Sin and health, pain and salvation

Sin and Health: Mary’s Maternal Mediation in Salvation

The relationship between *sin and health* permeates the entire history of salvation. Understanding sin and health from a Marian perspective means rediscovering Mary as a healing mother, whose intercession joins the forgiveness of sins to the integral health of the person.Have you ever heard that someone is suffering or has suffered due to their sins? Or that the Christian life is an eternal suffering? This second part of our journey aims to present Mary with an image not directly contained in Sacred Scripture but inferred from the Church’s tradition. The health state of Mary and Christ is not mentioned by the New Testament hagiographers. They were only concerned with conveying the historical-salvific announcement, focusing on the paschal mystery of the Lord.However, turning to Christian tradition in 256, we find Pope Stephen I in a letter to Basilide, Bishop of Lyon and Astorga, stating that the *lapsi* (those who during persecutions renounced their faith and later asked to be admitted back into the Church) were absolved of their sins:> «*due to the Passion of Christ and by the merits of the Blessed Mother of God, who (re)brought them back to the unity of Sons of God, offering health and sanctity to each of them*»This attribution to Mary of *gratia sanitatum* (the grace of health) helps us understand the connection between salvation and health that we will now attempt to illustrate.The Relationship Between Health and SalvationIn the interpretation of Mariology, this relationship must transcend a position that has been prevalent in the history of Latin Church tradition: the understanding of salvation in a strictly spiritual sense. The forgiveness of sins and communion with God are dissociated from health, which remains strange to salvation, as the latter is achieved by linking itself to Christ’s pains on the cross and therefore to the opposite of health. As early as the 17th century, we find an association between grace and pain, to the point that Louis Chardon, a Dominican, stated that “the more souls unite with the spirit of Jesus, the more they incur the obligation to suffer.” This view is a consequence of dolorism, which led Thomas A. Kempis (d. 1471) in his famous work, *Imitation of Christ*, to write: “Tota vita Christi crux fuit et martyrium” (All of Christ’s life was a cross and martyrdom). Blaise Pascal (d. 1662), a notable Christian thinker, wrote to his sister, saying: “I know the danger of health and the advantages of illness… Do not weep for me because illness is the natural state of Christians.” In light of these testimonies, we must affirm the unity between creation and redemption to rediscover Mary’s true role among the sick.The desire to live, respect for life, and the will to be in good health are goods, values that provide an opportunity to encounter God and rejoice in praising Him for all His benefits. Health is linked to salvation because the Christian has the obligation to preserve life as a gift from God and to place it at the service of the Kingdom. This salvific imperative turns towards life as inclusive of the healthy and the sick, the strong and the weak, and even after Christ, it looks at suffering and death as places of salvation. There is certainly an Gospel of suffering (let us remember Saint John Paul II’s *Salvifici Doloris*, 1984), but also a Gospel of life (let us recall the same Pope’s *Evangelium Vitae*, 1995), because it is not the abundance of suffering in life that graces us, but love in these states of life that leads us to salvation.What is then the relationship between salvation and healing?Jesus, the Physician of bodies and soulsThis title can be found in the earliest Christian tradition, which attests to records of it. Church Fathers such as Ignatius of Antioch (d. 108) proclaim Jesus as the sole spiritual and bodily healer, and later Clement of Alexandria (d. 215) speaks of Jesus as a healer of bodies and souls.The biblical foundation for this title is found in Jesus’ healing ministry, which testifies to his activity. While the Old Testament records only three instances of miraculous healings (Num 21:9; 2 Kings 5:10-14; Isaiah 38:1-8), the Synoptic Gospels record twenty-two accounts of individual healings and twelve of collective healings. These healings typically involve victory over physical illness and exorcism (cf. Mt 8:16). Jesus presents himself as a doctor, but of the whole man, for “it is not the well who need a physician, but the sick” (Mt 9:12). He is the doctor free from all taboos or laws, as he heals on the Sabbath with his word, avoiding any appearance of magic, for he is the plan of God at work in creation, revealing justice and peace.Jesus heals human misery as a sign of compassion and mercy towards a suffering humanity. The Son of Mary, by healing bodies, also heals souls. Thus, the paralysis of the paralytic is linked to sin (Mt 9:1-8). Jesus’ miracles are a sign of the messianic kingdom that restores salvation by reintegrating man into God’s garden (Mt 11:2-3). The healings demonstrate that the incarnate Word, breaking into the world, destroys disease and pain, which are indications of the breach between God and man, to establish the Kingdom, and this same power is transmitted to the disciples (Mt 19:7-8).Mary, Mother of Health and HealerIn the design of God the Father, witnessed by Christ in the salvation and health of humanity, it is not difficult to place Mary within this context. First, because Mary is the root of the universal work of health, that is, Mary in the mystery of salvation is the New Eve and the Mother of the Savior. To this end, Irineu of Lyon (d. 130) testifies that Mary is the cause of salvation and the Mother of Salvation. We remember that in Aramaic, ‘atî means to vivify and heal, and this verb was translated as salvation and health. In this sense, saying “your faith has saved you” (Mk 5:34, 10:52, Lk 7:50, 17:19) means at the same time “your faith has healed you”, because the healings are for the whole man. The same observation is found in the Fathers of the Church who understand salvation in its integral sense, which includes health. Therefore, we must interpret the title cause of salvation in the sense that Mary collaborates effectively in the work of salvation as a complete liberation that regenerates life, bringing man to the situation of paradise.In a work attributed to St. Maximus the Confessor (d. 662) about the Life of Mary, we read that in her later years, such were the miracles and healings that the Jews began to respect Mary: «The Holy Virgin, the Mother of the Lord, was no longer despised by them, on the contrary, they looked at her with respect, at a distance, they bowed to her with fear… and not only because of the miracles that occurred at that time… but even more, day by day, because of the miracles that were completed by her grace and intercession, demons were driven away, incurable ailments were cured, countless signs and wonders occurred through her».Understanding that the contemplation of Mary preceded her glorification, it results to us as Christians that our confidence should be directed to Mary with the certainty that no one more than Mary can apply the verse of James 5:16: “Much does the prayer of the righteous avail”. The Contemplative not only intercedes but also participates in divine power and possesses the power of healing. Recognized throughout Christian tradition as the bearer of therapeutic grace, the Mother of Jesus is invoked as comforter of the afflicted, health of the sick, hope of the hopeless, inexhaustible treasure of healing, healer of incurable wounds, strength of the saints, balm for every heart’s pain, medicine for our members.In Western Christianity, Mary is recognized as salus infirmorum, health of the sick, which was later popularized in the Litanies of Our Lady. We can find Mary’s activity as a healer from heaven to her sick children in the title that Richard of Saint Laurence attributes to her when he states: «Mary is the probatic pool into which the angel of the Lord, that is, the angel of the great council, as Isaiah calls him, descended at the moment of the Incarnation».And the water was stirred by the angelic greeting before which Mary was disturbed, and only those who believed in one God in three persons were healed. We cannot here describe the number and kind of miraculous cures attributed to Mary’s intercession. We merely illustrate that if our life is a book, Mary knows our pages of pain, our alphabet of suffering and the sorrows of society. These are signs of a passage from tragic situations to better health conditions because of a prayer to Mary and the experience of her help. We can even affirm that these moments were a kairós where the fragment of the pascal mystery of death and life found residence in the dialogue between the devotee and Mary. These moments of salvation that intersect with the totality of man make Mary’s invocation as health of the sick a testimony of God’s love.From a dogmatic point of view, we can affirm that Mary anticipates the escatological age, participates in God’s mode of action, goes beyond just requests and desires, and fulfills the Father’s will, as she peregrinates alongside the People of God, especially the weakest. Christ’s unique mediation between God and men does not claim exclusivity but inclusivity. As a cooperator in salvation, Mary is transformed by Christ as a path to the self-understanding of the creature in which God’s love acts, saving and blessing. On the other hand, since faith is dialectical, we also find the responsible response of the believer when he or she, through words, actions, and meditations, gives testimony.Mary participates in the charism of Christ’s healings as demonstrated by the experience of Christians over the centuries. Mary is the health of the sick also because she is the Mother of health, which is Christ. This title does not only refer to the sphere of spiritual salvation, for the purpose of the Incarnation is to give man life and life in abundance. Her transformation in man is achieved through the new creation by the Holy Spirit, in the image of Christ glorified in body and spirit. The two-thousand-year experience of Christianity tells us that Mary is alive and acts in the Church, exercising her permanent motherhood by helping the sick, both of body and spirit.Holy Mary, health of the sick, pray for us!

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In summary, sin and health find in Mary their key for Christian interpretation: the Virgin is “gratia sanitatum,” a source of spiritual and bodily healing. Deepening an understanding of sin and health in the light of Mary opens one to Christ’s mercy mediated through Mary. Read more about Mary as Mother of the Church in Christi Matri.