All Graces

[badsede]

I'm sure that many of you have heard the news that 5 cardinals have petitioned the Pope to make an ex cathedra pronouncement declaring a fifth Marian dogma, that Mary is Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces.

annabellissima and I spent yestserday evening doing a bunch of web-reading on the subject. We're both ok with the title of Co-Redemptrix when

Comments

[napoleonofnerds]

I guess I see the following issues:

If Mary is co-Redemptrix, then we also would have to say that John the Baptist, Peter, and possibly even Judas Iscariot were also co-redeemers. Especially given the fact that it will be wildly misinterpreted by everyone as soon as it's pronounced and the danger of cheapening the sacrifice of the Cross, this seems like dangerous water for the Church to tread as a whole. If individuals will go there, it's probably okay, but it deserves only magisterial silence.

Mediatrix of All Grace seems heretical to me. It doesn't really tell us anything we should know or which is helpful to our spiritual lives, and it seems to elevate Mary unnaturally. Even if she happens to mediate graces, she does so subordinate to Christ and it's Christ that we should keep in mind, and not his mom, cool a lady as she is.

[brotherskeeper1]

Totally!

[napoleonofnerds]

I've always thought that Mary's perpetual virginity tells us several things:

1. That when Christ entered the world, he did so without destruction or pain.
2. (potentially) That Mary and Joseph were transformed by the events of their lives such that they didn't want to have sex.
3. (My preferred explanation) Joseph was old and Mary wasn't - this means Jesus' brothers were older half-brothers and that Jesus wasn't a terrible kid for not getting married and supporting his family the way older brothers were bound by Jewish law and custom to do.

[napoleonofnerds]

Hey, I didn't say they were especially compelling things, I just said that that's all I had.

[narcissus]

The only explanation that I've heard that makes any sense to me is that sexual relations are a reflection and means of God's love coming into a marriage/family. Mary and Joseph already had the fullness of God's presence in their family and thus sexual relations would be clinging bodily to an echo of reality instead of embracing the reality in front of them.

I dunno, it's not something I'm really set on either way, and it's not important to my personal faith or relationship with Mary.

[bonny_katie]

That's an interesting explanation, it makes sense. I agree with your last line, though. :)

[badsede]

For the life of me, I can't figure out why it's importantLargely because of reasons that don't really have much prominence in our culture. Mary is the new Tabernacle, consecrated to this role. It is the idea of consecration that doesn't really seem to have much resonance with us today. But the idea within 2nd Temple Judaism and thus Catholicism is that when something is consecrated, it is "set aside" for a holy use. Once something is set aside for a holy use, it is not returned to ordinary use -not that there is anything wrong or bad about the ordinary use, it is just that the holy use is something better - and if it is returned to ordinary use, it was either never really consecrated, or it was profaned

[badsede]

This is interesting, but, it's a stretch.

This view of consecration permeates Catholicism though, found frequently in the Bible. Therefore, I really don't think it is a stretch, it really seems to be part of the "cosmic" order of things.

Since sex between a husband and wife is a consummation of the Sacrament of marriage, since it is indeed a renewal of the vows of the Sacrament it seems to that sex is indeed "holy use" of the body. That, and giving birth to a baby is no more out of the "ordinary" than anything else we do with our bodies.

On one level, we have to bear in mind that the Sacrament did not exist at the time. But beyond that, sex is essentially holy - it is, after all, the way that we become an icon of the Trinity and the way in which we participate in God's creation of the peak of His creation: humanity - but it is also ordinary, something experienced by the majority of people. Bearing God Incarnate, *that* is not just a holy use, but a special use.

[badsede]

If Mary is co-Redemptrix, then we also would have to say that John the Baptist, Peter, and possibly even Judas Iscariot were also co-redeemers.

Exactly. That's the way I tried to explain it, that "Co-Redeemer" is something that we could call anyone who participated either in the historical event of the *the* Redemption, or even to anyone who participates in the redemption of a particular individual. To give Mary an actual title only reflects how singular/monumental/important her particular "Co-" was. (Although, I think we might limit it to only those who have played a positive role - so no Judas - since the "with" part seems to imply cooperation, not just utilitarian use.)

Mediatrix of All Grace seems heretical to me.

You know, it really does to me too. But that is just a sense for me, I can't point to anything in particular that would demonstrate that it actually *is* heretical.

[napoleonofnerds]

Exactly, it's just a sense that something is wrong with it mechanically - I think that Mary's prayers are efficacious, which means she mediates some grace, but I also think the prayers of Saint Isidore of Seville are efficacious, otherwise asking for them would be pointless. I suppose the closest thing I could see to a heresy is that it could be construed to deny the place of the other Saints and of human beings in obtaining and transmitting Grace.