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Hearts of Jesus and Mary- Saints |
Why
Mary is Our Mediatrix
St.
Maximilian Kolbe
Miles Immaculatae,
1938
The strict union that exists among the truths of Christian doctrine
is known to us all. For Catholic dogmas are born from one another
and perfect each other reciprocally. We can see an example of this
in the Fathers of the Council of Ephesus. They proclaimed the divine
Motherhood of Mary solely on the basis of the Catholic doctrine
regarding the hypostatic union of the divine and human natures in
the Person of the Word.
Once the relationship between Jesus and his Mother Mary became
known, there arose the Catholic belief which holds that the Mother
of the Savior was exempt from original sin. Catholics did not dare
think that Mary had ever been enslaved to the devil even for a
single instant. A wonderful hope of obtaining the sweet care of Mary
also arose among the faithful based on the preeminent mission of the
Blessed Virgin and on her unutterable union (her Immaculate
Conception) with the Holy Spirit.
Immaculate Conception Linked to Mediation
And it is now clear that our relationship to Mary the Co-Redemptrix
and Dispenser of graces in the economy of the redemption has not
been understood from the beginning with uniform clarity.
Nevertheless our belief in the mediation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
is daily growing greater. In this brief article we want to show
what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin
Mary contributes to the doctrine of Mary's mediation.
The work of our redemption depends directly on the Second Person of
God, Jesus Christ. By his blood He reconciled us to the Father, for
with it he made satisfaction for the sin of Adam and merited for us
sanctifying grace, various actual graces and the right to enter
heaven.
Still, the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity also participates
in this work in that He transforms the souls of men into temples of
God by the power of the redemption achieved by Christ, and He makes
us children of God by adoption and heirs of the kingdom of heaven,
according to the words of St. Paul:
You have been washed, you have been justified in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor 6:11)
The Holy Spirit, who is God-Love, unites us to the other two divine
Persons when He descends into our souls. For this reason St. Paul
writes in his letter to the Romans:
We do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Holy Spirit
Himself pleads for us with un-speakable groanings. (Rom 8:26)
In the epistle to the Corinthians he also says the distribution of
graces depends on the will of the Holy Spirit:
To one indeed is given the speaking of wisdom through the Spirit, to
another the speaking of knowledge ... to another the gift of healing
in the same Spirit; to another die working of wonders, to another
prophecy . . . One and the same Spirit however does all these
things. (1 Cor 12:8-11).
Immaculate Heart Is Sign of Holy Spirit
Still, just as Jesus became the God-Man in order to reveal his
immense love for us, so also the Third Divine Person, God-Love,
willed to show his mediation with the Father and the Son in some
external image. That this image is the Immaculate Heart of the
Virgin is clear from the words of the saints, especially those who
hold Mary is the Spouse of the Holy Spirit. Whence Bl. Louis Marie
Grignion draws the conclusion according to the mind of the Fathers:
The Holy Spirit lacks fruitfulness in God, that is, no divine Person
proceeds from him. But he becomes fruitful through Mary whom he has
taken to himself as Spouse. With her and in her and through her he
produces his most illustrious work, the incarnation of the Word:
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High
will overshadow you" (Lk 1:35). Still, this is not to be understood
in the sense that the Blessed Virgin has brought fruit-fulness to
the Holy Spirit. As God he would already have had this fruitfulness
just as have the Father and the Son, even though he had not revealed
it by action in that no Divine Person proceeds from him. Rather it
is to be understood in the sense that the Holy Spirit has chosen to
manifest his fruitfulness by the mediation of Mary, which certainly
he does not absolutely need, by producing the human nature of Christ
through her and with her.
Even after the death of Christ the Holy Spirit accomplishes
everything in us through Mary. For the words of the Creator
pronounced to the serpent concerning the Immaculata: "She shall
crush your head" (Gen 3:15) are, according to the teaching of the
theologians, to be understood without limitation in regard to time.
The work of forming the new members of the predestined of the
Mystical Body of Christ belongs to the Holy Spirit. But as Bl. Louis
Grignion demonstrates, this work is done with Mary, in Mary and
through Mary.
Holy Spirit and Mary Enable Us to Know Christ
We are led to this conclusion, namely that the Holy Spirit acts
through Mary, by the texts of Sacred Scripture and the words of the
saints, who are the best interpreters of Sacred Scripture: "And I
will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, so
that he might abide with you for eternity, the Spirit of truth ... (Jn
14:16-17). The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, however, which the Father
will send in my name, he is the one who will teach you all things
and bring to your minds all that I have said to you...(Jn 14:26);
however when the Spirit of truth shall have come, he will teach you
all the truth...He will glorify me..." (Jn 6:13-14).
Bl. Louis Grignion uses words of almost the same meaning in regard
to the Immaculata:
We have not yet known Mary, and for this reason we also do not know
Christ as we should. If however Christ is to become known and his
kingdom is to come upon the earth-which has to come to pass
regardless this will result solely from Mary's being known, and
from her reign over us; for Mary gave birth to Jesus for the
salvation of the world in the first place, and now renders us fit to
know him clearly.
Therefore, just as the Second Person of God appears in the flesh
bearing the name "seed of the woman," so also the Holy Spirit
reveals his share in the work of redemption through the Immaculate
Virgin whom he has conjoined with himself most profoundly in a
manner surpassing all our power to understand, but preserving into
the Personhood of each of them. Their union, therefore, is different
from the hypostatic union that unites the two natures, divine and
human, in the one sole Person of Christ; nevertheless, this
difference in no way prevents the action of Mary from being the
most perfect action of the Holy Spirit. For Mary, as the Spouse of
the Holy Spirit and who is, therefore, raised above all created
perfection, fulfills in every way the will of the Holy Spirit who
dwells in her and with her and this from the first instant of her
conception.
Mediation Based on "Marriage" with the Holy Spirit
From all that has been presented here we can rightly conclude that
Mary as the Mother of the Savior Jesus has been made the Co-Redemptrix
of the human race, and that as the Spouse of the Holy Spirit she
participates in the distribution of all the graces. Whence we can
say with the theologians: ". . . as the first Eve worked for our
downfall by her truly personal and free actions, and truly helped
cause it, so Mary by her truly personal actions joined in the
reparation ... in this there is already in a most evident way true
mediation properly speaking."1 In recent times especially we are
perceiving the Immaculata, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, as our
Mediatrix.
It was in the year 1830 that the Immaculate Virgin appeared to
Sister Catherine Laboure. We learn from the account of this novice
that the purpose of the apparition of Mary was to reveal her
Immaculate Conception and her astonishing power with God:
The most holy Virgin cast her eyes on me and at the same time I
heard a voice say, "This globe of the world represents all men and
each individual person." And again: "Behold the symbol of the
graces which I pour out on all who invoke me."
Afterwards an oval figure was formed around the most holy Virgin in
which the following invocation was written in golden words: "O Mary
conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you." At the
same moment I heard a voice saying: "Strike a medal according to
this exemplar: all who carry it will overflow with graces."
Mary Acts as Mediatrix at Lourdes
At Lourdes the Immaculate Virgin prodded all men to do penance;
finally she recited the "Hail Mary" in order to show it to us as a
source of help. From that moment the Immaculata at Lourdes began to
act in her capacity as our Mediatrix: she invites the sick to come,
she gathers the weak and the lame to cure them, and she reveals our
dependence on her even in natural life.
The sick in soul, namely unbelievers and sinners with hardened
hearts she draws sweetly and pours supernatural life into their
hearts in order to convince them of her power to grant us
supernatural life.
Moreover, we should note this above all, that Jesus works miracles
in the place (Lourdes) chosen by his Mother.
Everything that the Blessed Virgin Mary does at Lourdes testifies to
the truth of the words of St. Peter Damian: "A curse came upon the
earth through a woman; through a woman earth's blessing is
restored." 2 And also the words of St. Augustine: "In man's
deception, poison was served him through a woman; in his redemption,
salvation is presented him through a woman." 3
Therefore what St. Bernard expresses in words, the Immaculate
Virgin confirms by acts: "Such is the desire of him who willed that
we should have everything through Mary."4
Father Maximilian
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