Mary: Our Mother in the Order of Grace
Mary: Our Mother in the Order of Grace
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) says:
"The Church's devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship. The Church rightly honors 'the Blessed Virgin with special devotion. From the most ancient time the Blessed Virgin has been honored with the title 'Mother of God,' to whose special protection the faithful fly in all their dangers and needs. This very special devotion [hyperdulia]. . . differs essentially from the adoration which is given to the Incarnate Word and equally to the Father and the Holy Spirit and greatly fosters this adoration." (CCC, para. 971). In other words, we honor Mary and to do so enhances our adoration of the one, true God. Mary is the first Christian, our Mother in the order of grace, the chosen human instrument through whom God chose to send us His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.
How can Mary be so exalted by the Church and yet there be so little in Scripture about her? This was done purposefully according to St. Louis de Montfort, whose book, True Devotion to Mary, was written in the early 1700's. After reading this book Pope John Paul II said it marked a turning point in his religious life and he described devotion to Mary (not worship of Mary, which would be idolatry) as "indispensable to anyone who means to give himself without reserve to Christ and to the work of redemption."
Montfort says the Holy Spirit and the Church refer to Mary as "Mother hidden and secret." He adds, "her humility was so profound that she had no inclination on earth more powerful or more constant that than of hiding herself, from herself as well as from every other creature, so as to be known to God only." Montfort says these prayers were heard and that God "took pleasure in hiding her from all human creatures, in her conception, in her birth, in her life, in her mysteries and in her resurrection and Assumption." Montfort explains:
"God the Father consented that she should work no miracles, at least no public one, during her life, although He had given her the power to do so. God the Son consented that she should hardly ever speak, though He had communicated His wisdom to her. God the Holy Ghost, though she was His faithful spouse, consented that His Apostles and evangelists should speak very little of her, and no more than was necessary to make Jesus Christ known." (pp.3-4)
Jesus tells the parable of the wedding banquet (in Luke 14:11) which is a symbol of the banquet in heaven, the marriage supper of the Lamb (as it is called in the Book of Revelation), wherein he teaches that "those who humble themselves will be exalted." St. Peter writes, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt you" (1 Pet 5:5). Mary is the perfect example of Christian humility. She wanted the Son of God to be the focus! St. Jerome, writing in the 5th century, said God chose Mary for her humility more than all her sublime virtues. More testimony is found in the Scriptures at the time of the annunciation, when Mary responded to the angel, "let it be done to me according to your word" and again, in the prayer of our Lady called the "Magnificat," in which she exclaims that she is the "handmaid of the Lord." This is an example of what St. Paul means when he uses the phrase "the obedience of faith" at both the beginning and the end of his epistle to the Romans. Mary possessed an obedient, reverent faith. She was the first believer, but much more.
Elizabeth, her cousin, inspired by the Holy Spirit as St. Luke tells us, called her "blessed" twice (Luke 1:42ff). First, because of the fruit of her womb and second, because of her faith. Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical, "Mother of the Redeemer," notes this refers to the Annunciation, and says, "Mary is the first to share in this new revelation of God," of His self-giving, and thus she proclaims, "For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name." She exults with joy in the fulfillment of the Covenant (the great family bond between God and man), for which the Jews had waited almost 1800 years and the knowledge that salvation and mercy have come together at that moment.
Although the Church did not declare the dogma of the Immaculate Conception until 1854, it was always a part of the deposit of faith (the oral and written teachings of the Church). Recall that the great commission Jesus gave the Apostles at the end of Matthew's gospel (Mt 28), was not to write down His words--indeed only three or four of the Apostles wrote any Scripture and none did so until about a dozen years after Jesus ascended to the Father. Thus the deposit of faith (the sum total of Jesus' teaching) was oral, a part of the Church's sacred Tradition, and the written books of the New Testament were not even finally selected from amongst many other pious writings as those inspired by the Holy Spirit, until a Church Council did so at the end of the 4th century. Mary's Immaculate Conception was a part of the oral deposit of faith from the beginning.
Thus, Mary, like Adam and Eve, is born without the stain of original sin by reason of the merits of Jesus Christ, who selected her from all women in history to be His mother. The Catechism notes, "The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person 'in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places' and chose her 'in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in love'" (see Eph 1:3-4). Indeed, it is hard to imagine an all holy God being conceived and born by a sin-filled creature. God was so holy that Jews believed that they would die if they even lay their eyes on Him! This does not dehumanize Mary (nor does it mean that she does not need a Savior), rather it makes her more human, remembering that this was the original state of mankind intended by God (before the fall of Adam and Eve and their ejection from the Garden of Eden).
The Angel Gabriel greeted Mary with the words, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed our thou amongst women." "Hail" is a term used for royalty and indeed, Mary is a Queen. The angel called her "full of grace" before she was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and conceived our Lord in her womb! [if Mary were not sinless, she would have transmitted original sin to Jesus genetically]. The Greek work used in Luke 1:28, sometimes translated as "favored one" or "highly favored one" in many Bibles is more properly translated "full of grace" and this is the case in the Vulgate version of the Bible which was the Bible of the western Latin speaking Christian world for over 1000 years. This is the case today for the Douay Rheims translation, which is based on the Vulgate and is also the way Gabriel's words are translated in the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (Ignatius Bible).
The Greek word is kecharitomene, which is the perfect passive participle, indicates a completed action with permanent result. Thus it translates, "completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace." [In comparison, the word used in Ephesians 1:6 and applied to the saints is charis]. St. Thomas Aquinas, a great medieval doctor of the Church, writes, "The Blessed Virgin Mary is full of grace both with respect to operation and to the avoidance of evil. Second, she was full of grace with respect to the overflow of soul to flesh or body. For it is a great thing for the saints to have enough grace to sanctify their soul; but the soul of the Blessed Virgin Mary was so full that from it graces flowed into her body, in order that with it she might conceive the Son of God."
Still, like all of us, Mary had to be "wholly borne by God's grace" in order to "give the assent of faith." She was the mother of God first in her heart, than in her body. Pope John Paul tells us that "this consent to motherhood is above all a result of her total self-giving to God in virginity." She was, he notes, "guided by spousal love, the love which totally consecrates a human being to God."
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