a Queen.

“We never give more honor to Jesus than when we honor his Mother, and we honor her simply and solely to honor him all the more perfectly. We go to her only as a way leading to the goal we seek- Jesus, her Son”   -St Louis Marie de Montfort.

Mary’s Radical Proximity to Jesus

Mary’s relationship to God in the Flesh:
For the entire course of his growth into adulthood and maturity, Jesus lived in the home of Mary as her biological Child, then to go out into the world as any mother lets go of their son when they go out into the world, and in the end to be cradled in Death in her arms, yet only three short years later. This proximity in Mary is radical both qualitatively and quantitatively, that is, in time and in type. It extends through pregnancy with the thousand little intimacies of its own, through the time nursing, the countless nuances of child-rearing and far into the adult life of Jesus which is almost completely hidden from us, to be known and treasured by her alone, and one day by the saints in their glory. Consider what it might mean for a human person to have such a radical proximity to the Living God.

The Hypostatic Union of God

The union of Mary with God transcends even that of a mother with her child, and this is because of the nature of the Hypostatic Union. Mary’s union with her Child was a “…much more perfect and closer one than that which can take place among men (…) Mary’s relationship to God appears founded through the hypostatic union of the human nature of Christ with the Logos.” (Scheeben 137,138).

In the first moment of Jesus Conception, God became Man, and it is in this Hypostatic Union of God with Flesh through which mankind is to be saved. It is therefore pertinent that in that very union through which mankind is saved, Mary has the highest degree of unity. Inasmuch as it is the Flesh that unites mankind to Christ, Mary has the closest Union with Christ. A Christian life is defined by the closeness of one’s personal relationship with God and in Mary’s case, that closeness of relationship was forged in that moment of the Incarnation. In that moment created flesh was assumed unto God and divinized. All else that follows in Mary’s ministry, and the manner in which Mary relates to God, derives from that first moment. Mary’s place in the history of our own Salvation which is the highest place of any created thing, higher than any angel or human can be comprehended.

Mary’s Shared experience with Jesus:

Irrespective of how it begins, a relationship is developed through shared experiences, and the same can be said of our relationship with God. It is built upon and is enhanced by all our experiences of God’s action in our lives as we live the Faith. And whether it was the greatest joys or the deepest sufferings, naturally no one experienced God at a more closer level than his mother. Mary experienced the strongest emotions of any human being for her child Jesus. You’ve heard the refrain “I’ll never know how much it cost, to see my sin upon that Cross…”; we can say that Mary would have felt and experienced that “cost” more than any other human, since no other human was Mother to Jesus.

Mary Remains United

“…This is true particularly in the more specific sense, that the divine motherhood must be regarded as a relation of the most real appropriation of the mother to the Son. (…) …This raises her to a share in the dignity of her divine Son, which, for a created person, is indeed the highest attainable (p136)…He does not leave His mother, likewise the relation of the mother to the Son maintains permanently the same reality and closeness as before the birth…”(Scheeben MMS 145)

Venerable Bede says: “And the same Mother of God and thence happy indeed, because she is made the temporal mistress of the incarnate Word, but thence much happier because she remained the eternal keeper of the Word to love Him forever.” (p300)

Mary as Transformed by her Son:

“…it is closer and more real by reason of the closest and most intimate indwelling of the Logos in the mother. …. Thus the divine motherhood resembles the hypostatic union, since it is a union with a divine person, which embraces the mother’s entire and most intimate being. It ennobles and sanctifies the mother in the most perfect manner and forms the basis of the most complete participation in the life and possessions of the divine person…” (p145)

“…she communicates with Him as with a higher being, to whom she belongs in a dependent way, and that He on His side lets her participate in His sublimity and communicates His spiritual life to her.  (p147) (…) she is the most perfect image of the Father ad extra , after the incarnate wisdom. Thus she is to be regarded as a daughter whose daughterhood is the most perfect participation in and the most perfect image of the sonship of the eternal Son. (p156)…a relation which, with regard to God, forms the highest and most complete association conceivable between a created person with Himself, as a human marriage is the highest and most perfect union between two human persons. It is thus a relation which is the most perfect image of the union of a created nature with God, thus understood, this union includes, in accordance with the nature of marriage, a solidarity of both persons in an organic whole, in which they have grown together, and also a mutual belonging to and clothing of both persons. Mary, as united with the Logos, is taken complete possession of by Him; the Logos, as infused and implanted in her, gives Himself to her and takes her to Himself as partner and helper, in the closest, strictest, and most lasting community of life…” (157)

Mary’s Ecstatic Contemplation

The assertion that Mary derive rich spiritual fruit from the intimate experience of life with her Son, is contingent only upon the fact that she underwent it in a prayerful attitude, and indeed it is said on three occasions in the Gospels that Mary “pondered/treasured these things in her heart (Lk 1:29, 2:19, 2:51)”. Once again, the Gospels give us a surprising detail of Mary’s life. It is evident even from the Gospels then that Mary had a constant attitude of prayerful attentiveness to the Presence of God in her life. Does not Jesus tell us that our heart is where our treasure is?

“…St. Augustine says: “Mary was happier when she conceived with her mind than with her womb . . . she carried it more happily in her heart than in her body,(p180) However, after Christ’s conception especially, a loftiness of contemplation must be accorded her such as fell to the lot of no other saint on earth. This much, at least, must be con-ceded, that the highest sort of contemplation, granted to other saints only in passing and in ecstasies, is in Mary’s case conceived to be her habitual state; and that with reason, since, like the beatific vision in the case of Christ, it neither took away nor did it presume the use of the exterior senses and, therefore, it continued in waking hours as well as during sleep.222 With regard to the spiritual development of her knowledge, she from the beginning enjoyed freedom from all disturbing influences of sensuality and passion, immunity from which was a privilege of the state of original justice, whereby she remained secure against all error.223 Likewise, from the beginning of her existence here below, Mary possessed in her earthly body the same perfection of purity and justice, as that of which the angels are capable on account of their purely spiritual nature….” (p300), Scheeben.

“…Thus Chrysostom says (…) by reason of her child she surpassed the whole world in beauty and dignity: since she alone in the narrow abode of her womb received Him Whom the world cannot contain.” [ST III Q.28 Art.3 Ad.3]

Mary Co-operating with the Holy Spirit for our Salvation

Famously St Paul quotes “death came through one man…” referring to the sin of Adam, but it is Eve, called “woman” in the Genesis narrative, so named by Adam who will be mother of a race that is in slavery to sin through the sin of our first parents. Mary through her own obedience on the other hand, becomes the mother all the living who are to be saved through the Sacrifice of Christ. Indeed she is given to us from the very Cross of that Sacrifice to be our mother, with that same appellation with which Eve is addressed: “woman”. And while the first Eve invites the first Adam into disobedience and sin, Mary the new Eve invites the second Adam to begin his ministry of Redemption at the wedding feast at Cana.

The greatest and the least
If it is accepted that there is indeed a “least” and a “greatest” in Heaven which is certainly what Jesus teaches in the Gospels, then Grace is that reason for greatness, and indeed Mary being “full of grace” is the greatest. Given the great exaltation of Mary evident even from a cursory reading of the Gospels (as we see in the section of that name) it is hard to imagine that the greatest could be another. Mary’s proximity to her Son, was not one merely in space but rather with one in mission and purpose, her proximity to the Will of God for the Salvation of men, the Divine plan of Salvation, for it is with her willing co-operation that Christ came into the world.

Jesus indeed says “the last will be first and the first last”, and indeed Mary from the position of the greatest exaltation in the Annunciation through to the Magnificat in Luke’s Gospel, goes to the position of the “least”, for no further word is heard  from her, although she is  ever-present. Thus it is truly fitting that she is “first”, and indeed what else is the meaning of Jesus’ words: “those places have been reserved…” referring to those who will be closest to the Throne of the Majesty in Heaven, I cannot think of anyone he would reserve that place for other than his mother although he does not say for the same reason we have been discussing, “that place is for my mother”. Jesus is careful during his earthly ministry to accord no importance to his mother at all, almost to the point of embarrassment. When a Protestant friend asked me why it was that Jesus said “among those born of women there is no one greater than John”, I had to answer: “Its a difficult one, I’ll agree….”, the next part of the verse “ yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” Luke 7:28. Mary achieves no prominence on Earth while John makes a great sacrifice, fearlessly facing up to the dangerous King Herod and paying the ultimate price.Jesus never tries to exalt His Mother, rather it is the Holy Spirit who does it “all generations will call me blessed…”, “Hail full of grace…blessed are you among women…” and “What have I done to deserve….(that Mary visit me”) all of which are words breather by God himself.

(p154)”…she is so full of the Spirit as to be his Spouse; She is God’s most beautiful creature, for of all men on Earth, none is closer to Christ as she in the virginal conception. Lev 17:1…Mary alone offers something to God which is taken up into Himself and with which He is clothed in His Being. In this manner she exercises an activity which quite alone as a natural activity fines deitatis attigit , as Cajetan, p258 says, i.e., reaches the very godhead. Every other activity of the creature toward God reaches the godhead merely as an intentional activity, that is, through knowledge and love. After the conception of the Son of God, Mary appears as a dynamic and authoritative organ of the Holy Ghost (p656) in the physical influence she exercises upon the formation and constituting of Christ’s body and His corporal life through the natural strength of her heart and soul; this influence is moved and sustained by the power of the Holy Ghost. She cooperates in the birth of the Son of God ad extra when He is given to mankind, or helps to realize the effusion of the eternal Light into the world. In this respect, to the exclusion of all other creatures, Mary alone cooperates in this most sublime and supernatural work of God, and she does this in a manner superlatively more perfect than the cooperation of any other creature in the supernatural works of God, as, e.g., the dispensers of the sacraments. For, in union with the Holy Ghost, Mary exercises an intrinsic influence upon the substance of the supernatural product by her own natural strength. She communicates the supernatural gift of God to the world as a gift which is given to her first, or coproduced by her…(p330)…every activity of Christ can be regarded as arising from her womb and especially from her heart, as the instrument of the Holy Ghost (p331)…The actions of the Mother of God may be regarded objectively as marks of honour and service toward God. As such their inner and specific value is based on the fact that her maternal services to her Son honour God in a very special way, and that the value of Christ’s religious actions and the offering comprised therein is, in a special manner, included in Mary’s maternal offering of these actions (…) these actions in that they proceed from the instrument of a divine Person, and, being inspired by his Person, they are also sustained by Him. When the Apostle says of other living temples of the Holy Ghost,657 that the Holy Ghost “prays in them with unutterable sighs,” this statement is all the more true of Mary. For, she is the prototype of the Church.(333)…because by her personal merits, sufferings, and prayer she helped to obtain de congruo what Christ obtained by His meritum de condigno” pg.350…the activity of this chief member was, in an eminent degree, united with Christ in faith, love, obedience, and mercy…(p.351)…You see in that temple two altars, one in the breast of Mary, the other in the body of Christ; Christ sacrificed His flesh, Mary her soul.” p352

These astounding things that we say of Mary we can say of no other individual human being and they are based on the simple facts about Mary herself that do not occur in any human being: that she is full of grace, and that she is sinless, the sinless vessel of God’s coming, the instrument of his  Salvation and a Holy Tabernacle of his dwelling. The greatest “work” that we must perform in our lives of Faith is that of allowing God to work in us and this is what Mary did through her receptivity. Inasmuch as Mary was receptive to the highest degree to God’s action in her life which was the instrument of the unfolding of His Salvation plan, Mary co-operated in the highest degree of any creature with that plan. That is why there is no human being of a higher degree of holiness than Mary.

Mary’s Freedom

If Mary was conceived without Original sin, does this mean she never made a free choice to reject sin? Balthasar says that God seemingly presupposes Mary’s consent (pg. 299 TDD), and goes on to say,“…who can find words and concepts to express both the intimacy (such as exists between Mother and Child) and the infinite distance (between God and the Creature)? How can a single word, for example, mediatrix or co-redemptrix express this all-pervading analogy in such a way that all redeeming grace comes from God (and his Incarnate Word) and yet man’s consent, which is essential to Incarnation and all its consequences, is not overridden? Balthasar thus brings out the fact that the question applies to all men: If all is grace, then indeed even our choices all down to grace, rather than something we initiate “on our own steam”. So how is any man “free”? And yet we know experientially that God’s grace never overrides our own freedom. For although all is indeed Grace, and the work of Grace in our lives, yet even our passivity, is a choice of passivity, or in other words: receptivity. We shall see that the exactly the same can be said of Mary, and to the highest possible degree. Balthasar continues: “…the specifically Marian oscillation between the “lowliness of the handmaid” and the fact that “all generations shall call her blessed (…) in Mary, lowliness is not the abyss of sinfulness or even of original sin but the abyss of the creature’s nothingness before God(299-300)…there emerges one central mystery: Marys’ freedom. Evidently, in comparison with all other human beings, Mary’s freedom is unique (…) the figure of Mary exhibits an utterly exuberant form of creaturely freedom (…) this is the finite freedom that hands itself over and entrusts itself to the sphere of infinite freedom, which, through grace, stands wide open; in so doing, it has attained perfection once and for all, however much it may continue, in its earthly destiny, to experience temptation. Unlike the Son’s freedom, which, from time immemorial, is one with his mission, Mary’s freedom lays hold of her mission in the midst of time. Thus she commits herself to serve as a handmaid, putting herself irrevocably at God’s disposal in his plans for Israel. So that all that has been promised may be fulfilled (…) No finite freedom can be freer from restrictions than when giving its consent to infinite freedom. Or (which is the same thing) no mission can be more unrestricted and universal than that which gives the Yes that God looks for, the Yes to his all-embracing plan. The sole conditions is a consent that makes no conditions.”

Our intuitive concept of moral freedom is the “freedom to violate”, the freedom to choose the wrong, rather than having to choose what is right as though through compulsion. However as to a theological description of the freedom of a creature, this is inaccurate. As St Thomas would agree, creaturely freedom is nothing but the ability to choose the good, and that Good, at every turn happens to be God. This, however inconvenient it may seem, is certainly logical!  And God himself is sinless, yet we accept that it is impossible for him to commit a violation against goodness. Thus we feel confident in saying that in Mary, God so graced a creature, as to be able to deal with every temptation of sin, and He did so in a manner that does not violate her freedom rather give it increase.

Mary is given thus a supreme freedom, and I is a freedom to which she wholeheartedly assents. Even before this Mary is given the grace to accept the Divine Motherhood, from which all the graces of her sinlessness flow. Mary as a creature even is given the grace of such a closeness to her Creator as to fill her with unprecedented strength of virtue. In the Christian life we fully know and accept that everything is grace and the action of God and that nothing is the merit of the action accorded to the human person, yet even in this we know that God is able to act without violating the freedom of the human being in his/her very action. Much less then, is the freedom of Mary violated. Mary obtains for herself that strength of freeing herself from bondage to sin, to the extent that she is never a slave to it, she obtains that freedom which each of us seek in prayer, and she too obtains it in prayer. As we move to the next section we see that such great grace comes as a price as it were, a price that Mary accepts when she says her fiat. And the price is simply this, that she offers the greatest worship to the Creator, just as Jesus offers a perfect offering to the Father, through Him and in Him, Mary makes her life the most perfect offering to the Father. Filled with Grace, she experiences great love, and filled with great love she experiences the greatest possible suffering of sorrow. That suffering of her life she offers in the most perfect manner to God, the model of our life of Faith.

“Since, therefore, the Blessed Virgin is a mere rational creature, the worship of “latria” is not due to her, but only that of “dulia”: but in a higher degree than to other creatures, inasmuch as she is the Mother of God. For this reason we say that not any kind of “dulia” is due to her, but “hyperdulia.”” [STII Q.25 Art 5]

Mary’s Own Prayer and Sacrifice

“…Doubtless there was one will between Christ and Mary, and both at the same time offered to God one sacrifice, the one in the blood of her heart, the other in the blood of His body,.” (p. 692) But the one sacrifice is thought of only as the fusion of two sacrifices  into one, and both are kept so separate that a special altar corresponds to each (…) (1) With a view to the consummation of the sacrifice of redemption, Mary presented Christ the offering from her own flesh and blood, and under the influence of the Holy Ghost she produced and nourished this as her fruit. (2) With the same purpose she co-disposed of the offering, emanating from her or given her by God, as of her own fruit and possession, and dedicated it to God as a sacrifice. (3) In the actual dedication of Christ in His redeeming death, she cooperated also by her consent as tradens in mortem. By self-abnegation in will and feeling, or by a consensus sententiae et sensus , she participated in the consummation of the sacrifice, so that Christ’s sufferings were in the fullest sense her sufferings also. …But in connection with this, Mary’s presence under the cross appears as a sacrificial action; for, inspired and upheld by the Holy Ghost, she offered to God her Son hanging on the cross as co-offered by herself, and His sufferings as shared by her for the salvation of the world (…) Finally, Mary’s cooperation in Christ’s sacrifice attains its complete hieratical meaning in this, that her soul or her heart must be regarded as the living altar, built in and from mankind. On and in this altar the offering of Christ, which came from her flesh or her womb, is offered by the fire contained therein as in the true altar (357)…Prototypes of Mary, acknowledged by the Church, are Judith and Esther(…)from that of a propitiating intercession, and of the giving up of one’s own life, or of one’s own soul,719 as the Jews expressed it, with the purpose of obtaining, through victory over the enemy, the deliverance of the people to whom the bringer of the sacrifice himself belongs… pg.364

The Grace that comes through Mary:
“Thus Mary, in the name of the redeemed, must render the Redeemer in His sufferings the honour and gratitude which is due to Him. To all she must be an example of suffering, especially of innocent suffering and grateful compassion with Christ…By her sufferings she was to become the merciful solace of all those who suffer. Pg. 710 in 361(…) It is not a mere rhetorical flourish, but a most profound truth to say that, as she stood beneath the cross, Christ poured forth all His redeeming blood into the heart of the mother from whom He had received it, so that through her, as through a channel, it might flow over all mankind. Again, as propinatrix salutis Mary drank first of the chalice of salvation, in order to pass it on to mankind (…) p.368 By the closest bodily and spiritual union with Christ’s sacrifice, she takes up this sacrifice in herself as the seed of the new mankind and helps the rest of men to appropriate its vivifying power. (370)…Consequently Mary cooperated in a more fundamental way in effecting and obtaining the rebirth of all mankind375 (…) she intercedes with a truly maternal love for the children whom she conceived and brought forth, in order to perfect them in and with her first-born Son as children of God, and thereby to win and possess them also as her children (382) There is in the Church no other individual or group of persons whose prayer can represent that of the whole Church in so cogent a manner as Mary…” pg.387

The closing prayer for the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows from the Divine Office begins, “God our Father, when Jesus, your Son, was raised up on the cross, it was your will that Mary, his mother, should stand there and suffer with him in her heart…” It was God’s Will that the one who would suffer the most from witnessing His Passion, should be present at it, and this was no coincidence.

The Intercession of Mary
If there is any truth in the foregoing, then it is clear that of all creatures, Mother Mary is the most righteous of all God’s creatures, and her life is one that is lived from the beginning to the end, united with Christ. The well-known verse that encourages Christians to pray for each other goes “the prayers of a righteous man are effective” (Jam.5:16). Considering that there no person more righteous than one who is sinless, what follows is obvious. In such a prayerful association with a righteous person, the penitent is brought into a consciousness of virtues that are higher than their own, and therefore elevated in their own spiritual life.

“The Holy Ghost, the more He finds Mary, His dear and indissoluble spouse, in any soul, becomes the more active and mighty in producing Jesus Christ in that soul, and that soul in Jesus Christ.”- TDMSLM St Augustine calls our Lady forma Dei- “the mould of God”…He who is cast in this mould is presently moulded and formed in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ in him.” Pg.34 “…He (the Holy Spirit) tells her “ Reproduce yourself then in my chosen ones, so that I may have the joy of seeing in them the roots of your invincible faith, profound humility, total mortification, sublime prayer, ardent charity, your firm hope and all your virtues. You are always my spouse, as faithful, pure, and fruitful as ever. May your faith give me believers; your purity, virgins; your fruitfulness, elect and living temples…”

“Also the name mediatrix is in her case not used in the same sense as with other saints, but in a sense analogous to that in which it is referred to Christ. In other words, she is indicated as the mediating cause of all the effects of salvation for the world at large, also for pre-Christian mankind, in particular for Adam and Eve (hence the name reparatrix of the first parents, reformatrix protoplastorum). Thus she is not only the mediatrix who applies the fruits of the redemption to individuals, but also the mediatrix who produces and gains these fruits.336 Its intrinsic justification does not follow simply from the fact that in general Mary is a principle of salvation, or more definitely a co-principle with Christ. But in the case of those words which indicate, more or less, the proper power whereby Christ Himself accomplishes His work, the application to Mary with the prefix co is less justified. The reason is, that this particle would indicate a sharing not only in Christ’s work, but also in the manner of working which is proper to Him, and a coordination in His activity.”pg.339 Eve’s sin, as a consent given to the devil, was a cooperation with the latter in working the destruction of the human race. Because Eve induced Adam to accept her proposal, her sin was a direct cooperation with Adam. So, too, Mary’s obedience became a cooperation with Christ Himself in His work of redemption, because Christ’s first act of obedience was joined immediately to hers.” (348- Scheeben)

To Accompany in Purity

We have already seen how Scheeben elaborates on the order of Mary’s co-operation with her Son’s redeeming work. Further the Catholic theologian Hans Von Urs Balthasar describes how in the greatness of purity that is given her, she is able to undergo perfectly the sufferings of the sins of the world which offend her Son: “Our task therefore will be to see the privilege the Immaculate Conception in the context of Mary’s twofold mission: as a Mother, she has to mediate- in the requisite purity- everything human that her Child needs; as her Son’s “companion” and “bride”…” (Mary is both one with the rest of humanity, and also set apart from them as the Mother of Christ) “…she must be able to share his sufferings in a way appropriate for her, and what most fits her for this task is her utter purity, which means that she is profoundly exposed and vulnerable. Thus Mary’s “original state” is not something closed and sealed. Rather it enables her to share in the suffering of all the other children of Adam: so she can become a genuine citadel of compassion.

In this of course, she is different from her Son: as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, he must get to know the bitter taste of sin from the inside, whereas the Mother recognises it in the effect that sin has on her Son. In both regards- in her mission as Mother and Companion- Bride – Mary stands unique relation to the Redeemer but also to the redeemed, among whom she is first.  (319) “the first problem to emerge was this: is to be the true Mother of the Redeemer, she must genuinely belong to the race of Adam, which stands in need of redemption; at the same time, is she is to be his  Mother, she needs to be entirely holy, “immaculate”. How can these two things co-exist?

There was a long hesitation before Mary was exempted from the bane of Original Sin, since people were at pains to preserve her solidarity with the rest of mankind. This hesitation was only overcome when it was realised that her privilege (which is demanded by her mission) only deepens her solidarity with mankind. Sin brings about isolation and thwarts effective solidarity (there was no solidarity among those who shared “in eadem damantione” in Luke 23:40). Whereas innocence makes is possible to be open to suffering with others and to be ready, in love, to embrace much suffering.” Citing the verses from Eph. 5:26,27 of “pure and spotless bride”, he continues, (p351): “…Both redemption and pre-redemption spring from the same Cross but in such a way that she who is pre-redeemed is used in the Church’s coming-to-be…” Would Mary herself suffer loss from having never sinned, from the lack of commonality with the rest of the humanity in the tradition of sin? We can already see that the question is absurd, for what gain can there be in sin, and what loss can there be in grace? I think if there is an obstacle here, it is very easily dissipated.  (…) Mary was overwhelmed by the vast, baffling dimensions of this Son and Bridegroom; unable to claim him as her own, she can only hand him on to the others, to the Church. But it is precisely in this gesture, in which Mary renounces her “I”, that her unlimited mission comes to light. As we have said, her mission, in the feminine and creaturely mode, is to let things happen; as such it is perfectly congruent with the masculine and divine mission of the Son. Thus it is a concrete and realised prototype of the Church…” We have said it later and we repeat it here, God in his plan of Salvation would first and foremost grace a woman with Motherhood.

Full of Grace

”…the words “thou hast found grace with God” indicate that the described privileges of Mary have connection with the divine motherhood as with the highest and most exceptional gift of grace given to her, and that the Son, destined for the salvation of the world, was in the first place and in an entirely unique manner given to Mary for her own glorification and salvation…” (p.37, Scheeben MMS)

Balthasar speaks of “the three praises in the angel’s salutation” and goes on to state that Mary’s state “…is the highest state of grace, benediction and communication with God. (38). For that very reason the moon lies under her feet, while she carries the twelve stars of the zodiac above her as a crown. These grand features find in Mary their realization in the fact that she was clothed with the sun of the godhead in the conception of the Logos. As a result of it she is exalted above the baseness and changeableness of the sublunary world and also excels its beauty. Finally, all heavenly beings and powers, the angels in particular, but also the human beings, of whom first of all the twelve apostles come to mind, gather round her, just as the apostles were also outwardly united with her during the beseeching for and receiving of the Holy Ghost.” Balthasar finishes the reflection on the remarkable passage from Rev. 12 saying: “…Thus the Woman is oriented to eternity. She is oriented to eternity in herself (in virtue of her heavenly attributes). In her Child (who is “caught up to God”). In her adversary (who has fallen from heaven) and in her offspring, “those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus…” (p336)

“…we derive the following beautiful meaning: the Spirit of God which originally descended over the chaos as principle of light and life and which formed the first creation, now forms the second and higher creation out of the virgin. Moreover, this idea paves the way for a yet deeper explanation of the words we have been considering. This explanation is taken from the cloud which overshadowed the ark of the covenant and symbolized the habitation of God…” (Scheeben, 77)

From a sermon by Saint Sophronius, bishop: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you. What joy could surpass this, O Virgin Mother? What grace can excel that which God has granted to you alone? What could be imagined more dazzling or more delightful? Before the miracle we witness in you, all else pales; all else is inferior when compared with the grace you have been given. All else, even what is most desirable, must take second place and enjoy a lesser importance.

The Lord is with you. Who would dare challenge you? You are God’s mother; who would not immediately defer to you and be glad to accord you a greater primacy and honour? For this reason, when I look upon the privilege you have above all creatures, I extol you with the highest praise: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you. On your account joy has not only graced men, but is also granted to the powers of heaven (…)

Truly, you are blessed among women, because, though a woman by nature, you will become, in reality, God’s mother. If he whom you are to bear is truly God made flesh, then rightly do we call you God’s mother. For you have truly given birth to God…”

Balthasar quotes Ephrem the Syrian (p291):

My Son, I do not insist / that you will be with me
And with all people. / Be God
For him who confesses you. / and Lord
For him who serves you;/ In this way you will redeem
them all.
When you dwelt within me, / your majesty lived
In me and outside of me. / And when I bore you
visibly, / your invisible power
Did not part from me, / How you confuse your Mother;
For you are in me / and outside of me!

The Angelic Greeting- Chaire, kecharitōmenē!
The angelic greeting in Luke 1:28 reads: “χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη, ὁ κύριος μετὰ σοῦ” (Chaire, kecharitōmenē, ho kyrios meta sou) –“Hail Full of Grace, the Lord is with you!” (Or as in the Latin Vulgate, it is Ave, gratia plena.) The word that Luke uses–κεχαριτωμένη, kecharitomene–appears to have been crafted out of thin air, it is used nowhere else in the Scriptures or in secular Greek literature. It is a one-of-a-kind word for a one-of-a-kind person in a one-of-a-kind situation.  No one else in human history is kecharitomene. Gabriel uses no other name for Mary apart from this.

Grammatically kecharitomene is the feminine perfect passive participle of χαριτόω (charitóō), which would therefore literally mean “the one having had been graced”, which while sounding clunky in the English, gives the full implication of what is being said- it is the nominal (as a noun) use of the participle to denote a recipient of a completed (perfect) action. Mother Mary is literally ”full of grace” even at the point of the angelic greeting. While the translation “full of grace” may not be perfect, it is far better, it seems, than the rather insipid “most highly favored” which appears in some translations. 

The Ignatius Commentary says “…It indicates that God has already ‘graced’ Mary previous to this point, making her a vessel who “has been” and “is now” filled with the divine life. “Full of grace” is more suited to πληρης χαριτος (pleres charitos), used to refer to St. Stephen, the first martyr (Acts 6:8), and also to Jesus (John 1:14). In both of those the phrase obvious adjectival sense, and not as a noun, which is the case in Luke 1:28. Since the word kecharitomene is tied with the expression “Hail” (Greek Chaire, sometimes translated “Rejoice”), it also seems to indicate a title or an office when tied to a person, as in “Hail Caesar.” 

In the three NT instances; it  used twice as a greeting to Jesus himself “Χαῖρε ῥαββί” Mathew 26:49 and Matt 27:27 “Χαῖρε βασιλεῦ…” Hail king of the Jews, and is once used by Jesus, on which occasion it might be translated “greetings” towards his apostles on the Resurrection, He uses “Χαίρετε”. The verbal form (χαριτόω -charitoo) occurs in only ONE other place in the NT, which is Ephesians 1:6. Here it is in the clear context of us receiving “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (in Christ)…to be holy and blameless before him in love…to the praise of his glorious grace (charitos autou) that he freely bestowed (echaritosen) upon us…”. This is the grace that Mary is filled with.

Scheeben says “The angel does not use the first predicate “full of grace” as apposition to the name Mary, which he only later pronounces, but as an appellative name of a person.” (MMS, 36). Chaire, translated “Hail”, is the same stem as “rejoice, to be glad” “Χαίρω” (“chara” is “joy”), also cognate with charis “grace”. The word is used three times in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint) and each time it is “rejoice” used as a greeting in a messianic context. An example is Zech 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey”. It is the root word for “rejoice” used in the imperative chaire as “Hail”.

The status of Mary as given in the gospels can simply not be taken as ordinary. The very characters of the Bible calling out to her with exclamations of praise. The angel, the messenger of God himself exults in his greeting, which meeting is in stark contrast with the simultaneously ongoing dialogue with Zacharias, which lacking the manner of the greeting to Mary, is undertaken in an authoritative tone with Zacharias miraculously struck dumb at its conclusion as a sign to him.

Breaking the Cycle of Sexuality and Death:

Balthasar relates the teaching that it is with the Incarnation that the “vicious circle of sexuality and death” is broken: (p324) “Speaking of the two- sidedness of Mary’s mission leads us on to the question of the relations between the sexes prior to the Fall, a related that has been recreated in a world that is fallen and needs redemption…but then this law of sexual derivation is transcended- it has already been breached insofar as Mary conceived while remaining a virgin- and replaced by the original “absolute”, suprasexual relationship between the sexes (…) this is all the more appropriate since the Paschal mystery has in the view the overcoming of death and hence of the inevitable link between sexual generation (and birth) and death (…) if we follow man back to his origin, the vicious circle of sexuality and death is broken.”

Quoting from Pseudo Justin (“On the Resurrection”) Balthasar (TDD 326) says: “we read: Our Lord Jesus was only born of a virgin for this reason: he was to abolish the physical generation that proceeds from law-less desire and to show the ruler of this world that God could fashion men without the involvement of sexual intercourse (…) we can summarise (Ephrem’s) teaching thus: “Huan beings were created by God as sexual beings, as man and woman, only because of his foreknowledge of the Fall. They were put in Paradise, which means that sexuality was initially suspended: they were clothed in the light of Paradise, which could be lost. Sin (…) opened the wellsprings of concupiscence. Redeemed by Christ, Christians are given back their paradisal garment, which can still be lost until death supervenes. Thus we see that virginity is really the Christian form of life. The final redemption of the whole man, when he is resurrected to paradise puts an end, forever, to sexual desire.”

Mary’s Perpetual Virginity

Textual Analysis

That Jesus gave his Mother to St. John the apostle from the Cross would imply that He did not have any sibling.  There is no Aramaic word for cousin. The Gospels state that at the foot of the Cross were present “Mary’s sister Mary the wife of Clopas” (John 19:25) which is an example of the word “sister” being used for a cousin, since two siblings would not be called by the same name. (Mary had a cousin called Mary who’s child was Clopas) This would seem to be confirmed by the Proto-Evangelium, which states Mary was an only child.

In the Semitic religions, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic, there is no word for “cousin”

Rather if the relation of what we in English are to call “cousin” is to be described, one must say “father’s brother’s child etc. For the most part the families were close, and “brother/sister” sufficed. Further there is a strong tradition among the Easter Churches that Joseph was previously married and that his wife died, though he had children from her; in which case the brothers of Jesus were half-brothers on his father’s side. The Greek word for “Brethren” is adelphos as in Matt 13: 55. It can be shown that every one of the brothers mentioned in the verse have different parents so obviously they are not brothers of the same womb. The same word is used for brother in Mat 13:55 as in 1 cor 15:6 which if true would mean that Mary had 500 kids! (ἀδελφός adelphos ad-el-fos’, used 1 Cor 15:6 “seen by 500 brothers at one time” and Mat 13:55 “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Jude?”St. Thomas states:

“The Scriptures are wont to designate as the first-born, not only a child who is followed by others, but also the one that is born first. “Otherwise, if a child were not first-born unless followed by others, the first-fruits would not be due as long as there was no further produce” [Jerome, Adversus Helvid. x]: which is clearly false, since according to the law the first-fruits had to be redeemed within a month (Numbers 18:16). Some, as Jerome says on Matthew 12:49-50, “suppose that the brethren of the Lord were Joseph’s sons by another wife. But we understand the brethren of the Lord to be not sons of Joseph, but cousins of the Saviour, the sons of Mary, His Mother’s sister.” For “Scripture speaks of brethren in four senses; namely, those who are united by being of the same parents, of the same nation, of the same family, by common affection.” Wherefore the brethren of the Lord are so called, not by birth, as being born of the same mother; but by relationship, as being blood-relations of His. But Joseph, as Jerome says (Contra Helvid. ix), is rather to be believed to have remained a virgin, “since he is not said to have had another wife,” and “a holy man does not live otherwise than chastely. Mary who is called “the mother of James and Joseph” is not to be taken for the Mother of our Lord, who is not wont to be named in the Gospels save under this designation of her dignity—”the Mother of Jesus.” This Mary is to be taken for the wife of Alphaeus, whose son was James the less, known as the “brother of the Lord” (Galatians 1:19). [ST III Q.28 Ad.4-6]

Mother Mary mentions her Perpetual Virginity in the apparitions at Guadalupe and to St Catherine Laboure at La Salette. The verse Matt 1:25 “He did not have relations with her until he was born..” is often cited as an argument against Mary remaining a virgin. The primary aim of the author in this passage is to lay the foundation of the virginal birth of Jesus, a very central tenet of Christianity, supplementing Mary’s question to the angel “How can this be, since I do not know a man?”. The gospel writers have simply not concerned themselves with a detailed description of Mary’s life, rather the Gospels are Jesus-centric, and rightly so.

Suppose that I said “This man’s daughter stayed a virgin until she was 18, or until she went to university…”: it was hardly to be taken as circumstantial evidence that she was now sexually active…though she now be 30, or even 80 or 90! I, as the author of the statement would be doing no more than bearing testimony to the virtuous upbringing imparted to her by her parents. (Matt.1:25 “But he did not consummate their marriage until (ἕως) she gave birth to a son…”- Were a father to say of their own daughter “she remained a virgin until the time of her marriage”, his assertion is not concerned or meant to be used as a take-off point from which to make assertions about what his daughter did after her marriage. The father has stated what he has stated with the precise reason of asserting his daughter’s chastity and reflecting upon her virtue and upbringing. She may well have chosen to take a vow of abstinence after marriage, or her husband may have tragically become deceased before any consummation have taken place as is the case of persons marrying cancer patients.

”…the evangelist says: “Before they came together” Mary “was found with child, of the Holy Ghost,” not that they came together afterwards: but that, when it seemed that they would come together, this was forestalled through her conceiving by the Holy Ghost, the result being that afterwards they did not come together. (Ad.2) As Augustine says (De Nup. et Concup. i): “The Mother of God is called (Joseph’s) wife from the first promise of her espousals, whom he had not known nor ever was to know by carnal intercourse”(…)The fact of her marriage is declared, not to insinuate the loss of virginity, but to witness to the reality of the union.”  (Ad.3) (…) Jerome (…) observes (…) as in Psalm 122:2: “Our eyes are unto the Lord our God, until He have mercy on us”; from which it is not to be gathered that our eyes are turned from God as soon as His mercy has been obtained. In this sense those things are indicated “of which we might doubt if they had not been written down: while others are left out to be supplied by our understanding. Thus the evangelist says that the Mother of God was not known by her husband until she gave birth, that we may be given to understand that still less did he know her afterwards” (Adversus Helvid. v). [STIII Q.28 Art.3, Ad. 1-3]   

“Could she, then, conceive as a virgin but not bring forth as a virgin, when conception always precedes birth?” –Scheeben p98

As we have indicated in a previous section already, could it really be that a wooden box be the vessel of such holiness but the human vessel that carried Jesus not be? This is also a powerful contemplation of the perpetual virginity of Mary:

“When David’s men came to the threshing floor of Kidon, the oxen stumbled, and Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the Ark. The Lord was angry with Uzzah and killed him, because he had touched the Ark. So Uzzah died there in the presence of God.” (1Chron.13:9-12)

Theology of the Perpetual Virginity

To deny Mary’s virginity is not primarily to take away so much from Mary, as to take away from Jesus, for a mother does not lose anything in losing her virginity. Jesus “took flesh” from Mary, the Flesh that is “real food” and the Blood that is “real drink” (John 6), are we to consider brothers co-existing with the same human Flesh as Jesus, and are there really to be in the world “Holy Grails” that are not Jesus? In the construction of a Tabernacle for His Beloved, the Father had two choices: to create one that was virgin and one that was not. We believe He chose the former. St Joseph as Mary’s holy consort had two choices: to have relations with Mary and to not. We believe he chose the former. In her teaching on Mary the Church had two choices- that she were ever virgin and that not- she chose the former. Mary is the New Ark of the Covenant. The sex act is not profane in and of itself, but unthinkable that it be in the Temple and Sanctuary. St Thomas writes:

“on the contrary, It is written (Ezekiel 44:2): “This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it; because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it.” Expounding these words, Augustine says in a sermon…: “What means this closed gate in the House of the Lord, except that Mary is to be ever inviolate? What does it mean that ‘no man shall pass through it,’ save that Joseph shall not know her? And what is this—’The Lord alone enters in and goeth out by it’—except that the Holy Ghost shall impregnate her, and that the Lord of angels shall be born of her? And what means this—’it shall be shut for evermore’—but that Mary is a virgin before His Birth, a virgin in His Birth, and a virgin after His Birth?

I answer that, Without any hesitation we must abhor the error of Helvidius, who dared to assert that Christ’s Mother, after His Birth, was carnally known by Joseph, and bore other children. For, in the first place, this is derogatory to Christ’s perfection: for as He is in His Godhead the Only-Begotten of the Father, being thus His Son in every respect perfect, so it was becoming that He should be the Only-begotten son of His Mother, as being her perfect offspring. Secondly, this error is an insult to the Holy Ghost, whose “shrine” was the virginal womb [“Sacrarium Spiritus Sancti” (Office of B. M. V., Ant. ad Benedictus, T. P.), wherein He had formed the flesh of Christ: wherefore it was unbecoming that it should be desecrated by intercourse with man.  Thirdly, this is derogatory to the dignity and holiness of God’s Mother: for thus she would seem to be most ungrateful, were she not content with such a Son; and were she, of her own accord, by carnal intercourse to forfeit that virginity which had been miraculously preserved in her.  Fourthly, it would be tantamount to an imputation of extreme presumption in Joseph, to assume that he attempted to violate her whom by the angel’s revelation he knew to have conceived by the Holy Ghost. We must therefore simply assert that the Mother of God, as she was a virgin in conceiving Him and a virgin in giving Him birth, did she remain a virgin ever afterwards.” [STIII Q28]

Mary Loved Most- Model of our Faith

“What Did Mary Do?”, I have been asked by more than one Non-Catholic, including the wife. What does any mother do, one might in fact ask. “Her job”, one might answer, or “Her duty”. Which is what? “She loved Jesus”. It is reasonable to say that no creature loved Jesus as much as Mary, purely on the premise that she was His Mother. There is also likely no creature who suffered more than Mary did for Jesus. Remember that the love of Mary is the love of a pure creature, as is her suffering.

Even from the little that we are told in the Bible of her life, Mary fulfils the role of the perfect disciple: She is open to the call of God, even in fear of societal norm, she is prayerful, she is exultant in praise, she is constant in love, at the Foot of the Cross, and she continues in Faith with the disciples in the Upper Room at the Pentecost.

St Augustine says, Mary conceives Jesus in her heart before she conceives Him in her womb.  Such is her desire to welcome the word of God into the deepest recesses of her soul and body that she surrenders herself totally to the action  of  the Holy Spirit, and so brings forth the Son of God in a manner which makes her impossibly fruitful as both virgin and mother.

Thus Mary becomes a model for the Church who, according to Pope Benedict “recognizes herself, her mission and her vocation in Mary”. 

The16th century humanist scholar Erasmus prayed to our Lady of  Walsingham with the words: “ May thy son grant us, that imitating thy most holy manners, we may also deserve to conceive the lord Jesus spiritually in our inmost souls”.

Saint Bonaventure says, when Mary saw that the love of the Father for mankind was so great that in order to save men He willed the death of His Son, and on the other hand, that the Son, out of love, wished to die for us, in order to conform herself to what Saint Bonaventure calls the excessive love of the Father and the Son, Mary also, for the salvation of men, offered and consented to the death of her Son. Mother Mary, at the annunciation, you saw for yourself the great love of the Father for mankind. And, seeing this you yourself had a great love for us all. No creature has ever loved God more than you, and consequently, no creature has ever loved man more than you have.

“When did she give him? First, says father Nieremberg, when she gave him permission to go and die. Second, when she declined to defend her Son’s life before his judges…We can well believe what the words of so wonderful a mother would have influenced Pilate and stopped him from condemning to death a man who he himself had recognised and declared as innocent.  But no, Mary declined to say one world in favour of her son to hinder the death on which our salvation depended. Pg 17 Finally, she gave him to us a thousand times at the foot of the Cross during the three hours she watched him die. Every moment of these three hours, as her heart overflowed with sorrow and with love for us, she constantly offered the sacrifice of her son’s life for us…”

And again, “Analogously, we may apply to Mary what was written…God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son (Jn 3:16). St Bonaventure writes that it can be said of Mary”. Mary so loved us that she gave her only-begotten son.” Mother Mary, you were not shy of asking your Son for graces. At the wedding feast you asked Him to intervene with a miracle. But your love for us was so great that when you met Him on the way to Calvary, you did not ask him to perform a miracle to save himself, but remained silent. What greater proof of your love for us?

The Witness of the Early Church

St Irenaeus (AD 130): In the year 130 the Bishop of Lyons, Irenaeus wrote concerning a theme common in patristic Marian reflections, that Mary was the “Second Eve”: “As Eve was seduced by the speech of an angel, so as to flee God in transgressing his word, so salso Mary received the good tidings by means of the angel’s speech, so as to be God within her, being obedient to this word. And though the one had disobeyed God, yet the other was drawn to obey him; that of the virgin Eve, the virgin Mary might become the advocate and as by a virgin the human race had been bound to death, by a virgin it is saved, the balance being preserved- a virgin’s disobedience by a virgin’ obedience.” (Against Heresies, 3, 19 130 A.D.)

Contained within the larger version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is a fragment of the fresco from the catacomb of Priscilla in Rome dating from the Third Century which is one of many ancient images of the Blessed Virgin.

The oldest hymn to her is contained is called in Latin the “Sub Tuum Praesidium” (Under Thy Protection) and dates to the Third Century. It is also found in Greek and Church Slavonic and begins with these words: “We fly to your patronage, O holy Theotokos; despise not our petition in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O ever-glorious and blessed Virgin.” Also in the third century, as can be deduced from an ancient written witness, the Christians of Egypt addressed this (same?) prayer to Mary.The expression Theotókos appears explicitly for the first time in this ancient witness.

The Greek term Theo-tokos means “God-bearer” or Mother of God. It is not the same as Theophoros God bearer in the sense that all the saints are God-bearers in that the Presence of the Lord dwells in them, but rather Theotokos is taken as to mean the “birth-giver” of God.

It is still the most popular title given to Our Lady in the Eastern Christian Churches. It was affirmed in early Church Councils precisely because it confirmed the Christian claim about who Jesus Christ is and protected the meaning and implications of His Incarnation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it simply,” What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ” (CCC#487).

In AD 431 June 22, the issue was already settled by the council of Ephesus: “If anyone does not confess that the Emmanuel is truly God and therefore that the holy Virgin is the Mother of God (Theotokos) (since she begot according to the flesh the Word of God made flesh), let him be anathema.”

“It becomes you to be mindful of us, as you stand near Him who granted you all graces, for you are the Mother of God and our Queen. Help us for the sake of the King, the Lord God and Master who was born of you. For this reason, you are called full of grace. Remember us, most holy Virgin, and bestow on us gifts from the riches of your graces, Virgin full of graces.” (St. Athanasius).

According to Gregory of Nyssa (+ 394), the Blessed Virgin Mary and the apostle John appeared in 231, to St. Gregory the Wonder-Worker (213 ca.-270 approx). Gregory, along with his brother Athenodoros, was a pupil of Origen and at that time was engaged in heavy theological discussions. One night he had an extraordinary vision: he saw an old man, dressed in dignified clothes, who, in a subdued voice, pointed to a woman far more beautiful and majestic than known to man; Gregory recognized that as the appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary . The extraordinary nature of the apparition was that, despite being in the middle of the night, a light shone clear thorugh those figures, as if it were a lamp burning on. Unable to bear with his human eyes the appearance and the light, Gregory closed his eyes and sat alone listening to her who had appeared and that was certainly the Mother of God. John the Evangelist (the old man), then, to please Mary, gave to Gregory detailed explanations on questions of religious doctrine, the subject of strong dispute in which he was actively engaged. After providing this clarification, the two disappeared.

(270 A.D., St. Gregory Thaumaturgus): “you are the vessel and tabernacle containing all mysteries. You know what the Patriarchs never knew; you have experienced what was never revealed to the Angels; you have heard what the Prophets never heard. In a word, all that was hidden from preceding generations was made known to you; even more, most of these wonders depended on you.”

In the fourth century, St. Epiphanius, wrote “Against Eighty Heresies” where he affirmed: “Eve was called the mother of the living …after the fall this title was given to her. True it is…the whole race of man upon earth was born from Eve; but in reality it is from Mary the Life was truly born to the world. So that by giving birth to the Living One, Mary became the mother of all living”

“Blessed Virgin, immaculate and pure you are the sinless Mother of your Son, the mighty Lord of the universe. You are holy and inviolate, the hope of the hopeless and sinful; we sing your praises. We praise you as full of every grace, for you bore the God-Man. We all venerate you; we invoke you and implore your aid…Holy and immaculate Virgin…be our intercessor and advocate at the hour of death and judgment…you are holy in the sight of God, to Whom be honor and glory, majesty, and power forever (373 AD, St. Ephrem of Edessa).