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Glory Darbellay

Professor Michael Gama

The Mystery of Mary and Her Role in our Spiritual Life

28 October 2021

The Journey Back

This class has helped me to appreciate Mary’s role in the economy of salvation and in

my own spiritual journey. Lumen Gentium tells us that the “union of the mother with the Son in

the work of salvation is manifest from the time of Christ’s virginal conception up to his death”

and continues in eternity (416, 419). The call to participate in Divine life that is implicit with

being created in the image and likeness of God is brought to fulfillment and shines brightly in

Mary as co-mediatrix. She has become an icon of what this call to union with God will bring

about in us and what God can do through us (Lk 1:49). She teaches us a path of surrender that

leads to great fruitfulness – yielding to the movements of grace and to giving our “yes” to the

many and diverse annunciations that will come. Her life shows us that the journey back to the

house of the Father (Jn 14:3) is one of obedience in faith (John Paul II 69). The study of women

in the Bible who are types of Mary, the reflections on Mary as the new Eve, and the reflections

on theosis, made in the light of the icon of the Trinity by Andrei Rublev, were aspects of the

class that most helped me to deepen my appreciation of Mary.

Over the years, I have felt a certain identification with women in the Bible who

experienced the suffering of barrenness followed by a miraculous fruitfulness. I brought this

pondering to my spiritual director and he suggested that I do my monthly, day-long, silent retreat

praying with the “Magnificats” of these women and ending with Mary’s. The night before I

began my retreat, I attended this class where a connection was made between barrenness and
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virginity. A reflection from Ratzinger was shared that linked these states with the theme of

powerlessness overcome by God’s salvation, delivered through the offices of a chosen woman.

As I prayed through the passages the following day, I experienced a strengthening of hope and

confidence that God would fulfill his promise in me as he had done with all these women (Hahn

25). I reflected on the passage about Hannah – seeing her tears, and hearing her husband

question “Am I not more to you than ten sons?” (1 Sam 1:8) – and remembered a time of

disappointment when the Lord spoke those same words to me. Then, I prayed through Hannah’s

“Magnificat” to the Lord after her barrenness was taken away and was deeply moved by her

proclamation that “the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s… He will guard the footsteps of his

faithful ones” (1 Sam 2:8, 9). I ended my retreat with Mary’s “Magnificat,” which convicted me

to walk as she did in the obedience of faith that often brings forth the “night of faith” (John Paull

II 76). Her capacity to believe that the promises of the Lord would be fulfilled (Lk 1:45) when

the plans of the Lord seemed to be thwarted (Jn 19:30) encourages us to journey in “hope

believed against hope” (John Paul II 70).

The next aspect of the class that gave me insight was the reflection on Mary as the new

Eve because it clearly shows us her role in God’s plan to reverse the effects of sin and death and

restore all of creation in Christ Jesus.

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 (Irenaus 1:455).

God puts into effect a new creation, a recapitulation of all things in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). Mary

not only cooperates with her “fiat” (Lk 1:38), but she also actually becomes, through God’s

grace, the first creature who lives completely free of sin (Pitre 39). She did not achieve this, but
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rather she received it, letting it be done to her through the power of God’s word (Lk 1:38). She is

a sign of God’s triumph, not only in going back to reverse what happened in the garden where it

all began (Gn 3:6), but also in the book of Revelation, courageously taking her place as mother

of the Redeemer (Rev 12:1-9) as the world is coming to an end. “She is a second Eve and the

mother of the Messiah whose offspring would conquer Satan” (Pitre 33). Mary as the new Eve

instructs that participation in God’s salvific Plan happens through our fidelity and obedience to

his Will, allowing God to do in us what he desires to do in all of creation. Respecting our free

will, he needs our “yes” every step of the way.

So, what is it that God wants to do in us? What did he create us for? Number 260 in the

Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that “The ultimate end of the whole divine economy is

the entry of God’s creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity. But, even now we are

called to be a dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity” (CCC 69). In other words, our ultimate telos

is to be drawn by grace into the communion of life and love of the Holy Trinity and begin to

experience this participation in the Divine life even now. This experience of “already – but not

yet” is an experience of heaven in the here and now, bound by time, human limitations, and

groaning with the consequences of the fall (Rom 8:26). By contemplating the mystery of Mary

and her role in the economy of salvation, we begin to see and understand what this “eternal

now” means and how it is received. “By baptism we have become ‘sons in the Son.’ The ancient

Christians dared to call this action our divinization.” (Hahn 119). This process of divinization or

deification is a necessary preparation for participation in the Divine life, which is heaven.

Predestined to be the mother of God, Mary received the gifts of baptism, namely sanctifying

grace, through her immaculate conception. And through the gift of an intense love of God that
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was poured into her heart by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5), she corresponded perfectly to God’s

Will, giving her “yes” to what he asked of her.

Mary has always been very close to me, taking me by the hand at a young age, and

through her I received my call to consecrated life. When I am struggling to find the way forward

in difficult situations, or when evil seems to be getting the upper hand, I look to her. She helps

me to find Jesus, listen for his voice, and respond to what he is asking. Her simple wisdom, “Do

whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:4), speaks to obedience and an unwavering faith that God has a plan

that will be fulfilled for “nothing will be impossible for God” (Lk 1: 37). The reality of our life

as reditus, or going back to the bosom of the Father, and the call to deification, being drawn into

the Holy Trinity through powerful movements of grace, are far beyond our reach. Mary teaches

us to listen, to receive, and to obey God’s Word. This Word will be planted in our hearts as it

was in her womb, so that we in turn become a “mystical incarnation,” yielding to the movements

of the Holy Spirit, until Christ is finally formed in us (Gal 4:19).

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Works Cited

Catechism of the Catholic Church. Vatican: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994.

Hahn, Scott. Hail, Holy Queen. New York: Double Day, 2001.

Irenaus. Against Heresies. Rome: Roberts and Donaldson, ANF, 2nd Century AD.

John Paul II. Redemptoris Mater. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988.

Pitre, Brant. Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary. New York: Image, 2018.

Second Vatican Council. Voume 1: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents. Northport,

New York: Costello Publishing Company, 1998.

The New American Bible. Canada: World Bible Publishers, Inc., 1987.