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East_and_West
Guest
I am not conviced it literally means “Woman with the Redeemer” either.
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gurneyhalleck1
Guest
My understanding of the Co-redemptrix title is that Mary is the biggest and greatest participant and advocate for Jesus in the history of the world. By saying “yes” to God accepting the incarnation, by raising Jesus in a holy family, by her support at Cana and through Jesus’ ministry, and ultimately by giving the world her Son in the Passion. She stood in the crowds and watched her only begotten Son suffering for the sins of the world. Her love is greater for Christ than anyone and her blood runs through His veins…literally…and His in hers. They share a unique bond and in every part of Mary’s history she has pointed the way to her Son. In that respect, she is a partner in his enterprise to save us all—a co-redeemer. She does none of the saving but leads us to the savior.
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Claire_from_DE
Guest
All of this is completely true. Mary participated in our redemption as completely as a human person could. She was ‘with’ Jesus, she suffered as only a mother can, she did God’s will in everything. This is already a matter of church teaching. The church doesn’t need to add a title which will be misunderstood by many.
And yes, we do have to consider the effect this will have on other Christians. St. Paul counseled the early Christians to refrain from doing even licit things which could give scandal to others who were weaker (less educated) in the faith.
The word mediatrix literally means female mediator. I think co-redemptrix literally means with+female redeemer, or woman who frees (us) with (Jesus). The words themselves lead to an erroneous understanding of their meaning.
I don’t say that the Church would be theologically wrong to use these terms. But I think it would be pastorally very unwise. The pope is actually the pastor of all Christians and isn’t likely to put up roadblocks to unity.
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thirdn6
Guest
That ‘wording’ (title) is hard, who can accept it?
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grandfather
Guest
Maybe it would help our understanding if we took Mary out of the discussion.
We know God works in second causes. He uses people to accomplish His will in other people. So Jesus says the harvest is great, but the workers are few. The workers are the ones who help bring in a harvest of souls. They impact the eternal fate of souls.
Let’s say someone goes to a church on Sunday and listens to a sermon on salvation and receives the gift of faith and ends up in heaven.
Jesus is the redeemer of that saved soul, but the preacher spoke the words that the soul heard that led to salvation. God allowed the preacher to cooperate with Him in the salvation of that soul. There is that prefix again, co - operate. So the preacher is a co - operator and if the person who spoke the words was female we might say co - operatrix, if we wanted to designate that.
We can participate in God’s work of redemption of souls. This is a privilege God gives us. That makes some people co - redeemers.
But Jesus is the only redeemer. He is the only one who can save us. So we tend to think we diminish Him if we say others participate in His work of redemption, but clearly that is the case. Saint Paul wrote his epistles two thousand years ago and they still effect us.
In order to make this more complicated in the example above, the preacher was also made aware of the gospel by some other person and that person by yet another, going back to the beginning of the Church. We have generations of people who are responsible for passing on the gospel truths of salvation to us. In a sense they all have some responsibility in our redemption, or salvation.
But Mary has a unique role to play. If the preacher in the example above did not show up that day, or the person did not, there would still be an opportunity to encounter some other evangelist and hear the message of salvation. If Mary had not cooperated in her unique role, we would have no Redeemer. No Mary equals no Jesus. We could be saved or redeemed without the preacher in question. We can not be redeemed without Mary becoming the Mother of God.
If she did not say to the angel, “Let it be done unto me according to your word.” we have no redemption. We have no Redeemer. The angel would not have left her and gone down the street looking for another virgin. She was the one highly favored by God, full of grace.
In a sense all people who carry the message of salvation are coredeemers and at the same time Jesus is the only Redeemer. We help Him in His work of redemption by carrying His message. “Go into all the world and preach the good news of salvation for repentance of sin.” Mary’s coredemtion role is different from the rest of us and more important or uniigue.
As far as Protestants being uncomfortable with what Catholics do or say or the titles we give Mary or Jesus, who cares? They don’t worry about what Catholics think of their doctrines or practices, ordaining women for one example. They can do whatever they want and they do. They are separate from us. They do not ask Rome persmission to proclaim their doctrines. Why should they even care what Catholics do or say. If they believed they Catholic Church is the true Church they would be Catholic.
On another thread a Lutheran quoted Luther as saying Catholic Marian dogma is diabolical. There was no worry there about offending Catholics or keeping Catholics from being uncomfortable. In recent years we saw Jews try to tell Rome not to canonize Saint Theresa Benedicta (Edith Stein). They also tried to destroy the reputation of Pope Pius the XII by spreading pernicious lies about him and then got upset when his cause was opened. After spreading lies about this great pope they have the audacity to tell Rome they will be upset if he is canonized. It seems everyone wants to tell Catholics how to be Catholic.
Protestants reject Rome’s authority and then get uncomfortable by what Rome says. They are going to marry men to men and then tell us we should worry about what they think of us, and we should be careful not to say anything about Mary that would make them uncomfortable? Good grief!
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We know God works in second causes. He uses people to accomplish His will in other people. So Jesus says the harvest is great, but the workers are few. The workers are the ones who help bring in a harvest of souls. They impact the eternal fate of souls.
Let’s say someone goes to a church on Sunday and listens to a sermon on salvation and receives the gift of faith and ends up in heaven.
Jesus is the redeemer of that saved soul, but the preacher spoke the words that the soul heard that led to salvation. God allowed the preacher to cooperate with Him in the salvation of that soul. There is that prefix again, co - operate. So the preacher is a co - operator and if the person who spoke the words was female we might say co - operatrix, if we wanted to designate that.
We can participate in God’s work of redemption of souls. This is a privilege God gives us. That makes some people co - redeemers.
But Jesus is the only redeemer. He is the only one who can save us. So we tend to think we diminish Him if we say others participate in His work of redemption, but clearly that is the case. Saint Paul wrote his epistles two thousand years ago and they still effect us.
In order to make this more complicated in the example above, the preacher was also made aware of the gospel by some other person and that person by yet another, going back to the beginning of the Church. We have generations of people who are responsible for passing on the gospel truths of salvation to us. In a sense they all have some responsibility in our redemption, or salvation.
But Mary has a unique role to play. If the preacher in the example above did not show up that day, or the person did not, there would still be an opportunity to encounter some other evangelist and hear the message of salvation. If Mary had not cooperated in her unique role, we would have no Redeemer. No Mary equals no Jesus. We could be saved or redeemed without the preacher in question. We can not be redeemed without Mary becoming the Mother of God.
If she did not say to the angel, “Let it be done unto me according to your word.” we have no redemption. We have no Redeemer. The angel would not have left her and gone down the street looking for another virgin. She was the one highly favored by God, full of grace.
In a sense all people who carry the message of salvation are coredeemers and at the same time Jesus is the only Redeemer. We help Him in His work of redemption by carrying His message. “Go into all the world and preach the good news of salvation for repentance of sin.” Mary’s coredemtion role is different from the rest of us and more important or uniigue.
As far as Protestants being uncomfortable with what Catholics do or say or the titles we give Mary or Jesus, who cares? They don’t worry about what Catholics think of their doctrines or practices, ordaining women for one example. They can do whatever they want and they do. They are separate from us. They do not ask Rome persmission to proclaim their doctrines. Why should they even care what Catholics do or say. If they believed they Catholic Church is the true Church they would be Catholic.
On another thread a Lutheran quoted Luther as saying Catholic Marian dogma is diabolical. There was no worry there about offending Catholics or keeping Catholics from being uncomfortable. In recent years we saw Jews try to tell Rome not to canonize Saint Theresa Benedicta (Edith Stein). They also tried to destroy the reputation of Pope Pius the XII by spreading pernicious lies about him and then got upset when his cause was opened. After spreading lies about this great pope they have the audacity to tell Rome they will be upset if he is canonized. It seems everyone wants to tell Catholics how to be Catholic.
Protestants reject Rome’s authority and then get uncomfortable by what Rome says. They are going to marry men to men and then tell us we should worry about what they think of us, and we should be careful not to say anything about Mary that would make them uncomfortable? Good grief!
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Peter_J
Guest
reen, Claire (and other who have made similar points),
Great posts.
There’s a couple different things I’d like to say on the question of a possible new Marian dogma.
- First as a general remark, we all do have to be careful not to oversimplify matters: I think for many Catholics there can be a strong tendency to think that any new dogma would be a bad idea; and an equally strong tendency to think that any time a dogma was defined in the past, it was a completely wise decision. *
(*) I know at least that this is how I thought for a long time, but in the last few years I’ve been coming to agree with Cardinal Newman that it was unwise for Vatican I to dogmatically define Papal Infallibility.
- But having said that, I do agree with Reen, Claire, East and West, et al, that dogmatically defining “Co-redemptrix” doesn’t seem like a very good idea. Besides what’s already been said on this thread, read what then-Cardinal Ratzinger said here.
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Good_Fella
Guest
co-Operatrix. I like that one. Anyone for a sixth Marian dogma?
By the way, I fail to understand what all this fuss is about with respect to the proposed fifth Marian dogma. What the Church has taught consistently for centuries about Mary in this spiritual capacity amounts to infallible teaching. The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was infallibly taught by the Church for almost five centuries before this doctrine was declared dogma.
PAX :harp:
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grandfather
Guest
When Rome recently considered officially giving Mary the title in question and decided not to do so, Rome essentially said the timing was not right, or sometihng of that sort. Read, we know what Mary is, but do not want to say so out of fear of offending non-Catholics who have a problem with Mary. They were being politically correct, doing what seemed expedient. Don’t say anything that might upset anyone. We will not honor our Queen, because if we do, some outside the Church will object.
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Good_Fella
Guest
That’s what I mean about all the fuss raised by Protestants. Since the Church has been consistently teaching these truths about Mary’s position in the economy of salvation under the Ordinary/Universal Magisterium, what difference should a dogmatic definition make to Protestants who object?
PAX :harp:
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