Yeah, she wasn’t/isn’t God. But I always thought God’s problem with His people was that no one could live up to the agreed covenant. But Mary did, she was the only one except for God Himself. Did it have to be God who died for us? Why was that necessary? Was it because Mary was a woman?
Mary was a mere creature. She was granted to be without stain of original sin, like Eve before her. Other than that, she was so utterly small before the child she was bearing that she was indeed greatly surprised and most truthful when she said:
My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
Because He has regarded the lowliness of His handmaid;
for behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed;
Because He who is mighty has done great things for me,
and Holy is His Name;
True, the singular privilege of the Immaculate Conception rendered her truly special, as did the fact that the Holy Spirit poured in her the fullness of His grace
even before she had conceived her divine child. However, the child she bore was Christ the King, the living God Himself who had taken flesh.
It is said that Mary did participate in the sacrifice of Christ and mystically died on the cross with Him. However, no human sacrifice could ever repair or atone for what mankind had done.
Through obedience, Our Lady, the New Eve, regained for us what Eve had lost, and became a wonder in our eyes, for behold she is the mother of the new creation, the heavenly Jerusalem; however, if she is the mediatrix of all grace, it was because through Her the Son took flesh and became man and merited sanctifying grace for mankind, if she is the gate of heaven it is because through her came forth Christ, who opened heaven for mankind. And if salvation came through her, it is because of her the Son took flesh and Christ was born, He who is the only Savior, and under whose name alone is found salvation.
Our Lady is truly the greatest model a Christian can find, and this is the will of God. However, the sacrifice of atonement for our sins was that of Christ. And it’s a very profound topic, very profound. The Church Fathers wrote: God became man so that man may become God; He became like us so that we may become like Him. Christ truly gathered us all into Him, so that through his death and resurrection we would have eternal life and gain sanctifying grace through Baptism of water and spirit, a spiritual rebirth that unites us to Christ in such way that we can repeat with St. Paul: “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” As St. John the Evangelist writes, “he gave us the right to become children of God” - and thus, adds St. Augustine - truly partakers of the divine nature.
And in His death he defeated death, and by His resurrection he brought us all life - for we are not many, but one: one bread, one body, one Church, which is Christ’s body and of which Christ is Head. And by the Holy Orders and the Eucharist He perpetuated His sacrifice of atonement outside of time, for it is Christ Himself who offers His life and is offered in sacrifice…no man has this power, for He said:
No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.
At every Holy Mass we are mystically on Calvary, on the Cross, all of us, the entirety of the Communion of Saints of Holy Church, and we all die on the Cross and Resurrect. Who can understand what this divine mystery truly is? Behold, like Moses we only see the reflection of His glory, for if we truly could see, then we would not live, but die at once out of sheer love and joy - this is the glory of the Beatific Vision of the state of heaven, to which only the Church Triumphant is admitted. And yet, in the Eucharist is found more than the sacrifice, for it is also the mystical union between Christ the Bridegroom and the Church, His Bride, as St. Paul writes in Ephesians 5:31-32
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a great sacrament, but I speak of Christ and of His Church.
Therefore, as you can see, this is the work of the Lord, not of any creature, not even of the most excellent amidst all the children of God.
True, we have become the sons and daughters of Mary, her offspring, but being incorporated into Christ, we have become
one with Him, as members are one with the head of the body, or as the bridegroom and bride have become one.
It was not a messenger or an angel, but he himself who saved them. Because of his love and pity he redeemed them himself
I am, I am he that blot out your iniquities for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.
