The mariology of Karl Rahner

Anthropology of Karl RahnerUnlike Guardini, Rahner remains and acts within the specific field of systematic theology. However, just as for Guardini, theology has value and meaning if it meets, in a real and authentic way, everyday life. Only the great proximity to the small things gives great theology, including academic theology, meaning and strength.Rahner is one of the most influential and significant authors of the anthropological current. Unlike Guardini, he inserts each of his treatises within a pastoral perspective and always within the context of a global theological discourse. For Rahner, man is essentially a spirit in listening to the possible revelation of God, he is the being who also has the duty to listen to this revelation. This metaphysical capacity for opening to the absolute present itself through grace, which is the self-communication of God received by man in faith and love. This mystery of grace is, for Rahner, the starting point for a theological reflection on the Christian, so his theology is said to be “charismatic,” that is, centered on grace, *charis*. From this perspective, theology, in addition to being a total glorification of God, is also necessarily, in its most intimate fulfillment, an exaltation of man. Rahner sees the reason for this theology of man not only in the order of creation, but also in the historical order of the Alliance and the Incarnation, where God wished to deal with us, made us his interlocutors, and even became one of us, a man like us. One cannot do theology, therefore, without necessarily doing anthropology.Mariology of Karl RahnerRahner’s bibliography includes 40 titles of mariological works, some of which are unpublished, in addition to references or treatments in other works. The valorization of Mary is, for Rahner, a postulate of the philosophical-theological premises of his anthropological system, as presented above.In general, Rahner’s mariology is:

1. Neither Rahner, like Guardini, believes in an autonomous approach to the Mother of the Lord. A correct discourse about her finds assent and validity only in relation to the essential questions of anthropology and christology. The background is always the historical-salvific horizon where, if Mary’s place is defined as essential, unique, and decisive, this in no way prevents seeing her as a simple creature, like us, belonging to the unique human family.
2. When faith and theology express themselves about the salvific meaning and importance of man in God’s history, they must necessarily speak of Mary, who has decisive importance in the History of Salvation alongside Christ, by the will of God himself. If theology must be anthropological, it must also be mariological.
3. The historical-salvific meaning of Mary is determined by her divine motherhood, understood not as a purely biological fact, but as a spiritual-corporeal event and a decisive point in the history of salvation.
4. The “fiat” of Mary has deep meaning throughout human history, because it is realized in the Incarnation, which is the act in which God irrevocably embraces the world and begins redemption, to be definitively accomplished with Christ’s death. Mary’s “yes” is therefore directly soteriological, and Mary occupies a central place in the history of salvation, not as the passive Mother of the Lord, but because, through her free action, she becomes effectively such by giving her assent to the decisive act of God.
5. Since Mary’s consent is made possible by Christ’s grace, it not only cooperates with man’s salvation, but is an act of embracing redemption for herself. Mary is therefore the perfect example of redemption, the prototype of the Church redeemed, the realization of perfect Christianity, which is the pure embrace of the one God in three persons that appears in Christ.
6. Mary, though essential, unique, and decisive in the history of salvation, is entirely on our side, belonging, like us, to the unique human family. Like us, she was redeemed and received everything from God’s mercy.
7. The relationship between Mary and the Church is very intimate, to the point that considering one favors the knowledge of the other. Ecclesiology safeguards mariology from falling into sentimentalism and subjective isolation, and mariology enriches and fertilizes ecclesiology. The Church is not a static substance, but is realized and continuously built up by concrete men. Therefore, one must look at them if one wants to learn to know what the Church is. There is therefore no human being capable of representing the genuine essence of Christianity better than Mary. Indeed, by concentrating thought on this concrete person, in her way of acting and her destiny, one can understand much better, than through purely abstract concepts, what the Church is.
8. By manifesting to the Church her nature, Mary also shows man his vocation to be the image of God and to participate in his life, opening up to Christ in faith and donation. When we celebrate Mary, we celebrate a Christian way of understanding human existence, we celebrate and proclaim the Christian idea of man.

As “Meditações Marianas” de Karl RahnerLines of Dogmatic Teaching about MaryA) Mary is the Virgin Mother of ChristThis maternal relationship must not be reduced to a purely physical connection. She received for us the Son of God, in a free “yes” of her faith, and from her breast gave him that earthly existence by which he could be a member of the new human family and thus his Redeemer. Her motherhood is, therefore, an act of her faith and not a mere biological process. This divine motherhood, freely accepted, takes place as a reception of God’s grace that, in the Incarnation, comes into the world and, thus, in a true collaboration with God who operates in man. This function of receiving salvation is assumed and exercised by her throughout her entire existence, until the hour of Redemption. Because of this central place in the history of salvation, Mary is, for the Church, the absolute and radical case of the redeemed man, one who was redeemed perfectly and thus the archetype of the redeemed and of the Church in general, according to the secret design of God’s will. Mary was, therefore, by God’s gratuitous grace, preserved from guilt and from all sin, and was not subject to concupiscence.Mary was also not merely a mother, but the Virgin Mother of Christ. This birth of the Son without the contribution of a man, yet by true generation of a mother, clearly establishes a radically new starting point for salvation and shows that the history of humanity, burdened with sin, does not continue simply, but is renewed in redemption. Because of her complete donation to Christ for the good of the Church, the Church recognizes Mary as always Virgin.With her glorious Assumption into heaven, Mary reached her perfect fulfillment with body and soul, and from heaven intercedes for us, where her maternal function is sublimated and attains its fullness.B) Mary was a concrete person of her timeShe is a descendant of David, related to the priestly family of Zacharias and Elizabeth, betrothed and wife of Joseph of Nazareth. She conceives her boy in this city and gives birth to him in Bethlehem. She is forced to flee to Egypt, but later returns and lives permanently with Joseph and Jesus in Nazareth. She takes an active part in the religious life of her people, leads a life of work, poverty, and loving acceptance of God’s unfathomable dispositions. Participating intimately in the mysteries of the Son, she demonstrates that she did not embrace her motherhood merely biologically, but rather in faith, as a reception of God’s supreme will. She also experienced death in the authentic fulfillment of her earthly existence, as befits the fate of all men, in imitation of her Son’s death.C) The special cult of MaryGiven her singular dignity as Mother of God and the unique place Mary holds in the history of salvation and in the life of the Church, a particular cult is paid to her. This Marian piety is manifested in the Church through specific Marian feasts that celebrate facts and events in Mary’s life connected to the mysteries of Christ. By other feasts through which the Church recognizes Mary’s presence in its own history. And through other forms of piety, such as the prayers of the Rosary, the Angelus, pilgrimages, consecration, etc. This cult of the Virgin fulfills her prophecy: «All nations shall call me blessed».Mary in theologyA Christian who wishes to reflect on Mary must, above all, open the Sacred Scriptures, read under the guidance of the Magisterium of the Church, because the Church proclaims what is read in the Scriptures. The first question that spontaneously arises is that which lies at the origin of the discourse: but faith, speaking absolutely, has something to tell us about Mary, about a woman, about a creature? Does there fundamentally exist a theology of man? Only after answering this question can we answer the question about Mary and, retracing our steps, understand what the Scriptures, through the Church, tell us about Mary. The last question must be answered affirmatively: yes, there is a theology of man, a proclamation of faith and a theology that praises and glorifies God at the same time that it says something about man. And this for several reasons: first, because God is truly all in all and, secondly, because God, in his ineffable glory, in his eternal life, made us participants in his own eternal life. Furthermore, having concluded an alliance with us, he became one of us, he became human. After the event of the Incarnation, in Christianity, nothing true, authentic, concrete about God can be said without confessing him as Emmanuel, God with us. Therefore, God’s face shines in man, and for this reason, theology, as glorification of God, is also a theology of exaltation of man. Therefore, when we speak of the mystery of Christ and salvation, we must also speak of Mary, because in this story she has a decisive importance, beloved by God himself. Celebrating God, celebrating the man who comes into contact with God, we cannot not speak of Mary, we cannot not celebrate Mary, because in her we celebrate a Christian way of understanding man, we proclaim the Christian idea of man. The praise of Mary is the praise of God who gives himself to man and the praise of man who receives God in fullness and with responsibility.Fundamental Lines of MariologyWhat is, for theologians, the fundamental principle of Mariology? Theologists are divided: some say it is divine motherhood. Others, her cooperation in salvation. Others, her universal motherhood. “For me,” says Rahner, to say what this principle is, we must first answer the question: who is Mary properly? And even more generally, the question: what is Christianity and perfect Christianity?Christianity is the work of the living God for us: it is what he, the living God of grace, gives us in forgiveness, redemption, justification, and the communication of his own divine glory. Christianity is the very God eternal, he himself who comes to man, he himself who, by his grace, deals with man in such a way that this small creature freely opens its heart, so that all the splendor of the infinite life of the Trinity may penetrate this poor heart.Perfect Christianity is the reception, in body and soul, of God’s gift, which is God himself, in a meeting where everything that one has, everything that one does, and everything that one suffers is offered, so that this reception of God may embrace all being and all history. It is the perfect harmony and consistency between personal life and official functions, between visible manifestation and what happens in the depths of consciences. It is to manifest what happens in the depths of Christian life, to make perceptible to the outside what God works in the depths of the heart.Now, if this is perfect Christianity, we can say that Mary is its full realization: Mary is the perfect Christian, the typical and concrete realization of what constitutes redemption in its perfect form. And if perfect Christianity is the full reception of God, it is clear that divine motherhood, the height of God’s reception, is the principle for understanding and comprehending Mary. But attention: Mary, also Mother of God, also perfect Christian, also the apex of perfect Christianity, is on our side, because everything she is and has is the fruit of God’s mercy. Mary is the one who, similar to us and belonging to our side, approaches God with us, within this unique and immense chorus of humanity.To deepen the cultural and theological dimension of Mary, the Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus by Paul VI offers the magisterial framework that complements Rahner’s reflection on Mary in theology.Deepen your studies: explore Mariology, Marian theology, Marian apparitions, and the Postgraduate Program in Mariology.