One of my favorite websites, Spiritdaily.com, recently carried the link to a news article which contained a statement apparently from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It read: "Your Excellency," the CPDF said, "is requested to take into consideration the above mentioned advisory and inform the members of the Catholic Bishop's Conference of the Philippines that the CPDF does not permit any Catholic community of Christ's Faithful to pray to the Mother of God under the title of 'Lady of All Nations' with the added expression 'who was once Mary'.” Needless to say, such a statement is a surprise to many faithful, obedient Catholics.
While respectful and obedient, I am confused by the reasoning; especially when the prayer has been in use for over 50 years with over 70 imprimaturs from bishops all over the world. The article linked at Spiritdaily contained Bishop Amato’s statement that: "In fact, this Dicastery, in a letter to His Excellency, The Most Rev. Francois Bacque, Apostolic Nuncio to the Netherlands, has indicated that Marian devotion must be nourished and developed in accordance with the indications given by the Holy Father in "Redemptoris Mater" and "Rosarium Virginis Mariae" and not according to private apparitions nor according to a 'new' name of Mary, such as "Lady of All Nations who was once Mary.” In the minds of the faithful it would seem most important that the prayer be in line with the Holy Father’s Christology, from which his Mariology flows. Most importantly, the prayer needs to be in line, not only with his theology but with the Church diachronically, too. The prayer meets all of these demands.
The theological formula "who once was Mary" actually makes tremendous sense when analyzed from a common sense perspective, a biblical perspective, and simultaneously a Balthasarian perspective (a great influence on John Paul the Great). This prayer has not caused any mentally and emotionally sound Catholic to believe there is a difference of persons involved within the formula. When my Grandmother was young, people called her Martha. When she had children, people called her “Mom.” When these children became adults, their children called that same Martha by the name “Grandma.” I never doubted she once was Martha when I learned she actually had a name previous to what I called her.
Childbearing causes a real change in people and new relationships. More so than for anyone else, childbearing for Mary caused a real change in her relationships since she bore the Christ, God incarnate, the head of the mystical body. Saint Louis De Montfort makes clear that it is a horrible thought to think the mother of the head is not simultaneously mother of the body. Related to this, we must reflect on John Paul the Great’s first Christological encyclical Redemptor Hominis: "Not only is the dignity of this Motherhood unique and unrepeatable in the history of the human race, but Mary's participation, due to this Maternity, in God's plan for man's salvation through the mystery of the Redemption is also unique in profundity and range of action" (RH #22).
From a Balthasarian perspective, Abraham - who once was Abram - receives a name change expressing who he is...what his vocation and task is...to be the "Father of many nations" (Gen 17:5). The faithful no longer call him Abram. We rightfully call him Abraham. According to Balthasar, we become the person we were meant to be by fulfilling our mission within God's will. Mary did fulfill her calling and became the new Eve, Mother of All Peoples (Nations).
The Mother of All Nations "who once was Mary" receives a name change expressing who she is...her vocation to forever be the Mother of the Church scattered throughout the world in many nations. At the annunciation she was already called a new name: "Full of Grace" and she started her role as new Eve. According to Redemptor Hominis, "By his Incarnation, he, the son of God, in a certain way united himself with each man" (RH #8). Correlatively, this means that "in a certain way" Mary is united to each man as his mother and is therefore the "Lady of All Nations who [before the Incarnation] once was Mary." There is not a conflict with such a statement so long as it is read within the Tradition, diachronically.
Was not Abraham once Abram? Will not Christ give every man a new name (cf. Rev 2:17)? How much more so than Simon (whose name was changed to Kephas) does Mary deserve to be seen more as Mother of All Nations (new Eve) now that she is transfigured in glory, having completed her temporal mission. In the Spirit, is she not continuing her mission as Mother of the Church from heaven (cf. LG #62)? Is not the Church called to gather and be a light to the nations (Lumen gentium)? Surely Bishop Amato stands against separating Mariology from Christology though the article only referenced Redemptoris Mater and Rosarium Virginis Mariae. Vatican II placed the chapters on Mariology within the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, not separate from it. Surely John Paul the Great's Christocentrism, from his very first (Christological) encyclical, wanted to bear fruit in Mariology when he began ending all his encyclicals with a reflection on Mary.
This is written not to encourage dissent, but to encourage patient obedience and clarification. The faithful must obey their bishop. If communities were praying “who once was Mary” in public devotion, then they should obey their local bishops if or when they apply Bishop Amato’s recommendation. Maintaining obedience, they should write Bishop Amato and their local bishop and ask them to reconsider such a ruling and ask for clarification. This devotional has played a large role in the spirituality of many sound and faithful Catholics who understand the significance of the phrase “once was Mary” in terms of “new Eve.”
Vatican II reminded bishops not only that they should avoid false exaggeration about Mary’s role, but also that they should avoid “too summary an attitude in considering the special dignity of the Mother of God” (LG #67); a special dignity which is very much under attack in many Catholic parishes and amongst Catholic theologians who cast doubt especially on dogmas about her ever-virginity. This and many other attacks are the reasons why so many bishops and Cardinals supported the request to apply the title “Co-Redemptrix” to Mary. They wanted to re-clarify her special dignity in an authoritative manner so as to preserve it in the minds of the faithful. In Vatican II, bishops are advised to “rightly illustrate the duties and privileges of the Blessed Virgin which always refer to Christ” (LG #67). “Who once was Mary” refers to the Incarnation and Mary’s motherhood given to all at the Cross. These episodes “always refer to Christ” and so always represent an authentic Mariology.
Matthew Tsakanikas can be contacted at mtsakanikas@yahoo.com
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Fra Roderic Mary
Date:
L’Osservatore Romano Broke Silence on Coredemption
In the Tuesday, July 30 2007 Italian Edition of the L'Osservatore Romano on page 4 an article appeared called Enamored of The Virgin by Fr. Giovanni Velocci gave a strong promotion of Marian Coredemption and Mediation of all Graces. This breaks a five year silence on the issue and is so resoundingly positive.
Below is the entire translation from the Italian.
Enamored of The Virgin
In August 1787, while the Angelus bells sounded, Alphonses Maria de Liguori died at Pagani (SA).
The previous day he had a miraculous vision of the Madonna, which the biographer T. Rey-Mermet relates in these terms: Alphonses, in his Orations to the Divine Mother for Every Day of the Week, had written: Rather, Our Lady, pardoned my offenses, first that I may hope; come yourself to console me with your presence. I want this grace which you have given to so many of your devotees, and I hope for it also O Mary, I wait for you, do not let me remain unconsoled. Now, on the 31st near six oclock in the evening, while he held between his hands the image of the Madonna, his face glowed and became resplendent, while he spoke subduedly and was smiling to the Madonna.
The vision was a Mothers gift to her faithful servant, to the one who for so many years with writing and preaching had proclaimed her glories.
He proclaimed them especially in the book entitled The Glories of Mary, that he published in 1750 after spending much time in study and reflection. He began the search in 1734, and he worked with great dedication because he wanted to compose a work worthy of Mary.
In truth, for sixteen years he read and delved into the rich patrimony of tradition, in all its components: Fathers and theologians, liturgy and prayers, spiritual writers and people of God, ancient, Medieval and modern, with the interest of a historian, the seriousness of a theologian, the wisdom of a saint. The book is not only the expression of an erudite search, a theological treatment, at times controversial, but also of his great devotion and a token of recognition to Mary for the help he received from her in all the phases of life.
According to Giuseppe De Luca, great student of the history of spirituality, the publication of the Glories of Mary was, one of the more important dates in the history of the veneration of the most holy Mary The Glories of Mary was the last great European book written in praise of Mary. One specialist in the history of the Church, Gregorio Penco, gives the following assessment: Also collecting a complete set of the sayings and opinions of the ecclesiastical writers of all times, St. Alphonses has penetrated in depth the devotional aspects of the mysteries from which he considers her; in a particular way the heart of Mary Most Holy, her joys, her pains, her glories. And like a look that the author successfully throws in the soul of the Virgin, reading her feelings and guessing her thoughts.
Naturally the book is a product of the time in which it was written, because, like every great writer, Alphonses was the man of his age, and was conditioned by the cultural and religious situation of the 1700s. And in the 1700s the cult of Mary was in crisis, contested by some catholic writers, like Ludovico Antonio Muratori with the book On the Regulated Devotions, and refuted by the Jansenists, which thought that it would force into obscurity the person of Christ, the only mediator with God; therefore the devotion towards Mary must be regulated, controlled by reason, moderated in its manifestations.
Liguori, referring to tradition and the instruction of the theologians, responded with lucidity and courage to such currents of thought, and he felt compelled to introduce the mystery of Mary in its truth, developing to the ultimate ramifications her privilege of divine maternity, especially in his book the Glories of Mary.
It is divided in two parts: the first part is a commentary in ten chapters on the Salve Regina; the second part contains Homilies on the Feasts of the Madonna, Reflections on the Seven Sorrows, On the Virtues of Mary Most Holy, Homage and Devotions.
In the commentary on the Salve Regina, which constitutes the more important part of the book, St. Alphonses gives a lively description of dramatic times, the multiple interventions of the Madonna on behalf of men: Mary obtains the forgiveness of sins, brings them back to friendship with God; if sin removes one from God, Mary approaches, reconciles, joins. Therefore she takes part in order to maintain the converted sinner in grace; she invites to prayer, she obtains the light, the force, prevents him from falling again; she obtains the added gift of final perseverance. Mary is a powerful advocate, a pious mother, does not neglect the cause of the most wretched; she is all eyes in order to always see the cause of the most piteous, to help, especially in the moments of danger, and above all in the hour of death; then more than ever she is present in order to comfort her devout people, to defend them from the malignant one, to save them from hell, and for leading them with himself to paradise to the eternal encounter with God.
In his treatment Liguori develops two prerogatives above all, which he uses as a foundation of his mariology: divine maternity and the universal mediation. They are not placed on separate paths, but they are seen as closely interconnected, for they recall and compenetrate each other: the first is ordained to the second, and the second finds in the first its ontological foundation.
Mary was the chosen Mother of God by being Coredemptrix and Mediatrix; one and the same divine decree predestined her to this twofold mission. St. Alphonses considered the divine maternity in the light of the redemption; in the study of the reason of the incarnation he follows the thomistic thesis according to which, if man had not sinned, God would not have been incarnated; therefore the ultimate reason of the incarnation was the redemption of humanity. Mary became Mother of a God who made himself man in order to be redeemer and for expiating the sins of the world; without sinners God would not have incarnated himself, and Mary would not have become his mother.
Her mission is combined to that of Christs; they have been predestined in order to assure the redemption of fallen humanity, through whom the entire economy of salvation bears the imprint of mercy and the supreme divine indulgence; and we now know, that Mary is Mother of the merciful Savior by being Mother of mercy.
Reflecting on the divine maternity, realized in time, St. Alphonses makes the following affirmation: To God it did not seem fitting to have a mother other than Mary, and to Mary it did not seem fitting to have a son other than God. In the explanation of this truth there are two equally reprehensible excesses, which must be avoided: either to exaggerate its importance or to reduce it unduly. He specifies and balances her presentation: Mary is Mother of God for she has generated a son who even from conception was God.
This dogma is but the corollary of the Biblical doctrine on the oneness of the person in Christ.
In considering the transcendent divine maternity St. Alphonses, following the thought of St Thomas Aquinas, sees it at the limits of divine omnipotence: the dignity of the divine Mother is the maximum dignity that can be conferred to one creature.
In virtue of her privilege as Mother of God, Mary cooperated with Jesus in the salvation of humanity, became Coredemptrix, and now in heaven carries out the mission of Mediatrix.
And this is the second fundamental principle of the mariology of St. Alphonses, for which he battled for a long time, because in the 1700s it was called into question and denied by several theologians. He bases it on the doctrine of the mystical Body of Christ, that is the mystery of the Church, considered as a living body of which Christ is the head and men are the members; an organism in which the redeemed, according to their vocation, occupy the place they are assigned by Providence.
Such primacy is derived from the fact that she is Mother of Christ, from whom comes the life, the movement, the activity of all; now if Mary is the mother of the head, she is also the mother of the body, joined inseparably to the head.
St. Alphonses writes: Mary therefore, as the Fathers tell us, became our spiritual mother at two times. First when she merited to conceive in her virginal womb the Son of God in giving her consent she consecrated herself to the work of our redemption, and therefore, without pain, she carried us all in her womb as a most loving mother. The second time is when Mary generated us in grace when on Calvary she offered to the Eternal Father, in profound sorrow of heart, the life of her beloved Son for our salvation.
GIOVANNI VELOCCI
Giovanni Velocci is a priest in Italy. He has written a book Prayer in Newman, about the prayer life of Cardinal Newman. The English version was just released last year by Newman House Press.
