MARY,
MEDIATRIX OF SELF-SURRENDER
Adrienne Von Speyr
All forms of Christian fruitfulness- physical as well as
spiritual, virginal as well as marital – are patterned on
Mary. They are all included in her as the perfected woman,
in such a way that her perfections go out from her like rays
and strike all the faithful regardless of age, gender or
state of life, to develop in them in the most diverse ways.
For every individual and for every united group of people, a
particular path from the Mother to them and from them to the
Mother is visibly indicated.
A readiness for surrender on the part of the person is
always assumed in this, but in such a way that it is
included in the overflowing grace of the Mother, who has
already surrendered herself. It is she who possesses the
fullness of fruitfulness, and we take part in it through a
bashful wish, an attempt, a beginning at devotion and
surrender. Her fruitfulness and ours are related similarly
to grace and merit: grace does not work without our
cooperation, but this is itself an operation of grace and is
included in its greater, sustaining sphere.
Therefore we may see in her the mediatrix of self-surrender,
but we must be prepared and reformed by the Son beforehand
if we are to receive even a share in her assent. The Son's
grace must open in us a source of understanding for the
grace of the Mother so that this grace may expand us for the
grace of the Son. Just as the Son formed the Mother even
before his Incarnation and prepared her for the assent, and
just as she was already in his contemplation before she
received him into hers, so the Son forms us for the Mother
before she forms us for the Son.
Adrienne von Speyr (1902-1967) was a contemporary Swiss
convert, mystic, wife, medical doctor,
and author of over
sixty books on spirituality and theology.
