UNSCRIPTURAL MARIAN DOCTRINE?
by Fr. William G. Most
Besides the fact that Protestants, in violation of Matt. 7:1, charge
Catholics with worshipping Mary, they add the claim that our advanced
doctrines are unscriptural. (Matt. 7:1 does not forbid stating the
<objective> rating of an action- it forbids only claiming to know the
<interior> of a person who does it. So the fact that we sing songs and
light candles in her honor is no more worship than the eternal flame at
the grave of JFK. We tell them our interior: it is not meant as worship.
But they say: "Yes but it is." This is not only rash judgment, but dogged
perversity. We wish they would honor Matt. 7:1.)
But at present we are interested in the further claim that the teaching of
her cooperation in the redemption is unscriptural.
First, we want to notice that in the very earliest Fathers of the Church,
such as St. Justin Martyr (c. 145-150), we find the New Eve doctrine,
i.e., that just as the first Eve really contributed to the damage of
original sin, so Mary, the New Eve, really contributed to removing it.
They had in mind her obedient acceptance, in faith, to be the Mother of
the Messiah.
But today the Church has gone beyond that early teaching. We quote a very
official text, the <Constitution on the Church> of Vatican II, #61: ". . .
in suffering with Him as He died on the cross, she cooperated in the work
of the Savior, in an altogether singular way, by obedience, faith, hope
and burning love, to restore supernatural life to souls." Basically this
same doctrine is found in every Pope from Leo XIII up to and including
John Paul II. By the time of Vatican II, nearly all the die-hard Catholic
theologians who disliked this teaching had admitted they had to concede.
So Vatican II was merely restating a repeated teaching. But the way it
expressed it is very helpful. It said her role on Calvary was one of
obedience. Earlier, in #56 it had pointed out that obedience twice, in
citing St. Irenaeus: "By obeying, she became a cause of salvation for
herself and for the whole human race." Then, after recalling the
comparison St. Irenaeus made of all sin to a complex knot, in which the
Saint said that to untie a knot, one must take the end of the rope
backwards through every turn taken in tying it, it added, from St.
Irenaeus again: "Thus then, the knot of the disobedience of Eve was untied
through the obedience of Mary."
At first sight this teaching seems to have no basis in Scripture. But if
we look more closely, we will see something quite obvious. First, at the
Annunciation, she was asked to consent, in faith, to be the Mother of the
Messiah. She knew this perfectly clearly, for as soon as the Archangel
said, "He will reign over the house of Jacob forever," she knew that only
the Messiah could reign forever. So she knew it was the Messiah. Then
there would begin to crowd into her thoughts all the ancient prophecies of
the Messiah, especially Isaiah 53, of his dreadful sufferings and death.
She was asked to consent to be the Mother of such a Messiah.
She did consent, as St. Luke tells us, saying: "Be it done to me according
to your word." She gave her <fiat>, her obedience to the will of God, as
the angel told her of his will.
Did she later retract this acceptance of God's will? Of course not. Any
soul either falls back or goes ahead in holiness. Holiness really consists
in the alignment of our wills with the will of God-for the free will is
the only thing free we have.
So she faithfully stood by him, keeping in the background when the crowds
gave him praise, but moving out into the dark blackness that hung over
Calvary. There she stood.
What was her reaction? Of course, she grieved, as any Mother would, seeing
her Son suffering so horribly. And she saw that suffering as our
crucifixes do not generally let us see it-they contain no trace at all of
the horrid scourging, leaving him bloody all over.
But now we can begin to realize something tremendous. As we said,
spiritual perfection consists in the alignment of our will with the will
of the Father. Further, when we know what he positively wills, it is not
enough for us to say, as it were: "Let it go." No, we are called on to
<positively will> what he wills.
But what did he will in that dread hour? She knew from Isaiah 53:10: "It
was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain." So the Father willed
that his Son should die, die then, die so horribly. So did the Son will
it. So she was then called upon to will what the Father willed, what her
Son willed, in other words, <she was called on to will positively that he
die, die then, die horribly.>
We must add: the redemption was, under one aspect, the making of the New
Covenant, foretold by Jeremiah 31:31 ff: "I will make a new covenant. It
will not be like the covenant I made with your Fathers, for they broke my
covenant, and I had to show myself their master. But this is the covenant.
I will write my law on their heart. I will be their God, and they will be
my people."
In the Covenant of Sinai, the essential condition had been the obedience
of the people (Exod. 19:5): "If you really hearken to my voice, and keep
my covenant, you will be my special people." So the New Covenant would
have again as its essential condition obedience, which Jeremiah expressed
by speaking of a law written on hearts. Perhaps Jeremiah did not see it
fully, but that obedience was to be the obedience of Christ.
Mary had to accept Jesus' death
What did that law of the Father, written on her heart, call for? It called
for what we have just said: That she positively will that her Son die, die
then, die horribly. In that, she was joining in the fulfillment of the
Covenant condition. He, in Gethsemani, had said: "If it be possible, let
this chalice pass . . . but nonetheless, not what I will, but what you
will." In other words, he obeyed. St. Paul stressed that too in Rom. 5:19:
"Just as by the disobedience of the one man [the first Adam] the many were
made sinners [original sin] so by the obedience of the one man [the New
Adam] the many will be constituted just."
In fact, had his death taken place without obedience, it would not have
been a redemption; it would have been merely a tragedy. So it was
obedience that was the covenant condition; it was that which gave the
value to his death.
To look at the same reality from a different perspective, his death was a
sacrifice. God had once complained through Isaiah 29:13: "This people
honors me with their lips . . . their hearts are far from me." The
ancient Jews were very adept at what is sometimes, simplistically, called
"participation." They loved to make the responses, to sing, to join in
processions. But it was all empty, for their hearts were far from him:
their hearts did not act in obedience.
But Jesus did offer his sacrifice in obedience. So just as obedience is
the covenant condition, so too, it is that without which his sacrifice
would be as worthless as those of which God complained through Isaiah.
But we return to Our Lady. At the annunciation, she obeyed, she said
her<fiat>. She knew too much for comfort even then, of what that entailed,
as we explained above. But now in the blackness of Calvary, she was
called on to continue to obey the will of the Father. That she did. As we
said, we know this since any soul is required to conform its will to that
of the Father. But then, she knew that will of the Father, knew it all too
well. It was that he should die then, die horribly.
So what she had to do, unless she would break with the Father, was to will
what he willed, to will the terrible death of her Son.
All this is, of course, entirely Scriptural. It merely points out that at
the start she obeyed in saying her <fiat>, as St. Luke tells us. At the
Cross, as any soul that loves the will of the Father must do, she had to
continue her <fiat>, to continue to obey. Isaiah 53 had said that, "by his
stripes we are healed," that, "it was the will of the Lord to crush him in
pain." Even the Targum knew Isaiah spoke of the Messiah, although in the
stiff-necks of many, the message was even inverted. But she was not such,
she understood, and yet she did not take back her <fiat,> she obeyed the
will of the Lord. That obedience of hers was a joining in the essential
condition of the New Covenant: it was a joining in the necessary interior
of his sacrifice.
Her love of him would multiply the difficulty. It was the love of the best
of Mothers for the best of Sons, a Son whom she understood as no other
person could. We cannot really calculate the terrible difficulty of her
obedience, going counter to such love.
Would the Father accept her obedience as part of the covenant obedience?
In the old covenant, he accepted the obedience of even very ordinary,
sinful people-how much more hers! Would he put her in such straits, call
on her to obey when it was so incredibly hard, and then not accept her
obedience as part of the covenant condition even as he had accepted the
obedience of very ordinary, sinful people, as we said, in the old
covenant.
He could have redeemed us with something immeasurably less painful-the
mere fact of the incarnation, even without so much as a short prayer
added, would have been superabundant. Yet in his love of all goodness, in
his love of us, <he would not stop short when there was any way to make it
all richer.> It was in that attitude that he called for the death of his
Son, that he called for her immeasurably difficult obedience.
So, Vatican II in its teaching, merely unfolded, by pondering in hearts,
what the Scripture contains: "In suffering with Him as He died on the
cross, she cooperated in the work of the Savior"-in the essential
requirement of the New Covenant, in the essential interior of the Great
Sacrifice-"by obedience, faith, hope and burning love."
Reverend William G. Most is Professor of Scripture and Theology at the
Notre Dame Catechetical Institute in Arlington, Va. His latest books
include Catholic Apologetics Today and Free From All Error. He has written
for many journals, including Journal for the Study of the New Testament,
Catholic Biblical Quarterly, and others. Fr. Most contributed three
articles on Scripture to the New Catholic Encyclopedia. His last article
in HPR appeared in August-September 1991.
This article appeared in the May 1994 issue of "The Homiletic & Pastoral
Review," 86 Riverside Dr., New York, N.Y. 10024, 212-799-2600, $24.00 per
year.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The electronic form of this document is copyrighted.
Copyright (c) Trinity Communications 1994.
Provided courtesy of:
The Catholic Resource Network
Trinity Communications
PO Box 3610
Manassas, VA 22110
Voice: 703-791-2576
Fax: 703-791-4250
Data: 703-791-4336
The Catholic Resource Network is a Catholic online information and
service system. To browse CRNET or join, set your modem to 8 data
bits, 1 stop bit and no parity, and call 1-703-791-4336.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
