Is Mary the "coredemptrix"?

  • Thread starter Thread starter 2nd_Adam
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
IS MARY THE “COREDEMPTRIX”?

What does Coredemptrix Mean?

Jesus, the New Adam, is the one Savior and Redeemer of all humankind. By His Incarnation, Death and Resurrection, He redeems us from the sin of the first Adam. Mary, the New Eve, plays a lesser, dependent, subordinate role in the redemption of the world, by virtue of her relation to Christ and her cooperation in His life’s mission. So she is sometimes called the Coredemptrix, which means “Woman with the Redeemer” (not “co-redeemer”; see below).

Though many Catholics believe in the legitimacy of this title, it has not been defined as an article of faith, and probably will not be in the forseeable future. Although the concept behind the title is theologically sound, **Catholics are not required to accept the title “Coredemptrix”. **

How This Teaching Exalts Christ

Mary cannot and does not redeem us by herself. She only plays a lesser, non-essential role in the redemptive work of Christ. The Coredemptrix concept re-emphasizes the fact that Jesus is the Redeemer, for if He weren’t then Mary could not be the Coredemptrix.

Biblical Basis

The following are verses commonly cited by proponents of the Coredemptrix concept as biblical support. **Keep in mind that the Church has not yet defined this teaching. **

In Genesis 3:15, God prophesied that the Mother of the Messiah would be at emnity with the devil: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise they head, and thou shalt bruise his heel”. Mary is forever on the same side as her redeeming Seed in the struggle against evil, sin and death.

Isaiah prophetically called the Messiah the “servant of the Lord”. At the Annunciation, Mary called herself the “haidmaid of the Lord”: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). “Handmaid” is the feminine equivalent of servant. If the Messiah is the Lord’s suffering Servant, then His Mother stands with Him as the Lord’s faithful Handmaid, with a subordinate role to play in the Redemption of mankind.

As we saw in the first article, the Angel’s annunciation to Mary (Luke 1:26-38) reverses the temptation of the first Eve. As Eve’s disobedience indirectly brought about the Fall, so Mary’s obedience indirectly brought about the Redemption. Though it was actually Adam’s sin which caused the Fall (Romans 5:12; I Corinthians 15:22), Eve could be considered the “Copeccatrix”: the woman with Adam the sinner. Similarly, Mary is the “Coredemptrix”: the woman with Christ the Redeemer!

The aged prophet Simeon fortells both the rejection of Christ and the sufferings of His Mother: “And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35).

This was fulfilled at Calvary: “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene” (John 19:25). Mary loved Jesus and must have suffered greatly at seeing Him so torn and humiliated. She prayerfully united her loving sufferings to those of her Son.

St. Paul tells us we can make up what is lacking in the sufferings of Jesus: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Col 1:24). In some mysterious manner, Mary did this. Not that Jesus’ suffering was lacking in its salvific power, but in the application of salvation to each of us. More on this below.

home.earthlink.net/~mysticalrose/marian14.html

Let’s discuss and debate this title for Mary. It appears Catholics are divided over Mary the coredemptrix.
It’s not helpful and certainly borders on heresy to call Mary the woman with the redeemer. The Scriptures plainly declare Jesus as the one and only way to Salvation. There is nothing about this to suggest it to be plural in any way. Mary the Mother of Christ and the foremost of all the saints, absolutely yes, but certainly not in the same conversation with the ONE who saves in action.
 
I do believe that Mary is the co-redemptrix. 👍
Amen!

Co - prefix meaning “with”
redemp - root of “redemption,” or buying back
-trix - “one who,” a feminine Latin suffix

When they found you with the Fathers calling her Mother of God, Second Eve, and Mother of all Living, the Mother of Life, the Morning Star, the Mystical New Heaven, the Sceptre of Orthodoxy, the All-undefiled Mother of Holiness, and the like, they would have deemed it a poor compensation for such language, that you protested against her being called a Co-redemptrix.
Bl. John Henry Newman
Letter to the Anglican clergyman Pusey​
 
It’s not helpful and certainly borders on heresy to call Mary the woman with the redeemer. The Scriptures plainly declare Jesus as the one and only way to Salvation. There is nothing about this to suggest it to be plural in any way. Mary the Mother of Christ and the foremost of all the saints, absolutely yes, but certainly not in the same conversation with the ONE who saves in action.
“The Virgin on Calvary participates in the saving power of the suffering of Christ, joining her “fiat,” her “yes,” to that of her Son.”


Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus, Sept. 17, 2006​

“Mary is totally integrated in the redemption work of Christ” and her “yes” at the Annunciation “redeemed her under the Cross.”
Pope Benedict XVI, Address to German Pilgrims (originally in German), March 29, 2009​
…When you obediently said “yes” in the house of Nazareth,
you allowed God’s eternal Son to take flesh in your virginal womb
and thus to begin in history the work of our redemption.
You willingly and generously cooperated in that work,
allowing the sword of pain to pierce your soul,
until the supreme hour of the Cross, when you kept watch on Calvary,
standing beside your Son, who died that we might live…
Pope Benedict XVI, Prayer to Our Lady of Sheshan​
 
Is your objection to Mary possessing the title of queen, or is it to what you think that title means?

Jesus was a Jew. When Jesus established his Church, the first members were Jews. The Old Testament was written by Jews. The New Testament was written by Jews who believed in Jesus as the messiah. It only makes sense that they would approach things from a Jewish perspective and use the term queen in the Jewish sense.

In the Old Testament, the kings of Israel had many wives. None of their wives were the queen. The queen was the MOTHER of the king.

Jesus is the king, descended from the line of David. Mary is his mother. Therefore Mary is the queen.

Also, the “job” of the queen of Israel was to serve as an advocate for the people. She was their intercessor, assisting them in bringing their concerns before her son the king.

Mary fulfills her role as intercessor still to this day, assisting us in bringing our concerns before her son Jesus.

That’s what Mary as our queen means. Not a co-ruler of heaven, but the mother of the king of heaven. The best advocate we could have whenever we bring our concerns to the king.
If Catholic Christians want to make Mary their queen, that’s your Christian liberty to do so.
 
OK, look…

There are organizations and websites where individual Lutherans join with Presbyterian, Baptists, Catholics, Orthodox, etc. for the cause of unity and ecumenism. That doesn’t mean that their denominations agree. Sometimes the people in these organizations act like the only differences are minor and secondary, but isn’t necessarily true either.

I mean, I could start a Lutheran-Mormon alliance and find some Mormons to co-author a statement about confessing the supremacy of the Bible and the Nicene Creed. But he’s still a Mormon. Do we basically believe the same thing? Is the Lutheran Church or the Mormon church going to back up this organization? No!

So while you may like AllianceNet’s confession of faith, you need to also be aware that it does not confess the faith of any church - it’s just the opinions of several pastors and professors that some denominations hold a few things in common as starting points for discussion, and that they have common enemies in the world, the flesh and the devil.
The Alliance of Confession Evangelicals is based on the gospel of God’s grace. What is more central than that? If you think Lutherans are closer to the Catholic Faith than the Alliance of Confession Evangelicals, then you need to look closer to what you consider to be essential to the gospel of God’s grace. What divides historic Protestants from Catholics is the doctrine of justification by faith alone. It is the chief article which Luther stated that the church stands or falls. The 5 solas of the Protestant Reformation are the essentials that unite us. Please let me know what you think about the Cambridge Declaraiton which was a response to ECT 1 and ECT II agreements (Evangelical and Catholics Together).

reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/documents/cambridge.html
 
It’s not helpful and certainly borders on heresy to call Mary the woman with the redeemer. The Scriptures plainly declare Jesus as the one and only way to Salvation. There is nothing about this to suggest it to be plural in any way. Mary the Mother of Christ and the foremost of all the saints, absolutely yes, but certainly not in the same conversation with the ONE who saves in action.
I agree with you.
 
I understand where you are coming from. Do you object to any of the other Sacraments and Saintly intercession? It is things like this that make me glad I chose to become Orthodox. Co-Redemptrix is not anywhere in Christian history. Pure and simple.

In Christ,
Andrew
I have no problem with a person choosing to confess his sins to a priest and a priest saying, under the authority of his office and through Jesus Christ, that the sins is forgiven. It is the penance part which I cannot justify scripturally. repentance must come before or during the confession of sin that you do, either with a priest, at an altar call, or privately one on one with God. But after the fact, is artificial. And besides, why is prayer or a good deed to be considered a work of punishment?

I think it is possible for anyone in heaven to do intercessory prayer on your behalf. Intercessory prayer need not be confined to the living for the living, for being on the other side of this life is being more alive than ever. Having said that, it is far more rewarding to me personally, and i wish all would do this, to go right to the Throne of God and weep or express joy. I can do this as a child of God and co-heir to the kingdom.

Purgatory is just the way catholic teaching has formed about the Judgement Seat of Christ. Benedict describes it as a state of being, rather than a place. He says it is being under the gaze of Christ, no where to hide and all exposed. I can accept that. I do not know if Scripture says where this Judgement Seat is, but i assume it is a part of heaven, for that is where Jesus is until He returns. each of us are responsible for how our lives affected others, so one cannot be prayed out of being under His gaze. There is no get out of jail free card for this Judgement. For it is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgement. I am therfore more in line with Benedict’s imagery of (purgatory) the Judgement than the traditional fire and pain and punishment- a mini hell.

As far as mary, it is my understanding that the Jews are to be the Bride of God, the Father, just as we gentiles are the Bride of Christ. If God so chooses to give a special status, so be it, but as for now, it is not Written.

I find it so interesting that many catholics spurn the idea of a future “rapture” yet that is exactly what they say about mary and the assumption. Elijah and Enoch were taken up. the bodies of the rightous were risen by God after Jesus rose and were seen walking about jerusalem. So i suppose it could have happened. But it is not Written.

I think that God could have had Mary immaculately conceived because His Son needed to be nutured in utero by sin free flesh.

All my questions and doubts about these things I am gonna ask God for the answers.

Thank you for asking me about my thoughts and i know already that i am not your usual catholic.
 
“The Virgin on Calvary participates in the saving power of the suffering of Christ, joining her “fiat,” her “yes,” to that of her Son.”


Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus, Sept. 17, 2006​

“Mary is totally integrated in the redemption work of Christ” and her “yes” at the Annunciation “redeemed her under the Cross.”
Pope Benedict XVI, Address to German Pilgrims (originally in German), March 29, 2009​
…When you obediently said “yes” in the house of Nazareth,
you allowed God’s eternal Son to take flesh in your virginal womb
and thus to begin in history the work of our redemption.
You willingly and generously cooperated in that work,
allowing the sword of pain to pierce your soul,
until the supreme hour of the Cross, when you kept watch on Calvary,
standing beside your Son, who died that we might live…
Pope Benedict XVI, Prayer to Our Lady of Sheshan​
And all of this very confusing information supports the Scriptures how?
 
If Catholic Christians want to make Mary their queen, that’s your Christian liberty to do so.
We couldn’t make Mary the Queen of Heaven even if we wanted to. Jesus did that when he chose her to be his mother. All we do is acknowledge that because Jesus is king then his mother is queen. Queen because of HIM, not her.
 
How come the catholic church gave Mary this title before it defined its teaching?

The whole concept smacks of the ancient mother/child cult and distracts from God’s Glory due only to Him.
The Church…meaning the faithful have always given Mary different titles of honor. Just like we call a judge - Your Honor…or a King - Your highness…it is a sign of respect. None of Mary’s titles detract from the glory that is due to God alone.

BTW…What the is a “Mother/child cult”??
CC
 
I have no problem with a person choosing to confess his sins to a priest and a priest saying, under the authority of his office and through Jesus Christ, that the sins is forgiven. It is the penance part which I cannot justify scripturally. repentance must come before or during the confession of sin that you do, either with a priest, at an altar call, or privately one on one with God. But after the fact, is artificial. And besides, why is prayer or a good deed to be considered a work of punishment?

I think it is possible for anyone in heaven to do intercessory prayer on your behalf. Intercessory prayer need not be confined to the living for the living, for being on the other side of this life is being more alive than ever. Having said that, it is far more rewarding to me personally, and i wish all would do this, to go right to the Throne of God and weep or express joy. I can do this as a child of God and co-heir to the kingdom.

Purgatory is just the way catholic teaching has formed about the Judgement Seat of Christ. Benedict describes it as a state of being, rather than a place. He says it is being under the gaze of Christ, no where to hide and all exposed. I can accept that. I do not know if Scripture says where this Judgement Seat is, but i assume it is a part of heaven, for that is where Jesus is until He returns. each of us are responsible for how our lives affected others, so one cannot be prayed out of being under His gaze. There is no get out of jail free card for this Judgement. For it is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgement. I am therfore more in line with Benedict’s imagery of (purgatory) the Judgement than the traditional fire and pain and punishment- a mini hell.

As far as mary, it is my understanding that the Jews are to be the Bride of God, the Father, just as we gentiles are the Bride of Christ. If God so chooses to give a special status, so be it, but as for now, it is not Written.

I find it so interesting that many catholics spurn the idea of a future “rapture” yet that is exactly what they say about mary and the assumption. Elijah and Enoch were taken up. the bodies of the rightous were risen by God after Jesus rose and were seen walking about jerusalem. So i suppose it could have happened. But it is not Written.

I think that God could have had Mary immaculately conceived because His Son needed to be nutured in utero by sin free flesh.

All my questions and doubts about these things I am gonna ask God for the answers.

Thank you for asking me about my thoughts and i know already that i am not your usual catholic.
Dear, you really need to get a Catechism. You are on the right path for some of your ideas, but some of your ideas are a bit “off the beaten path”. The Catechism will provide the answers that you have about what Catholics really believe. I will pray for you.
CC
 
We couldn’t make Mary the Queen of Heaven even if we wanted to. Jesus did that when he chose her to be his mother. All we do is acknowledge that because Jesus is king then his mother is queen. Queen because of HIM, not her.
I would respectfully disagree with you that Mary is the Queen of Heaven. Mary is just a vessel of mercy and part of the body of Christ like the rest of us. She is part of the bride of Christ. Protestants in general are not real interested in the Queen since we know the King of Kings. I know Muslims have a similar view with Catholics. But, that might not be a good thing considering that they are not Christians.
 
The Mother/child cult began with the Tower of babel and has been around ever since. It is about a virgin mother who has a boy child who becomes a savior to the world. She is worshiped because she is the mother of this savior. rome had such a cult. Pagan religion is full of goddesses and reverence to mother earth.

I AM NOT SAYING THAT what Scripture says about Mary and Jesus is in any way pagan. I believe what Scripture says. I even believe that mary was ever-virgin. That goes back to the fact , IMHO, that she, as a jew, being a most important jew of course, is part of being the Bride of God The Father.

But this mother/child cult explains the very reason why mary was named Queen of heaven ( a pagan title) and why she was so easily elevated as the pagan culture was absorbed into christianity.

Thank you for your prayers. I have a bible, thank you very much though.

I
 
Apostolic Doctrine is contained within Holy Scripture. I do not believe in apostolic succession. It seems that the Orthodox Tradition has a different set of apostolic succession than Catholic Tradition. Now that’s confusing.
You do not believe in Apostolic Succession? or Apostolic Tradition? Because the last I looked the Orthodox have the same Apostolic Tradition…am I right?? Apostolic succession has to do with who is the Pope. Apostolic Tradition has to do with what Paul says in 2 Thess
"hold fast to the traditions that we passed down to you whether by word or by letter.

And the Protestants have over 30,000 doctrines than don’t agree with each other…here we go…
CC
 
Is your objection to Mary possessing the title of queen, or is it to what you think that title means?

Jesus was a Jew. When Jesus established his Church, the first members were Jews. The Old Testament was written by Jews. The New Testament was written by Jews who believed in Jesus as the messiah. It only makes sense that they would approach things from a Jewish perspective and use the term queen in the Jewish sense.

In the Old Testament, the kings of Israel had many wives. None of their wives were the queen. The queen was the MOTHER of the king.

Jesus is the king, descended from the line of David. Mary is his mother. Therefore Mary is the queen.

Also, the “job” of the queen of Israel was to serve as an advocate for the people. She was their intercessor, assisting them in bringing their concerns before her son the king.

Mary fulfills her role as intercessor still to this day, assisting us in bringing our concerns before her son Jesus.

That’s what Mary as our queen means. Not a co-ruler of heaven, but the mother of the king of heaven. The best advocate we could have whenever we bring our concerns to the king.
:thumbsup:Great answer!
CC
 
The Mother/child cult began with the Tower of babel and has been around ever since. It is about a virgin mother who has a boy child who becomes a savior to the world. She is worshiped because she is the mother of this savior. rome had such a cult. Pagan religion is full of goddesses and reverence to mother earth.

I AM NOT SAYING THAT what Scripture says about Mary and Jesus is in any way pagan. I believe what Scripture says. I even believe that mary was ever-virgin. That goes back to the fact , IMHO, that she, as a jew, being a most important jew of course, is part of being the Bride of God The Father.

But this mother/child cult explains the very reason why mary was named Queen of heaven ( a pagan title) and why she was so easily elevated as the pagan culture was absorbed into christianity.

Thank you for your prayers. I have a bible, thank you very much though.

I
I am not at all familiar with the Mother/child cult thing, but since you only want to use the Bible then let us turn to Revelation 12:1-6. “And a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the Sun with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars”…Wait! Now let me see…there is a woman…she is in heaven…and she has a crown on her head…hmmmm, I don’t think that’s the maid! She sounds like a Queen IN heaven…oh yes, the Queen OF heaven…
BTW, Pagans call their gods, God. So does that mean that when we refer to God we are actually referring to the Pagan’s God??? Of course not~
So it IS possible that when Catholics call Mary the Queen of Heaven…they might mean the woman in Revelation??? And the Mother/child cult has nothing to do with it.
Where is the Mother/child pagan cult mentioned in the Bible?? Where is your evidence for this “cult”.

CC
 
I don’t think I am a schismatic (though maybe Archbishop Zoghby was right that we are all schismatics), but I just can’t get behind this. After reading a great deal of Catholic apologetics on this honorific I can understand how it can be argued for based on a very specific reading of certain writings of Christian antiquity, but I don’t understand why it MUST therefore be argued, and I certainly can’t understand why it should ever be declared as dogma. What I was told in RCIA is that the Church never defines new dogma in the absence of some sort of heresy or dissention from what has been historically believed by the orthodox faithful and taught as part of Sacred Tradition. Given the fact that the situation with regard to this topic is one in which a great number of the churches in the Orthodox (both Eastern and Oriental) and Catholic churches cannot recognize the historical continuity of this teaching in their own histories, it seems like this is something that is purely isolated within the Roman Church, and only certain factions within it, at that.

As a Catholic who is sick of there being one law for the Latins and another for everyone else, I can’t support this. Should I wake up tomorrow to an announcement that it is now incumbent upon me that I assent to this “co-redemptrix” business as it has been determined to have been eternally true and binding upon all of the faithful, what then of the many days before that when I wrote posts like this one? Is there anything that can be done for people like myself who, God help us, cannot follow the evolution of thinking that makes what was once a private belief or practice into a potentially soul-risking test of one’s fidelity to a doctrine that didn’t seem all that necessary before its elevation to the level of dogma?

This whole subject is so depressing. I love Mary so much…pray the Hail Mary everyday, asking for her intercession, which I know is powerful and works…I don’t know why this isn’t enough for some in the Church. She’s the MOTHER OF GOD, after all. What greater title is there? What have we not recognized in her by leaving off “co-redemptrix”? I don’t understand. 😦
 
I would respectfully disagree with you that Mary is the Queen of Heaven. Mary is just a vessel of mercy and part of the body of Christ like the rest of us. She is part of the bride of Christ. Protestants in general are not real interested in the Queen since we know the King of Kings. I know Muslims have a similar view with Catholics. But, that might not be a good thing considering that they are not Christians.
When you disagree with the title Queen of Heaven, are you disagreeing with “mother of the King of Heaven”, or are you disagreeing with “co-ruler of Heaven”? I would respectfully point out that you are implying the title Queen of Heaven means the latter despite the fact that the Church is quite clear it means the former.

If anyone calls Mary the Queen of Heaven and means she is co-ruler with Jesus or something along those lines, then the Church objecets to that at least as much as you do if not moreso. That’s a horrible distortion of true teaching.

As you are not a Catholic, you are free to disagree with anything the Church teaches. But please disagree with what the Church actually teaches. Otherwise all you are doing is creating a straw man fallacy and then disagreeing with that fallacy.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top