"The Universal Mediatrix"

[mpartyka]

I’m curious to know everyone’s thoughts on the following article on the Virgin Mary:

The Universal Mediatrix

As I was reading this article, I was reminded of a passage in the book The Roman Catholic Controversy by Protestant apologist James R. White in which he claimed that when Catholics proclaim papal infallibility and the role of the Pope as Vicar of Christ, what they have essentially done is replace the Holy Spirit with a man, and that the Holy Spirit is the Vicar of Christ on earth, not the Pope.

Certain passages of the article above gave me a similar impression as pertaining to the Catholic proclamation of Mary’s role of “Universal Mediatrix”:

In this age of afflictions and dangers, when all of mankind moans under the weight of misfortunes that increase at every moment, our needs grow and our prayers become more pressing. With this, it is also increasingly important that we know how to pray well…Theology teaches that all graces that come to us from God pass through Mary’s hands. So, we obtain nothing from God if Mary is not joined to our prayer, and we owe all the graces we receive to her intercession. Thus, the Mother of God is the channel of all prayers that reach her Divine Son and the way of all graces that He bestows on mankind…If we had to confide merely in our merits, how could we confide in the efficacy of our prayer?..If there is no one who does not present stains to the eyes of God, who can hope with full assurance to be heeded in his prayers?

On the other hand. God wants our prayers to be confident…Indeed, this confidence is one of the conditions for the efficacy of our prayers. But how can we have confidence if, examining ourselves, we feel lacking in reasons to confide? If we have no confidence, how can we hope to be heeded?

From the sadness of this reflection we triumphantly draw the doctrine of the Universal Mediation of Mary. In fact, our merits are minimal and our faults are great, but whatever we cannot attain by ourselves we have every right to hope that Our Lady’s prayers will attain. We must never doubt that she joins our prayers when they are suited to the greater glory of God and our sanctification…However wretched we may be, then, we can confidently present our petitions to God. Whenever they are supported by Our Lady, they will have a priceless value in God’s eyes, a value that will certainly obtain for us the requested favor.

As I was reading the above, this passage of Scripture immediately came to mind:

Romans 8:26-27 – Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

I wonder…are papal infallibility and Marian devotion actually two sides of the same coin? Are they both indications of an alarming tendency to invest created beings with attributes (e.g., infallibility, immaculacy) one would reasonably expect to be reserved to the uncreated God? Has the Catholic Church replaced the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church with the Pope and the Virgin Mary? If not, what, then, is the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church?

–Mike

 

[Ron_Conte]

see this article which proposes an understanding of Mary’s role as Mediatrix which does not exalt her to the same type of role as Christ:
catholicplanet.com/CMA/coredemptrix.htm

 

[VociMike]

Wow. There is no Feast of Our Lady, Universal Mediatrix of all Graces. May 31 this year is the Feast of Pentecost. Nor is Our Lady, Universal Mediatrix of all Graces a title given to Mary by the Church. Do a search and you will find that one website is the only place on the entire web where such a title appears.

As to the question of whether the Bishop of Rome or Mary “takes the place of” the Holy Spirit, the obvious answer is, only if the prophets and writers of Scripture also “took the place of” the Holy Spirit. Can’t claim one without the other.

 

[Angels_Unaware]

You have an excellent insight here, but a wrong conclusion.

You are correct that the Holy Spirit accomplishes roles that both the pope and Mary (in Catholic theology) accomplish. It is not correct, however, to say that the Holy Spirit has been replaced by a person. Recall that one name given to Mary is Spouse of the Holy Spirit, which is just one of her roles in relation to the Godhead (spouse of the Holy Spirit, daughter of the Father, mother of the Son). In calling Mary spouse, we call her a helpmate. The role of wife is that of helpmate.

What both the pope and Mary do is manifest the invisible action of the Holy Spirit. They are not confused with the Holy Spirit; they are servants to the action of the Holy Spirit, in a visible, concrete manner.

If you think about this, there is another Catholic doctrine that involves the physical manifestation of God on earth. Obviously, this is the doctrine of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

All of these doctrines bring God to earth in a solid way. They make God accessible. Protestants have rebelled against the manifestation of God in tangible form- such as in the Eucharist, in the ministry of Mary, who is a missionary for Christ, and in our Holy Father who guides the teaching of the Church. These doctrines are called idolatry.

For those who confuse the manifestation of God with the form of the pope, or the form of Mary, or the form of bread and wine, perhapst it could become idolatry. But in those cases the error is in understanding what is truly being demonstrated about God.

 

[Angels_Unaware]

One more thing.

A common problem with the doctrine of Mary as Mediatrix is that it is unclear that Mary represents the Church, just as the pope represents the Church, in a fullly human capacity.

We are also called to cooperate with God as Mary and the pope become instruments of God’s grace. This is a higher calling of Christianity and a deeper theology.

 

[Mintaka]

Shame on us for putting on Christ. Blasphemy! It’s us replacing Christ!

Seriously, there’s so many problems with this view. God is love. How dare we humans love anyone, thus presuming to take on the role of God?

Paul preached Christ crucified. How dare you preach Christ crucified, you scab! You’re stealing Paul’s job! And Paul stole preaching from the Apostles, who stole it from Jesus!

And so on, ad nauseam…

God delegates all sorts of His functions and powers to us. We create things with our minds, even if we can’t create things from nothing. We love, even if we can’t love as much as God. We put on Christ and are made part of Christ’s own Body. We heal. We preach. We teach. We do God’s work. Not replacing God, but cooperating with Him and working under Him. Why? Because that’s what He commanded us to do!

If you don’t like it, take it up with Him.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I’m curious to know everyone’s thoughts on the following article on the Virgin Mary:

The Universal Mediatrix

As I was reading this article, I was reminded of a passage in the book The Roman Catholic Controversy by Protestant apologist James R. White in which he claimed that when Catholics proclaim papal infallibility and the role of the Pope as Vicar of Christ, what they have essentially done is replace the Holy Spirit with a man, and that the Holy Spirit is the Vicar of Christ on earth, not the Pope.

Certain passages of the article above gave me a similar impression as pertaining to the Catholic proclamation of Mary’s role of “Universal Mediatrix”:

As I was reading the above, this passage of Scripture immediately came to mind:

Romans 8:26-27 – Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

I wonder…are papal infallibility and Marian devotion actually two sides of the same coin? Are they both indications of an alarming tendency to invest created beings with attributes (e.g., infallibility, immaculacy) one would reasonably expect to be reserved to the uncreated God? Has the Catholic Church replaced the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church with the Pope and the Virgin Mary? If not, what, then, is the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church?

–Mike

The BVM has certainly become a sort of female version of the Holy Spirit - she is decribed by Louis de Montfort in terms which would be more appropriate to the Holy Spirit. And when Kolbe calls the BVM a quasi-incarnation of the Holy Spirit, one has to wonder what is going on ​

It’s all very well saying that the Church does not regard the BVM as God in words or doctrine: when the CC calls her “daughter of God”, “mediatrix of all graces”, “co-Redemptrix”, & allows her to be called “Salvatrix”, “co-head of the Church”, & when it can be seriously suggested that she is received in the Eucharist - something is sick. This last suggestion was made in 1840; the book containing it was put on the Index in 1842. It’s a pretty safe guess the suggestion would not have breen made at all, if only the Church had not already exceeded all bounds in its enthusiasm for her. It’s mere legalism to quibble about the niceties of what the Church says officially, if in actual fact it allows Mariolatry in practice.

I think you’re onto something.

 

[Angels_Unaware]

Mediatrix and Co-Redemptix are the hardest teachings of Christianity; but I would say not simply because of the subtle and sublime nature of the teachings that can be confused with idolatry, or even lead to idolatry, but because they are terms that really are about us, and our role in God’s plan.

The below video is a very good explanation of the doctrines.

airmaria.com/?sn=48&vp=2574&prefx=mcast&plyrnb=1&ttl=Marycast

Another interesting site with in depth articles
marymediatrix.com/

 

[mpartyka]

see this article which proposes an understanding of Mary’s role as Mediatrix which does not exalt her to the same type of role as Christ:
catholicplanet.com/CMA/coredemptrix.htm

Yeah…well…I’ll let the article speak for itself. From the article:

The three aspects of Mary’s triune role as co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix, Advocatrix are interrelated, much as the three persons of the Trinity. These are not three separate roles, but three different aspects of one role. Mary’s triune role as co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix, Advocatrix is a reflection of the Most Holy Trinity. Her role as co-Redemptrix is a reflection of the Father; her role as Mediatrix is a reflection of the Son; her role as Advocatrix is a reflection of the Spirit…

Never mind Mary’s replacing the Holy Spirit – this person is replacing the whole Trinity with Mary! (No, not really, but that’s the impression it gives.)

Mary is Mediatrix of all grace given to all angels and to all created persons, other than Christ and Mary. The Virgin Mary is the Mediatrix of grace given by God throughout all Time and all Creation…When God created Adam and Eve, Christ and Mary were there. When Adam and Eve fell from Grace, Christ and Mary gave them grace to admit their sins and repent. When Abraham offered his only son as a sacrifice to God, God gave Abraham the grace to love God so selflessly through Christ with Mary. When the Israelites were delivered out of slavery in Egypt and wandered through the desert with God for forty years, Christ and Mary were there…The Virgin Mary is the Mediatrix of grace given even from the beginning of Time, before she was conceived on earth, because she dwells now with God, Who is Eternity, Who is beyond Time and Place.

Fortunately, the author isn’t making Mary’s newly-acquired eternity exclusive to her and God alone:

All the Elect in Heaven dwell with the Eternal Triune God. All the Elect in Heaven assist Christ and Mary in pouring out grace on Creation, even from the very beginning of Time and Place…The Elect in Heaven participate with God in the creation of the Universe.

But wait! There’s more…

Mary is also Christ’s holy assistant even in rewarding the just in Heaven and in punishing the unjust in Hell. Mary is Christ’s holy assistant in raising the dead at the general Resurrection and in assuming the just to the new Heaven after the Resurrection…Mary is Mediatrix of grace given by Christ to the holy souls in Purgatory…The holy souls in Purgatory receive knowledge and just punishment and comfort and more. Mary is Christ’s holy assistant in dispensing all of these things within Purgatory. Mary is not merely Mediatrix of grace, but of much more. That is why Mary should be called simply: “Mediatrix.”

And, finally, lest any of us ever get a swelled head:

…the Virgin Mary is greater and holier than all the rest of humanity put together, except for the Human Nature of Christ. Therefore, the entire human race put together, except for Christ and Mary, cannot fully comprehend the Virgin Mary. The whole truth about the Virgin Mary is beyond complete comprehension by any human mind, other than that of Christ and Mary. Those who think that they can understand and number and limit the truths about the Virgin Mary are overestimating themselves and underestimating her.

–Mike

 

[BRB1]

Yeah…well…I’ll let the article speak for itself. From the article:

Never mind Mary’s replacing the Holy Spirit – this person is replacing the whole Trinity with Mary! (No, not really, but that’s the impression it gives.)

Fortunately, the author isn’t making Mary’s newly-acquired eternity exclusive to her and God alone:

But wait! There’s more…

And, finally, lest any of us ever get a swelled head:

–Mike

Actually you only sensationalized the article. You didn’t give us a good summary.

Primary points of article are that with all the different titles Mary is given … she only assists Christ. Christ is the physician or pilot … with Mary being the nurse or stewardess assistant.

 

[Ghosty]

mpartyka: Are you actually Orthodox, or are you just a Protestant who has become smitten with Byzantine “bells and whistles”?

You certainly seem to attack the teachings of Orthodoxy, as I’ve brought up before. I’m saying this not as a Catholic, but as an Eastern Christian, that your attack on the Holy Theotokos is utterly unbecoming and unwelcome. Don’t you proclaim every Sunday that Mary is “more honorable than the Cherubim, beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim”?

I recommend again that you read St. Gregory Palamas’ “Homily on the Dormition”, and stop attacking our Eastern understanding of the Theotokos.

I’m sorry if this sounds harsh, but I really am shocked at these attacks on Marian beliefs that are so embedded in our Eastern tradition.

It is truly right to bless you, Theotokos, ever blessed, most pure, and mother of our God. More honorable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, without corruption you gave birth to God the Word. We magnify you, the true Theotokos.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Ghosty]

Mediatrix and Co-Redemptix are the hardest teachings of Christianity; but I would say not simply because of the subtle and sublime nature of the teachings that can be confused with idolatry, or even lead to idolatry, but because they are terms that really are about us, and our role in God’s plan.

Amen, amen!

Mpartyka should do some serious research into the teaching of “theosis”, and the place that Mary holds as the highest of all Creation, aside from the Incarnation.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Ghosty]

I’m not surprised at your wife’s reaction at all. The Divine Liturgy, and the general Faith of the people, of the Eastern Orthodox and corresponding Catholic Churches is so full of Marian devotion that I’ve jokingly referred to it as “The Liturgy of Mary”.

There are lots of things I expect Eastern Orthodox to object to in the Catholic Communion, but devotion to Our Lady is not one of them.

Peace and God bless!

 

[CentralFLJames]

I wonder…are papal infallibility and Marian devotion actually two sides of the same coin? Are they both indications of an alarming tendency to invest created beings with attributes (e.g., infallibility, immaculacy) one would reasonably expect to be reserved to the uncreated God? Has the Catholic Church replaced the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church with the Pope and the Virgin Mary? If not, what, then, is the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church?

–Mike

Interesting that you would use the metaphor of a coin here to express an equivalence between Papal infallability and Marian devotion. As for investing - don’t you think God does just that when he showers his precious grace on any of us? He does expect a return on investment does He not? Is God’s Word synonymous with His Grace? Indeed I should say so.
Issiah 55:8-11:

For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.
9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
10 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
And do not return there without watering the earth
And making it bear and sprout,
And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
11 So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth;
It will not return to Me empty,
Without accomplishing what I desire,
And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.

Is not the entire idea of Christianity centered on the belief that men through God’s good and precious grace may become new creations, “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4)? Have you heard of the term Theosis that speaks of God’s divinization process that all informed Christians know they must cooperate with?

Must Divinization/Theosis always be only an end-state? Can we accept the possibility that God might also in special circumstances will it to exist a priori - “Hail Full of Grace”? Is this not the same Blessed Mother Mary immaculately conceived without sin?
Divinizing Grace:

1999 The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or **deifying grace **received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification:[48] Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself

Is theosis, the pinnacle of divine-human achievement, the same as the Sovereign Divine God or is it something less but of like nature and substance? I think the latter. I don’t think any Catholic is trying to assert in the general sense that God manifests Himself under “the appearance of Man” in a sort of consubstantiation of man and The Divine. Though certainly Jesus was that man in the singular sense. Was the burning bush God-with-bush or God under the accident of the appearances of the bush and only for the courtesy to Moses to prevent him from looking at the face of God and dieing? Or was that flaming bush that was not consumed nor suffering to burn the Holy Spirit? Was it The Divine Wisdom revealing itself again later through the Mother of God? Did not Mary having given birth to the Incarnate God likewise suffer no harm, or loss of virginity?

Was Jesus in his humanity and his deity two sides of the same coin?

“I wonder” … is this just a case of idle coin flipping?

I say it all comes down to grace - but some would no doubt call it all the luck of the coin-toss.

If it’s all the same coin it sure makes it hard to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s. That is unless of course the obvious is true and everything is God’s and we are meant to return to Him what He gave us with dividends.

That implies growth to me. Theosis is not inconsistent with grace nor is it poorly invested if one returns to God as a saint with friends in hand. Is it that profound that the popes having been invested with that same divine grace have been consistently saying this all along? Infallibility is not so difficult to accept where there is no evidence of inconsistency or any additions or modifications to the core deposit of faith. Clarifications of what are in that deposit are not changes. That’s certainly not showing any randomness as if somone was flipping coins.

James

 

[mpartyka]

Actually you only sensationalized the article. You didn’t give us a good summary. Primary points of article are that with all the different titles Mary is given … she only assists Christ. Christ is the physician or pilot … with Mary being the nurse or stewardess assistant.

Nevertheless…Mary assisted God in the creation of the universe? In the creation of Adam and Eve? In the exodus of the Jews from Egypt? And the same applies to all the saints in heaven to some degree? The Fathers never taught anything like this. This is, to be frank, insanity.

St. Gregory Palamas’ homily isn’t much better:

…she enjoyed ineffable nourishment…even though it was because of Adam and so that she might prove to be his daughter, that she yielded a little to nature, as did her Son, Who has now ascended from earth into heaven…

Okay…now we’re supposed to believe that Mary didn’t need to eat but really only condescended to eat, just like Christ?

…with a most valiant and diverse asceticism, and with her prayers and care for the entire world, her precepts and encouragements which she gave to God’s heralds sent throughout the whole world…she was herself both a support and a comfort while she was both heard and seen, and while she labored with the rest in every way for the preaching of the Gospel. In such wise she led a most strenuous manner of life proclaimed in mind and speech.

From where, exactly, is St. Gregory getting all this, if not from his own imagination? There is not one word recorded in Scripture of Mary’s thoughts, words, or deeds after the Resurrection of Christ (other than the single, simple note in Acts 1 that she continued in the company of the disciples). There is barely anything outside of Scripture on these subjects, either. Indeed, it isn’t until the Seventh Ecumenical Council that I ever read anything in the Fathers about Mary’s being venerated above the angels. (Can anybody find something to contradict this? My memory might simply be faulty or selective.)

She alone in her body, glorified by God, now enjoys the celestial realm together with her Son.

This at least gives a justification for her being positioned above the angels. That I think I can deal with, if need be.

Willing to set up an image of all goodness and beauty and to make clearly manifest His own therein to both angels and men, God fashioned a being supremely good and beautiful, uniting in her all good, seen and unseen…[and] showed her forth as a universal mixing bowl of all divine, angelic and human things good and beautiful and the supreme beauty which embellished both worlds.

This, though? This is a big-time stretch for me. Everything about this feels wrong. What’s especially troubling about it is that although Mary is supposed to be this “image” of the totality of God’s goodness to all creation, the apostles say nearly nothing about her, nor, for the most part, do the Fathers. I never saw any homilies about Mary in the Fathers unless they were homilies on the specific passages of Scripture that include her. The idea that we are called upon to emulate Mary or look to Mary to see God is simply absent from Scripture and the Fathers. Where is Christ in all this?

…she only is the frontier between created and uncreated nature, and there is no man that shall come to God except he be truly illumined through her, that Lamp truly radiant with divinity, even as the Prophet says, “God is in the midst of her, she shall not be shaken.”…She alone has received the all-pervading fulness of Him that filleth all things, and through her all may now contain it, for she dispenses it according to the power of each, in proportion and to the degree of the purity of each. Hence she is the treasury and overseer of the riches of the Godhead. For it is an everlasting ordinance in the heavens that the inferior partake of what lies beyond being, by the mediation of the superior, and the Virgin Mother is incomparably superior to all. It is through her that as many as partake of God do partake, and as many as know God understand her to be the enclosure of the Uncontainable One, and as many as hymn God praise her together with Him. She is the cause of what came before her, the champion of what came after her and the agent of things eternal. She is the substance of the prophets, the principle of the apostles, the firm foundation of the martyrs and the premise of the teachers of the Church . She is the glory of those upon earth, the joy of celestial beings, the adornment of all creation. She is the beginning and the source and root of unutterable good things; she is the summit and consummation of everything holy.

How can you expect anyone to read things like this and not think that Catholics (and Orthodox, too, if they believe this) are raising Mary to the level of God in so many aspects? It’s almost as though Arianism has made new grounds in the Church…except now we’ve got an uncreated, divine God and a created, only slightly inferior goddess.

–Mike

 

[CentralFLJames]

How can you expect anyone to read things like this and not think that Catholics (and Orthodox, too, if they believe this) are raising Mary to the level of God in so many aspects? It’s almost as though Arianism has made new grounds in the Church…except now we’ve got an uncreated, divine God and a created, only slightly inferior goddess.

–Mike

Mike I have been Catholic all my life - Cradle Catholic. Up till about 3 years ago I did an occasional rosary but was actually afraid to pray too much to Mary out of all the hysterical fear that Protestant’s put out on how Catholics over venerated her. I won’t go into personal details but I will say I was upset with myself for not praying more earnestly with Mary as I watched a highly loved family member die in my arms. I did cry out and pray to Jesus and I am certain based on the events that happened that my prayers were heard. But in the following months I developed an inner uneasiness and even anger that I permit other people’s less developed theology to constrain me in my prayer life. Catholics believe that Mary has special and unique graces that Jesus permits Her to give to those who have a special devotion to her 7 Sorrows and Her Immaculate Heart. I wanted my departed loved one to have all that at her time of death since I know that after death one’s spiritual state if forever fixed - one is all they will ever be. Since then I have dug deeply into Marian devotionals and Mariology and am just stunned silly as to the depth of what scripture and the saints are telling us about Mary.

What I will say is Mary is HUGELY important and still has a major role to play here on earth. This in no way diminishes Christ or raises Mary to divinity but it is extremely obvious to me now that Mary is in every conceivable way The New Eve - Spiritual Mother of The Church and each Christian. In a certain sense, no one comes to God without encountering Mary on their pilgrim journey since she is ALWAYS with Jesus - they can’t be seperated in spirit or mother-son love. Christ being lost for 3 days in the temple was agonizing to Mary - it was one of her most difficult of her Seven Dolars/Sorrows and pierced her heart to the core. This is not a contradiction to what I just said since she was joined to Christ in passion and suffering all her life knowing what Jesus would face someday - terrible rejection and crucifixation - even momentary abandonment by God on the cross. But Jesus was preparing her for separation that she always knew even when Jesus was in her womb would come. This was a foretelling of the 3 sorrowful days in the tomb that Mary would be all alone as Jesus taught the departed souls in Sheol.

Anyway, rather than just ramble on here let me close by saying that The Church is now RAPIDLY coming to realize how profound Mary’s role is and is integrating all the saints insights with scripture and with early church father insights and the deposit of faith and forming final dogmas in this area. It would be a severe injustice to not reveal it all to the world at large simply out of fear of alienating some further from the church (and within the church) or to hurt ecumenical-ism. The full truth on Mary is begging to come out and it must. Catholics let Protestantism slow down the natural progression of Marian doctrine and dogma and now its time for it to come out in all its glory. To one who contemplates Mary through her dolors/sorrows one sees that she is Daughter Zion of the OT. All those lamentations and weeping are Mary! She is Queen of Sorrows and Mother of Martyrs. Her heart has been pierced unmercifully over and over again in sorrow. She joined her soul to Christ’s suffering in the flesh to “magnify the Lord”. Together they are One Heart and this is why God has crowned Her Queen of Heaven and Earth in recognition of her redemptive role as new Eve who offsets Eve’s ancient wrong.

James

 

[brb2]

Nevertheless…Mary assisted God in the creation of the universe? In the creation of Adam and Eve? In the exodus of the Jews from Egypt? And the same applies to all the saints in heaven to some degree? The Fathers never taught anything like this. This is, to be frank, insanity.

Not insanity … but, very creative thinking on part of some. I agree, I don’t see her at work back in OT times.

But, Christ clearly did. And the prophets spoke of Mary in OT.

I’m ever amazed how modernday Catholics can know with certitude all the things Mary is responsible for — when the ECF’s, who were closest to Mary, weren’t in full agreement.

 

[CentralFLJames]

Not insanity … but, very creative thinking on part of some. I agree, I don’t see her at work back in OT times.

But, Christ clearly did. And the prophets spoke of Mary in OT.

I’m ever amazed how modern day Catholics can know with certitude all the things Mary is responsible for — when the ECF’s, who were closest to Mary, weren’t in full agreement.

And Catholics are amazed that non-Catholics think they can just pick up a bible, read it without benefit of any apostolic teaching, get the most fundamental tenants of the true apostolic faith completely wrong then say they are in a a personal relationship with Jesus without knowing Mary or the apostles.

As it turns out we had some early ECF’s and saints who had remarkable Marian insight. Irenaeus (140-202 AD), St. Ambrose (339-397 AD), St. Augustine (354-430 AD), , St. Cyril (412-444 AD), St, Pope Leo the Great (440-461 AD) were all huge on Mariology. Notice that four of these saints were giving personal discourses about Mary BEFORE The Church even had given birth to its first Bible Canon in 382 AD. And of course later more saints such as St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Alphonsus Liguori and St. Louis de Montfort come and give us more progressive insight in a tide of Marian discernment.

Note too that the earliest ECF’s did not have the same vantage point in history we have now nor the same well organized libraries and research facilities. Back then it was all rummaging through dusty shelves of hand written books and occasionally getting to write letters or having opportune meeting with others to share insights that were not always widely promulgated to the laity or even the entire ecclesial members of the church. The early Church was very busy spreading Christianity and Marian insights were as it were “fruits” that came out of The Church over time. But we still have remarkable evidence from the catacombs artifacts that Marian devotion was very popular in the early church.

But today, the modern laity and the theologians have at their disposal many writings of the saints and are in a unique position to rapidly sweep through the full OT and NT to compare their notes and writings and get some pretty amazing insights propagated to more members of The Church.

On a personal level, after just an initial small effort to pray and mediate on Mary’s Seven Dolors as expressed by by St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori in his Discourse IX Of The Dolors Of Mary. I have just been amazed to see the depth of what OT scriptures are telling us about Mary. When one integrates that with the private revelations of the saints its just staggering really. This is how I personally now know that Mary is definately seen and prefigured in virtually ALL the strong and heroic OT Jewish women. Mary is clearly Daughter Zion and is the sorryful voice we here lamenting Israel and giving praise to God.

A few excerpts from Loguori demonstrate some of what I am saying here:

• Saint Bernard says, “the soul is more where it loves than where it lives.” Our Lord Himself had already said the same thing: “where our treasure is, there also is our heart.” He uses this to put Mary’s heart and soul on the Cross with Jesus
• He puts the words of Jeremias into Mary’s heart at the foot of the cross - “O all ye that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow.” and Saint Bonaventure replies centuries later: “no more bitter grief than thine can be found; for no son more dear than thine can be found
• He sees her again in The Sorrows of Zion (Lamentation 1) : “Weeping, she hath wept in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; there is none to comfort her of all them that were dear to her."
• And again in Isaiah’s Prophecy of the Passion of Christ. (Isaiah 53) taken together with Saint Peter of Alcantara’s meditations and actual personal Marian revelations to Saint Bridget that Mary was frantically searching to find Jesus in crowded city as he walked toward Calvary and was unrecognizable for all the gore and disfigurement: “and we have seen Him, and there was no sightless.” Yes, for the wounds, the bruises, and the clotted blood, gave Him the appearance of a leper: “we have thought Him as it were a leper,” so that He could no longer be known: “and His look was, as it were, hidden and despised; whereupon we esteemed Him not.” But at length love revealed Him to her (Mary), and as soon as she knew that it indeed was He, ah what love and fear must then have filled her heart!

After reading all this I found an ocean of evidence for Mary in scripture from many other sources and have come to see that Mary is:

The New Eve; The Virgin Mother prophesied in the Old Testament; the embodiment of all the qualities prefigured in the heroines of the Old Testament; the Queen-Mother of the Davidic Kings; the people of Israel;the Daughter of Zion; the Ark of the Covenant (the parallels are too numerous to be ignored); The Church; he exalted Mother of Jesus; The Mother of all the Faithful;
Spouse, Mother and Daughter.

More here: Biblical Portrait of Mary

James

 

[mpartyka]

As it turns out we had some early ECF’s and saints who had remarkable Marian insight. Irenaeus (140-202 AD), St. Ambrose (339-397 AD), St. Augustine (354-430 AD), , St. Cyril (412-444 AD), St, Pope Leo the Great (440-461 AD) were all huge on Mariology. Notice that four of these saints were giving personal discourses about Mary BEFORE The Church even had given birth to its first Bible Canon in 382 AD.

Define “huge on Mariology”. This is the sum total of all St. Irenaeus ever wrote on Mariology:

In accordance with this design, Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” But Eve was disobedient; for she did not obey when as yet she was a virgin. And even as she, having indeed a husband, Adam, but being nevertheless as yet a virgin…so also did Mary, having a man betrothed [to her], and being nevertheless a virgin, by yielding obedience, become the cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole human race. And on this account does the law term a woman betrothed to a man, the wife of him who had betrothed her, although she was as yet a virgin; thus indicating the back-reference from Mary to Eve, because what is joined together could not otherwise be put asunder than by inversion of the process by which these bonds of union had arisen; so that the former ties be cancelled by the latter, that the latter may set the former again at liberty. And it has, in fact, happened that the first compact looses from the second tie, but that the second tie takes the position of the first which has been cancelled…And thus also it was that the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith. – St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3:22:4

And just as through a disobedient virgin man was stricken down and fell into death, so through the Virgin who was obedient to the Word of God man was reanimated and received life…For it was necessary that…Eve [should be] summed up in Mary, that a virgin should be a virgin’s intercessor, and by a virgin’s obedience undo and put away the disobedience of a virgin. – St. Irenaeus, On the Apostolic Preaching 33

All this amounts to is, “Mary was the second Eve. Her obedience undid Eve’s disobedience.” I don’t think even Protestants (after giving it some thought) would argue with you about that.

St. Ambrose does indeed proclaim Mary as the ideal of virginity whom all other women choosing the life of virginity should emulate, but he preaches none of the “exclusively Catholic” Marian dogmas – the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, or this Mediatrix business. The same applies to St. Augustine, although he is often cited wrongly as supporting the Immaculate Conception when he affirms Mary’s personal sinlessness, but this cannot be the case because he elsewhere wrote, “Christ’s flesh was not sinful, because it was not born of Mary by ordinary generation; but because death is the effect of sin, this flesh, in being mortal, had the likeness of sinful flesh.” (Reply to Faustus the Manichean 14:5)

Maybe I’ve missed it, but I’ve found nothing in St. Cyril of Jerusalem’s writings on Mariology. And you’re welcome to peruse my thread “Pope Leo the Great on the Immaculate Conception” if you want evidence that St. Leo believed no such thing about Mary.

–Mike

 

[rad314]

[T]he CC calls her “daughter of God”, “mediatrix of all graces”, “co-Redemptrix”, & allows her to be called “Salvatrix”, “co-head of the Church”

Would you mind backing up these claims? But before you do, make sure you realize that if a given Catholic believes something, it doesn’t mean that the Catholic Church teaches that. There are Catholic who believe things in direct contradiction to what the Church teaches and there are Catholics who believe things about which the Church has not taken a position. Also make sure you have a good understanding of the magisterium.

[W]hen it can be seriously suggested that she is received in the Eucharist - something is sick. This last suggestion was made in 1840; the book containing it was put on the Index in 1842.

And why was the book put on the Index? Because it promoted heresy. Duh.

It’s a pretty safe guess the suggestion would not have breen made at all, if only the Church had not already exceeded all bounds in its enthusiasm for her.

Sure – blame the victim.

It’s mere legalism to quibble about the niceties of what the Church says officially, if in actual fact it allows Mariolatry in practice.

And how would you propose that the Church prevent people from holding heretical opinions? An Inquisition, perhaps?

Consider thinking with your intellect, instead of your emotions.

I think you’re onto something.

Nonsense.