Mary and the Last Things: Part II
Mary and the Last Things: Marian Escatology
After having defined the main concepts of our vocabulary regarding the relationship between Mary and those who perished, we can now proceed towards the last things (eschatology). However, we safeguard that the ultimate Word is that of the Verbum that resounds forever and ever in the great silence of mystery. The question about the ultimate future of man and the world is the great issue that has moved humanity to seek answers, for the certainty of death is not ideological. It was in this context that philosophies were born, the questions that fuel the essence of the path that, at the end of its existence, seeks the infinite and the unattainable. The question that contains all other questions is that about God. The history that seeks to transcend reality by understanding its origin (Creation-Immaculate) and its destination (Heaven-Assumption).In our creation, we understand that as spiritual beings, we exist in relation to the world, to God, and to other creatures, and without this openness to the ‘other’ we are incapable of living. Conversely, without this ‘life as those who have communion with me’, we cannot find a place in the created nature. Thus, we speak of Adam as ‘image of God’ but not as ‘a copy’ of God. The vital relationship between Creator and creature does not mean the annihilation of the creature nor the annihilation of God, but a communion between them. Only in this sense can we understand the concepts of ‘freedom’ and ‘community’ in the Gospel. We are at once history, death, and future, which leads us to offer each moment of history as a non-repetitive movement with a sense, but as an approximation of the ultimate and definitive things. The transition from the past to the present to build the future is always marked by ‘decisions’ that transform us into ‘partners’ of God in the continuous process of creation, marked by ‘hope’ that opens to the future.Our ‘hope’ bears the scar of the absolute self-presence of the ‘I’ that rationalized everything in an indefinite progress, that rejected the possibility of a relationship that transcends the world and other creatures. From this propaganda of rejection of God, we are passed to the liquidation of ‘hope’ that has lost its horizons and ended up in a suffocating nothingness. Beings without a past, origin, or direction, floating in an existence that only occurs in the decline of accidental death in a night that grows darker and darker (nihilism).Blinded by today’s day, we encounter a paradox. If faith was illuminated by reason, it seems to be following different paths now, where religiosity has become affective, archaic, and superficial. Consider the expansion of magic and Christian visions of the world that seem to ignore centuries of faith in a ritual: God tells me that… I think that…The opposition between faith and reason at the level of the Magisterium has clearly been overcome in our days with statements such as: “Faith and reason are like two wings by which the human spirit soars to the contemplation of truth. It is God who has placed in the heart of man the desire to know the truth and, in the end, to know Him, so that, knowing Him and loving Him, man may also attain to the full truth about himself” (Fides et ratio).1. Having clarified the context in which Mary is inserted as a living presence, now we will delve into what is the Christian hope: Christ. The Word of God incarnate, the escatological Messiah brings a message of definitive and universal hope. Therefore, we can affirm that from the beginning to the end, Christianity is escatology (= the logic of the last things). So faith: “faith is the certainty of things hoped for, the demonstration of realities not seen” (Heb 11,1) exists for the fullness of what is definitive, unconditional, and last (perfect).Jesus, being the Christian hope, the ultimate destination of humanity and the world, our history is salvation through the communion of love offered progressively by God who communicates with humanity and relates it to eternity. Salvation is not a salvific act of the past but a divine intervention that takes place in the hope of Israel focused on the escatological Messiah. The Son of Mary, by opening the Kingdom of God to creatures, initiates the unity of transcendence and history sealed with the Resurrection that condenses, purifies, and surpasses ancient hopes. The kairós of the Incarnation/Announcement coincides with the eschaton and the immaculate divine maternity with the Assumption. In the paschal mystery, we find the highest point of this manifestation of escatology: Jesus dies, destroys death definitively, is buried, descends to the realm of the dead, rises from the dead, and offers us life: “Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead has given us new birth to a living hope, to an inheritance that does not perish, does not fade, and is reserved for you in heaven” (1 Pet 1,3-4). The Holy Spirit promised, fruit of the paschal mystery, already received by Mary, now turns to the inhabitants of the new escatological people attracted by the Cross: “Now is the judgment of this world. Now the prince of this world will be cast out, and when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself” (Joh 8,31-32). Only love generates immortality.Christian faith proclaims a definitive and absolute future, not by the work of humanity, but by grace of God, thus, the Christian lives in an Advent (what is coming) of the Messiah more than in a future (what will be). However, we assure the absolute transcendence of God, to whom we must surrender as Mary does. In Christian escatology, especially Western, we find the universal perspective that seems to submit to that individual perspective of a judgment.However, both coexist: “For we know that all creation, until the present time, groans in pain together with childbearing” (Rom 8:22) and “We await a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness will dwell” (2 Pet 3:13). This openness to a new intervention of God that will come to complete the “new creation” in which “God will be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). Creation is continuous and, as such, in motion, with a very well-determined destination: the Creator. The encounter of creation with the Creator is the victory of love because “now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13).In attempting to resolve the confusion of language and the vice of certain partial readings of Sacred Scripture, I wish to clarify that Jesus is: “the firstfruits of those who have died” (1 Cor 15:20) but also: “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25), and therefore: “the first to be resurrected, then the rest of the dead” (1 Th 4:16). The conclusions of these affirmations mean for us that resurrection takes place in creation, and is part of the definitive members of the Kingdom. Thus, the Assumption of the body into future life is transfigured. The body-taken-up-in-creation is resurrected by the relationship of God who offers eternal life. This theological foundation will allow us to later develop the entire theology of the Assumption.The Holy Spirit raises Jesus, dwells in us, and allows us to have faith. Just as with Mary, who in the Annunciation was covered by the shadow of the Incarnation, then the Incarnation acts and accomplishes the work of Jesus’ tabitation in Mary, opening her to eternal life which means a permanent dialogue with the Trinity God who was revealed “in the beginning” to the Virgin of Nazareth. Perhaps we can affirm that the fullness of eternal life exists where the Word took on flesh and where the bodies exist in relation to one another and love: “House of Mary!” Communion with God and with brothers is eternal life, though not perfect, for: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; but whoever refuses to believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him” (John 3:36). And: “Now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).It is in this “space” between time and eternity that Mary moves. The young woman of Nazareth is the point of encounter between the structured hope of the Old Testament and the womb where all the promises and prophecies of the various centuries were fulfilled. For this reason, the Fathers of the Church recognize her as the “Theotokos,” the one who gave birth to God.New Eve, for she no longer places the fruit of death at the disposal of the takers, but the fruit of life, the Living One. From Virgin of the Earth to Mother of the Living, from Daughter of Zion to Bride at the Eternal Banquet. Perhaps we should elaborate our immediate conclusions with a preliminary explanation of how the grace chain (kekaritomene) of Mary (Lk 1:28) serves as the nexus between ecclesiology and anthropology. The Church and Man as the space of anticipation of glory, the irruption of the last times but not yet the fullness of truth make Mary a symbol of hope that is realized with her Assumption. Therefore, the Creed joins the resurrection of the flesh and eternal life with the conception by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of Mary, the Virgin. This gives us the escatological meaning of Mariology and how Mary, Mother of Jesus helps us to deepen Christian eschatology.To deepen reflection on Mary and Christian eschatology, read the encyclical Redemptoris Mater by Saint John Paul II, on Mary in the escatological mystery of the Church.Deepen your studies: explore Mariology, Marian Theology, Marian Apparitions, and the Post-Graduate Program in Mariology.
After having defined the main concepts of our vocabulary regarding the relationship between Mary and those who perished, we can now proceed towards the last things (eschatology). However, we safeguard that the ultimate Word is that of the Verbum that resounds forever and ever in the great silence of mystery. The question about the ultimate future of man and the world is the great issue that has moved humanity to seek answers, for the certainty of death is not ideological. It was in this context that philosophies were born, the questions that fuel the essence of the path that, at the end of its existence, seeks the infinite and the unattainable. The question that contains all other questions is that about God. The history that seeks to transcend reality by understanding its origin (Creation-Immaculate) and its destination (Heaven-Assumption).In our creation, we understand that as spiritual beings, we exist in relation to the world, to God, and to other creatures, and without this openness to the ‘other’ we are incapable of living. Conversely, without this ‘life as those who have communion with me’, we cannot find a place in the created nature. Thus, we speak of Adam as ‘image of God’ but not as ‘a copy’ of God. The vital relationship between Creator and creature does not mean the annihilation of the creature nor the annihilation of God, but a communion between them. Only in this sense can we understand the concepts of ‘freedom’ and ‘community’ in the Gospel. We are at once history, death, and future, which leads us to offer each moment of history as a non-repetitive movement with a sense, but as an approximation of the ultimate and definitive things. The transition from the past to the present to build the future is always marked by ‘decisions’ that transform us into ‘partners’ of God in the continuous process of creation, marked by ‘hope’ that opens to the future.Our ‘hope’ bears the scar of the absolute self-presence of the ‘I’ that rationalized everything in an indefinite progress, that rejected the possibility of a relationship that transcends the world and other creatures. From this propaganda of rejection of God, we are passed to the liquidation of ‘hope’ that has lost its horizons and ended up in a suffocating nothingness. Beings without a past, origin, or direction, floating in an existence that only occurs in the decline of accidental death in a night that grows darker and darker (nihilism).Blinded by today’s day, we encounter a paradox. If faith was illuminated by reason, it seems to be following different paths now, where religiosity has become affective, archaic, and superficial. Consider the expansion of magic and Christian visions of the world that seem to ignore centuries of faith in a ritual: God tells me that… I think that…The opposition between faith and reason at the level of the Magisterium has clearly been overcome in our days with statements such as: “Faith and reason are like two wings by which the human spirit soars to the contemplation of truth. It is God who has placed in the heart of man the desire to know the truth and, in the end, to know Him, so that, knowing Him and loving Him, man may also attain to the full truth about himself” (Fides et ratio).1. Having clarified the context in which Mary is inserted as a living presence, now we will delve into what is the Christian hope: Christ. The Word of God incarnate, the escatological Messiah brings a message of definitive and universal hope. Therefore, we can affirm that from the beginning to the end, Christianity is escatology (= the logic of the last things). So faith: “faith is the certainty of things hoped for, the demonstration of realities not seen” (Heb 11,1) exists for the fullness of what is definitive, unconditional, and last (perfect).Jesus, being the Christian hope, the ultimate destination of humanity and the world, our history is salvation through the communion of love offered progressively by God who communicates with humanity and relates it to eternity. Salvation is not a salvific act of the past but a divine intervention that takes place in the hope of Israel focused on the escatological Messiah. The Son of Mary, by opening the Kingdom of God to creatures, initiates the unity of transcendence and history sealed with the Resurrection that condenses, purifies, and surpasses ancient hopes. The kairós of the Incarnation/Announcement coincides with the eschaton and the immaculate divine maternity with the Assumption. In the paschal mystery, we find the highest point of this manifestation of escatology: Jesus dies, destroys death definitively, is buried, descends to the realm of the dead, rises from the dead, and offers us life: “Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead has given us new birth to a living hope, to an inheritance that does not perish, does not fade, and is reserved for you in heaven” (1 Pet 1,3-4). The Holy Spirit promised, fruit of the paschal mystery, already received by Mary, now turns to the inhabitants of the new escatological people attracted by the Cross: “Now is the judgment of this world. Now the prince of this world will be cast out, and when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself” (Joh 8,31-32). Only love generates immortality.Christian faith proclaims a definitive and absolute future, not by the work of humanity, but by grace of God, thus, the Christian lives in an Advent (what is coming) of the Messiah more than in a future (what will be). However, we assure the absolute transcendence of God, to whom we must surrender as Mary does. In Christian escatology, especially Western, we find the universal perspective that seems to submit to that individual perspective of a judgment.However, both coexist: “For we know that all creation, until the present time, groans in pain together with childbearing” (Rom 8:22) and “We await a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness will dwell” (2 Pet 3:13). This openness to a new intervention of God that will come to complete the “new creation” in which “God will be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). Creation is continuous and, as such, in motion, with a very well-determined destination: the Creator. The encounter of creation with the Creator is the victory of love because “now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13).In attempting to resolve the confusion of language and the vice of certain partial readings of Sacred Scripture, I wish to clarify that Jesus is: “the firstfruits of those who have died” (1 Cor 15:20) but also: “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25), and therefore: “the first to be resurrected, then the rest of the dead” (1 Th 4:16). The conclusions of these affirmations mean for us that resurrection takes place in creation, and is part of the definitive members of the Kingdom. Thus, the Assumption of the body into future life is transfigured. The body-taken-up-in-creation is resurrected by the relationship of God who offers eternal life. This theological foundation will allow us to later develop the entire theology of the Assumption.The Holy Spirit raises Jesus, dwells in us, and allows us to have faith. Just as with Mary, who in the Annunciation was covered by the shadow of the Incarnation, then the Incarnation acts and accomplishes the work of Jesus’ tabitation in Mary, opening her to eternal life which means a permanent dialogue with the Trinity God who was revealed “in the beginning” to the Virgin of Nazareth. Perhaps we can affirm that the fullness of eternal life exists where the Word took on flesh and where the bodies exist in relation to one another and love: “House of Mary!” Communion with God and with brothers is eternal life, though not perfect, for: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; but whoever refuses to believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him” (John 3:36). And: “Now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).It is in this “space” between time and eternity that Mary moves. The young woman of Nazareth is the point of encounter between the structured hope of the Old Testament and the womb where all the promises and prophecies of the various centuries were fulfilled. For this reason, the Fathers of the Church recognize her as the “Theotokos,” the one who gave birth to God.New Eve, for she no longer places the fruit of death at the disposal of the takers, but the fruit of life, the Living One. From Virgin of the Earth to Mother of the Living, from Daughter of Zion to Bride at the Eternal Banquet. Perhaps we should elaborate our immediate conclusions with a preliminary explanation of how the grace chain (kekaritomene) of Mary (Lk 1:28) serves as the nexus between ecclesiology and anthropology. The Church and Man as the space of anticipation of glory, the irruption of the last times but not yet the fullness of truth make Mary a symbol of hope that is realized with her Assumption. Therefore, the Creed joins the resurrection of the flesh and eternal life with the conception by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of Mary, the Virgin. This gives us the escatological meaning of Mariology and how Mary, Mother of Jesus helps us to deepen Christian eschatology.To deepen reflection on Mary and Christian eschatology, read the encyclical Redemptoris Mater by Saint John Paul II, on Mary in the escatological mystery of the Church.Deepen your studies: explore Mariology, Marian Theology, Marian Apparitions, and the Post-Graduate Program in Mariology.Graduate Studies in Mariology
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