Who Distributes Grace, Mary or the Holy Spirit?

There is a fact that can be observed by everyone: in the shrines dedicated to the Mother of the Lord, in the small chapels lost in the most remote places, in the wayside shrines along the road, marble plaques or silver hearts are displayed for a grace received. At other times they are votive objects, such as wax images that often immortalize the experience of a grace obtained and granted by the Virgin Mary in existential moments that are often tragic and without a way out.
This experience of grace received is at times so intense and so repeated that we attribute to the icon of Our Lady, before which we pray, the title of Our Lady of Graces. Often a shrine dedicated to her is built under this title.
The fundamental reason for the title concerns the graces received through the intercession of the Virgin. From the beginning and throughout history, Christians have experienced Mary as a wonder-worker, that is, as the one who obtains grace from God and grants it to whoever calls upon her with faith:

• healing in physical and mental illnesses.
• protection in moments of danger on land and at sea.
• victory over sterility through the gift of offspring.
• deliverance from the scourges of plague and war.
• help and consolation in the sad and tragic situations of life.

In a word, people turn to Mary for help in their vital and humanly insoluble problems:

• eternal salvation.
• harmony in family relationships.
• temporal graces such as health.
• success in particular circumstances.

In general, we can say that people ask Mary, above all, for spiritual graces, then for graces of relationship, and finally for graces of a material nature. Higher still lies the conviction that Mary, interceding for us before God, can obtain any grace. This aspect has pervaded popular devotion: Mary appears as a loving mediating mother who obtains everything that men need for this life and for eternal life.
It is not merely an intellectual conviction, but an experiential perception of Mary. Understanding the reason for this way of living Christianity is not a question that gets asked; on the contrary, its naturalness tells us that to turn to Mary with unlimited trust and to experience her effective help in the difficult moments of life has always corresponded to the daily life of faith.
The phenomenological datum that emerges from the behavior of the devout world before an image of Mary is the sense of “presence”: the Virgin is a living “you”, the term of an affectionate and grateful dialogue. The qualities recognized in her are maternal goodness, power, and beauty. Now dwelling in the region of light with God, which is expressed in the votive tablets by a crown of luminous clouds, Mary is seen in her holiness: she is different from us, who are immersed in the world of sin. But she is not far from the history of men, because she experienced the sword of sorrow.
From this brief analysis we could infer that the title of Our Lady of Graces comes from a twofold source. The first is anthropological in nature and comprises the sphere of vital needs, that is, the need for bread, work, health, family unity and growth, peace and reconciliation in the country and in the world.
The second source is the mobilizing force of the figure of the Holy Virgin, which activates the faith of the people of God, speaks to their heart, and awakens the deepest emotion. In other words, it is the charm that Mary exercises over whoever draws near to her.
After Christ, no one can compete with the Virgin Mary in personal influence over the centuries. From the history of Mariology there emerges the influence that flows from her and her beneficial and inspiring presence in every good work in the various cultures. This interpretation is confirmed by Benedict XVI on his pilgrimage to Einsiedeln (2011):

“when Christians of every time and every place turn to Mary, they let themselves be guided by the spontaneous certainty that Jesus cannot refuse the requests that His Mother presents to Him, and they rely on the unshakable confidence that Mary is at the same time also our Mother, a Mother who experienced the greatest suffering of all, who perceives all our difficulties together with us and thinks maternally about overcoming them. How many people over the centuries have gone on pilgrimage to the Virgin Mary to find, before the image of Our Lady of Sorrows, as here in Einsiedeln, consolation and comfort”!

Grace as χάρισμα in the New Testament: the Pauline lists of charisms (Rom 12:6-8. 1 Cor 12:7-30. Eph 4:11) and the Spirit as their source

When we question the New Testament about the meaning of the word grace, we are introduced to the mysterious world of God who comes to meet human beings. In this world of God, which corresponds to the history of salvation, we discover that grace is one thing in the plural and another in the singular. The graces are identified with:

• charisms (in Greek, charisma has the same root as cháris = grace),
• particular helps, whereas grace is a far deeper and more mysterious reality.

Let us examine these two great meanings of the divine world that meets the human world: graces and grace.
The texts of the New Testament, above all the letters of Saint Paul, describe the life of the Church in the various communities of Asia Minor and indicate that in them the Spirit distributes and awakens gifts, virtues, ministries, and charisms. The Second Vatican Council describes the ecclesial situation in these words:

“Moreover, the Holy Spirit does not limit Himself to sanctifying and guiding the people of God through the sacraments and ministries, adorning it with virtues, but, ‘distributing His gifts to each one as He wills” (1 Cor 12:11), He also dispenses special graces among the faithful of every rank, by which He makes them fit and ready to undertake the various tasks and offices useful for the renewal and greater expansion of the Church, according to those words: “To each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit, for what is useful” (1 Cor 12:7). These charisms, from the most extraordinary to the simplest and most widely diffused, are above all adapted to the needs of the Church and destined to meet them, and they must be received with gratitude and consolation” (Lumen Gentium 12).

Normally we are accustomed to ministries, but these do not take precedence over charism; on the contrary, ministry is awakened by the charismatic element. Especially because ministries are preferentially conferred on charismatic men,

Acts 13:2-4 “And as they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said: Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then, having fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. And so these, sent by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and from there sailed to Cyprus”.

Extending to the whole ecclesial reality, charism becomes a structuring principle of the Church, by which its members are

“built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, of which Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone” (Eph 2:20).

On the basis of the four lists of charisms presented by Paul (Rom 12:6-8. 1 Cor 12:7. 11:28-30. Eph 4:11-12), three types of charisms can be distinguished:

• kerygmatic or preaching charisms (apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, and admonishers).
• diaconal or charitable service (deacons, deaconesses, almsgivers, nurses, widows, healers, and exorcists).
• governmental (pastors, directors, bishops).

It is established that the charism of all charisms is love/charity (cf. 1 Cor 13). Having secured the primacy of charity, Paul singles out three extraordinary gifts:
faith infused by the Spirit.
the gift of healing (1 Cor 12:9.28.30),
other miraculous powers (1 Cor 12:10.28.29).

They are new events, signs of the new covenant, which go back to the operations of the Spirit (1 Cor 12:10), for one may easily think that here too the term, used at first with a particular meaning, is extended by Saint Paul to the whole complex of phenomena mentioned.
A particular emphasis of the New Testament is the reference to the Holy Spirit as the origin and dispenser of the charisms. In the spiritual gifts of grace, the Holy Spirit manifests Himself and works:

“Now all this is done by the One and the same Spirit, who distributes His gifts to each one as He wills” (1 Cor 12:11).
This is why Paul speaks of spiritual gifts, because they are manifestations of the Spirit (1 Cor 12:1.7).
The functions in the community recall the fervor of the Spirit (Rom 12:11)
and are a demonstration of the Spirit and of power (1 Cor 2:4-5. Rom 15:19. 2 Cor 12:12. 1 Tim 1:5).
The Spirit is the unifying principle “in view of the common unity” (1 Cor 12:7),
for the building up of the Church (1 Cor 14:3ff.12.26).

In practice, this first response of the New Testament directs us toward graces as spiritual gifts granted to the charismatic faithful and therefore linked to the mediation of persons.
We must not think that these charisms are given ad actum, that is, from time to time. They can be permanent, so as to classify a person as permanently endowed with a charism. This perspective applies to the priesthood, which Paul interprets as a ministry with a permanent function or charism.

“Do not despise the spiritual gift that is in you and that was conferred on you, by the indication of the prophets, with the laying on of hands by the college of presbyters” (1 Tim 4:14. Cf. 1 Tim 5:22. 2 Tim 1:6).

The graces are not isolated and considered in themselves, but come immediately from persons endowed with charisms and, ultimately, from the Spirit of the Father and of the Son.

Mary at Pentecost (Acts 1:14. 2:1-4): glossolalia, the prophecy of the Magnificat and the biblical foundation of Marian mediation in grace

We ask ourselves: does Scripture attribute any of these charisms to Mary, so that we may call her charismatic and thus find a biblical foundation for the communication of the graces recognized by the experience of the faithful?
It is true that Paul does not mention the charisms attributed to the Woman who gave birth to the Son of God (cf. Gal 4:4). The evangelist Luke perceives this silence, presenting Mary as a proto-missionary, who sets out for Judea bearing the Savior in her womb and with her greeting provokes the charismatic outpouring of the Spirit upon Elizabeth, who sees in her young kinswoman the Mother of the Lord, and upon John, who leaps for joy in the presence of the Messiah. The canticle of the Magnificat that sprang from Mary’s heart is the work of the Spirit of prophecy, on account of which tradition considers her a prophetess.
Luke presents Mary as endowed with a twofold charism:

• the proclamation of the good news
• prophecy, attributing to her a canticle that constitutes a doxological and pneumatic commentary on a salvific fact or event, in this case the prodigious conception of the Messiah.

In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke numbers Mary among the members of the post-paschal community of Jerusalem, upon whom the Spirit descends, consecrating them and making them witnesses of the risen Christ. Even the Mother of Jesus is part of the “all” who “were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit granted them to speak” (Acts 2:4). Exegesis reveals in this phenomenon of tongues a certain kinship with the charism of glossolalia, which uses words derived from foreign languages.
We should have no difficulty in seeing Mary in the midst of the group at prayer, letting herself be led by the Spirit to bear witness and to praise God through a pre-rational language of contact with the divine mystery. Certainly glossolalia, as Paul recalls, says mysterious things by inspiration that need to be interpreted. Therefore

“whoever speaks with the gift of tongues, let him pray that he may interpret them” (1 Cor 14:2.13).

This interpreter can be the prophet (1 Cor 14:5). Now, Mary appears among the disciples as a glossolalist and at the same time a prophetess, not only because of the Magnificat, but because, as Peter believes in his discourse to the crowd, the Spirit of Pentecost is poured out upon all, men and women, making them capable of prophesying:

“I will pour out my Spirit upon all. Their sons and daughters shall prophesy […]. And also upon my servants and my handmaids in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy” (Acts 2:17-18).

Post-Pentecostal prophecy centers on the Resurrection of Jesus, but it also announces His return, asking the hearers to call upon the name of the Lord and thus be saved (cf. Acts 2:20-21).

To deepen Mary’s mediation in the distribution of grace, consult the encyclical Redemptoris Mater by John Paul II, on the maternal presence of Mary in the life of the Church.

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