Contemplating the Church's Mariology

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I want some help gaining insights into the meaning of official Church teaching about the Mother of God, our Lady.

This is a quotation from Blessed Pope Pius IX’s Apostolic Constitution (which is the highest level of Papal document I believe) on the Immaculate Conception. The last sentence I find especially wonderful, and would like to know how others understand it.

"From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only-begotten Son a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world. Above all creatures did God so love her that truly in her was the Father well pleased with singular delight. Therefore, far above all the angels and all the saints so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all heavenly gifts poured from the treasury of his divinity that this mother, ever absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would possess that fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine anything greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in comprehending fully.

 
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Indeed. I know so many people (including myself) love her so much, they feel they can’t say it often enough or give her enough devotion. Sometimes I think Our Lady would be so embarrassed by all the kerfuffle by those who don’t have a devotion to her, and those who do, and the ensuing arguments and such.
It seems so contrary to her humility and desire to have the focus on Christ.
Just musing over it all. Mama is a big deal to us, but I’m sure she really doesn’t desire it. She points to her Son in everything.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help, pray for us!
 
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I treasure something read on this forum this week … that St Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, was first to address Mary as the Mother of God, mother of my Lord, using that beautiful word “Adonai” (for the Lord God).
 
Thanks for your response, Crocus. Yes, I love what she says: “How can it be that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?” It touches the heart.

And this relates to the quotation in the opening post from Blessed Pius IX. The reason Mary was exalted so highly is because she was chosen to be the Mother of God.

St. Bonaventure, a doctor of the Church, famously said that it is not possible for God to exalt a creature more than he did by making her His Mother. Other doctors, likewise, taught that there is something infinite in being the Mother of the Infinite Good.

May I ask what you think Blessed Pius IX’s last statement means? He says that one cannot, under God, even imagine a greater holiness than that of the Blessed Mother.
 
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patricius79 said:
May I ask what you think Blessed Pius IX’s last statement means? He says that one cannot, under God, even imagine a greater holiness than that of the Blessed Mother.
Click to expand...
To be graced by God for the unique and blessed work of giving flesh to the Savior of the world, carrying His Holy Body, giving Him birth, raising Him, following Him, mothering His Church.
 
Beautiful. As this Pope says, we can never fully understand the extent of Mary’s goodness. I take this to mean that we can never honor our Blessed Mother enough, which is what Pope Leo XIII says.

Also, on a related note, I recently read Redemptoris Mater by Pope JPII, a saint. He speaks of Mary as our mother and mediatrix, and says something wonderful as he emphasizes that Mary is “she who beleived”:

"For in Mary’s faith, first at the Annunciation and then fully at the foot of the Cross, an interior space was reopened within humanity which the eternal Father can fill “with every spiritual blessing.” It is the space "of the new and eternal Covenant,"69 and it continues to exist in the Church, which in Christ is "a kind of sacrament or sign of intimate union with God, and of the unity of all mankind."70
http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-p.../hf_jp-ii_enc_25031987_redemptoris-mater.html
 
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