The Marian principle of the Church: Mary at the cross

The “Principle Marian”: Mary at the Cross as the Apex of Her Maternal Participation in the Redemptive Work

The presence of Mary at the cross of Jesus constitutes the highest moment of her maternal participation in Christ’s redemptive work, in which she uniquely personifies the maternal participation of the Church.In the presence of Mary, “alongside the cross,” one can summarize the meaning of what is called, both within the magisterium of John Paul II and in theology, the Marian principle of the Church. This is not, however, a return to the theme of the “first principle” of mariology, grounded in a recent past. With this principle, one intends to affirm that contribution of light and action in the mystery of the Church that comes from the person of Mary and her singular participation in the mystery of redemption. John Paul II, in his “Letter to Women” (1995), prophetically announces a further development of the Church in the third millennium, linked to new and surprising manifestations of the “female genius” (n. 11), in harmony precisely with the “Marian principle of the Church.”This principle is defined in a multifaceted context: that of the relationship between “the Church and Mary,” between “the Church-Mary” and “the sovereign mediating role of Christ in redemption,” between “Mary” and “the identity of women.” While it is true that the relationship between Christ and the Church-Mary finds its roots in the oldest Christian tradition, from Scripture itself, it also appears particularly significant for the “issue of women,” which is a sign of the times. In reality, the role of women emerges in the salvific history through that presence of the feminine that goes from the first pages of Scripture (Gn 1-3) to the last (Ap 12, 21).However, it must be affirmed from the outset, to avoid misunderstandings and for a correct evaluation, that the “Marian principle of the Church” cannot be affirmed autonomously: it must always be considered in relation to the other principle, the structural sacramental-petrine principle, to which it must be deeply united. It is in this relationship, above all, that the original value of the Marian principle of the Church is defined, by which it is not affirmed that the Church as an “institution” is dependent on Mary. Rather, it is about understanding, as Paul VI stated, that “the reality of the Church does not exhaust itself in its theological structure, in its liturgy, in its sacraments, in its juridical ordinances. Its intimate essence, the first source of its sanctifying effectiveness, must be sought in its mystical union with Christ.”In this line, it is also necessary to affirm, as the New Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting the words of John Paul II, states, that the structure of the Church “is completely ordered to the holiness of the members of Christ. And holiness is measured according to the ‘great Mystery,’ in which the Bride responds with the gift of love to the gift of the Spouse.” Mary precedes us all on the path of holiness that is the mystery of the Church, “the Bride without spot or wrinkle” (Ef 5,27).The Marian Dimension of the Church Precedes Its Petrine DimensionThe “feminine principle” of the Church-Mary: the figure of the New Eve in Scripture, the New Testament, and patristic traditionIt is well-known the importance of female figures with whom God’s people is represented in both the Old and New Testaments, and in patristic tradition. The mystery of the Church is symbolically expressed through figures such as the New Eve, Mother, Wife, and Virgin. The relationship between Christ and the Church, represented through the deep analogy of these female figures, seeks to express that, if Christ is at the center of the original plans of the Father, who elected and decided to recapitulate all things in Him (Eph 1:10), the Church and the entire cosmos are never absent from this divine plan at any moment. In fact, the Church is not merely a setting in which this plan unfolds, but an essential (feminine) partner in the divine work. The fundamental argument for this assertion is based on the fact that there is no authentic revelation of God without its “interiorization in the consciousness of a faithful community.” Thus, the original and ever-living offer of the trinitarian redeeming love, revealed on the cross-resurrection of Christ, elicits a faithful response to this same love. This response, however, is itself the fruit of the initiative of the Father, the action of the Son, and the Holy Spirit that stirs it up in the human heart.Therefore, one can consider that, in the Father’s design, in correspondence to the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8), there is also an eternal “feminine partner” of Christ: the presence of the faithful community, the Church, which was early referred to in tradition as Mary. Thus: “Just as the Proto-Evangelium (Gen 3:15) indicates an ecclesia from Adam, so it also indicates an ecclesia from Eva-Mary, in which the woman is given the first place in the new beginning of creation (2 Cor 5:17) that will be realized in Christ, the New Adam.” The personification of the Church’s mystery in female images reaches a completely singular moment in the historical and real person of Mary of Nazareth, culminating in her presence at the cross and the praying community in the cenacle awaiting the coming of the Spirit (Acts 1:14). It is in her that the personal mystery of the Church is concretely and symbolically realized. Throughout tradition, both patristic and medieval, the relationship “Church-Mary” tends to merge “within the framework of a motherhood identical, at once virgin and esponsal, by which the opening of Mary’s womb is the opening of the Church’s womb.”The birth of the Church (John 19:31-37) in the Fathers: the New Eve and the sacramental mystery emerging from the crucifiedIn the theological reflection of the Fathers, the “feminine principle” of the New Eve is initially affirmed in the contemplation of the birth of the Church as a “sacramental mystery,” from the event of the Cross, in the narration of the spear’s thrust and the flowing of blood and water (John 19:34-37). In this episode, patristic tradition, recalling the symbolic description of Genesis (2:21-23), sees its fulfillment in the origin of the Church from the New Adam during his death sleep. She, as his Bride of the new age, is filled by Christ the Crucified, her Spouse, with the superabundance of grace gifts, not to supply her deficiency, but to meet our deficiency. In this episode of the evangelical narrative of Jesus’ crucifixion, one can say that the nuptials of the Word with humanity are consummated, and the petrine-sacramental face of the Church is defined, which, while it finds its roots in the pre-Paschal time of Jesus’ history, is fulfilled in the Paschal mystery and the gift of the Spirit. Thus, the Church, born of blood and water, as a “sign of Christ’s presence” (St. Augustine), is the realization of the Marian dimension of the Church preceding its petrine dimension.(Lumen Gentium 48) in history, prolongs the exercise of the priestly ministry, as its “Body” and “Universal Sacrament of Salvation.”Many Fathers did not give theological importance to the scene of Mary at the foot of the cross (Jn 19:25-27). Instead, it is commented on as an expression of Christ’s filial piety towards his Mother.Seen in this light, the sacramental face of the Church, born from Christ’s pierced side on the cross, highlights the presence of Christ’s own person in his pastoral ministry. It participates in Christ’s salvific mystery, in the action of his sacrifice, continuing, throughout history, his permanent priestly ministerial function, and underscores both its unity with Christ and Christ’s presence in its liturgical life (SC 7.11). The predominance of the Christological-sacramental-Petrine perspective in the image of Eve-Church draws it closer to Paul’s idea of the Body of Christ.However, by focusing solely on the unity and identity of the Church with Christ’s ministry, as a permanent and living sign of his love for humanity (cf. GS 76), and emphasizing this aspect, which organically and harmoniously connects the theological, structural, and institutional elements of the Church, constituted by Christ and founded on Christ, in such a way that it is in the world as his permanent presence, there is a risk of dehumanizing the Church. It would become merely a function of Christology, or the communicative presence of the Risen One and his grace offered to humanity. It is well known that the Second Vatican Council, to avoid this danger, emphasizes the particular character of this sacramental sign, which, in addition to its essential reference to Christ’s person and ministry, also includes that of its social, visible, human reality, by which “to be a sacrament” of the Church consists also in its existence as a universal human community. In this light, one finds within the sacramental conception of the Church that feminine principle which guarantees the espousal relationship between humanity and Christ, a principle that shines particularly in the image of Mary at the foot of the cross.Maria and the Church-New Eve born from the cross: Mary’s personal participation in salvation in Jn 19:25-27The New Eve Church, which is born from the event of the cross (Jo 19,31-37), is not only a structural principle (sacramental), operating through human persons “ordered” to a ministry (Petrine principle), in direct representation of Christ, but is also a “someone,” as an “interlocutor,” of the trinitarian event of God, who is offered in Jesus Christ: someone whom Christ loved, for whom he gave himself, and to whom he responds to this love. The Church is also a subject, consisting of “human persons organically united in a fraternal communion.” Considering the Church from this perspective, as a person, in its esponsal relationship with Christ, its own liturgical and pastoral life should not be restricted exclusively to the ministerial action of the ordained priesthood, to the grace-giving action it exercises “in persona Christi,” as its “personal presence,” nor can it be limited to the sole active orientation of the shepherds: the mystery of the Church also involves the entirety of its members, in the spiritual action of the “all the faithful ‘we,'” as a subject, and not merely an object, of pastoral life.Here is revealed the particular role of Mary, in her maternal action, cooperating with the primordial mystery of Christ’s redemptive action, in the event of his cross, and operating, in her iconic value, in relation to the whole Church. Mary advanced in the pilgrimage of faith and «guarded faithfully her union with the Son until the cross, where, not without a divine design, she remained (Jn 19:25), suffering deeply with her Only-begotten and associating herself with a maternal spirit to his sacrifice, consenting lovingly to the immolation of the victim she had generated, and finally, by the same Jesus dying on the cross, she was given as a mother to the disciple with these words: “Woman, behold your Son”» (Lumen Gentium 58). The presence of Mary’s person at the cross sheds light both on the mystery of redemption accomplished in Christ and on the image of the Church itself, revealing the importance of its «Marian principle». Mary reveals, in fact, that the «accomplishment» (Jn 19:28) that took place and continues to take place (Jn 19:30) in Christ’s offering on the cross does not consist merely in Christ’s work (Christus solus) by which humanity is saved, but also in the participation of the human creature in the very event of his death on the cross. This «active participation» must be understood, however, not only in reference to the ministers who, in the Person of Christ, continue, in history, his salvific pastoral ministry, but also in the active participation of all the faithful who, united to the shepherds, constitute the “we” of the Church itself, in its communal face. The work of salvation must always be seen within the framework of the dialectical context of the new covenant, which has its temporal beginning in the Incarnation of the Son, sent by the Father, in the Holy Spirit, and its consummation in his death and resurrection and in the Church’s participation as “subject”, united in a spousal relationship to this mystery.In the Letter to the Hebrews, the redemptive event of Christ’s Incarnation is defined, in its very existential nature, as a will to obedience to the Father (Heb 10:9; Ps 40:7-9), culminating in the once-for-all sacrifice He made (Heb 10:10). To this constant state of priestly obedience, Mary responds with her obedience, both in her Incarnation (Lk 1:38) and in her participation in the sacrificial offering of the Son on the Cross (Jn 19:25-27). It can be said that Christ’s “behold, I come” (Heb 10:9) simultaneously evokes and receives Mary’s “yes,” and with it, the whole Church. It is at the hour of the Cross that this espousal relationship reaches its fulfillment. It is no coincidence that the “it is finished” (tetelestai) of the Cross is first linked (Jn 19:28) to the previous scene of “the Mother and the disciple whom Jesus loved.” This fulfillment is further expressed in Jesus’ breathing his last, in the gift of his Spirit (Jn 19:30). If the completion of the redemptive work is found in the Spirit, already given on the Cross, it is because the eternal Spirit inspires, at the same time, the flawless offering of the Crucified (Heb 9:14) and the offering of Mother Mary-Church, united to Him in a spousal bond. Thus, “at the foot of the Cross,” Mary stands, the first of the disciples and the Mother of the Lord and of the Church. She is, at once, the icon of the Trinitarian love and the primordial of the new humanity, clothed in the nuptial garment of charity. In her, the yes of God’s love and the yes of humanity’s redemption by Christ are united. There is, therefore, no “completion” of Christ’s priestly work that continues in a “sacramental Church,” restricted solely to the ministry of the ordained priesthood, without the active participation of “Mary-Mother,” and with her, of “Church-Mother.”Mary’s active personal participation in Christ’s Cross event is affirmed, then, in its iconic value, as through her spiritual and universal maternal action, she personalizes and anticipates in herself the oblative response of the universal priesthood of the whole Church. Mary, one might say, incarnates the fundamental qualities of that universal priesthood, exercised in the Church, both through the “worship in spirit and in truth” and through the offering, in life, of “spiritual sacrifices” by all the faithful, who, through God’s mercy, offer themselves (their bodies) as a “living, holy, and pleasing sacrifice” to God (Rom 12:1; cf. LG 34). This exercise of worship and spiritual offering does not take place parallel to the ministerial priesthood’s offering, but is exercised in communion with it, in a single act of oblation, with the single priestly offering of Jesus, exalted in the Spirit to the praise and glory of the Father.

The Spiritual Maternity of Mary on the Cross and the Birth of the Church: The Mother of All Redeemed in the Redemptive Event

I return to and further develop some reflections on the participation of Mary and the Mother Church in the redemptive event on the cross. The Mother of Jesus, throughout her earthly existence, appears as the human person who, by the Spirit, is made capable of receiving and generating the divine Word, first in her heart and then in her body. She is the Woman in whom, in the context of the new covenant, the grace of the offering of the gift, in its absolute gratuity, is revealed, as well as the grace of receptivity that elicits a response to the gift of divine love. Mary is, above all, the woman predestined, the one chosen above all others, as a “sign” of the divine grace offered to humanity (κεχαριτωμένη: Lk 1:28), to receive within herself, for all humanity, the fullness of the Father’s love. Thus, she, on whom the Spirit rests (Lk 1:35), embodies the New Zion, who has within herself the fullness of the Lord’s presence (Lk 1:28b). This mystery of election and personification of the mystery of the Church shines particularly in the event of the cross (Jn 19:25-27), where Christ proclaims her “Woman,” Mother of the disciples and of all humanity. If it is true that in Mary, the primordial idea of the Church, as the “mystery of birth from above” (Jn 3:3) takes historical concretion in its most perfect form, the Church, in Mary, recognizes itself in its identity as Mother in the Spirit, in essential correlation to the event of Christ and in essential correlation to the whole of humanity.As a Mother of the faithful, by the virtue of the Spirit, Mary appears as the revealing icon of the fertility of the very Spirit. I can say: since the Spirit is the divine Person who best reveals “what can correspond in God, in the uncreated, to this created reality that is the female sex” (L. Bouyer), so the work of God, as Spirit, which disposes humanity to receive deeply and interiorly the Word of the Son, constituted in Mary, in her own femininity, the historical subject who made possible the coming among us of this Word. In her pneumatical motherhood, proclaimed by Christ on the cross (Jn 19:25-27), Mary appears as the prototype of the spiritual dimension of the Church that constantly acts, communing in holiness and guiding the faithful to the values of the Spirit and to mystical life. H.U. von Balthasar, in his theological aesthetics, describes what we might call the archetypal Marian experience of the Church (the Marian experience of God), distinct from that of the apostles. This Marian experience expresses an iconic function, precisely because it appears in all its interior and trans-historical valence, communicative of transcendence. It plays a crucial, indispensable role in preventing the identity of the Church from contracting to its mere organizational structures, expressions of technical conceptualization, and simple historicizations: “When the image of the Woman disappears from theological reality, abstract male and image-less conceptualization and technique prevail. Then faith is expelled from the world and relegated to the realm of paradox and absurdity.”This perspective is particularly significant today in the context of ecumenical dialogue with Evangelical churches, with which, despite differences regarding the Catholic affirmation of how “the ‘Church-Mary'” (and also the individual Christian) “cooperates” with Christ’s salvation, there are greater possibilities for understanding. To the extent that “in this example of Mary, cooperation is understood as a receptive participation,” a significant first obstacle is removed from Evangelical thought. Therefore, Pope Paul VI, in his Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus (February 2, 1974, n. 33), states that despite the recognition of existing differences, “the veneration of the Virgin servant of the Lord, in whom the Almighty wrought wonders, is not an obstacle, but, though slowly, becomes a path and a point of encounter for the unity of all Christians.”

The Holy Spirit, Mary, and the Priestly People: A Marian Principle and Participation in Christ’s Unique Priesthood

If, in her spiritual motherhood, proclaimed on the cross, Mary appears as the icon revealing the fertility of the grace of the Holy Spirit, we can say that in her resplends the mystery of the Church, as a mystery of holiness, as the communion of saints, as worship in spirit and in truth. This mystery is founded on the participation in Christ’s own holiness. However, in the context of the event of the Incarnation, this state of holiness finds its concrete realization in a sacramental economy from which it cannot be dispensed: to worship the Father in spirit and in truth, it is indeed necessary to live a spiritual life proceeding from the Holy Spirit, a life that involves a new birth (John 3:5-6). This means that this holiness, this worship in spirit, for the Christian, has its foundation in baptism, by which he lives his condition of consecration under the vital inspiration of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8, 1 John 2:20). This condition of consecration is called spiritual priesthood, which is not aimed at a particular ministry, but rather a mode of existence and life, a personal and communal behavior of adoration. “To worship the Father in spirit and in truth, it is necessary to be sanctified inwardly by the Holy Spirit, to be penetrated by the revelation of Christ, and to be animated by his filial life. The earthly life must be placed under the dominion of the divine life of the Trinity: this dominion constitutes a priestly consecration, an extension of that which was perfectly realized in Jesus.”This common and universal priesthood, this holy priesthood, by which the Church, as a “spiritual building,” is constituted in the degree of “offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5), a priesthood already foreshadowed by Christ (John 4:23), finds its first fundamental realization precisely in the maternal figure of Mary at the foot of the cross. In fact, Mary’s first participation in this spiritual priesthood begins already in the mystery of the Annunciation, through her singular union with the “archetypal Sacrament” that is Christ, as her Mother, invested by the virtue of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35). At that moment, she already received the grace of spiritual priesthood sanctity, in her obedience to divine will (Luke 1:38). But it is on the cross that the priestly sanctity of Jesus, consummated in his sacrifice of obedience to the Father, resounds perfectly in Mary, who incarnates the New Eve (the “Woman”: John 19:26; Genesis 3:20), the Church. The spiritual participation in Christ’s sacrificial offering thus defines, jointly, the priesthood of the universal Church and its Marian qualification. And this, not because Mary exercises it by virtue of her own power or strength that springs from her human faculties and potentialities. For Mary, the exercise of this spiritual priesthood “is a singularest gift of grace, a grace that only God can confer.” The Second Vatican Council warns theologians to consider how all of Mary’s gifts are ordered to Christ (Lumen Gentium 67).Therefore, if the Second Vatican Council affirms that in the Church, Mary is invoked “with the titles of Advocate, Helper, Comforter, Mediator” (Lumen Gentium 62), these attributions (particularly “Mediator”) must be interpreted in a context that affirms the transcendence and effectiveness of Christ, the unique Mediator (cf. Lumen Gentium 62). In this context, the Council’s preferred language is that of “cooperation,” language that itself must be free from any ambiguity: “to cooperate” in the Catholic sense is always to respond to God’s grace, to acknowledge His gifts. Thus, Mary’s work, her “yes,” is affirmed within an economy of “grace offering,” which makes space for the creature’s free response.The unique role of Mary in the salvific event of the cross must be further described, not merely as cooperation, but as «*in accordance with the ancient tradition of faith, as ‘spiritual motherhood’*» or as «*maternal mediation*». This affirms, at least implicitly, that Mary’s participation, though subordinate and shared with Christ, must be understood also «*in a different sense from its line of salvific effectiveness*». Mary’s effective role is not to be placed, in fact, on the line of communication, grace donation, which in theology refers to the effectiveness of Christ’s redemptive action in the sacraments. Mary is not to be considered an eighth sacrament, nor a super-sacrament. Mary’s personal active role must be understood, rather, in the line of grace reception, offered by Christ, through the action of the Holy Spirit, to those who, in faith, participate in the sacramental life of the Church. Christian understanding of grace does, in fact, involve the necessity of combining two of its essential aspects: the priority of God’s gift and the gratuity of the personal-community response to that gift. In Mary, these two aspects are found. Indeed, not only does the gift of grace from Christ, crucified and risen, break forth in her, but her response of love is also realized, always under the action of the Spirit. In her, historically, the ‘fiat’ of reception, consent, and communion in espousal to the gift from the Father in Christ Jesus, in the unity of the Spirit that endures in the life of the Church, is accomplished. I can say, then, that Mary, in her physical motherhood, not only generates, by the virtue of the Holy Spirit, He who incarnates the very salvation, the Savior, the objective content of the faith that is only in her, but she also generates, in the Holy Spirit, the very faith that is believed in the Church, which, as Mother, spiritually generates in Mary. And wherever the generative work of the Church takes place in history, Mary’s spiritual motherhood endures. Thus, it can be affirmed, with the Fathers, that when a faithful soul, in faith, opens itself to receive, in the Spirit, the seed of the Word, it, like the Church and Mary, becomes «*generator of the Word*». Therefore, Mary, in her maternal mediation, «*personally*» and not merely exemplarily, lives and acts in the Church, in that maternal generative influence, made of reception and dedication.The Marian principle of the Church, in recalling Mary’s participation in the mystery of Christ’s cross, does not compromise the absolute primacy of grace. On the contrary, it shows that the very gift of grace does not exclude the human response, but rather suscites, makes possible, and even obliges it. Grace’s receptivity is expressed in the indissoluble principle that «*we are not the origin of ourselves*», placing us in ourselves as responsible persons: «*the grace that falls, makes itself grace that allows a response*». Thus, the «*Marian principle*» reminds us that the human response is an integral part of the redemptive process. But this means that this active aspect that shines in Mary’s maternal action and in the Church’s action, in its own personal character, must be considered, not isolated from itself, but in the context of the influence derived from the offering of divine love in Christ, who, with the gift of his merciful love, also nourishes the attitude of faithful and total response, in which Christ’s action finds its fulfillment (Jn 19:25-28).Thus, we can see Mary’s role, in a exemplary way, as the double participation of the universal priesthood of the Church in Christ’s sacerdotal action:a. In relation to her mediating descent, in the communication of grace, Mary appears as an excellent model for the Church in the attitude of grace reception in the Spirit. Thus, she reminds us that faith is not primarily a search for God by man, but the recognition that God, in Christ, comes to meet us in his grace.b. In relation to Christ’s mediating ascent, expressed in his prayer and offering to the Father, Mary incarnates, in a prototypical way for the Church, the principle of the creature that participates actively in Christ’s oblation.The document *Marialis cultus* examines with particular attention Mary’s presence in the liturgy of the Church, stating that “discovering the living and active presence of the Mother of the Lord in the liturgy and celebrating her memory becomes the highest expression of veneration and, as such, recognition of her exemplarity. Looking at Mary, we are invited to make our lives a worship of God and our worship a commitment of life” (MC, 21).This movement in which the Church receives and offers, through its prayer, the gifts that descend from the Father, through the Incarnate Son, and by Him ascend to the Father, finds its most complete realization in the Eucharistic action. But in the Eucharist, the Marian principle that characterizes the Church in her role is also evident.It is particularly in the Eucharist that the double dimension of Christ’s priesthood is at work, in the ministry priesthood and the universal priesthood. Here appears exemplarily the profound meaning of their reciprocal complementarity. While it is true, as the Second Vatican Council states, that the sacrated power of the ordained priesthood is to “form and guide the priestly people” and to offer in his name the Eucharistic Sacrifice, it is also true that the universal priesthood of the Church is related to the ministerial priesthood to the extent that it can only be exercised in communion with this ministry. Through this ministry, indeed, the regal priesthood is constituted, and through it, the faithful “contribute to the offering of the Eucharist, and exercise it by receiving the sacraments, with prayer and thanksgiving, with the testimony of a holy life, with self-denial and laboring charity.”But the baptized, consecrated to the image of Christ, are called to live a life of grace in the school of Mary, participating in the priestly and filial worship that ascends to the Father in Christ, in Spirit and in Truth, in the mystery of the Eucharist. This task must continue in the world, through a witness that involves the whole of creation in the worship of Christ and the Church, contributing to its sanctification. In this sense, the baptized are priests of humanity, priests whose personal worship benefits all. The common priesthood tends to elevate the sanctity of the universe.Synthesis: Mary at the Cross as an Icon of the Fruitfulness of Grace and the Marian Principle in the Mystical Body of the ChurchThe presence of Mary at the cross of Jesus represents the apex of her maternal participation in Christ’s redemptive work, symbolizing in a unique way the participation of the Church. This moment, highlighted both by the teaching of John Paul II and contemporary theology, encapsulates the “Marian principle” of the Church, a principle that must not be considered in isolation but always in deep connection with the structural sacramental-petrine principle.Mary, in her union with Christ on the cross, reveals the mystery of the Church as a mystery of sanctity and communion of saints, founded on participation in Christ’s own sanctity. This mystery is manifested in the sacramental reality of the Church, born from Christ’s side, and expressed through the common spiritual priesthood of the faithful. Mary, as the New Eve, not only cooperates in Christ’s redemptive work but personifies the Church in her maternal dimension, underscoring the importance of human response to divine grace.Mary’s role as Mother of the faithful and icon of the Church emphasizes the need for a spirituality lived in communion with the Holy Spirit, with a commitment to holiness and mystical life. Her presence in the Eucharistic liturgy exemplifies the complementarity between the ministerial priesthood and the universal priesthood of the faithful, where the active participation of the faithful in Christ’s oblation is fully realized.The Marian principle of the Church does not compromise the primacy of grace but emphasizes the integration of human response into the redemptive process. Mary, in her spiritual motherhood, exemplifies reception and dedication to divine grace, showing that true holiness involves both the reception of grace and active, faithful response to it. Thus, the Marian principle reminds the reader that Mary’s participation in Christ’s cross is a model for the whole Church, a commitment to fully live the universal priesthood in communion with Christ and one another.