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MARY TODAY
In the Church and in the World Fourth in a Series    
"Without Mariology," the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar once said, “Christianity is in danger of becoming inhuman." Without Mariology, he continued, "the Church becomes functionalistic, without soul, a hectic enterprise without resting place, alienated by over-planning. Because in this male-masculine world one new ideology replaces another, everything becomes polemical, critical, bitter, humorless, and ultimately boring. People desert such a Church in droves." Indeed they have been doing so now for many years.
Many people have tried -- sometimes for good ecumenical reasons -- to consign Mariology (the study of the Virgin Mary) to limbo, taking as their excuse the fact that the Second Vatican Council spoke about her only in the context of the Constitution on the Church. But with the revival of Marian studies and devotion under Pope Paul VI and especially John Paul II, it can be seen that, far from down-grading Mary, what the Council actually did was place her with unerring instinct right where she belongs: at the very heart's core of the Church and of the Christian life -- effectively identifying her not only as the Mother of God, but as the Bride of Christ.
The "Mariology" that Balthasar refers to is not merely the academic study which goes by this name, but the whole feminine dimension of theology, the "soul" of Catholic intellectual life. Just as Luke's Gospel tells us that "Mary treasured all these things in her heart," so the Church has treasured Mary in her heart, and by constantly reflecting on her has been led more deeply into the mysterious and luminous presence of her Son. Mary herself, so plain and unassuming, is like a tiny box from which all the treasures of the Church may be drawn. She is the way to Christ, and authentic Mariology is our royal road to the contemplation of the divine mysteries of the Incarnation.
The last issue described the recent Roman
conference of the leaders of the movement known as Vox Populi Mariae Mediatrici,
which hopes to see Mary defined as "Coredemptrix, Mediatrix of all Graces
and Advocate of the People of God." None of these titles is particularly
controversial, except perhaps “Coredemptrix,” and that only when misunderstood
as implying an equality of the Mother with the Son in the work of Redemption.
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