Mary’s relationship with the Most Holy Trinity constitutes one of the structural axes of the mariology of the Second Vatican Council: the Father who predestined her from eternity (Eph 1:4), the Son who was incarnated of her by the power of the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:35), and the Spirit who configured her as a living temple of divinity. The *Lumen Gentium* (ch. VIII) for the first time integrated this Trinitarian structure at the heart of ecclesiology, overcoming the isolated mariological model that had prevailed before the Council.The relationship of Mary to the Trinity in the theology of Vatican II (Lumen gentium)
53): Overcoming the Pre-Conciliar Mariological Isolation
For a time, discussing this topic was considered the pinnacle of all mariological study. Excesses in praising Mary, to whom titles such as “Lady of All After the Trinity,” “Theotokos,” and “Lamb of God” were attributed, may now seem outdated and useless to theology. In light of other expressions of this trinitarian aspect of Mary’s figure, one could even speak of theological violations of the limit, such as the conception in the 17th century of “Mary as an external complement to the Trinity.”
However, in the face of these extreme statements (which more testify to the failure before a difficult theological object than a formally “mariological” intent), it would be appropriate not to refuse the debate on this issue. It has found serious authors even to this day and has been summarized in concepts that undoubtedly seem more appropriate to reality. Thus, Mary was called part of the “family” of the Trinity or “assumed into the circle of the divine persons.” Or simply spoke of the “trinitarian character” of Marian veneration (as well as the Marian figure). The motivation for this topic, according to the current state of faith consciousness, does not correspond to a reinforced tendency toward veneration or ever-greater glorification of the Marian figure.
On the contrary. We start from the assumption (which would no longer find universal recognition today, but which is necessary in itself) that the Marian figure and Marian doctrine cannot be excluded from theological thought. The Marian mystery represents an eminent and focal point of Catholic faith in which all these essential elements of the dogma converge and are concentrated. But Marian doctrine also sheds new light on fundamental truths of faith. For this reason, the specific bond of the Mother of God with the Trinitarian God is indispensable. In an era where even the concept of “Mother of God” is again criticized and refuted with very outdated Nestorian arguments, one might consider this bond of the Marian mystery with the mystery of the Trinity as no longer relevant, contenting oneself instead with a Marian residue that sees in Mary a common example of Christian faith.
Thus, it is assumed that she had “no special faith,” because for her “the obedience of faith constitutes the leitmotiv.” In reality, even this residue (as shown by the examples reported) cannot be saved if it does not respect the being as “turned toward God” of the Marian mystery and does not emphasize its ownership. A theology that sees Mary “only in a human way,” that is, understands Mary only as an important historical example due to a generic human or Christian attitude, cannot explain and maintain Mary’s special position in the history of salvation.
Here it is necessary to demonstrate one’s particular relationship with God, one’s exceptional relationship with the Trinity, even if in the demonstration the limits of creativity in Mary are not exceeded.A theology that no longer considers this “divine side” of the Marian mystery, or that denies it consciously, also deprives itself of the exceptional possibility of illuminating a particular point of salvific reality and vividly illustrating the reality of the Trinity mystery, the property of the Three Divine Persons, their relationship with the world, and their action in the world. Today there is much talk of the “economic Trinity” that is revealed within the history of salvation in the self-communication of God to the world, and which should become here an “experience of the salvific history.” But ultimately, these attempts often result only in purely formal affirmations about the Incarnation of the Word and the sanctification of the world through the Spirit.Therefore, it follows that in the question of the self-communications of God with men, the personal character of these relationships remains strangely abstract and unilluminated. Theology does not seriously confront the history of salvation in which these relationships are expressed with a singular concreteness in a human person, nor does it consider that this paradigm of the personal self-communication of God to men should illuminate the faithful understanding of the Trinitarian mystery that extends over creation. Thus, the question of the Trinitarian aspect of the Marian mystery is far from serving unilaterally the exaltation and glorification of the Marian figure.Instead, it finds its deepest motivation in making transparent the figure of Mary in her service position and her expressive power in relation to the fundamental mystery of Christianity. Here, the position of the Mother of God can show itself under a new profile in the salvific reality: not only before the God-man, but also before the Trinitarian mystery of God as a whole. It is no coincidence that the mystery of the God-man is emptied and the very Trinitarian mystery is atrophied where the special theological relevance of the Marian idea is denied. From this perspective, it is unnecessary to emphasize the fact that such attention to the “divine-Trinitarian side” of the Marian figure also offers stimuli to the anthropological-existential aspect of the human purpose.However, this Trinitarian theology that shines in the Marian mystery cannot be simply identified with anthropology (according to the hasty identification between theology and anthropology), but is oriented (precisely through the mediation of Mary) directly to humanity as such.
Mary as a Mirror of the Trinitarian Relations: Jean Ambroise Saint-Cyran (d. 1643) and the Intra-Divine Communication of God in the History of Salvation
According to Jean Ambroise Saint-Cyran (d. 1643), Mary is “*the most perfect mirror of divinity, a mirror in which the intra-divine relations shine more brightly than in any other creature*.” While this statement is accurate, it should be completed to indicate that these relations are manifested in the history of salvation. This leads to the question of which event in the salvific history reveals these relations most intensely. Contemplation of the Marian mystery should begin from this event. Setting aside the (irrelevant here) issue of the fundamental mariological principle, we can say that all lines of content point to the Incarnation of the Son, whom Mary gave the human nature.In the bond between the Word and the human nature assumed by Mary, not only was the personal filiation of the Word to humanity achieved in a unique and proper way, but a unique relationship with the virgin Mother of God was also established. However, this relationship is not perfectly described from a Trinitarian perspective by the concept of “divine motherhood.” In fact, even though a new relationship between Mary’s motherhood and the divine Person of the Word is established, this so-called relationship does not adequately express the reciprocal relationship between the incarnate Word and his Mother.The term “mother” primarily denotes a relationship of dependence between a mother and her child, a relationship that is part of the mystery of the Son of God’s kenosis in humanity, but it does not yet allow the content of the majesty of this Son, his superiority over his Mother, his position as head over her, and the particular way in which he brought redemption to his Mother through “pre-redemption” to be expressed. Given this reality, theological thought rarely expressed the personal relationship between the Incarnate and his Mother solely with the term of motherhood, but it completed this expression to include the superior reality of the Son of God.This occurred, for example, through the attribution of the title “wife” to Mary (as early as Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. XII, 26), then the title “bride” (with Christ), but also by attributing the title “perfect image of the eternal Son” (M. J. Scheeben). All these titles aim to indicate that the mother’s relationship with the eternal and incarnate Son implies a special union in which the essential dependence of the Son, the deepest communion with him, the perfect image status, and the natural-human motherhood with all its implications before Christ Jesus are all contained.The analysis of these personal Christological relations of Mary reveals in the mother-Son relationship a depth that fully warrants the analogy of the bond of the Word with human nature, the analogy with the hypostatic union.Although Mary is not raised to the order of the hypostatic union of the Word with a human nature, and even though she remains evidently as a human person before the incarnate Word and in an irremovable subordination, she can yet be recognized as mater-sponsa, as sister and adjunct of Christ in a deep moral union with his person, in a communion that proceeds from the hypostatic union and finds here its immediate example. This becomes even clearer when we look at Mary’s relationship with the other two divine persons, a relationship that, through her relation with the Son, also addresses the Father and the Holy Spirit.In determining Mary’s relationships with the other two divine persons, however, a seemingly insurmountable difficulty arises for theological thought. In the testimonies of tradition on this aspect, it is striking that the same attributions are often chosen that were used to characterize the relationship between Christ and Mary. Thus, Mary is also called sponsa Patris or image of the Father, but also wife of the Holy Spirit or his image and “icon”. A possible objection arises that the precision of Mary’s trinitarian relationships leads, due to a lack of discernment, to repetitions and purely verbal denominations that offer nothing to the faithful knowledge of the trinitarian mystery.At this point, it should be replied that, obviously, in view of the unity of the three persons and their intimate union in the redeeming Incarnation in Mary, each attribution of Mary’s relationship with one person also refers to the whole Trinity. Thus, the relationship with another person is also touched. It is not a logical error if traditional theology used promiscuously the indications for Mary’s relationship with the divine persons, but rather a sign of the deep unity of the three persons that also imposes itself in external relationships and human attributions. Moreover, one must not forget that (due to the analogical character of our words and their semantic function) the same name (wife, image, dwelling, sanctuary) can receive, according to the context, a different nuance and specific meaning. This implies for the trinitarian context that the attributions given to Mary in her relationship with one person acquire another specific meaning when expressed in relation to another divine person and their personal properties.One does not mean the same when one speaks of Mary as “wife of the Father” and as “wife of the Son”.In the first case, one perceives a relationship that arises from the fact that Mary participated (in an analogous manner) in the generation of the Son, just as the Father accomplishes eternal generation. Here, the transfer of the concept “wife” to Mary’s relationship with the Father, however, already reveals its problematic nature. Using this title for Mary’s relationship with Christ places the idea of the Son’s gift to his mother, his deep alliance with her, and Mary’s subordinate involvement in the life and action of the Son at the forefront. In the context of the problem of exchange and the apparent imprecision of Mary’s personal Trinitarian relationships, one must also consider a final argument that shows how, throughout the history of theology, a precision of these titles and an intertwined harmonization were imposed, restricting reciprocal exchange and becoming concrete, among others, in Rupert of Deutz (d. 1135): “Mary is ‘wife of the Father, wife and mother of the Son, temple of the Holy Spirit’.”One must in no way doubt, due to these objective difficulties that remain to be resolved, the existence of these personal relationships of Mary with the divine persons, even if the question of the strictly proper character of the relationship of a divine person with a creature is not yet resolved. Regarding Mary’s special relationship with the Father, it derives from her unique union with the Son, in which the mother is united with the Son of the Father in the most perfect manner possible between a divine and human person. If the Father’s property in the Trinity consists in his absolute non-generation, his being principle, and his paternity regarding all uncreated and created realities, one can explain how Mary, through her singular relationships with the unigenerated Son of the Father, enters into a special relationship with this Father as well. This relationship should not be derived (as already criticized) from the parallelism between eternal and temporal generation, as this could lead us dangerously close to placing Mary on par with the Father.In reality, Mary receives her special affinity with the first divine Person precisely through her direct and formal subordination to the Fatherhood that extends into the mission of the Son in the flesh. Since this mission was for Mary an event of grace, the Christian tradition, with an appropriate eye for the measures and limits to be used, defined Mary’s relationship with the Father initially as filiation, more precisely as adoptive filiation.However, tradition has elaborated the difference before the adoptive filiation of all other men endowed with grace, in as much as it added that Mary, as “God’s daughter” or as “the Father’s daughter,” does not stand out merely by a particularly intense participation in the eternal filiation of the Word whom she generated according to humanity, bringing Him into herself in body and spirit, but with this generation also comes a special resemblance to the Father.From the ontological union of Mary with her Son, the Virgin was able to participate in a superior manner in this filiation and could also be called (around the Carolingian era), through the application of sapiential passages from the Old Testament, “the created wisdom” of the Father that is opposed to the Father along with the Son as “the uncreated wisdom,” yet similar to the Father through a particular image of the Father. This affinity of Mary with the Father through participation in the filiation of the Son was legitimately emphasized by theology with the idea that the eternal decree of the Father for the Incarnation of the Son by the Virgin Mother was united with the decree to create Mary as the seat and vessel of Wisdom. This singular relationship of origin with God constitutes an exceptional filiation of the human person of Mary towards the Father in the order of grace, which is an immediate reflection of the filiation of the Word and unites the Mother of God with the Father in a communion that surpasses the created measure. Mary, due to her origin from the special love of the Father and the Son, also draws near to the Holy Spirit, the love made person between Father and Son.However, it is not only this resemblance of origins that grants Mary a special relationship with the Holy Spirit. More fundamental for the constitution of this relationship with the Spirit is once again her union with the incarnate Word, the divine Logos who causes the person of the Holy Spirit to proceed. Christian tradition had no qualms about calling her also mater Verbi (incarnati) spirantis Spiritum, even though the relationship with the Spirit is here expressed only by the mother and in an unilateral manner. The other side is revealed through the function of the Spirit of God in the Incarnation of the Son, a fact attested with a richness of meanings in the words of the angel to Mary.Although the statement that the Holy Spirit would descend and the power of the Most High would cast its shadow leaves open in exegesis the question of the personality of the Spirit (Lk 1:35), there can be no doubt that in these words of Scripture, oriented toward the economy of salvation, the Holy Spirit is presented as the productive principle of the Incarnation of the Son by the Virgin, a principle that also creates the unity of the mother with the Son, without performing the role of a human father.This action of the Spirit must be understood as an act of perfect and sanctifying love, in which Love, becoming a person of God Himself, extends its trinitarian force of union and cohesion over a human person who is involved in the trinitarian life of divine love through the personal nexus of union that is the Holy Spirit within the Trinity. From the fertility of this love, Mary generates the humanity of the God-man. The Spirit is, within the Trinity, the principle of the highest peak of mutual knowledge and a rapture of love and fulfillment in a “suprapersonal ‘we'” of the persons. He performs this function in the Incarnation of the Son also “ad extra,” in Mary.As the Mother of God perfectly opens herself to this effect, she does not merely enter the fullness of created grace (cf. Lk 1:28), but she is also guided to union with the grace of God made a person, a union without precedent in the history of creation and salvation. Thus, it becomes understandable why the tradition, to determine Mary’s personal relationship with the Holy Spirit, chose again also the title of “sposa.” This name, however, does not seem very appropriate because it has already been used in the Christological relationship (even in the form of mater-sposa) and because it is not entirely compatible with the power of the Holy Spirit that penetrates all things, that surpasses every “being before,” and that drives to communicate and to vivify everything.The tradition was aware of this, if it chose for this relationship the Marian title of “sacrarium Spiritus Sancti,” or of “organ” or “vessel” of the Holy Spirit, despite these designations not providing a totally convincing description of Mary’s person. For this reason, those titles that describe Mary as the most perfect human-personal image of the Holy Spirit, as the human irradiation of the Spirit, as the “icon of the Spirit” in human-personal form, as the human representative of love, beauty, and the purity of God’s Spirit, should be preferred. It is not necessary to demonstrate that these personal relationships of Mary with the divine persons are also oriented toward the whole Trinity and elevate Mary to the maximum participation of a human person in the Trinitarian life.This description surpasses the possibilities of explanation by traditional psychological doctrine of the Trinity. It also surpasses the scope of a modern existential conception in which the Trinity must be understood only through fundamental human acts of conviviality and love. More importantly, however, is the question of how this Trinitarian aspect of the Marian mystery is also relevant anthropologically to be able to say something to man.
The Anthropological Reflection of Trinitarian Mariology: Mary as a Model of God’s Self-Communication to Humanity
The demonstration of this anthropological reflection is clearly understandable to one who views things theologically, that is, from the relationship with God (which is potentially valid for all humanity). An objection may arise that such a determination of this relationship according to the long-held scheme of “I-you,” in which God, in a unitarist and totalizing manner, takes the place of the absolute You, does not satisfy deeper theological thought and the demands of the faithful man. Thus, only the opposition of God to man, an unbridgeable distinction, is established, and a monotheism is constituted that cannot grasp or express the fullness of the Christian Trinitarian mystery.Recent theology has long sought to remedy this deficiency, also demonstrating that each of the three divine persons enters into a unique (not merely appropriate) relationship with the grace-endowed man. At first glance, the anthropological and practical-religious relevance of this highly speculative topic of the personal relationships of the divine persons with the grace-endowed man may not be easily comprehensible. But with a deeper look, it may become clear that the main issue is a deeper communion of life of faith and the Trinitarian mystery. It is only through the verification of these personal relationships that the grace-endowed man is directly linked to the inaccessibly primary cause of the Father (as the “God above us”), to the Son who proceeds from the Father into the world (the “God with us”), and to the Spirit who permeates and vivifies all things (the “God in us and around us”). It is clear why these subtle connections are difficult for the human spirit to grasp. But in Mary, they were uniquely opened and presented to the view of the faithful man.The Trinitarian-Marian aspect conveys, first and foremost, the event regarding the relationship with the Son, in that the hypostatic union of the Word that occurred in Mary with a human nature places her in a unique relationship with the Incarnate. A relationship that must be established precisely by the Word, because here the second divine person extends his ownership as Word, revelation, and splendor of the Father upon a human person, connecting with her in a unique manner. Although the cause of the Incarnation, viewed as an act directed outward, was strictly unique among the persons, it nevertheless led to a formally different relationship between the Word and humanity. For this reason, the Incarnation is attributed not in an appropriate manner, but in a proper way to the person. This must also hold true for Mary, who seems almost like a correlate of the Son in the Incarnation.At the moment a personal relationship proper to a divine Person with humanity is established, such relationship cannot be denied to others, even if the union with the human carrier of grace does not occur through the hypostatic union.The maternal-spousal bond of Mary with the Son implies already also a strictly personal relationship with the Father (and vice versa), but equally a personal relationship corresponding with the Spirit as “Spirit of the Father and the Son,” the Spirit who pours out on Mary all his divine fertility and thus accomplishes in her his own trinitarian function. For this reason, Mary is the exceptional paradigm of the deepest intimacy by which divine Persons grant participation in their relational character to a human person and enter into a corresponding relationship to their own being.Therefore, Christian tradition has rightly attributed to the trinitarian-Marian relational concepts predominantly a specific and proper meaning of the Persons. However, another question remains open regarding the anthropological use, that is, whether the Marian figure as a “speculum Trinitatis” so singular can be relevant also for the whole of humanity. Here, one must first consider the boundary that exists between a trinitarian structure and a participation (of Mary) mediated through participation in the hypostatic union, and between a trinitarian relationship of other men constituted solely through a simple communication of grace and divine nature.But this difference, on the other hand, cannot be so strong as to exclude other men from such trinitarian relationship. Although Mary is at the apex of humanity with her personal character turned towards God, representing the most intense realization of the personal human relationship with God, she remains, however, a member of the whole and, therefore, also an effective link to extend this trinitarian relationship over all humanity. Precisely from Mary’s trinitarian relationship, a new argument for the personal relationship of divine Persons with the justified should be found. This relationship certainly does not attain here the same perfection, intensity, and immediacy as in Mary, whose similarity to God represents the maximum and, therefore, unique example of the trinitarian bond of a human person.Therefore, this “case” should not be understood in its essence (even in its mode of realization). Mary’s trinitarian relationship, as her whole being and action for humanity, has an inclusive meaning: humanity participates in Mary, “nuptial dwelling” in which the “marriage” of the Son of God with human nature was realized, in the creation of a specific relationship with the Trinity. This fact has consequences for the theological understanding of man before God. These consequences can be summed up in the idea that man is not only opposed to the unique God, but is destined for exchange, for commerce with the infinitely dynamic life of the Trinity, a life that is realized in personal relationships. Man is already involved in this relational circuit of divine life.The relationship between the Trinity and Mary is deepened in the encyclical Redemptoris Mater by John Paul II, which explores Mary as a privileged place of the trinitarian self-communication of God.Deepen your studies: explore Mariology, Marian Theology, Marian Apparitions, and the Graduate Program in Mariology.
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The relationship of Mary to the Trinity in the theology of Vatican II (Lumen gentium)
The relationship of Mary to the Trinity in the theology of Vatican II (Lumen gentium)
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