I. St. Bonaventure (1)
There are many longer expositions of
St. Bonaventure on the maternal mediation of Mary and on the
coredemption in particular. Here I shall only outline some of
the major themes of the Seraphic Doctor touching the mystery of
Marian coredemption.
Much ink has been spilled in the recent
past over the teaching of St. Bonaventure on the coredemption.
Some have asserted, contrary to the received tradition of the
Franciscan Order, that he could not possibly have affirmed this
doctrine since a) he did not accept the Immaculate Conception,
which alone makes possible the resolution of the principal
theological objection to the coredemption: how could she share
with her Son in the work of acquiring redemptive merit if she
herself was in need of being redeemed, viz., freed from sin (liberative
redemption); and b) the highly sophisticated explanation
ascribed to him is anachronistic.
To these objections we may reply: a)
the failure to affirm the Immaculate Conception is logically
inconsistent with his Franciscan christocentrism and with his
clear exposition of what we now know as the coredemption; and b)
the highly sophisticated explanation of the coredemption is
ascribed to him because it is found "talis-qualis" in his works.
That being the case, it is hardly reasonable to doubt his
teaching about the coredemption because he hesitated to affirm
the Immaculate Conception. In this regard Bl. John Duns Scotus
merely completes the teaching of the Seraphic Doctor on the
maternal mediation of Our Lady in providing a correct
theological formulation for the mystery of the Immaculate
Conception. Together these two doctors give adequate and
definitive formulation to the Marian contemplative theology of
St. Francis.
At the heart of the Marian
contemplative theology of St. Francis is the maternal mediation
of Mary. St. Bonaventure has said it well: whether we say
Incarnation or divine Maternity we are talking about the same
mystery, because we cannot talk about the Son without the
Mother, or the Mother without the Son. The mode of the
Incarnation and redemption is Marian. The joint predestination
of Jesus and Mary constitutes the order of the hypostatic union,
the very center of the Gospel.
When we affirm this, we also grasp why
the extended treatment of the coredemption by the Seraphic
Doctor is not anachronistic. It is already fully present in St.
Francis "mystically". Nor is it only found in St. Bonaventure by
way of exception. It is found in almost every Franciscan
theologian and preacher of the 13th century whose written works
have come down to us: Conrad of Saxony, James of Milan,
Servussanctus of Faenza, Jacopone of Todi, Ubertinus of Casale,
to mention just a few. The only difference between their
presentation and that of St. Bonaventure is found in the fact
that they present bits and pieces of the complete doctrine which
they presume is familiar to those for whom they write. Whereas
St. Bonaventure gives us a relatively systematic outline of the
complete doctrine in theological terms.
The context for this systematic
exposition of the coredemption by the Seraphic Doctor is the
general theme of maternal mediation of our Lady, which according
to him has three phases or moments: that of the divine maternity
by which Mary brings forth the price of our ransom; that in
which she offers or pays the price of our redemption; and that
in which she possesses the price of our redemption, viz., in
which she alone governs the distribution of graces obtained by
the "payment of the ransom", not gold or silver, but her entire
substance, Jesus, via her compassion with His suffering and
death so that she might have pity for the rest of her poor
children.
The first of these moments is commonly
known today as the "mediate, objective coredemption"; the second
as the immediate, objective coredemption; and the third maternal
mediation in the strict sense, or distribution of graces, or
subjective coredemption, the phase in which we may participate
as "coredeemers", precisely because through the coredemption in
its second phase Mary has in fact consummated her maternal
vocation and become the effective Mother of the Church and of
those born of water and the Holy Spirit.
St. Bonaventure notes exactly that Our
Lady exercises her maternal mediation in the first and third
phases in virtue of her unique relation to the Holy Spirit - we
would say today in virtue of her Immaculate Conception - and in
both instances her maternal action precedes the formation of the
whole Christ in Head and members.
But there is also a difference. The
passage from the conception-birth of Jesus to the rebirth of His
mystical members passes by way of the Virgin's personal
involvement in the redemptive sacrifice of her Son and Savior,
what we call immediate objective coredemption. She both offers
Him and offers herself with Him as victim. The first is by way
of her consent at the Incarnation: Behold the handmaid (slave)
of God. . The sense of that consent is specified by Mary herself
at the beginning of the Savior's public life leading to the
place and final "hour" of sacrifice in order that those invited
to the wedding feast of Paradise might have the new wine in
unending abundance. Such is the message of the account of the
wedding feast at Cana.
The second, foretold by Simeon at the
Presentation of our Lord in the Temple by Mary and known as her
purification or sanctification as co-victim so as to be,
according to the Seraphic Doctor, exemplar and form of our
purification, was lived by her, that is, enduring in her soul
the very suffering entailed in her Son's dying - without
actually dying physically - and followed after that compassion,
as the piercing of Jesus' side followed His death, the
transpiercing of her soul, that we might be able to
compassionate with Christ and so fill up what is lacking to the
sufferings of Jesus for the Church (cf. Col. 1, 24). She, and
She alone was privileged to be Coredemptrix in this sense, and
She and She alone could be the Virgin Mother. The first makes
possible our liberation from sin and incorporation into the Body
of Christ (which she conceived and formed) via her role as our
maternal Mediatrix with Christ. What this means concretely for
the Church St. Bonaventure illustrates in great detail in
expounding the mystery of our Lady's Assumption. The second
makes possible the Incarnation, and so the new "patriarchatus"
of the New Adam and the New Eve: joint kingship and queenship
over the redeemed. Such is the divine order willed that "if the
Mother of Jesus is rejected, Jesus is too, and with that one
simply leaves the world under the domain of Satan and sin" (Sermo
de Nat. II).
Why the Assumption and what is its
proximate basis, theologically speaking? Evidently the "coredemption"
according to the Seraphic Doctor. It is this mystery which is
prefigured typically: negatively in the role of Eve in the sin
of the first Adam; positively in such Old Testament figures as
Anna and Abraham, and in the New Testament the poor widow. Each
offered, but only partially: Anna her child for service; Abraham
his sole heir, but only symbolically with a ram; the poor widow
all her money. But Mary qua Virgin-Mother offered her whole
substance, that is, Jesus.
St. Bonaventure did not regard this
teaching as a mere theological opinion. For him this is part of
the binding tradition of the Church, so much so that its
rejection will put one on the road to eternal perdition. This
brief recapitulation of the Seraphic Doctor on the coredemption
is sufficiently detailed to show how his teaching is a very
precise theological formulation of the central Marian character
of St. Francis' spirituality. St. Bonaventure himself, as well
as Henry d'Avranches, describes that spirituality thus: as Mary
is our Mediatrix with Jesus, so Jesus is our Mediator with the
Father.
II. Bl. John Duns Scotus (2)
And with this we can see very easily
where Bl. John Duns Scotus fits into this history. He centered
his exposition of the Immaculate Conception - preservative
redemption - on the doctrine of perfect redemption, clearly
indicated in the Breviloquium (p. IV, c. 2-4) as one of
the three characteristic features of the economy of salvation
(the three quasi-infinites of St. Thomas): the Incarnation, the
divine Maternity and the heavenly Jerusalem. They could not be
more perfect in any possible order. Bonaventure, Thomas, as well
as Scotus all accept St. Anselm's dictum: our Lady could not
have been made holier by the Father than she actually has been
made in any other possible world, however more perfect than this
one. Scotus simply tells us what this degree of holiness
actually is: the Immaculate Conception. This is what places our
Lady in the first instance in the order of the hypostatic union.
And this is the postulate of a perfect redemption: one who can
be Virgin Mother and Coredemptrix. Preservative redemption
actively put in the subject who can define herself: I am the
Immaculate Conception, means just this.
And if we ask: how did Scotus conceive
in detail this most perfect redemption by a most perfect
Redeemer, then we need only study the very detailed, very
precise exposition of St. Bonaventure summarized above.
Historically, the theological elaboration of the coredemption is
not consequent upon that of the Immaculate Conception. Rather,
the elaboration of the Immaculate Conception is consequent upon
an increased awareness of the mystery of the coredemption, that
precisely which St. Francis gave it. What the formulation of the
theology of the Immaculate Conception makes possible is the
successful resolution of objections to the coredemption which
will surface just before and in the wake of the protestant
reformation and its insistence on the principle of "Christus
solus", or the radical denial of the Immaculate Conception and
joint predestination of Mary with her Son. That joint
predestination is the cornerstone of Catholic soteriology.
And what is still more marvelous, so
viewed we do not substitute Mary for Christ. Her Immaculate
Conception, her predestination independently of and prior to
Adam in view of the divine Maternity and the New Adam is the
ringing and only possible affirmation permitted us of the
absolute primacy of the Incarnate Word and Redeemer - not merely
relative to sin, but in Himself over all creation, visible and
invisible. It is the Marian dimension which truly exalts Christ
most, achieves His absolute centrality, not the "Christus solus"
theories popularized by the Protestant reformers. Marian
minimalism always tends to this as Newman after Bonaventure saw
so clearly (3): far from exalting Christ it tends to exclude Him
and ends by completely forgetting Him when the Mother has been
repudiated. No wonder, then, that our Lord told Sr. Lucy that He
willed His heart to be adored alongside the Immaculate Heart and
assured bliss to us only on condition that we work for the
triumph of the Immaculate Heart of His Mother.
That being so, we can also see the link
between the typical Scotistic teaching on the primacy of the
will and charity, of the possibility of a finite person
cooperating with the Savior in co-meriting our redemption. St.
Bonaventure tells us our Lady as Coredemptrix suffered and died,
not out of corruption, but out of charity, that is, in the same
way her Son willingly laid down His life. The Seraphic Doctor
affirms the fact; Scotus provides the theological analysis,
developed for the most part from the antecedent reflections of
St. Anselm and St. Bonaventure on the nature of the will and of
love.
But this approach in fact enables to
understand something about the seraphic love of the Poverello
for the Crucified: it was the love of the Immaculate Heart lived
to a degree hardly ever equaled. It is the same love which
impelled St. Maximilian, the priest, to lay down his life for
another. That is why he is called a martyr of charity, because
in an age particularly characterized by the "profanation of
charity" (4) the Saint of Auschwitz, totally consecrated to the
Immaculate shows us what it means to incorporate that mystery
into life: it means to live the mystery of the coredemption, and
have the corresponding pity for souls in danger of hell, or
enduring the culture of death and hell even now.
Duns Scotus, then, makes an important
contribution to the clarification of the doctrine of the
coredemption: not because he affirms it for the first time (for
in his time the doctrine was without quibble accepted as part of
the deposit of faith), nor because he gave it systematic
treatment (that was already more than evident in the work of St.
Bonaventure), but because he gave definitive form to the
theological arguments and terminology setting forth the
fundamental postulate of the coredemption, viz., the Immaculate
Conception.
It is only fitting that a Franciscan
friar trained in English schools when England was still so
singularly Marian should be the theologian most closely
associated with the theology of the Immaculate Conception, a
theology without which it would be impossible to give a fully
satisfactory account of Our Lady's unique role at the foot of
the Cross and in every Mass. The devotion to the Immaculate
Conception first took root in pre-norman England, and after the
conquest of that kingdom in 1066 by the Normans from Normandy,
was through their political influence in so much of western
Europe, not least in southern Italy gradually introduced
throughout western Europe. Did St. Francis have contact with
this devotion and had it any bearing on his understanding of the
title "Spouse of the Holy Spirit"? There is no way of resolving
such a question. Nonetheless the mystery of the Immaculate
Conception is deeply imbedded in the spirituality of St.
Francis. It is this spirituality which in so many ways provides
the basis for the theology of Bl. John Duns Scotus who gave a
definitive theological formulation to the principles
undergirding the devotion.
Conclusion:
St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe, the
Franciscan Saint who according to the reputable historians of
the title "Spouse of the Holy Spirit" best understood St.
Francis on this title of Mary, called the attention of
contemporary Franciscans to something most of them have
consistently overlooked, namely, that golden thread running
throughout the history of the Franciscan Order and constituting
the key to its character and purpose. This is the mystery of the
Immaculate Conception. On this basis he divided the history of
the Order into two main periods, the first running from its
foundation in 1209 to the solemn dogmatic definition of the
Immaculate Conception in 1854 by the Ven. Pius IX, soon to be
beatified. This he called the first page of Franciscan history
whose primary purpose was to promote the solemn dogmatic
definition of the Immaculate Conception. That completed, a
second page began, that treating the incorporation of that dogma
into the life of the Church. (5)
If we would understand what that means,
then we must look to the Immaculate gloriously assummed into
heaven, crowned there Queen, precisely because of her triumph on
Calvary. Incorporate the mystery of the Immaculate Conception
into the life of the Church and of believers means to live the
mystery of the coredemption in being conformed to Christ
Crucified. In that way we discover what St. Bonaventure means
when he says that the Virgin Mother is the form and exemplar of
all holiness, that what is fully realized in her now is in the
process of being realized in the Church and in the saints,
viz.., being without spot or wrinkle (cf. Eph. 5, 27).
We can finally appreciate that "dictum"
often used to summarize the argument of Scotus for the
Immaculate Conception (and so often dismissed today): "potuit,
decuit, ergo fecit". What God did in the economy of salvation
culminating in the great victory over the prince of this world
on Calvary and in every Mass, is found in the deposit of faith.
But our understanding of this and more importantly living of
this - please note with St. Bonaventure: theology is for the
sake of speculation, that we might be holy, and principally that
we might be holy - is stimulated in two ways. The principal
stimulation is that of the saints, viz., contemplative theology
under the guidance of the Magisterium. The auxiliary or
subordinate aid is that of scholastic reflection on the truths
of faith under the aegis of the gift of the Holy Spirit called
understanding. The work of the saints bears on the decuit: why
it is fitting to define and to proclaim a given truth at a given
point in the history of the Church. The work of the scholastic
theologian is not to prove such and such a truth exists, for
this we know first of all by faith, but to explain how it can
be, the potuit or intelligibility of the mystery, in so far as
this contributes to the purification of our minds, reinforces
our faith and disposes us for contemplation.
One of the major fruits of such
activity is dogmatic definition. Precisely because of the
suspension of genuine scholastic theology between magisterial
proclamation and contemplative love any kind of doctrinal
reflection tending to dogmatic definition (definibility) is
preceded by the theological contribution of a great Saint. St.
Francis is a case in point: his grasp of theology, eagle-like
like that of St. John, with whom the Poverello occupies a
special place by Mary at the foot of the cross, is the Saint
whose mystical theology makes possible the elaboration of three
great Marian mysteries: the Coredemption, the Immaculate
Conception, the Assumption. Two have been defined, the
Immaculate Conception pointing to, the Assumption resting on the
Coredemption. Seen from the vantage point of St. Francis'
vocation to repair the Church, the next step should be the
dogmatic definition of the Coredemption and of its immediate
corollary, the mediation of all graces.
Let us pray that the work of
theologians in seeking to illumine the mystery of coredemption
for us and even more the lives of contemporary saints will draw
us not only to understand, but desire to live and to live in
fact the mystery of the Immaculate Coredemptrix as she is now
present in our lives, in our penance, in our prayer, above all
Eucharistic prayer as the Mother of grace. Better with St.
Maximilian, let her "transubstantiate" us into her so that she
might love and serve Jesus in us for the conversion and
sanctification of all souls for whom Jesus gave His life on the
Cross and continues to give it daily in the sacrifice of the
Mass.
(Copyright by Immaculate Mediatrix
On-line
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END NOTES
(1) On the mariology of St. Bonaventure
in general cf. L. Di Fonzo, Doctrina S. Bonaventurae de
universali Mediatione B. Virginis Mariae (Rome 1938). On
coredemption in particular cf. the detailed study of P. Fehlner,
"Il mistero della corredenzione secondo il Dottore Serafico San
Bonaventura" in Maria Corredentrice, vol. II (Frigento
1999) pp 11-91, together with the Presentazione of the same
volume (pp 5-10). Texts on the coredemption are found everywhere
in the writings of the Seraphic Doctor, but the major ones
appear in the Marian sermons and in the sixth conference on the
Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
(2) For the mariology of Scotus in
general cf. R. Zavalloni - E. Mariani, La dottrina mariologica
di Giovanni Duns Scoto (Roma 1987); R. Rosini, Mariologia del
beato Giovanni Duns Scoto (Castelpetroso 1994); on the
coredemption in particular cf. R. Rosini, "Il pensiero del Beato
Giovanni Duns Scoto sulla corredenzione mariana" in Maria
Corredentrice, vol. II (Frigento 1999) pp 93-128.
(3) Cf. J. H. Newman, "The Glories of
Mary for the sake of Her Son", in Discourses Addressed to
Mixed Congregations (London 1897) pp. 342-359.
(4) Cf. Jean Borella, La Charitéé
Profanéée. Subversion De L'ÂÂme Chréétienne (Paris 1979).
(5) Cf. P. Fehlner, "The Other Page",
in Miles Immaculatae 24 (1988) pp. 512-530.
Fr. Peter Damien
Fehlner FI, STD is a professor of dogmatic theology. He taught in
Seraphicum in Rome for many years; he wrote extensively on
Franciscan and Marian themes. He was featured in Mother
Angelica's EWTN several times.
The
Sense of Marian Coredemption in 