The Role of the Blessed

Mother in the Economy of

Salvation
• The Blessed Mother prophetically for shadowed
in the promise of victory over the serpent in
Genesis.
• The Father Willed the Incarnation.
• In the annunciation when Angel Gabriel told her
she was “ full of grace.” consented to the Divine
Word became the Mother of Jesus. The one and
only Mediator.
• The union of the Mother with Son is manifested when
Mary visits Elizabeth and is greeted as her Baby leapt
with joy in her womb.
• In the public life of Jesus, Mary makes significant
appearances Wedding Feast of Cana, Mary brings by
her intercession the miracles of Jesus.
• Jesus Dying on the Cross.
• On the Day of Pentecost, finally she was assumed into
heaven
On the Blessed Virgin and the
Church
• Maternal Duty, Handmaid of the Lord, Mother of
the Redeemer.
• Maternity of Mary started with the Annunciation.
• Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix, Mediatrix
• By her gift of Divine Maternity, Mary is
intimately united with the Church, for the
Church is rightly called “ Mother” and “ Virgin “
• From the Annunciation to the Crucifixion of her Son, Mary can
be seen as God's ultimate validation of free will. The Virgin
Mary's obedience to the will of God as conveyed to her in the
angel Gabriel's message was no less voluntary in its affirmation
than the disobedience of the virgin Eve had been in its negation.
In the 2nd century St. Irenaeus the Bishop of Lyon and a second
generation disciple from the Apostle John wrote: "...so also
Mary, betrothed to a man but nevertheless still a virgin, being
obedient, was made the cause of salvation for herself and for
the whole human race. [...]. Thus, the knot of Eve's
disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. What the
virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed through
faith." Against Heresies, 3.22.4, Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons.
• Mary, as the first human to kiss the face of God and
the first to believe in Jesus as her Savior, took her
place in Salvation History as the first Christian. She is
also the one disciple of Jesus who didn't flee or
doubt when all the others fled and doubted, but who
stayed and accepted to the very end the burden of
being under the Cross. Down through the ages the
weeping Mary of the Cross witnessing her son's
torture and death stands in solidarity with all
believers who also suffer and live under the shadow
of the Cross.
• The gift of Mary to the Church was Jesus' last human act
from the Cross. He placed His mother's care in the hands
of the only apostle present at the cross, the Apostle John,
"Seeing his mother and the disciple whom he loved
standing near her, Jesus said to his mother, 'Woman, this
is your son.' Then to the disciple he said, 'This is your
mother.' And from that hour the disciple took her into his
home." [John 19:26-27] This is one of only two scenes in
which Mary is present in John's Gospel. The first is the
narrative of the Wedding at Cana in chapter 2 of John's
Gospel. These two scenes in which Mary is present have
several things in common.
• First, Mary is addressed as "gunai" [from the Greek
gune] or "dear Woman" by Jesus in both scenes;
second, she is never called by name but only identified
as "the mother of Jesus"; and third, in both cases a
"new family" is formed: at Cana by the wedding itself
and in the second scene in John chapter 19 a new
family is formed by a kind of adoption in which "the
beloved disciple" takes Mary as his mother and in the
greater sense, as the mother of Christ's family, the
Church--a role she continues to fill to this day.
• It is Mary who bridges the Old and New
Testaments. The Old Testament records God's
plan for man's salvation in His preparations to
make the world ready for the Incarnation. Of all
the tribes of the earth He chose a particular
people to whom He reveals Himself. He nurtures
and instructs them through His prophets in order
for them to be able to recognize the Son of God
when it was time for Him to come.
• In order to accomplish this He takes these people to Himself
in a covenant bond, establishing worship based on sacrifice
to prepare them to understand the ultimate sacrifice that
the Son of God would offer for the salvation of man, for
these people would be the conduit through which the
message of the Son would be carried to the world. And
when the time came, from among these people, He chooses
a woman from a certain preordained family, the house of
David. It was absolutely necessary that she be set apart in
her purity and virtue so as not to make the Incarnation of
the Son of God a sacrilege and so she is conceived without
original sin and set apart in a holy state of purity and
perpetual virginity.
The Four Dogmas of the Virgin Mary
• The perpetual virginity of Mary [expressed in 3 parts:
in her virginal conception of Christ; in giving birth to
Christ, and her continuing virginity after His birth =
virginitas ante partum; virginitas in partu; virtinitas
post partum. The usage of this triple formula to
express the fullness of this mystery of faith became
standard with St. Augustine [354-430], St. Peter
Chrysologus .
• The doctrine of the Assumption of the Virgin is also
part of the Tradition reflected in the writings of the
early Church fathers even though Pius XII defined it as
dogma in 1950. The same is true of the doctrine of the
Immaculate Conception, which was formally defined by
Pope Pius XI in 1854. Early Church hymns speak of
"Mary conceived without sin" and the teaching is
explicitly stated in the writings of Sts. Ambrose,
Augustine, Andrew of Crete, Germain of
Constantinople and other Fathers of the Church. This
teaching was also celebrated in the early Church liturgy.
• A feast commemorating the Immaculate Conception of Mary
was celebrated by the seventh century in the East and was
formally approved and given a standardized liturgy in the
West by Pope Sixtus IV in 1475. It was extended as a feast to
the world Church by St. Pius V in the 1568. Each of these
dogmas are also consistent with Sacred Scripture. For
example the Immaculate Conception is supported by Genesis
3:15 and Luke 1:26-31 which have always been interpreted
by the Church as implying the Virgin Mary's exemption from
Original Sin [Gabriel's greeting to Mary using a perfect past
participle concerning her condition of grace: "Hail has-been
graced"].