Return to God what is God’s: Mary and total consecration to God

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” (Mark 12:17)> The question of the tribute to Caesar (Mk 12:13-17) is one of the most famous traps that Jesus’ adversaries sought to set for him: a political question with religious implications, cleverly constructed so that any response would seem problematic. Jesus escapes with an answer that distinguishes two domains, that of Caesar and that of God, but, read deeply, it places the decisive emphasis on the latter: “Give to God what is God’s.” Mariology finds in this commandment the foundation for a total consecration spirituality: Mary, who in the “fiat” returned to God all that belonged to Him, is the model of the creature who understood what it means to “give to God what is God’s.”

I. Reddite deo: The Trap and Jesus’ Wisdom

> The question from the Pharisees and Herodians was sophisticated: the tribute to Caesar in Roman currency was a sensitive topic in occupied Palestine. Paying was collaboration with the occupier. Refusing was political rebellion. Jesus asks them to show him the coin, observes the image of Caesar, and asks: “Whose image and inscription is this?” The answer, “Caesar’s,” sets the stage for the conclusion: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”> The apparent separation of domains that Jesus proposes is not a secularist doctrine of separation between religion and state, but a more radical affirmation: there is a domain of God that cannot be invaded by any Caesar. This domain of God ultimately includes everything that bears the “image” of God, that is, humanity (Gen 1:26-27). The coin has Caesar’s image. Humanity bears God’s image. “Giving to God what is God’s” ultimately means returning the whole human being to God.> Jesus’ wisdom in this response is not merely rhetorical, it is theological: he rejects both clericalism, which seeks to merge the political with the religious, and secularism, which seeks to exclude God from public domain. There is a legitimate domain for Caesar. But this domain is always subordinate to the fundamental domain of God. No Caesar can claim what belongs to God, and what belongs to God is the human being made in His image.> Jesus’ answer elicits “admiration” from his interlocutors (Mk 12:17). This admiration is not merely for his rhetorical skill, but for a wisdom that goes to the heart of the matter without getting caught up in false alternatives. This wisdom has a Marian icon: the “Throne of Wisdom,” Mary, who generated Wisdom and was shaped by it throughout her life.

II. “Imago dei”: The Human Being That Belongs to God

> Gen 1:26-27: “Let us make mankind in our image and after our likeness… so God created man in his image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.””The ‘image of God’ (imago Dei) in humanity is the biblical foundation for human dignity: humans are not property of Caesar or any other human power, but are ‘of God,’ made in His image. ‘Giving to God what is God’s’ ultimately means recognizing this origin and destiny: we are from God and for God. Jesus’ ‘Reddite Deo’ (Give to God) interprets the imago Dei as a call to total belonging.”“The patristic tradition, particularly Augustine in ‘De Trinitate’ and Gregory of Nyssa in ‘De Hominis Opificio,’ developed the theology of the imago Dei with great depth: the image of God in humanity is not merely an ontological privilege, but a dynamic vocation. We are ‘image’ of God not in a static way, but in a processual one: grace progressively restores the disfigured image through sin, culminating in full similarity in the beatific vision.”“Mary, in tradition, is the creature in whom the imago Dei was most perfectly realized. The Immaculate Conception is not the suppression of Mary’s humanity, but its fullest realization: Mary, free from original sin, is more fully ‘image of God,’ untainted by the sin that introduces disfigurement. She who was preserved from this disfigurement is the one who most completely ‘gave to God what is God’s,’ because in her the image of God was not obscured.”“The connection between imago Dei and the issue of tribute opens an unexpected perspective: just as the coin marked with Caesar’s image belongs to Caesar, so does the human being marked with the image of God belong to God. This belonging is not servitude, but the condition of deepest freedom: to belong to God is to be free from all human bondage. Mary, who belonged totally to God, was absolutely free from every dependency other than the filial love of dependence.”“III. Mary’s ‘Fiat’ as ‘Reddite Deo'”“Luke 1:38: ‘Let it be to me according to your word.’ Mary’s ‘fiat’ is the most perfect expression of ‘reddite Deo quae sunt Dei’: she returns to God what is God’s, her freedom, her body, her future, and her own understanding of what her life should be. Mary’s ‘fiat’ is not passive resignation, but the freest act in human history, by which she ‘gives’ to God what belongs to Him.”“The structure of the ‘fiat’ has two moments: first, the recognition (‘Behold, I am the servant of the Lord,’ Luke 1:38a), which is the acknowledgment that she belongs to God. Second, the surrender (‘Let it be to me according to your word,’ Luke 1:38b), which is the active and free return of what belongs to God.”These two moments, recognition and surrender, are the structure of all Christian spiritual consecration. The “Reddite Deo” of the Gospel finds in the “fiat” of Mary its most perfect human form.The tradition of consecration to Mary, in particular that of St. Louis Mary de Montfort, is precisely based on this logic: to consecrate oneself to Mary is to learn to “give God what is God’s” with the same radicality as Mary did. Consecration to Mary is not replacing God with Mary; it is the recognition that Mary, who gave everything to God more perfectly than any other human being, is the best “way” to learn to give God what belongs to Him.The liturgical calendar sets Saturday apart especially for Mary, and this devotion on Saturday has a biblical resonance: Saturday is the day of “rest in God,” the day when the human being, stopping work, recognizes that he is not the Lord of creation but its administrator. Mary, who “rested in God” totally with her “fiat,” is the figure of Christian Saturday: the creature who stopped being “the Lord” of its own destiny and surrendered to the true Lord.IV. Caesar and God in our time: Mary in a secularized worldThe question “the tribute to Caesar” has a contemporary version that mariology must address: in a secularized world, where the modern “Caesar,” the state, the market, public opinion, claims more and more domains once reserved for God, Jesus’ mandate “give to God what is God’s” is a necessary cultural resistance. There is an area of human existence that cannot be ceded to any Caesar: conscience, dignity, life, love.Mary, who lived under the domination of a real Caesar (the Roman Empire, which fixed the census that led to Bethlehem, Lk 2:1), was not defined by Caesar. Her identity did not come from the census, her social status, or her position in the Empire; it came from her relationship with God. The Marian “Reddite Deo” is spiritual resistance to the modern “Caesar”: interior freedom of the “poor of Yahweh” (Anawim) in a world where modern “Caesar” tends to colonize all existence.“Giving to God what is God’s” has, in contemporary culture, a specific application in the area of religious freedom: the attempt by some modern states to regulate religious conscience, to define what is or is not legitimate religious practice, to reduce faith to a private matter with no public impact, is precisely the claim of a “Caesar” who seeks what belongs to God. Mary, who lived her faith in a totally public way (the Magnificat is a political proclamation) and at the same time totally free and non-coercitive, is the model of a faith that “gives to God what is God’s” without being domesticated by Caesar.The legacy of St. Philip Neri, whose feast is celebrated today, is particularly relevant: he who founded the Oratory in Rome in the 16th century, in the midst of intense political and religious tensions, chose the way of joy, culture, prayer, and service as a form of “giving to God what is God’s” without direct confrontation with power. This way, which has in Mary its ultimate inspiration, is the way of the witness who is not defined by Caesar but also does not seek futile conflict.Mary, who in the “fiat” returned to God all that was His, is the perfect model of one who understood Jesus’ command: “Give to God what is God’s,” the totality of the human being made in His image.

References

• Augustine, De Trinitate, XIV-XV.
• John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, n. 14 (1987).
• St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, n. 121-133.
• J. Gnilka, Das Evangelium nach Markus, vol. II (1979).
• Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, n. 12 (1965).

Catholic theology (mariology, angelology, demonology, josephology)