Mediatrix of All Graces -

[mrsdizzyd]

I am a Protestant coming home.

I think one thing to bare in mind is that you have spent your Protestant life nurturing a relationship with God and growing in your understanding of Him. You will have to do the same with Mary and the saints. It is a process. This relationship has been neglected and must be nurtured. Give yourself time.

One thing that helps me with Mary is to bear in mind that anything attributed to her is the result of the power, mercy, and grace of God. Mary always leads you to her Son. Always.

So, co-mediatrix of all grace in that her Son is the source and she bore Him and leads you to Him. Co-redemptrix in that her Son is the source of our salvation and she bore Him and leads you to Him. And so on…

 

[MariaChristi]

Dear Schadk1,

Recently read a very well-written paper, and will give you an excerpt and a link to its entirety:

Mary as Coredemptrix and Mediatrix of all Graces - Philosophical and Personalist Foundations of a Marian Doctrine
by Josef Seifert

Prof Dr. Josef Seifert is Rector of the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein, and an internationally acclaimed philosopher. He is also a member of the Pontfical Academy for Life.

My Initial Doubts Concerning the Advisabilility of a Dogma of Mary as Coredemptrix and Mediatrix

When Professor Mark Miravalle shared with me information concerning the efforts and prayers of many Catholics to obtain a new dogma that would declare that Mary—in cooperation with, and in radical creaturely subordination to, her divine Son—is Coredemptrix and Mediatrix of all graces, I was at first hesitant whether I should declare support for the declaration of such a double (or triple) Marian dogma. For to call Mary Mediatrix of all graces seems to be an exaggeration and almost contradictory: how could she be the Mediatrix of the graces Adam and Eve received, or Abraham, or her own ancestors, or of those graces which she herself received such her Immaculate Conception? On the other hand, to give Mary the title Coredemptrix seemed to me at first to touch a merely marginally Catholic belief and one that is open to many misunderstandings, given the fact that there is only one Saviour and one Redeemer, Jesus Christ. I thought that a dogmatic declaration of this truth, though I firmly believed it, would be unnecessary and even undesirable for various reasons: It would bind all faithful to accept a truth which neither appears inseparable from the deposit of faith nor free of being prone to an enormous misunderstanding that would efface the difference between God and man and turn Mary into some kind of fourth divine person. Besides, this doctrine did not seem to me central enough to justify a dogmatic formulation. For dogma does not only assert the objective and indubitable truth of a supernaturally revealed truth or a doctrine presuppose by the faith (such as the ability of man to know the existence~ and some attributes of God by means of his reason, a philosophical content defined by Vatican I). Rather, much more than that, a dogma binds all faithful to accept it, and it involves, and in some cases even creates, the moral obligation to the consent of all the faithful to the dogmatically declared truth of the Catholic faith as a condition of achieving eternal salvation. Thus a dogma is a very serious thing not to be demanded lightly…

Entire paper can be read at: Mary as Coredemptrix and Mediatrix of all Graces- Philosophical and Personalist Foundations of a Marian Doctrine by Josef Seifert

It was a long article but he actually helped me to be more convinced these titles are important and opened up more reasons why I had believed in them even before reading his paper!

 

[po18guy]

All grace comes form God.

God came to man through one woman.

By Divine design.

Best we do not complicate it.

 

[godisgood77]

Thanks for the post… Schadk1

The idea of Mary as Mediatrix of All Graces is debated heavily in the Church and has never made its way to a universal belief in the Church. It is largely and idea of the 100-120 years and relies mostly on papal statement during that time. There is no evidence in the bible or early tradition for the idea that all graces come through Mary, but ample evidence that Jesus bestows his grace directly at times and through others at other times.

The last formal action of the Church on this topic was in 1996… where it was universally decided that it was not opportune to pursue an advancement of the Mary as Mediatrix of All Graces idea. The group was made up of the world’s foremost Marian experts…

In accord with the precedent set at Vatican II, the participants agreed that a doctrinal declaration should not “settle questions which have not yet been fully clarified by the work of theologians” (LG 54); they noted that Vatican II had already stated that the “Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix” (LG 62). Although these titles are in common use, they are subject to ambiguous and different interpretations. The word “coredemptrix” did not appear in the magisterium until the pontificate of Pius XII. Earlier in the twentieth century, Pius XI had formed national commissions to study the possibility of a dogmatic definition of Mary as mediatrix. The pneumatological consequences of calling Mary “advocate” must also be carefully studied.

Marian Congress 1996