Thanks be to the grace of Our Lady

# From Grace to Grace: The Centrality of Grace in the New Testament LightIf there is one notion, or better, one event central to the Bible, it is precisely **grace**, or divine benevolence given freely, which permeates both Testaments and becomes the **gospel of grace**. It is the overflow of divine love for human creatures, making them participants in the trinitarian life.The first and supreme gift that God gives to his creatures is the love He has for them, and at the same time, the infinite pledge by which He places this love. And through this initial outpouring of Himself, in which He pours out like an infinite wave the current of divine love, it also overflows outward, covering creatures with the abundance of gifts.At the same time, there is no topic that needs more renewal than grace, as it has been defined and considered a quantity rather than a quality.Let us reflect for a moment on St. Bernard’s description of Mary as an **aqueduct** through which grace flows to us. This way of thinking led to obscuring other interpretative elements that are not alternative but cumulative aspects of the relationship with the Holy Spirit in the mystery of grace:– **Divinization** – **A dialogical event** – **A vital relationship** – **Humanization**What binds the two Testaments is the particular type of relationship, the act of condescension and love, that God maintains with man and the world. Grace is an event linked to the event of the Word becoming flesh among us because from his fullness we have received grace upon grace (John 1:16).Thus, grace has a dialectical structure, involving God’s offer of love and human response. The good news takes the form of the gospel of grace. Grace cannot be conceived as destructive of man’s nature, which would be nullified by its occurrence. On the contrary, it demands and evokes the human response.Let us reflect for a moment: God’s grace comes to us according to the way the Holy Spirit acts, as a force, an internal movement that does not coerce the person but awakens and sets them in motion. In this, God takes the initiative as in creation. But it is not a gift that blocks man’s path to freedom, guiding him in the opposite direction from his value system. The gratuity of grace cannot establish a spirituality of annihilation of man, as happened in the past, especially during the 16th and 17th centuries.On the contrary, being a relationship, grace involves the person, who must embrace it for it to become a true gift. Grace becomes a personal encounter between God, who places himself in the event of Christ, the definitive salvific word of the Father, and man who responds by embracing the grace and living coherently with this gift.It is not a matter of moments, because the economy of salvation involves a long educational process through which man becomes God (Saint Augustine).## **Grace as Participation in Divine Life**Grace is immediate communion with the Father through Christ in the Spirit. It is an educational process that helps the human being, created in the image of God, to free himself from sin and achieve deification (theosis). This is summed up in the phrase of the Greek Fathers: “God became man, so that man might become God”. And here the New Testament speaks of the outpouring of the Spirit as the principle of rebirth (John 3:3-7), new life (Romans 5:5, 6:4), filial life (Romans 8:15-16, Galatians 4:6), and eternal life (Romans 6:23).Justification through the pascal mystery places me in a new relationship with God. But rebirth transforms my inner substance, gives me a new seed of life, puts a new self within me, and renews the way I look at and live life.Grace is the greatest value in life: a dialectical event, a living relationship between God and humanity. **Grace implies two elements:****The Grace of God and Mary in the Light of the New Testament**If we open the New Testament, we find that the doctrine of grace is personalized, culminating in Christ, *full of grace and truth* (John 1:14), through whom we encounter Mary, linked to grace by two primary bonds:– The benevolence of the Father, representing the summary of God’s work in the Old Testament.– Her role as the Mother of the Incarnate Word, recognized as a mother of grace toward her disciples.**A Theology of Grace and Mary**A theology of grace cannot overlook the history and presence of one who is *full of grace* (Luke 1:28).**The Legitimacy of the Title “Our Lady of Grace”**Firstly, the title *Our Lady of Grace* rests on the fact that the Virgin of Nazareth becomes a participant in the charisms the Spirit bestows upon the people of God for the building up of the Church. The Acts of the Apostles testify to Mary’s presence among those filled with the Holy Spirit, who began to speak in tongues and prophesy. There is no reason to deny these two charisms—*glossolalia* (speaking in tongues) and *prophecy*—to Mary’s pentecostal experience as the Mother of Jesus.After her glorification in body and soul through the Assumption, Mary becomes a manifestation of the Spirit and His power. She is recognized as *taumaturgic*, meaning permanently endowed with the charism of performing miracles, healings, and various types of wonders, as documented by the faithful’s history and sanctuaries.Recognizing Mary as *full of charisms* highlights her salvific role, a result of God’s love for her. Attributing to her the title of *Mediatrix in Christ* moves away from isolation, placing Mary in relation with both God and humanity. This is a consequence of the principle of holism, which situates Mary within the history of salvation, relating her to Christ and the Church.**Mary, Full of Grace and Transformed, Responds with Total Availability**In Mary, the genuine benevolence of the Father converges, who looks upon her with love and fills her with grace. Her first historical-salvific name is *kecharitòméne* (*Lk* 1:28), that is, the recipient of divine, permanent love. The past participle of the verb *charitóo*, meaning “to become pleasant, to show benevolence,” denotes an action of God that continues in the present. Roughly translated: “You who were and remain filled with divine favor.” Gabriel reiterates this when he adds: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found grace (eures charin) with God.” This expression “found grace” is rarely used regarding God (“Noah found grace before the Lord,” Gen 6:8) and is often employed to describe a powerful man’s condescension toward a poor or weak person.Mary “found grace” before God (*Lk* 1:30), just as Esther gained access to King Ahasuerus and “found favor in his sight” (Esth 8:5). God turned to her with love and in a friendly relationship. The love of God is effective in Mary, transformed by grace, saving and blessing her, and doing great things in her, beginning with the virgin conception of the Son of God.In essence, Mary is the first to participate in the new life and divinity communicated to the baptized, who live in a living and vital relationship with the three divine persons. The Mother of Jesus, in addition to offering the paradigm of this active grace in her *Kecharitomene*, becomes, through her life and presence on the cross of the Son, a cooperator of the Spirit in the rebirth of God’s children. Thus, she is declared mother in the order of grace (*Jn* 19:25-27).**Mary’s relationship to baptism**, as intuited by Augustine and reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council, stems from the fact that Mary is the Mother of the faithful because she participated in the redeeming mysteries of Christ’s life (*Lumen Gentium* 61), and also because she currently collaborates with maternal love in the generation and formation of the faithful (*Lumen Gentium* 63).The Council emphasized this reality, explicitly retaining the term *generate*, in reference to St. Augustine’s text: “Mary collaborated in charity at the birth of the faithful in the Church.” It is a Virgin intervention in the very act of baptism, by which men are regenerated for a new life in Christ.This is also the invitation of Benedict XVI on his pilgrimage to Etzelsbacht (September 23, 2011), when he exhorts us to move from experiencing graces in specific moments through recourse to Mary to a permanent response of love throughout our existence.**”From the Cross, from the throne of grace and redemption, Jesus gave men his Mother Mary as Mother. At the moment of his sacrifice for humanity, he makes Mary, in a certain way, the mediator of the flow of grace that comes from the cross. By the Cross, Mary becomes companion and protector of men on their journey through life. ‘With her maternal charity she cares for her brothers still wandering and placed in the midst of dangers and difficulties, until they are led to the blessed homeland’ (Lumen Gentium 62), as expressed by the Second Vatican Council. Indeed, in life we experience highs and lows, but Mary intercedes with her Son on our behalf and helps us find the strength of divine love from the Son and open ourselves to him… Our trust in the effective intercession of the Mother of God and our gratitude for the ever-new help experienced carry, in a certain way, the impetus to take reflection beyond immediate needs. … What does Mary really want to tell us when she saves us from danger? She wants to help us understand the breadth and depth of our Christian vocation. With maternal tenderness, she wishes for us to comprehend that every aspect of our life must be a response to the merciful love of our God.”**For a deeper study of devotion to Our Lady and Marian theology of graces, consult the Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus by Paul VI on the cult of Mary in Christian life.Explore Mariology, Mariana Theology, Marian Apparitions, and Postgraduate Studies in Mariology.