Mary in Christ reconciles with God
The truth of Mary is understood and becomes our life if we see her in the Mystery of Christ, understood as the dynamic center of salvation for the world, which the Father guides with the power and love of his Holy Spirit. In this mystery, Mary has the ministry of signifying and accomplishing, through her multiple motherhood, the salvating love of Christ and, in Christ, of the Father.![Maria em Cristo nos reconcilia com Deus, a nova Arca de propiciação: meditação bíblico-teológica]()
We will see how Mary, in Christ, reconciles us with God: the emphasis is on the restoration of the bond of friendship with God, which is a fundamental aspect of the Mystery of Christ.How Mary, in Christ, Reconciles Us with GodWe said that it is God who reconciles us with Himself, through Christ. How, then, can we say that Mary reconciles us with God? In fact, I said Mary in Christ, which means to say that Christ reconciles us with God, taking Mary as His particular minister, as we have already considered at length. There is no danger of mariolatry; on the contrary, it is a matter of exalting the comprehensive benevolence with which God inclines Himself towards us, in true philanthropy.Nevertheless, the truth that Mary reconciles us with God and how she does so is told to us by the Word of God. It is told to us in Sacred Scripture, revealing to us the history of reconciliation, that is, the action of God who comes to meet man and draws him close to Himself in a pact of friendship, which, in the dimension of a people, is expressed in an alliance.The Church, in the magnificent fourth prayer of the Eucharist in the Mass, says: «When, by his disobedience, man lost Your friendship, You did not abandon him to the power of death, but in Your mercy You came to meet all people, so that those who seek You may find You. Many times You have offered to men Your alliance and, through the prophets, taught them to hope in salvation.»Reconciliation, therefore, has a history, and it will continue to have a history: History itself. It is history that tells us how and in what way Mary, in Christ, reconciles us with God.Mary, «the remainder of Israel», goes to meet God and exalts HimGod meets those who seek Him, the Church tells us in the Eucharistic Prayer. God reconciles Himself with those who allow Him to. That is why St. Paul pleads with all: (2Cor 5:20) “Let us therefore be reconciled.” That is, do not turn away from God, who comes to you to transform you into His friends, into a people allied with Him. Friendship of persons, friendship of peoples.Now, Mary goes to meet God, she opens herself to God, allows herself to be reconciled, redeemed, and saved in a way entirely unique. Friend of God, until she becomes the Spouse of God, Mother of God, the New Eve, the daughter of God. Friend of God as a singular person. Friend of God as a representative, the remainder of the whole people of God, of the people who are regenerated in Christ, of the old Synagogue in the pure Church, without stain. In the third Marian Preface, the Liturgy teaches us thus: “Mary, at the announcement of the Angel, received in her immaculate Heart your Word (O Father), and merited to conceive it in her virgin womb. Becoming Mother of her Creator, she marked the beginnings of the Church.”This is not a panegyric constructed with sterile rhetoric. It is simply history: the history of reconciliation, as narrated and sung by the Word of God. Narrated throughout the Old Testament by salvific events, by prophets, by “types” of Mary. History, finally, summarized and sung by Mary in the Magnificat, according to the revelatory intuition of the first Church, a few decades after the Lord’s resurrection.Let us here listen to a page from a serious exegete from a scientific perspective, but without the prejudices of a mini-theology of Christology and, therefore, Marian: I refer to Albert Gelin.After recalling the various “types” of women, things, and also figures that, according to liturgical piety, prefigure Mary, Gelin asks, with Dom Charlier: “Is it a matter of typology or evolution?” That is, fundamentally, is it a matter of considering Mary in her personal privileges, or of Mary perceived and proposed in the dynamism of the history of salvation, a dynamism that we now indicate through her ministeriality? Both Charlier and Gelin think that the first mode of viewing the typology of Mary must be integrated and animated by the second, which brings out with evidential force “the central path where Mary reveals herself and shows herself committed.” This central path has, according to the two authors, been too much neglected.Following this historical-evolutionary criterion of salvation in the people of God, the question arises: how does Mary place herself in relation to the people of God in the history of salvation? And the answer is that, in fact, “she appears as its authentic fulfillment.”Considering as true “people of God” the people faithful to the alliance and friendship of God, history shows that they become increasingly marginalized, socially and religiously. In the period after the exile, the prophets speak of the “remnant” of Israel, consisting of the “poor,” that is, the simple, socially low, kept in a state of humiliation, but faithful to God and his law, uncorrupted by the powerful. Over this “remnant” God watches as his true “people,” purifies it as gold is refined, and leads it to the “day” that will be the “day of the Messiah.”From this people of the poor of YHWH, prayers ascend to God, says Gelin, which succeed one another in history. He continues: “One day, all these prayers will converge in Mary, the true point of transition between the old and new Covenants. Mary will be the instant echo of a long chain of pray-ers: she will receive in her soul all the capacity to welcome the God who comes. She will summarize all this immense expectation, which is the spiritual dimension of Israel, and which will finally generate Christ. The Church of the poor, in its immense symphony of prayer, preludes the Magnificat. ‘All spiritual life,’ says Gelin, quoting R. Bernard, ‘reaches in Mary its peak, its point of full maturity’ (A. Gelin, *Les pauvres que Dieu aime*, Éditions du Cerf, 1968, p. 115; P. R. Bernard, *Le mystère de Marie*, Paris, 1933, p. 101).”Mary, therefore, in her spirit, summarizes all the capacity of reception that God has preserved and purified in the heart of the small remnant. Every person and all the small, the true people of God, the true Synagogue, gather in her, say yes to the God who comes. And it is thus that, opening herself, she reconciles us in Christ with God: the new Synagogue, the new people, is born and will extend to all generations to the ends of the earth.From ancient history, a new history is born, and Mary will be the first to narrate it, to sing it in the Magnificat, revealing how God reconciled her in a new life and how, in Christ, as his Son, he will reconcile the world according to a new law: the law of the poor of God, which Christ will express in what is called the Beatitudes. The Magnificat preannounces them.If all this is true, we can truly say: “Mary, in Christ, reconciles us with God.” Certainly, this positions her prominently in the history of salvation. Should we fear this emergence, as if the uniqueness of Christ’s reconciliation were in danger? Is exalting Mary dangerous? Popular piety that exalts Mary, which turns to Mary to find reconciliation with God, is perhaps a sector of Church life that should always be kept under control, as if it were a kind of atomic spiritual energy capable of causing great harm to the Church?If true exaltation, i.e., if not a fanciful parody, does no harm to the Church. On the contrary, it fosters reconciliation with God, because true praise transforms into vital energy, a force of harmony with God’s capacity for reception, of the God who comes, of Christ who comes brought by her.There is an episode in Mary’s life that is revealing. God made her understand that her relative Elizabeth, despite her age, had conceived John, who would later be the Precursor of Jesus. Moved by her “desire to serve,” as Paul VI, in Marialis Cultus, characterizes Mary’s will, she goes to visit Elizabeth. Upon seeing her, Mary greets her, but her voice becomes the voice of Jesus, and she is welcomed by John, who for this reason exults in his mother’s womb, and Elizabeth bursts out in praise of Mary: (Lk 1:39-45) “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb… Happy the one who believed, for everything will be accomplished for her.”Everything unfolds in a tension of the Holy Spirit, which envelops Elizabeth and Zachary. Astonishment, praise, nothing stops with the individuals, but from them, it ascends to God.And it is precisely Mary who collects the praise, the astonishment, and transforms everything into a revelation and exaltation of God’s salvation history, with the Magnificat. She exalts God and recognizes that she will be exalted by all generations.I understand that it is the first Church that intuited all this, but intuition is the formal revelation of realities in the spirit of Mary. Therefore, one should not fear exalting Mary if everything happens in truth and becomes a history of salvation for people and the community.After this digression in defense of popular Marian piety, which willingly exalts Mary, let us return to the discussion on how Mary collects in herself, for herself, and for all of us, the capacity for reception of the God who comes to reconcile us in Christ, and how she celebrates God’s action in her Church and, through her, in the world. It is always in the Magnificat that Mary speaks to us about all this.
We will see how Mary, in Christ, reconciles us with God: the emphasis is on the restoration of the bond of friendship with God, which is a fundamental aspect of the Mystery of Christ.How Mary, in Christ, Reconciles Us with GodWe said that it is God who reconciles us with Himself, through Christ. How, then, can we say that Mary reconciles us with God? In fact, I said Mary in Christ, which means to say that Christ reconciles us with God, taking Mary as His particular minister, as we have already considered at length. There is no danger of mariolatry; on the contrary, it is a matter of exalting the comprehensive benevolence with which God inclines Himself towards us, in true philanthropy.Nevertheless, the truth that Mary reconciles us with God and how she does so is told to us by the Word of God. It is told to us in Sacred Scripture, revealing to us the history of reconciliation, that is, the action of God who comes to meet man and draws him close to Himself in a pact of friendship, which, in the dimension of a people, is expressed in an alliance.The Church, in the magnificent fourth prayer of the Eucharist in the Mass, says: «When, by his disobedience, man lost Your friendship, You did not abandon him to the power of death, but in Your mercy You came to meet all people, so that those who seek You may find You. Many times You have offered to men Your alliance and, through the prophets, taught them to hope in salvation.»Reconciliation, therefore, has a history, and it will continue to have a history: History itself. It is history that tells us how and in what way Mary, in Christ, reconciles us with God.Mary, «the remainder of Israel», goes to meet God and exalts HimGod meets those who seek Him, the Church tells us in the Eucharistic Prayer. God reconciles Himself with those who allow Him to. That is why St. Paul pleads with all: (2Cor 5:20) “Let us therefore be reconciled.” That is, do not turn away from God, who comes to you to transform you into His friends, into a people allied with Him. Friendship of persons, friendship of peoples.Now, Mary goes to meet God, she opens herself to God, allows herself to be reconciled, redeemed, and saved in a way entirely unique. Friend of God, until she becomes the Spouse of God, Mother of God, the New Eve, the daughter of God. Friend of God as a singular person. Friend of God as a representative, the remainder of the whole people of God, of the people who are regenerated in Christ, of the old Synagogue in the pure Church, without stain. In the third Marian Preface, the Liturgy teaches us thus: “Mary, at the announcement of the Angel, received in her immaculate Heart your Word (O Father), and merited to conceive it in her virgin womb. Becoming Mother of her Creator, she marked the beginnings of the Church.”This is not a panegyric constructed with sterile rhetoric. It is simply history: the history of reconciliation, as narrated and sung by the Word of God. Narrated throughout the Old Testament by salvific events, by prophets, by “types” of Mary. History, finally, summarized and sung by Mary in the Magnificat, according to the revelatory intuition of the first Church, a few decades after the Lord’s resurrection.Let us here listen to a page from a serious exegete from a scientific perspective, but without the prejudices of a mini-theology of Christology and, therefore, Marian: I refer to Albert Gelin.After recalling the various “types” of women, things, and also figures that, according to liturgical piety, prefigure Mary, Gelin asks, with Dom Charlier: “Is it a matter of typology or evolution?” That is, fundamentally, is it a matter of considering Mary in her personal privileges, or of Mary perceived and proposed in the dynamism of the history of salvation, a dynamism that we now indicate through her ministeriality? Both Charlier and Gelin think that the first mode of viewing the typology of Mary must be integrated and animated by the second, which brings out with evidential force “the central path where Mary reveals herself and shows herself committed.” This central path has, according to the two authors, been too much neglected.Following this historical-evolutionary criterion of salvation in the people of God, the question arises: how does Mary place herself in relation to the people of God in the history of salvation? And the answer is that, in fact, “she appears as its authentic fulfillment.”Considering as true “people of God” the people faithful to the alliance and friendship of God, history shows that they become increasingly marginalized, socially and religiously. In the period after the exile, the prophets speak of the “remnant” of Israel, consisting of the “poor,” that is, the simple, socially low, kept in a state of humiliation, but faithful to God and his law, uncorrupted by the powerful. Over this “remnant” God watches as his true “people,” purifies it as gold is refined, and leads it to the “day” that will be the “day of the Messiah.”From this people of the poor of YHWH, prayers ascend to God, says Gelin, which succeed one another in history. He continues: “One day, all these prayers will converge in Mary, the true point of transition between the old and new Covenants. Mary will be the instant echo of a long chain of pray-ers: she will receive in her soul all the capacity to welcome the God who comes. She will summarize all this immense expectation, which is the spiritual dimension of Israel, and which will finally generate Christ. The Church of the poor, in its immense symphony of prayer, preludes the Magnificat. ‘All spiritual life,’ says Gelin, quoting R. Bernard, ‘reaches in Mary its peak, its point of full maturity’ (A. Gelin, *Les pauvres que Dieu aime*, Éditions du Cerf, 1968, p. 115; P. R. Bernard, *Le mystère de Marie*, Paris, 1933, p. 101).”Mary, therefore, in her spirit, summarizes all the capacity of reception that God has preserved and purified in the heart of the small remnant. Every person and all the small, the true people of God, the true Synagogue, gather in her, say yes to the God who comes. And it is thus that, opening herself, she reconciles us in Christ with God: the new Synagogue, the new people, is born and will extend to all generations to the ends of the earth.From ancient history, a new history is born, and Mary will be the first to narrate it, to sing it in the Magnificat, revealing how God reconciled her in a new life and how, in Christ, as his Son, he will reconcile the world according to a new law: the law of the poor of God, which Christ will express in what is called the Beatitudes. The Magnificat preannounces them.If all this is true, we can truly say: “Mary, in Christ, reconciles us with God.” Certainly, this positions her prominently in the history of salvation. Should we fear this emergence, as if the uniqueness of Christ’s reconciliation were in danger? Is exalting Mary dangerous? Popular piety that exalts Mary, which turns to Mary to find reconciliation with God, is perhaps a sector of Church life that should always be kept under control, as if it were a kind of atomic spiritual energy capable of causing great harm to the Church?If true exaltation, i.e., if not a fanciful parody, does no harm to the Church. On the contrary, it fosters reconciliation with God, because true praise transforms into vital energy, a force of harmony with God’s capacity for reception, of the God who comes, of Christ who comes brought by her.There is an episode in Mary’s life that is revealing. God made her understand that her relative Elizabeth, despite her age, had conceived John, who would later be the Precursor of Jesus. Moved by her “desire to serve,” as Paul VI, in Marialis Cultus, characterizes Mary’s will, she goes to visit Elizabeth. Upon seeing her, Mary greets her, but her voice becomes the voice of Jesus, and she is welcomed by John, who for this reason exults in his mother’s womb, and Elizabeth bursts out in praise of Mary: (Lk 1:39-45) “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb… Happy the one who believed, for everything will be accomplished for her.”Everything unfolds in a tension of the Holy Spirit, which envelops Elizabeth and Zachary. Astonishment, praise, nothing stops with the individuals, but from them, it ascends to God.And it is precisely Mary who collects the praise, the astonishment, and transforms everything into a revelation and exaltation of God’s salvation history, with the Magnificat. She exalts God and recognizes that she will be exalted by all generations.I understand that it is the first Church that intuited all this, but intuition is the formal revelation of realities in the spirit of Mary. Therefore, one should not fear exalting Mary if everything happens in truth and becomes a history of salvation for people and the community.After this digression in defense of popular Marian piety, which willingly exalts Mary, let us return to the discussion on how Mary collects in herself, for herself, and for all of us, the capacity for reception of the God who comes to reconcile us in Christ, and how she celebrates God’s action in her Church and, through her, in the world. It is always in the Magnificat that Mary speaks to us about all this.C) Mary’s Path of Faith and Silence
How Mary Receives in Herself, as the Rest of Israel, the Capacity for Embracing the God Who Reconciles? By Accepting the Condition, Common to Her and Her Environment in Nazareth, of Being Discriminated for Her Fidelity to God’s Law: an Objective Condition of Suffered Need, tapeinosis, Humiliation that Does Not Rebel with Violence, but Also Does Not Yield to Conformity. And She Opens Herself, in Prayer, to God, with Firm Faith and Hope in God’s Fidelity to the Promises Made to Her Parents: (Lk 1, 46-48) «My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit exults in God my Savior, for he has looked upon the humbleness of his servant.»Mary was Conscious that God had Visited Her. She was Also Conscious of Having Said a «Yes» that Committed Her on a Path Whose Course and End She Ignored. It Was a «Yes» of Faith, that Did Not Eliminate the Darkness of That Same Faith. Indeed, She Was So Full of God, So Imbued with the Holy Spirit, and Now Also with the Special Presence of the Word, and She Was Aware of This Only as Total Surrender to God, Stirred by God, Who Did Not Need Extraordinary Revelations to Dispel the Darkness of Her Faith. She Remained, for Herself, in a Confident Abandonment to God. She Had Experience of This, and It Was a Unique, Ineffable, Also Suffered Experience. A Unique Faith Experience in History, Greater Than That of Abraham. Exodus from Her Land, from Herself, toward God Who Comes to Reconcile the World with Himself in Christ.But the Following Words of the Magnificat Make Us Realize That She Intuited the Kingdom of God for Her People Was Near, and Her Faith Adventure Was Inserted into That History, Now Reaching Its Apex. She Saw Herself There, Led by God, Not So Much by Herself, but by Her People. She Remained in Her Faith, in Her State of Suffered Poverty, and Yet, for the Poor People of All Centuries, She Would Be a Blessed Sign That the Reconciliation of the Kingdom of God Was Beginning Its New Course Precisely with Her «Yes» to God, That Son Who She Carried in Her Womb and Knew Well Was Solely His, by the Will of God. Thus, in Her Consciousness, She Felt Able to Say Too: (Lk 1, 48-49) «From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me; and holy is his Name.»We Too Call Mary Blessed, Because God Did Great Things in Her for Us: He Dwelt in Her as Father, as Word, and as Holy Spirit, and Through Her and From Her He Drew the New Ark of Reconciliation, Which Is the Humanity of Christ. And Thus, Accepting the Reconciliator, She Reconciled Us.Deepen This Meditation on Mary: How, with Mary, Open Ourselves to Christ to Go Toward God and Mary in Christ Reconciles Us with Ourselves and with Others.Mary in Christ reconciles us with ourselves and with others. For the Magisterial teaching on Mary, refer to Redemptoris Mater: Mary, path to reconciliation.To deepen your knowledge of Mariology:
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