Mediatrix?

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mikeledes

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I have a question regarding Mary’s mediation. Many Catholic theologians, including several Popes, assert that Mary not only intercedes on our behalf, but actually dispenses (or distributes) graces and that all graces necessarily go through Mary. I would like to know where is this in the Bible or in Sacred Tradition (especially in the Church Fathers) ? Why does Mary have to be THE mediatrix of ALL graces and not A mediatrix of grace? Why does she necessarily have to distribute graces?

God Bless
 
For example, Saint Maximillian Kolbe states:

"There are two kinds of mediation. The first is that one receives something from another, but with some purpose in mind; then the one who has received the gift is not the owner, but must use the gift in such a way as has been told to him; meanwhile another received the same gift but for his exclusive property and has the right to administer it as he chooses.
Code: 
 "The Blessed Mother is in the second category, having received graces in that manner from the Godhead. She is not like a mailcarrier. She does not receive graces from God for an appointed purpose so that She might use them in one way or another. The Immaculate Virgin receives graces from God for Her own exclusive property and She dispenses them to us how She wills, to whom She wills, and inasmuch as She wills, for these are Her own. Here, finally, do we see how holy and great God made His Blessed Mother, and how much we should honor Her.”
God Bless
 
Well if it weren’t for her fiat then I’d say we would be relativity grace free. So yup, it’s pretty safe to say that she is the mediatrix of all graces.
 
But the doctrine of Mary as Mediatrix of all graces does not limit itself to her fiat. It apparently teaches that Mary has a role in the actual distribution of graces and that all graces must pass through her hands.

God Bless
 
But they did. Even just by the fiat. God is outside of time, and thusly if one were to receive a special grace next week, it came from that moment in time.

I’m sure there are more complex ways to explain it, but this way worked for me.
 
But that moment in time (fiat) did not involve the actual distribution of grace by Mary. The role of Mediatrix not only applies or is limited to her fiat, but also to the “post-assumption” Mary.

God Bless
 
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mikeledes:
But that moment in time (fiat) did not involve the actual distribution of grace by Mary. The role of Mediatrix not only applies or is limited to her fiat, but also to the “post-assumption” Mary.

God Bless
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You are thinking two-dimensionally. If God had Mary in mind from all eternity, which we believe because Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition from which Holy Scripture sprang tells us he did, then it is not much of a leap of understanding to say that Mary receiving God’s grace and God’s grace working through her was always meant to be.

I think of how Eve was meant to be the person Mary was. Eve could have been the spiritual mother of us all, as well as the mother of all the living, if she had been obedient to God, but she fell, as did Adam, so God provided a Second Adam, and a Second Eve in the person of Mary, the Mother of the Redeemer of mankind.

We are part of a family, as Jesus himself told us. We are not just individuals who are saved but the Body of Christ, the Bride, of whom Mary is the first and the prime receiver and distributer of grace to us, her children, who are her children because of her fiat which brought Christ to us to be our Savior and the New Adam, the one from whom all new life would spring.

It’s a beautiful, yet complex relationship that cannot be explained on a message board, which is why the great Saints have written volumes about it.
 
But why can’t God’s grace come directly to us through Mary’s intercessory prayer? Why does it have to actually go through her hands? Why is it necessary for her to distribute, rather than pray for, grace?

God Bless
 
I still don’t understand how Mary’s mediation necessitates the actual distribution of ALL graces in light of scripture and tradition? Why can’t Jesus distribute his graces directly to us through or because of Mary’s intercession?
 
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mikeledes:
I still don’t understand how Mary’s mediation necessitates the actual distribution of ALL graces in light of scripture and tradition? Why can’t Jesus distribute his graces directly to us through or because of Mary’s intercession?
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Was Mary the mother of all of Jesus or just part of him? Did all graces come to us because of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus? If they did, and Mary was the mother of the whole person of Jesus–IOW, if Jesus came to us through the grace God gave to Mary, then why wouldn’t God direct his grace through her, who conceived and gave birth to Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man?

We as human beings receive God’s grace because of Jesus and through him and through she whose fiat gave him to us. If his grace came into the world through Mary it is only right that his grace should continue to come to us through her. God doesn’t divide up his grace so that Jesus gives us a part and Mary gives us a part. All God’s grace comes to us through Jesus, and Mary, who is our mother and who gave us her Son as our Redeemer and Savior.

But only Jesus paid the price of our salvation as the God-Man. God directing his grace through her does not in any way mean that she is the propitiation for our sins, but only the channel of grace he chose to bring Christ to us, and through whom he continues to bring Christ to us, and with Christ comes all of God’s graces.
 
Jesus certainly came through Mary. But I still don’t understand how Mary is the channel through which all graces MUST pass. If she receives graces from God that becomes her property and is thus able to distribute them whenever she wants and to whomever she wants, then is not the role of Christ somehow diminished? What may seem right and proper is not necessarily what happens. Jesus did not HAVE to incarnate through Mary. Being God, He could have made a body for himself without having a mother or father. However, God FREELY chose to incorporate Mary in his plan of salvation. I’m having difficulty reconciling Mary’s absolutely necessary role of distributer (not merely mediatrix) of all graces with Scripture and Tradition. Are there any Church Fathers that talk about Mary being absolutely essential in the distribution of graces? Are there any scripture passages that support this teaching? Why can’t Mary be mediatrix simply by her intercessory prayer? Why can’t she just be an efficacious instrument?

God Bless
 
Also, if Mary was the sole channel through which graces must pass before reaching us, why isn’t this teaching more clearly stated in scripture or the writings of the Church Father? If she has such an exalted role, why wasn’t it mentioned more frequently in the early church.

God Bless
 
Mike, truly you are asking the wrong questions, in a way. . .or perhaps, the wrong people.

You really need to be asking GOD “why” grace is channeled through Mary, why HE chose her from all time (and beyond)… .

But ponder this.

God is unchanging, is He not?
He sent Jesus to us THROUGH Mary the first time.
We know that Jesus will come again.

So . . .since God is unchanging, is it not the most likely and logical thing in the world that Jesus will come AGAIN THROUGH MARY?

And that this is what is meant by much of the Bible verses about “the woman” and about salvation? That just as Jesus is “prefigured” in the Old Testament, and the Spirit prefigured in the New Testament, that the second coming through Mary is “prefigured” in the 2000 years that we have been guided BY THE SPIRIT?

If you can ask “why Mary”, certainly I can equally ask “why NOT Mary”??

God bless.
 
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mikeledes:
Also, if Mary was the sole channel through which graces must pass before reaching us, why isn’t this teaching more clearly stated in scripture or the writings of the Church Father? If she has such an exalted role, why wasn’t it mentioned more frequently in the early church.

God Bless
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Perhaps Yahweh is saving the “Best Wine For The Last”
Stop worrying about it looking for prove of something that should come as natural to the Children of God as the love a child has for his or her own natural mother.
God wills it this way so just accept it, give your heart to God through Her in the simplest way you can and ask Her to set Herself as a “Seal upon our hearts”
She is like the hidden treasure, we seek, and we shall find!

In scripture reflect on the following:
  1. The Annunciation and all the Rosary Mysteries, The Visitation reads nicely: At the sound of Thy voice the babe lept in my womb.
    The child filled with the Holy Ghost at the sound of Her voice.
  2. First public miracle of Our Lord
    3.The foot of the Cross
  3. Who was Our Lord with after the Resurection when not with the Apostles ? Any guesses?
    5.Pentecost and the Holy Ghost coming through Her to them.
 
Jesus said that those who were entrusted in this life with little things and who proved faithful would be entrusted with even greater things in the life to come. (See Matthew 19:27-29; 25:14-30) Mary was entrusted in life with bringing the Savior into the world and she proved faithful. Because of Mary’s faithfulness, Jesus was able to be born, be raised, and in time to redeem mankind by his death. No Mary, no Jesus; no Jesus, no redemption. What more fitting reward for Mary’s faithfulness in this life, which led to the redemption of all mankind, than for Mary to be entrusted with mediating all graces in the next?

Scripture describes Mary as the mother of Christians (John 19:26-27; Revelation 12:1-17). A mother takes care of (mediates) all her infant’s needs.
 
The so called Title Meadiatrix of all graces.Is a scandal to the faithful and in my opinion smacks of heresy.
 
Todd Easton:
Jesus said that those who were entrusted in this life with little things and who proved faithful would be entrusted with even greater things in the life to come. (See Matthew 19:27-29; 25:14-30) Mary was entrusted in life with bringing the Savior into the world and she proved faithful. Because of Mary’s faithfulness, Jesus was able to be born, be raised, and in time to redeem mankind by his death. No Mary, no Jesus; no Jesus, no redemption. What more fitting reward for Mary’s faithfulness in this life, which led to the redemption of all mankind, than for Mary to be entrusted with mediating all graces in the next?

Scripture describes Mary as the mother of Christians (John 19:26-27; Revelation 12:1-17). A mother takes care of (mediates) all her infant’s needs.
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I find it fascinating that Marian dogma stems from the basis of her bearing Jesus and since we wouldn’t have Jesus without Mary, etc, etc. Yet that exact same logic and statements are true of Mary’s mother and father, yet we don’t claim that grace flows through them. Or from their parents or grandparents, etc, etc all the way back to King David. So why isn’t David the Mediator of all graces, it was his lineage that produced the Savior, without him, we wouldn’t have Jesus, right?

Mary is truly and forever blessed because she bore and raised Jesus with the help of Joseph. Yet that doesn’t make her any more a Mediatrix or CO-Redeemer than King David or any one of a number of people in an exact same position.

David
 
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DavidB:
I find it fascinating that Marian dogma stems from the basis of her bearing Jesus and since we wouldn’t have Jesus without Mary, etc, etc. Yet that exact same logic and statements are true of Mary’s mother and father, yet we don’t claim that grace flows through them. Or from their parents or grandparents, etc, etc all the way back to King David. So why isn’t David the Mediator of all graces, it was his lineage that produced the Savior, without him, we wouldn’t have Jesus, right?

Mary is truly and forever blessed because she bore and raised Jesus with the help of Joseph. Yet that doesn’t make her any more a Mediatrix or CO-Redeemer than King David or any one of a number of people in an exact same position.

David
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As you point out, all of Jesus’ ancestors shared in bringing the Messiah into existance and without any one of them Jesus would not have been born — the Jesse tree — but their participation was remote, passive, and uninformed when compared to Mary’s. Mary knew that, if she consented, she would give birth to the Messiah. None of Jesus’s other ancestors was given such an important choice. The fate of mankind’s salvation rested on Mary’s active, informed decision to become Jesus’s mother. St. Irenaeus wrote of Mary, about A.D. 189, saying:Mary, betrothed to a man but nevertheless still a virgin, being obedient, was made the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race. … Thus, the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed through faith. (Against Heresies, book 3, chap. 22)

It seems only fitting that God would reward such faithfulness in this life by making Mary the Mediatrix of all graces in the next.
 
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