Mary, Coredemptrix:
The Significance
of Her Title in
the Magisterium
of The Church
Rev. John A. Schug, O.F.M. Cap.
and
Dr. Mark I. Miravalle, S.T.D.
Fr. Schug is a member of the Mariological Society of America, and author
of the Mariological work Mary, Mother: A Study of the Nature of Mary’s
Spiritual Motherhood.
Introduction
The word
“Coredemption” can be understood only vis-à-vis “Redemption.” Our Redemption is the “price” that Jesus paid
for our salvation, that is, the restoration of sanctifying grace. By “Coredemption” we mean Mary’s unique
participation in “the payment of the price” of our Redemption: through, with, in, and under Christ, our only
Savior and Redeemer. Jesus is our Redeemer; Mary is our
Coredemptrix only in complete dependence upon Him: “I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word”
(Luke 1:38).
Just as we
focus on the sufferings of Jesus as the “price” He paid to redeem us (1 Cor.
6:20; 7:23), so too when we call Mary “Coredemptrix,” we focus on her
cooperative role in His redemptive sufferings and death. Other Marian titles of course are closely
allied to that awesome God-given vocation, for example “Mediatrix” and
“Spiritual Mother.” However, this study shall
not draw attention (with few exceptions) to the Magisterium’s frequent use of
those titles.
Among Mary’s
“personal” titles we might list her divine motherhood, her Immaculate
Conception, her virginity and her Assumption.
Other titles might be considered more social or ministerial, such as
those attributed to her by the Second Vatican Council: “Advocate, Auxiliatrix [Helper], Adjutrix
[Aide], and Mediatrix.”
Insofar as
Mary’s title “Coredemptrix” is concerned, the degree of the directness and
immediacy of her cooperation will determine the sense — analogical,
metaphorical, or equivocal — in which we will understand her role in
Coredemption.
This essay
will consider Mary’s title “Coredemptrix” and its significance in the ordinary
Magisterium, as expressed by the Popes, the Ecumenical Councils of the Church,
the Roman Curia, and the new Catechism of
the Catholic Church. However, all references
will be grouped into a single chronological list of Popes.
My approach
will be in the nature of a survey, rather than a theological analysis. Nor shall we consider (except briefly and in
passing) the distinctions that theologians commonly make anent our Redemption
by Christ: objective and subjective, or
immediate and remote.
Before we
begin, we must address a problem — the words “Coredemptrix’ and “Mediatrix”
might pose for some that these Marian roles may detract from the absolute
supremacy of Christ, our one Redeemer and Mediator. Precision of words is of crucial importance
here, for we find a host of meanings to the Latin preposition “cum” and its correlative “co.” All of them indicate some kind of dependence
or inferiority, or less than absolute equality.
For example, under the word “cum”:
"From Greek: kyn, dzyn, syn. It
denotes in general, a being together, an accompanying, and is applied to
persons as well as things and ideas. Its
principal signification is `with' (opposed to sine, without)... hence, it signifies in union, in relation to, in
communion. Hence, of an acting in
common, with, together with... also in amicable relations... I am on very
friendly terms with... I am in connection with a person... siding with a person...
take one's part. It denotes
reciprocation. Also, in company, in
society with, together with, along with, provided with. Of persons: among (equal to Greek kai (and).”
The title “Mediatrix,” even as an
English word and without the prefix “co,” does not seem to pose a similar
semantic problem and is less controversial.
References by
the Magisterium to the value of Mary’s sufferings burgeoned in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. Prior to our
modern era, the Church had enjoyed peaceful possession of the same truth. It seems to have generated little or no
controversy. The Eastern and Western
Fathers and Doctors of the Church had amassed a veritable Mariological treasure
in regard to these sublime Marian roles, and in doing so already prepared the
groundwork for the later invocation of Mary under the more technical term
“Coredemptrix.”
Dr. Miravalle
writes: “The first recorded use of the
title ‘Coredemptrix’ appears to date back to the fourteenth century, for
example, in a liturgical book found in St. Peter’s in Salzburg.”
Mary, Coredemptrix
In the very
first Marian encyclical in the history of the Church, Gloriosae Dominae, Pope Benedict XIV (1740–1758) summarizes Mary’s
importance in our Redemption: a) her
role is with Christ, our Redeemer; b) it is at the foot of the cross that she
is entrusted to the Church as a mother; c) and through this, our reconciliation
is completed:
The Church, instructed by the magisterium of the Holy
Spirit, has always professed with filial devotion and affection that Mary is
recognized most appropriately as the Mother of her Lord and Redeemer; that she
is venerated with lavish honors as Queen of Heaven and Earth; and that, by the
last words of [the Church’s] dying spouse, she was entrusted [to the Church] as
a most loving Mother....In accord with the Fathers...the Church urges us to
approach her as an Advocate interceding for good things for us before [Jesus],
who is her Son and the only-begotten Son of the Father. The Church preaches her as the Mystical Ark
of the Convenant, in whom the Mysteries [Sacramenta]
of our reconciliation have achieved their goal [impleta sunt]. When God
looks upon her, He will remember His covenant and be mindful of His mercy.
The apparent
casualness of Benedict’s XIV’s terse statement that “in Mary the Mysteries of
our reconciliation have achieved their goal” does not detract from the
importance of Gloriosae Dominae. The encyclical is less than four pages long
and marks the Magisterium’s most graphic reference to date of the concept of
Coredemption. The very casualness of
Benedict XIV indicates that Mary’s role as Coredemptrix was already a truth in
the Church by the time he wrote his encyclical.
A half century
later, in 1806, Pope Pius VII (1800–1823) refers to the concept of our
salvation having been accomplished in Mary by calling her the “Dispensatrix of
all graces.” We get further development under the Papacy
of Pius IX (1846-1878) as he brings to light an “indissoluble” association of
Mary with her Son in both His labor and His redemptive victory. Drawing from Sacred Scripture and the Church
Fathers, the Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis
Deus depicts Mary as the “secondary restorer” (“Reparatrix”) of our first
parents, intimately sharing with her seed the same enmity and
victory over Satan (cf. Gen. 3:15), and thus having a unique and intrinsic cooperation with her Son in
the saving work of redemption:
Just as Christ, the Mediator between God and man,
assumed human nature, blotted the handwriting of the decree that stood against
us, and fastened it triumphantly to the cross, so the most holy Virgin, united
with him by a most intimate and indissoluble bond, was, with him and through
him, eternally at enmity with the evil serpent, and most completely triumphed
over him, and thus crushed his head with her immaculate foot.
The most Blessed Virgin...by a God-given power utterly
destroyed the force and dominion of the evil one....The Fathers...declared that
the most glorious Virgin was Reparatrix of the first parents, the giver of life
to posterity, that she was...foretold by God when he said to the serpent, “I
will put enmities between you and the woman”—unmistakable evidence that she has
crushed the poisonous head of the serpent.
The entire
encyclical is studded with references to Mary’s role in our Redemption, which
led the Pope to attribute to her the specific titles of Reparatrix (cited
above), and Mediatrix and Conciliatrix
in the following statement:
We repose all our hope in the most Blessed
Virgin...who has crushed the poisonous head of the most cruel serpent and
brought salvation to the world;...in her,...the most trustworthy helper of all
who are in danger; in her, who with her only-begotten Son is the most powerful
Mediatrix and Conciliatrix in the whole world....Having in her care the work of
our salvation, she is solicitous about the whole human race....Appointed by God
to be the Queen of heaven and earth...she presents our petitions in a most
efficacious manner. What she asks, she
obtains.
The papal
teachings of Leo XIII (1878–1903) portray the intense suffering Mary endured
with her Son. She “was already a
participant” with the Redeemer at the temple offering (cf. Lk. 2:35), and
continued to suffer “along with His most bitter sufferings” until faithfully
and triumphantly, in a climactic act of great love, “she died with him” in her
maternal heart:
It is true that Mary was not present [when Jesus
suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane, was scourged, etc.], but she was keenly
and fully aware of those selfsame events.
When Mary functioned as handmaid and mother, and when she offered
herself completely to God together with her Son in the temple, she was already
a participant (consors) with Him in the
painful atonement on behalf of the human race.
We may not doubt, therefore, that she suffered (condoluisse) along with His most bitter sufferings and with His
torments in the very depths of her soul.
Finally, with Mary present and before her very eyes, the divine
sacrifice for which she had borne and nurtured the victim was to be
finished....We see “His mother Mary, weeping, standing by the cross of
Jesus.” She experienced this immense
love for us so that she might receive us as her children. Insofar as her Son was concerned, she offered
Him to the justice of God. In her heart
she died with him (commoriens corde),
her heart transfixed with a sword of suffering.
Leo XIII offers a dynamic
portrayal of Mary’s coredemptive suffering:
She painfully partakes in “His
torments in the very depths of her soul,” “weeping” at the cross of her dying
Son and willingly offers him to
divine justice. This coredemptive
suffering with the Redeemer was fitting and appropriate so that Mary “might
receive us as her children.”
Thus beyond
endorsing the Marian roles of Mediatrix, Reparatrix and Conciliatrix, Leo XIII
brings to light the precious gift generously given to Mary by divine will: her cooperation in the acquisition of the
graces of redemption. She has been
granted “an almost boundless power” in dispensing the very graces won by her
coredemptive participation with the Redeemer:
By the will of God this mother began to stand vigil
over [advigilare] the Church and
nurture us as His aide [administra]
in effecting [patrandi] the sacrament
of Redemption of mankind, dispensing [pariter
administra] the graces that derive from our Redemption for all time with an
almost boundless power granted her. Most
appropriately, therefore, all peoples and cultures have lavished public praises
upon her, which have escalated throughout the ages, among many of which we
might mention: Our Lady (Domina), our mediatrix (mediatrix), the restorer (reparatrix) of the whole world, and the
conciliatrix (conciliatrix) of the
gifts of God.
The Pope’s
depiction of Mary’s vocation is so astonishing that we might not fully
appreciate its importance. Mary’s
ancient title Domina is usually
translated into English by the very weak “our lady.” However, that word’s counterpart is Dominus — LORD!
In Sacred Scripture, “Lord” is unambiguous for God Himself, even more
clearly than “Son of God.” Yet Domina is one of Mary’s titles that the
Pope uses in the context of our Redemption by Christ. Also, the significance of Adiutricem populi is further heightened
when Vatican II, calling Mary “Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix, and Mediatrix,”
refers us back to this encyclical.
“We have shown
that the Rosary,...coupled with [Mary’s] office of mediatrix [mediationis officio], is a most
excellent and fruitful prayer of petition.” Pope Leo XIII draws the Christian faithful to
recall the truths of the Rosary, prayer and our Lady’s mediating role which
include her effective and unique participation in Redemption:
[Through the Rosary] we recall Mary’s exceptional
merits by which she became a participant [facta
est particeps] with her Son Jesus in the Redemption of mankind....She was
not only present [non adfuit tantum]
in the mysteries of our Redemption, but she played a part in them [interfuit]. In this way the all-powerful Virgin Mother,
who once cooperated lovingly in the birth of the faithful in the Church, is
also the means [media] and the agent
[sequestra] of our salvation to the
extent of bringing us back to Jesus Christ, “who is able to save forever all
who come to God through Him”.
This
remarkable concatenation of Mary’s prerogatives depicts her cooperation with
her Son. It is cooperation that is 1)
direct, immediate and dynamic; 2) bilateral, between Mary and Jesus precisely
in His role as Redeemer; 3) not only an activity but a ministry — a role
initiated by Him and assigned to her by Him to achieve our Redemption. In these succinct quotations of Pope Leo XIII
we see the Magisterium’s fullest description to date of the essence of Mary’s
role as Coredemptrix.
Pope Saint
Pius X (1903-1914) joins Pope Leo in calling Mary our Mediatrix, Conciliatrix (Conciliatrix), Restorer (Reparatrix), and Dispensatrix of all
grace. Pius X also resounds Pope Pius
IX’s description of an “indissoluble bond” uniting “the Woman and her seed” as
he tells us that the life and work
of Mary and her Son are “never disassociated.”
“So perfect was the identity” of Mary’s coredemptive suffering with the
Redeemer — a “communion of pain and will” — that she merited to become the
Reparatrix and thus the Dispensatrix in distributing the graces of redemption:
The life and work of the Mother and Son are never
disassociated...In the final moment of her Son, “His Mother stood by the cross
of Jesus”, not just beholding the dread spectacle, but actually rejoicing that
her only-begotten Son was being offered for the salvation of the human
race. So perfect was the identity of her
suffering with her Son that, if at all possible, she would sustain even more
intensely all the torments her Son endured.
Through this communion [communione]
of pain and will between Christ and Mary, “she merited [promeruit] to become the most worthy restorer [reparatrix] of a lost world,” and hence, too [atque ideo] the disburser [dispensatrix]
of all the gifts which Jesus bought for us by the price of His death and His
blood.
The precious gift and exalted
role of Mediatrix of the graces of the redemption has been granted to Mary in
light of her “communion with her Son in pain and sorrow,” that is, in light of
and in reward to her unfailing perseverance in fulfilling her coredemptive
mission.
The
unequivocal primacy of the one Mediator, Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Tim 2:5), who alone could reconcile humanity in his
divinity and humanity is not undermined by the subordinate and dependent coredemptive role of Mary from which
flows her likewise subordinate and
dependent role as Mediatrix of the graces of redemption. The rights of these gifts belong to Jesus
Christ, and yet these gifts are generously bestowed upon Mary because of her
communion and solidarity of suffering with the one Redeemer. Pope St. Pius explains:
We do not deny that the distribution of these gifts
belongs to Christ by His own personal right, since they were obtained for us by
the death of Christ alone, and through His power He is the mediator between God
and man. Yet, as we have said, by Mary’s
communion with her Son in pain and sorrow it was granted to the august Virgin
“to be, along with her only-begotten Son, the most powerful mediatrix and
conciliatrix [mediatrix et conciliatrix] of the whole world”.
Pius X further
expands the panoply of Marian titles used by Pope Leo XIII. Going beyond the Marian titles of Mediatrix,
Conciliatrix (Conciliatrix), Restorer
(Reparatrix), and Dispensatrix of all
grace, Pope Pius adds to the Mariological development when he sanctions the use
of the word “Coredemptrix” by three
Congregations of his Curia: In the
Congregation of Rites, we see the decree elevating the Feast of the Seven
Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the rite of a double of the second class:
“Through this decree...may devotion to the merciful Coredemptrix [Conredemptrix] increase.”
The Holy Office repeats the title in the following section on Indulgences:
There are some people whose love for our Most Blessed
Virgin inclines them never to pray to Jesus without mentioning the name of His
mother, Blessed Mary, our Coredemptrix [Corredemptrice]. This laudable custom expands the invocation,
or the Christian salutation: “Praised be
Jesus Christ,” concerning which this Congregation issued a decree on March 27,
1913.
Six months later the Holy Office
again employs the use of this term:
An indulgence granted to the following prayer for
reparation addressed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the instrument of reparation [reparationis causa]: “Blessed be your prerogative...of
Coredemptrix [corredentrice] of the
human race”.
We can do more
than presume that Pope St. Pius X personally approved their statements. After all, they were published in the
official Acta Apostolicae Sedis and
were never recanted. As cited above, on
one occasion “Coredemptrix” was used by the Congregation of Rites, but twice
this title passed the scrutiny of the Holy Office, the very congregation
commissioned and entrusted to insure doctrinal integrity. Therefore, we see here the Magisterium’s
first three endorsements of Mary’s title “Coredemptrix” with an indulgenced
encouragement to the faithful to recognize her blessed prerogative as
“Coredemptrix of the human race.”
Although the papal
teachings of Benedict XV (1914–1922) were possibly less conspicuous than his
predecessors in the number of titles he attributed to Mary, perhaps he was more
conspicuous than they in his comprehension of Mary’s office of
Coredemptrix. His encyclical Inter sodalicia was unambiguous in
describing how Mary cooperated with Christ in his role as Redeemer. In Benedict XV the Magisterium verbalized for
the first time what Coredemption meant to Mary personally: “She abdicated her maternal rights”:
The Doctors of the Church state with one voice that
the Blessed Virgin Mary was almost absent from the public life of Jesus Christ,
but in God’s plan she was present when He was in His death agony and nailed to
the cross. To the same extent to which
she almost died with her suffering and dying Son, she abdicated her maternal
rights over her Son to save mankind and appease the justice of God. With every fiber of her being she immolated
her Son, so that she may rightly be said to have redeemed the human race
together with Christ. For this reason,
those graces that flow from the treasury of the Redemption are administered (ministrantur) as it were through the
hands of the same Sorrowful Virgin. No
one can fail to see that the work of our Redemption is effectively and
permanently completed especially by this gift.
Clearly, we
see in Pope Benedict’s statement the doctrines of the Coredemptrix and
Mediatrix: Mary “redeemed the human race
together with Christ” and “administers” those graces which flow from the
redemption. Benedict XV further endorsed
the term “Mediatrix” through the prescript of the Congregation of Rites that
approved a Mass and Office of Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces.
Pope Pius XI
(1922–1939) continues the consistent teachings of the modern Popes in
describing the essence of Mary’s
coredemptive role in light of her “inscrutable and absolutely unique bond” with
the Redeemer and her “offering of the Victim of sacrifice” for the acquisition
of the life of grace for humanity:
The Virgin Mother of God...offered the Victim of
sacrifice at the foot of the cross.
Through an inscrutable and absolutely unique bond [coniunctionem] with Christ she shines forth conspicuously as our
Reparatrix [Reparatrix]. To her we direct our prayers to Christ, who
is the one Mediator between God and men, who willed to unite His mother to
Himself as an advocate [advocatam] of
sinners and the dispensatrix and mediatrix [ministram
ac mediatricem] of grace.
Here also we see present the
threefold office of Mary as Coredemptrix (Reparatrix), Mediatrix and
Advocate. This paragraph spans the full
gamut of the Coredemption — objective and subjective — from Mary’s sharing in
Christ’s sufferings to her distribution of grace. This quotation is the third of four
endorsements given by the Second Vatican Council to Mary’s titles: “Advocate, Auxiliatrix [Helper], Adjutrix
[Aide], and Mediatrix.”
In a Papal
Audience in 1933, Pius XI marked a Marian milestone when for the first time in
Church history a Pope had personally and explicitly attributed the title
“Coredemptrix” to Mary. When he did so,
he was in the Sala del Concistoro,
seated on the papal throne. Even the
printer of the Vatican newspaper seems to have picked up the excitement. For the headline “The Glories of Mary,
Coredemptrix” he used a very conspicuous ten-point font. The Pope tells us that Mary not only gave us the instrument of
Redemption, but she also raised Him for that very work and further shared in
His Passion, accomplishing the redemptive victory. Thus the Redeemer, says Pius XI, “could not
help but associate His Mother in His work, and therefore we invoke her under
the title of Coredemptrix”:
In the very nature of things, the Redeemer could not
help but associate [non poteva, per necessità
di cose, non associare] His Mother in His work [opera]; and therefore we invoke her under the title of Coredemptrix
[Corredentrice]. She has given us the Savior; she raised Him
for the work [opera] of Redemption
unto the cross, sharing in the suffering and death by which Jesus accomplished
the Redemption of all men. And it was
upon the cross, in the last moments of His life, that the Redeemer proclaimed
her our mother and the mother of all. “Ecce filius tuus”, He said of St. John,
who represented all of us; and those other words, spoken to the Apostle were
addressed to us too: “Ecce Mater tua”.
Continuing his
address, Pius XI celebrates the “universal motherhood of Mary” in these 1933
papal words:
These good people had come to celebrate with the Holy
Father the nineteenth centenary not only of our Redemption but also of the
universal motherhood of Mary, proclaimed so officially and solemnly in the very
words of the Son of God in the especially solemn moment of His death. They had come to render also this tribute of
devotion to the Virgin Mother of all men, whom they could with filial pride
call their mother in a very special way.
A year later
Pius XI again made use of the term
“Coredemptrix.” This occasion was a
1934 papal audience with pilgrims from Spain:
By these words the Pope meant that [the pilgrims] had
come to celebrate with the Vicar of Christ not only the nineteenth centenary of
the Divine Redemption but also the nineteenth centenary of her role as
Coredemptrix [Sua Corredenzione] and
of her universal motherhood.
These young [pilgrims] must follow the thoughts and
wishes of Mary most holy, who is our Mother and Coredemptrix [Corredentrice]. They too must make every effort to be
coredeemers [coredentori] and
apostles.
And in his 1935 Radio Message to
Lourdes Pius XI invoked the Mother of Jesus once again as Coredemptrix, she who
bears fruit in the redemptive work of her Son through her compassion:
O Mother of love and mercy, when your sweet Son was
consummating the Redemption of the human race on the altar of the cross, you
stood next to Him, suffering with Him as a Coredemptrix....Day by day preserve
and increase in us, we beg you, the precious fruit of His redemption and your
compassion as His Mother.
Significantly,
the occasion of this radio message was the solemn closing of the jubilee year
of our Redemption. We may legitimately
understand the word “compassion” in its etymological sense (suffering
with). Thus our “Redemption” by Christ
and the “compassion” of Mary become one in producing the single “fruit” for
which the Pope prays. Hence “compassion”
and “Coredemption” are synonymous, in referring to the selfsame meritorious
role of the new Eve with the new Adam in the redemptive victory.
If Pope Pius
XI called Mary “Coredemptrix” only once, in 1933, that would have been
noteworthy enough. But the fact that he
used basically the same word-form three times also in 1934 and once again in
1935 is highly significant.
Even though
Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) did not explicitly use the title, “Coredemptrix,” his
theological commentary on the coredemptive role of Mary manifests a development
of this Marian role, particularly in regard to the patristic model of the “New
Eve”. Like his predecessors, he spoke
emphatically and repeatedly of an organic union between Jesus and Mary — not
only between the Son and his Mother, but between Jesus precisely in His
redemptive sufferings, and Mary as His co-sufferer.
In three
encyclicals (Mystici Corporis Christi, Ad
Caeli Reginam and Munificentissimus
Deus) Pius XII states that Mary is “inexorably bound to her Son” (arctissime coniuncta). Etymologically, coniuncta means “joined to the same yoke, like oxen pulling a
plow.” Regardless of whether or not he
and Pius XI intentionally chose coniuncta
because it has this derivation, they proffer to us a graphic portrait of Mary
as Coredemptrix. In Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis Christi, we read:
[Mary], always inexorably united [arctissime coniuncta] with her son, like a New Eve offered [obtulit] that same Son on Golgotha to
the Eternal Father, together with the holocaust of her maternal rights and
love, on behalf of all the children of Adam.
And so she, who was the physical mother of our Head, became the spiritual
mother of His members also through a new title of suffering and glory.
Pius XII points out that the
offering of her Son with the holocaust of her maternal rights was a suffering
directed for the specific end of the redemption of the “children of Adam.”
Seven years
later in the encyclical Munificentissimus Deus, the coredemptive
role of Mary is expressed by Pope Pius XII in the Patristic language of the
“new Eve,” reiterating once again the Fathers’ understanding that the battle
against the devil was “jointly engaged in” by the new Eve with the new Adam, and thereby advanced the modern Magisterial
doctrine of the Coredemptrix with the Redeemer:
Most of all, we must remember that since the second
century the Virgin Mary has been proposed by the Fathers of the Church as the
New Eve. Although she was subject to the
New Adam, she was inexorably bound [arctissime
coniunctam] to Him in that struggle against the devil, which was prefigured
in the Proto-gospel [Genesis 3:15]...and which resulted in that most complete
victory over sin and death. Hence, just
as the glorious resurrection of Christ was an essential part and final sign of
this victory, so also the battle that was jointly engaged in [commune cum Filio suo] by the Blessed
Virgin and her Son had to terminate in the glorification of her virginal body.
In his
encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam, Pius XII
continues to expound on this “redemptive alliance” of the Blessed Virgin with
Jesus Christ, procuring life for the human race in a “recapitulation” of the
first Eve-Adam alliance which brought death to the human race. The human race is instrumentally “saved by a
virgin”:
From the reasons given above, we derive the
argument: By the will of God Mary is
allied [sociata] with Jesus Christ in
procuring [procuranda] our spiritual
salvation in a way similar to the way Eve was allied [consociata] with Adam, the principle of death. Therefore, we may state that the work of our
salvation was accomplished by a certain “recapitulation” in which the human
race was saved by a virgin, just as it was plunged into death by a virgin. We may also state that Our Lady was the
beloved mother of Christ so that she might effectively become a participant [consors] in the redemption of the human
race. We may state further that she was
always inexorably bound [arctissime
coniuncta] to her Son....Christ is our King and Redeemer. In an analogous way the most Blessed Virgin
is queen, not only because she is the mother of God but also because she stands
as one who was allied [consociata]
with the new Adam like a new Eve.
Pius XII’s May
13, 1946 radio message to Fatima speaks of Christ specifically as our Redeemer,
and Mary’s association and cooperation with Him specifically in that role. The Pope also attributes her cooperation “by
right of conquest.” Note that he had
just spoken the right of Jesus’ conquest because of his “martyrdom.’ Because the Pope duplicates the phrase
identically now in reference to Mary, we may conclude that her “right of
conquest” is also attributable to her “martyrdom.” Coredemption is nothing less than that:
Having been associated [associada] to the King of Martyrs in the indescribable work of
human Redemption as Mother and minister [ministra],
she remains forever associated to Him, with a practically unlimited power, in
the distribution of the graces that flow from the Redemption. Jesus is King of the Eternal Ages by nature
and by right of conquest; through Him, with Him, and subordinate to Him, Mary
is Queen by grace, by divine motherhood, by conquest [por conquista], and by the singular choice [of the Father].
This same
radio message to Fatima is the fourth (and final) citation of official footnote
number 278 of Lumen Gentium (pg. 91),
documenting Vatican II’s use of Mary’s titles:
Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix, and Mediatrix. Not insignificantly, he called Mary
“Mediatrix” eight times. The first
schema of Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium
made thirty-two references to Pius XII.
The final text has seven references to him — the largest number for any
non-biblical or patristic author. For Pius XII, Mary’s redemptive participation
is also intimately associated with her revealed relationship to us as
Mother: “This mother [Mary] shone forth
as our mother when our divine Redeemer was offering His sacrifice, and
therefore by this title, too, we are her children.”
And we should
note that the petition to Pope Pius XII from the First International
Mariological Congress, held in Rome in 1950, embodies a desire on the part of
“the faithful” for a dogmatic definition of Mary’s coredemption and mediation,
since her personal attributes were already defined:
Since the
principal, personal attributes of the Blessed Virgin Mary have been already
defined, it is the wish of the faithful that it should also be dogmatically
defined that the Blessed Virgin Mary was intimately associated with Christ the
Saviour in effecting human salvation, and, accordingly, she is the true
collaborator in the work of redemption, spiritual Mother of all men,
intercessor and dispenser of graces, in a word universal Mediatrix of God and
man.
The Marian
pronouncements and official acts of Pope John XXIII (1958–1963) are voluminous;
they total 476 pages. This single quotation can stand as typical of
his thought on Mary’s association with Christ, our Redeemer: “[Our Lady is] intimately associated [intimamente associata] in the Redemption
in the eternal plans of the Most High.”
Adding its
Conciliar weight to the consistent Magisterial teaching, the Second Vatican
Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the
Church (chapter 8) ratifies Mary’s coredemptive role in cooperation with the Redeemer. Her “cooperation” is not a static, one-time
act, but her “role” in the on-going mystery of our Redemption. In this context, we see Mary’s cooperation as
coredemptive:
She is acknowledged and honored as...Mother of the
Redeemer....At the same time she cooperated [cooperata est] out of love so that [the faithful] might be born in
the Church....As it clarifies Catholic teaching concerning the Church, in which
the divine Redeemer works salvation, this sacred Synod intends to describe with
diligence the role of the Blessed Virgin in the mystery of the Incarnate Word
and the Mystical Body.
In Lumen
Gentium, nos. 55-56, the Council is plumbing the full depth of Genesis 3:15
and sees an implication (the foreshadowing of Mary’s cooperation in Christ’s
victory) that the Prophets themselves might not have grasped. Then the Council echoes Irenaeus’s bold
encomium: “[Mary] became a cause [causa] of salvation.” Could any definition of “Coredemptrix”
encompass more than that? Yet that is
exactly what the Council perceives as Mary’s “dynamic” role:
[The Old and New Testament] bring the figure of the
woman, Mother of the Redeemer, into a gradually sharper focus. When looked at in this way, she is already
prophetically foreshadowed in that victory over the serpent (Gen.
3:15)....Mary...in subordination to [Jesus] and along with Him...served [inserviens] the mystery of the
Redemption. Rightly then do the Holy
Fathers judge that Mary was not merely passively employed by God, but was
cooperating through free faith and obedience in human salvation. For, as St. Irenaeus says, she, “being
obedient, became a cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race.”
Sacred
Scripture singles out Calvary as the recapitulation and climax of Christ’s
sufferings. Just the preceding numbers
indicate Mary’s association with Christ generally, but now, in Lumen Gentium nos. 57-59, the Council
pinpoints the culmination and epitome of Mary functioning as Coredemptrix not
only in her heartrending witnessing of Calvary but in her “uniting herself to
His sacrifice and loving consent to the immolation of this victim.” The Council clearly justifies our referring
to her sufferings as coredemptive:
This union of the Mother with the Son in the work of
salvation was manifested from the time of Christ’s virginal conception up to
His death....Finally, she was exalted by the Lord as Queen of all, in order
that she might be more thoroughly conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and
the conqueror of sin and death....There [now on Calvary] she united herself
with a maternal heart to His sacrifice, and lovingly consented to the
immolation of this Victim.
The Council
Fathers further teach that Mary’s cooperation was utterly unique, bringing with
it a maternal reward as “mother to us in the order of Grace.” “This saving role” of the Mother of Jesus,
and now Spiritual Mother of all humanity, continues to manifest itself in her
ongoing mediating role in the work of salvation:
In an utterly singular way she cooperated...in the
Savior’s work of restoring supernatural life to souls....This maternity of Mary
in the order of grace...will last without interruption....She did not lay aside
this saving role, but by her manifold acts of intercession continues to win for
us the gifts of eternal salvation....Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked by
the Church under the titles of Advocate, Auxiliatrix [Helper], Adjutrix [Aide],
and Mediatrix.
Because Mary
is intimately united with her Redeemer Son, she is also intimately bound to the
Church, mediating seeds of “new and immortal life” to the faithful:
Mary is united with [unitur] her Son, the Redeemer, and with His singular graces and
offices. By these, the Blessed Virgin is
also intimately bound [intime coniungitur]
to the Church....In [our] birth and development she cooperate [cooperatur] with a maternal love....She
brings forth to a new and immortal life children who are conceived of the Holy
Spirit.
We note that
the four titles ascribed to Mary by the Council show an unprecedented concern
for her social role. Previously, critics
complained that some of the Virgin Mary’s titles (Mother of God, Virgin,
Immaculate Conception and Assumption) seemed strictly personal to her, without
sufficient relevancy to “the social Church.” Also, for the first time an Ecumenical Council
endorsed the appropriateness of the term “Mediatrix.” For two reasons we may conjecture that the
proponents of the Coredemption were deterred from presenting a motion to add
“Coredemptrix” to her other acceptable titles.
First, considering the vigorous debate at the Council concerning her
title “Mediatrix,” they seem to have rested content when that title emerged as
acceptable. Secondly, the Council was a
pastoral Council, which, as it said, “does not have it in mind to give a
complete doctrine on Mary, nor does it wish to decide those questions which
have not yet been fully illuminated by the work of theologians.” The Council approved Lumen Gentium in its entirety, including the celebrated Marian
chapter 8 from which we have been quoting, by a vote of 2,151 to five.
In echo of the
Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI (1963–1978) adds greater force to these
titles by invoking the Mother of the Church as “our Advocate, Auxiliatrix,
Adjutrix, and Mediatrix.” He further
continues the long-standing Magisterial teaching of the Blessed Virgin’s
intimate and perpetual union with the
Redeemer in the divine drama of salvation:
Mary, the Mother of God and of our Redeemer, has been
united [unitam] with Christ in a
tight and indissoluble bond. To her has
been granted a most exceptional responsibility in the mystery of the Incarnate
Word and the Mystical Body, that is, in God’s plan of salvation. In this regard we behold the Virgin Mother of
God, who was present in the mysteries of Christ, but also as the mother of the
Church....For us she is preeminent as our “Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix, and
Mediatrix.”
The Church
celebrates in her liturgy these salvific events in which Mary freely cooperates
with her Saviour Son. Pope Paul VI
singles out a few of those commemorative triumphs:
The liturgy of the Incarnation celebrates “the Blessed
Virgin’s free consent and cooperation in the plan of redemption” (pg. 2, no.
6). The Nativity of Mary, the
Visitation, and the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, “commemorate salvific events
in which the Blessed Virgin was closely associated with her Son” (pg. 2, no.
7). The Presentation “is the celebration
of a mystery of salvation...with which the Blessed Virgin was intimately
associated as the Mother of the Suffering Servant of Yahweh” (pg. 2, no. 7).
Present
throughout all these salvific moments in the life of Mary is the Holy Spirit
who sustains and strengthens her in the work of redemption, producing “results
ever more advantageous.” Paul VI here
highlights the critical spousal collaboration of the Holy Spirit and Mary in
the “work of human redemption”:
Most holy bonds that bound and still bind the Virgin
Mary to the Holy Spirit in the work of human redemption will produce results
ever more advantageous...
It was the Holy Spirit who strengthened the soul of
the Mother of Jesus, who was present at the foot of the cross...inspiring her,
as He did in the sacrifice of the Son for the redemption of the human
race....She continues to be spiritually present in the redemption of all her
children....She continues to be invoked as Advocate [Avvocata], Helper [Ausiliatrice],
Aide [Soccorritrice], and Mediatrix [Mediatrice].
In view of
Pope Paul VI’s consistent Magisterial teaching we can say that he repeats his
insistence on 1) the unique bond between Mary and our Redeemer and His Church, now calling her our “Mediatrix”;
2) Mary’s “intimate association with the mystery of salvation”; 3) the Holy
Spirit inspiring Mary “to want to be associated as a mother in the sacrifice of
the Son for the redemption of the human race”; and 4) Mary’s “spiritual
presence in the redemption of all her children.”
True to his
motto Totus Tuus Maria, Pope John
Paul II’s writings and public statements represent an outstanding contribution
to Mariology, and continues the rich ordinary Magisterial teaching on Mary’s
coredemptive role, expressing with even greater clarity the doctrines of the
Coredemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate already
present in the Second Vatican Council’s Lumen
Gentium. The excerpts below, which
include the new Catechism of the Catholic
Church, are a concatenation of his references to the direct and immediate
cooperation of Mary in Christ’s redemptive sufferings.
Mary, Mother of the Redemption, was prepared
in advance so that she could fulfill perfectly her God-given mission with her
Son in the redemptive liberation.
Advancing Pope Paul VI’s teaching that “Most holy bonds bound and still
bind the Virgin Mary to the Holy Spirit in the work of human redemption,”
producing fruits “ever more advantageous,” John Paul II reminds us at a General
Audience in 1983 that it is Mary filled
with grace that allowed for and gave “maximum value” to her participation
in the work of redemption: “The fullness
of grace allowed [Mary] to fulfill perfectly her mission of collaboration with
the work of salvation; it gave the maximum value to her cooperation in the
sacrifice.” It is the Holy Spirit present at every moment
of Mary’s life who gives the greatest possible value to her salvific work with
the Redeemer. The foundation of Mary’s
coredemptive activity is her fullness of grace.
She is the “Coredemptrix” because she was first the “Immaculate
Conception.”
Coredemption
reached a profound, personal kenosis for Mary at Calvary. It was there that she offered both herself and her Son to divine justice, freely
uniting herself to his Sacrifice for the salvation of the human family. Thus the coredeeming Mother constitutes an
active, not passive, part in the
redemptive Sacrifice of Calvary. The
Holy Father makes this clear in a 1983 Angelus address:
In that one Sacrifice [of the Cross], Mary, the first
redeemed, the Mother of the Church, had an active part. She stood near the Crucified, suffering
deeply with her Firstborn; with a motherly heart she associated herself with
his Sacrifice; with love she consented to his immolation (cf. “Lumen Gentium,”
58; “Marialis Cultus,” 20); she offered him and she offered herself to the
Father.
This active
participation in suffering with the Redeemer reached its culmination at
Calvary. In his 1984 apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris, John Paul points our
gaze to the foot of the Cross, the climax in the work of redemption where
Mary’s ascent of Calvary with her redeeming Son reached “an intensity” beyond
human comprehension, bearing fruit for
the salvation of the world:
It was on Calvary that Mary’s suffering, beside the
suffering of Jesus, reached an intensity which can hardly be imagined from a
human point of view...which was mysterious and supernaturally fruitful for the
redemption of the world. Her ascent of
Calvary and her standing at the foot of the Cross together with the Beloved
Disciple were a special sort of sharing in the redeeming death of her Son [pg.
6, no. 25].
Hence Mary not only had an active participation in the redemptive
victory but it was fruitful as well,
in light of her “special sort of sharing” in the suffering and death of her
redeeming Son. And as a gift for this
sacrificial act of great love with the Redeemer, the coredeeming Mother
received from her dying Son the providential gift of a “new kind of
motherhood.” Mary, “Mother of the human
race,” continues to bring the graces of redemption to the human family:
As though by a continuation of that motherhood which
by the power of the Holy Spirit had given him life, the dying Christ conferred
upon the ever Virgin Mary a new kind of
motherhood [emphasis given] - spiritual and universal — toward all human
beings [pg. 7, no. 26].
In his address
in Ecuador a year later, the Holy Father continued his commentary on the
“particularly important moment” at the foot of the Cross. Mary’s coredemptive journey led her to that
excruciating moment where she accepted
and assisted in the sacrifice of her Son, the very moment that the Church
and all humanity was entrusted to her maternal care by her crucified Son:
The silent journey that begins with her Immaculate
Conception...finds on Calvary a particularly important moment. There also, accepting and assisting at the
sacrifice of her Son, Mary is the dawn of Redemption; and there her Son
entrusts her to us as our Mother....Crucified spiritually with her crucified
Son (cf. Gal. 2:20), she contemplated with heroic love the death of her God,
she “lovingly consented to the immolation of this Victim which she herself had
brought forth” (Lumen Gentium,
58)...At Calvary she united herself with the sacrifice of her Son that led to
the foundation of the Church [pg. 7, no. 5].
Mary, “the dawn of redemption,”
willingly united herself with the one redeeming Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Spiritually
crucified with him, she offered both
herself with her victim Son. The
Holy Father makes it unequivocally certain that Mary’s contribution to the work
of redemption was an active, real, and
effective collaboration in the reconciliation between man of God:
Mary is not the dawn of our redemption in the manner
of an invert, passive instrument....Mary’s participation was real and
effective. In giving her consent to the
message of the Angel, Mary agreed to collaborate in the entire work of
mankind’s reconciliation with God [Pg. 7, no. 4].
And further in his address in
Ecuador, not only is Mary’s coredemptive role made explicit by Pope John Paul II under the particular title
“Coredemptrix,” but he also tells us that this role did not cease after our
Lord’s glorification:
As she was in a special way close to the Cross of her
Son, she also had to have a privileged experience of His Resurrection. In fact, Mary’s role as co-redemptrix [corredentor] did not cease with the
glorification of her Son [pg. 7, no. 6].
And again, two months later
during his 1985 Palm Sunday Angelus address, the Holy Father sanctions the
appropriate invocation of Mary under this title in her ongoing role as
Spiritual Mother:
May Mary our Protectress, the Co-redemptrix [la Corredentrice], to whom we offer our
prayer with great outpouring, make our desire generously correspond to the
desire of the Redeemer.
In the first
two pages of his 1987 encyclical letter Redemptoris
Mater, John Paul II begins by stating that God “associated this hidden
‘daughter of Zion’ with the plan of salvation embracing the whole history of
humanity” (pp. 1-2, no. 3). The Holy Father continues to explore this
coredemptive kenosis wherein Mary entirely “abandons herself” to the
providential will of God, pre-eminently sharing in the very death of her
redeeming Son: “How completely she
‘abandons herself to God’ without reserve, ‘offering the full assent of her
intellect and will’ to him whose ‘ways are inscrutable’ (cf. Rom
11:33)!...Through faith the Mother shares in the death of her Son, in his
redeeming death” (pg. 5, no. 18). This coredemptive sharing in the redeeming
death of her Son further confirms Mary’s most eminent and unique association
with the Redeemer in restoring life to souls.
In echo of the Second Vatican Council’s Lumen Gentium (nos. 61-62), John Paul affirms this Magisterial
teaching:
Mary became “an associate of unique nobility, and the
Lord’s humble handmaid,” who “cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope and
burning charity in the Saviour’s work of restoring supernatural life to souls”
[pp. 6-7, no. 22].
Redemptoris Mater further cites Vatican
II when it restates the Council’s teaching that “Mary figured profoundly in the
history of salvation and in a certain way unites and mirrors within herself the
central truths of the faith” (pg. 7, no. 25, citing Lumen Gentium, n. 65).
The Holy
Father tells us that in Mary’s “pilgrimage
to