Hi, I was wondering as to why Mary is a co redeemer. I thought christ was the only redeemer… I really want to be catholic its just Mary is my biggest stumbling block . Can someone help me wrap my head around her?
Than you!
God bless!
In a way it’s probably best to understand this co-redemptrix term not as a
theoretical teaching of the Church … but as
the plan God opted for in actuality.** Mary was chosen by God. Agreed to the choice and followed God’s plan - and became forever a part of THE salvation story. Her “yes” to God’s plan sealed that covenant. A covenant by which WE are saved. The** -ix** suffix at the end of the word indicates femininity - and part of what God’s plan put right is the correction of Eve’s disobedience by Mary’s belief and obedience. In Christ, the new Adam obeys and opens paradise through His sacrifice to correct the sin of Adam (… breaking a covenant by not keeping a much easier single law, and forgoing the sacrifice of “not eating the fruit” his wife offered him).
Point by point, to help you (us) understand:
I was wondering as to why Mary is a co redeemer. That Mary was involved at all was GOD’s doing in the first place. BUT as she accepted and kept the covenant offered, Mary like “Father Abraham” had a co-part in our redemption story.
I thought christ was the only redeemer… Yes He was and IS. And Mary is never posited as “redeemer” or even “alternate redeemer”. Nor is Jesus referred to as co-redeemer (which would be the case if an
equality were implied).
If an airline designates a Captain and a Co-Captain …
who is in charge per rank is clear. The Captain can as part of his leadership delegate major responsibilities to the Co-captain (who should be prepared to do the task delegated). In a way this is what Christ did with His Church (which co-redeems us via baptism, teaching, forgiving sins in his name, etc.).
I really want to be catholic its just Mary is my biggest stumbling block . Can someone help me wrap my head around her? Mary was the last gift Jesus gave mankind before dying on the cross. He told John (the most faithful apostle at that point) “There is your Mother …”. He directed Mary that John was her son too. She has a place in salvation history that by placement cannot be denied.
Even should that term “co-redeemer” seem a barrier - a Bible Study of Mary reveals some astounding things (that are missed if one dismisses her as)
- somehow NOT a part of God’s plan
- or a negligible part or (and people sometimes do this),
- a part of the salvation story to be actively discarded, avoided, even opposed
- for fear that the Mother might eclipse the Son! Or some such sophistry.
Christ opted to include man in his own salvation. Man could never have saved himself …but Christ has finished His part of the needed work. We can be saved now – even though Christ Himself has not appeared to us in the flesh (but in the Eucharist) and spoken to us (but through the Church - which would include whoever taught us the faith, baptized us, forgave our sins in Christ’s name, instructed us formally via the scriptures).
ONE way He included man is in deciding to become man, born of a woman. Scripture calls Christ the new Adam. The first Adam was made without a mother via the hand of God. Jesus is God made flesh through agreement with a faithful woman named Mary (as opposed to the fleshly “mother of all living” Eve, who was created sinless but was UNfaithful to God’s covenant). Eve was a spouse, Mary a Mother. Each created sinless by God’s will. Mary is “blessed among women” (including Eve) according to nothing less than a message from God borne by an angel!
If one goes to the end of the Bible, the conclusion of Revelation, the union of Christ with his redeemed Church is depicted as His Marriage with His Bride (also sinless, without spot or wrinkle … and filled with the Holy Spirit). This depiction of US as Christ’s bride is a joyful thing … even if it causes us (men especially?) to do a bit of seeking and finding into some of the sublime mysteries surrounding this.
Mary is the only person I know of officially to be called co-Redeemer – but in a sense weren’t Peter and the apostles who dispensed saving grace to people who’d never seen Jesus also “part of the salvation” of those people and in a sense “co-redeemers” by Christ’s delegation and power? Notwithstanding that Peter’s being crucified was not the SAME as Christ’s redemptive one - but certainly a beautiful reflection of that sacrifice in Peter’s martyrdom.
It’s to be remembered that Mary calls herself God’s handmaid (servant) and God her redeemer (both in Luke Chapter One). She never claims equality with God, but the Holy Spirit filled Elizabeth attests that she “believed in the word,” was “blessed among women,” and was “the Mother of my Lord …”. Thus the Holy Spirit revealed that the unborn Jesus was yet Elizabeth’s Lord and Mary, even then, His Mother. Mary (as most blessed among women) is also depicted in Revelation 12 as being clothed in the Sun with the moon beneath her feet (crowned by whom? But clearly in glory!).
In both Genesis 3 where God prophesies He will put enmity between the snake (Satan) and “the Woman” and their respective offspring, and in Revelation 12 where a persecution of the Church (the woman who gave birth to the ruler of all nations who ascended into heaven) is conducted by the devil (now grown from a snake into a celestial dragon - yet still not able to do all the destruction he wanted to).
In the end, Christ the Redeemer wins the final victory. But before He does, saints in heaven are seen interceding with the Lord to act quickly to aid his servants on earth.
