“Most Holy Theotokos, Save Us!” ~ On the New Vatican Document about Marian Titles

If St Paul can imply in Colossians 1:24 that he is a "Co-Redeemer", how much more true is it of the Blessed Virgin? Mary, Co-Redemptrix, pray for us!

From One Peter Five

By Timothy Flanders, MA

Author’s note: I submit this piece directly to the Immaculata as my “editor in chief” as St. Maximilian Kolbe directs me as a member of the MI, for her greater honour and glory in the hearts of all the faithful. Totus Tuus! 

“Most Holy Theotokos, Save Us!” This is the common refrain of the Byzantine liturgy. Ὑπεραγία Θεοτόκε, σῶσον ἡμᾶς. This is the cry of any soul who knows that he is punished justly for his sins and he has no merits by which to plead with the Just Judge. He also knows that the demons are so much more powerful than him. Therefore he cries out to his mother to save him.

Does such a soul intend theological precision? No, he’s not trying to write an academic paper, he’s trying to be saved from physical death, mortal sin, or the eternal fires of hell. Therefore this cry is the cry of the heart.

What is interesting to note is that the Greek word here is from σώζω and ultimately σῶς which means “safe and sound.” Out of this word we get σωτήρ, one of the ancient Greek titles for Our Lord in the ICHTHYS “Jesus Fish” acronym.

But more potently, this is the meaning of the Name of Jesus Himself.

So the most common refrain in the Byzantine liturgy asks Our Lady to “save us,” even though the Holy Name of Jesus literally means “Saviour” or “Salvation.”

Therefore it seems strange that the latest doctrinal note from the Office Formerly Known as Holy does not include a section on this refrain, especially since it seems far more confusing, at face value, than the titles “Co-Redemptrix” and “Mediatrix.”

But do any Byzantine Catholics think that the Theotokos can save them outside of Christ? Of course not. Do they think the Theotokos is their saviour? Of course not.

But who knows? Maybe somebody is confused out there. I know Protestants are confused about Mary. Perhaps by her prayers, this doctrinal note will help them understand how to honour their own mother and receive her as St. John did at the cross.

The new document’s intended audience however (although it does mention an ecumenical aim), seems to be other Catholics:

[T]here are some Marian reflection groups, publications, new devotions, and even requests for Marian dogmas that do not share the same characteristics as popular devotion. Rather, they ultimately propose a particular dogmatic development and express themselves intensely through social media, often sowing confusion among ordinary members of the faithful. Sometimes these initiatives even involve reinterpretations of expressions that were used in the past with a variety of meanings.

So apparently there’s some groups who are promoting these titles “Co-Redemptrix” and “Mediatrix of All Graces” as part of a doctrinal movement of some kind. I’m not too familiar with this, so I asked you all on Twitter and got a few responses including The Lady of All Nations. The website MotherofallPeoples.com has information about their advocacy of the Fifth Marian Dogma with this summary:

The proclamation of the Dogma of Mary Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix, and Advocate by the Holy Father will enable the Mother of Jesus to shower the world with a historic outpouring of grace, redemption, and peace in a new and dynamic way—an event which Marian apparitions like Fatima refer to as the “Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

In the 1910’s, Cardinal Mercier of Belgium began a petition movement to the Holy Father for the papal definition of Mary’s universal mediation.  In the early 1920’s, St. Maximilian Kolbe added his voice for the solemn definition of Mary as Co-redemptrix and Mediatrix of all graces.  As was the case in the movements leading up to the last two papal definitions of Mary’s Immaculate Conception and Assumption, millions of petitions from cardinals, bishops, clergy, religious and the lay faithful the world over have been sent to the Holy Father in support of this solemn dogmatic proclamation of Mary’s spiritual motherhood.

I have not studied very much about this movement so I can’t really comment but I am Militia Immaculata, and I’m ready to follow St. Maximilian Kolbe into the breach. So I guess that makes me on one side of this debate, although I’m not a theologian so I’ll leave that to the clerics to work out.

But surprisingly, the document flatly confirms the basic theology and spirituality of Our Lady’s Co-Redemption as orthodox and traditional:

The cooperation of the Mother with her Son in the work of Salvation has been taught by the Magisterium of the Church. As the Second Vatican Council states, “rightly, therefore, the holy Fathers see Mary not merely as a passive instrument in the hands of God, but as freely cooperating in the work of human salvation through faith and obedience.” This cooperation is present not only in Jesus’ earthly life (at his conception, birth, death, and Resurrection) but also throughout the life of the Church.

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception highlights the primacy and unicity of Christ in the work of Redemption, for it teaches that Mary — the first to be redeemed — was herself redeemed by Christ and transformed by the Spirit, prior to any possible action of her own. From this special condition of being the first redeemed by Christ and the first transformed by the Holy Spirit, Mary is able to cooperate more intensely and profoundly with Christ and the Spirit, becoming the prototype, model and exemplar of what God wants to accomplish in every person who is redeemed. (13-14).

But then the document further affirms the title itself:

Some Popes have used the title “Co-redemptrix” without elaborating much on its meaning. Generally, they have presented the title in two specific ways: in reference to Mary’s divine motherhood (insofar as she, as Mother, made possible the Redemption that Christ accomplished) or in reference to her union with Christ at the redemptive Cross. The Second Vatican Council refrained from using the title for dogmatic, pastoral, and ecumenical reasons. Saint John Paul II referred to Mary as “Co-redemptrix” on at least seven occasions, particularly relating this title to the salvific value of our sufferings when they are offered together with the sufferings of Christ, to whom Mary is united especially at the Cross (18).

The lengthy footnote 33 also explicitly affirms the following:

Under the pontificate of Saint Pius X, the title “Co-redemptrix” appears in one document of the Sacred Congregation of Rites and two documents of the Holy Office. Cf. Sacred Congregation of Rites, Dolores Virginis Deiparae (13 May 1908): ASS 41 (1908), 409; Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, Decree Sunt quos amor (26 June 1913): AAS 5 (1913), 364, which praises the custom of adding to the name of Jesus the name “of his mother, our Co-redemptrix, the Blessed Mary”; Oración indulgenciada (22 January 1914): AAS 6 (1914), 108, in which Mary is called “Co-redemptrix of the human race.” The first Pope to use the term “Co-redemptrix” was Pius XI in a Brief dated 20 July 1925 about the Queen of the Rosary of Pompeii: Pius XI, Ad B.V.M. a Sacratissimo Rosario in Valle Pompeiana, in Sacra Paenitentiaria Apostolica, Enchiridion indulgentiarum, Rome 1952, n. 628: “Remember also that at Calvary you became the Co-redemptrix, cooperating with the crucifixion of your heart for the salvation of the world, together with your crucified Son;” Cf. Allocution “Ecco di Nuovo” to Pilgrims from the Diocese of Vicenza (30 November 1933): L’Osservatore Romano, 1 December 1933, 1.

Notwithstanding all of this traditional grounding which the document – to its great credit – does not dismiss or ignore, the text then quotes the cautionary or negative comments from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and then Pope Francis about this title and seems to “side with” these latter, instead of the prior Magisterium and Popes by saying the following:

Given the necessity of explaining Mary’s subordinate role to Christ in the work of Redemption, it would not be appropriate to use the title “Co-redemptrix” to define Mary’s cooperation. This title risks obscuring Christ’s unique salvific mediation and can therefore create confusion and an imbalance in the harmony of the truths of the Christian faith, for “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). When an expression requires many, repeated explanations to prevent it from straying from a correct meaning, it does not serve the faith of the People of God and becomes unhelpful. In this case, the expression “Co-redemptrix” does not help extol Mary as the first and foremost collaborator in the work of Redemption and grace, for it carries the risk of eclipsing the exclusive role of Jesus Christ — the Son of God made man for our salvation, who was the only one capable of offering the Father a sacrifice of infinite value — which would not be a true honor to his Mother. Indeed, as the “handmaid of the Lord” (Lk 1:38), Mary directs us to Christ and asks us to “do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5) (22).

What is noteworthy with such a stark contrast clearly shown in the source material, the “Office Formerly Known as Holy” includes no definitive language intending to definitively bind the faithful to anything at all (beyond the general pious attitude toward legitimate authority). This is quite similar to what Vatican II itself did when it said:

[T]his Holy Synod… does not, however, have it in mind to give a complete doctrine on Mary, nor does it wish to decide those questions which the work of theologians has not yet fully clarified. Those opinions therefore may be lawfully retained which are propounded in Catholic schools concerning her, who occupies a place in the Church which is the highest after Christ and yet very close to us (Lumen Gentium, 54).

Even though there is no such explicit intention mentioned in this new document, the absence of any definitive language makes the document amount to saying the same thing Vatican II did. In other words, the note is not binding anybody to reject the title “Co-Redemptrix” or “Mediatrix of All Graces” but it is merely a cautionary note.

So what’s the motivation here? Is the corrupt Vatican just throwing in their lot with the heretics that hate Mary? Indeed, it is not unreasonable to assume there are nefarious actors at work seeking to dishonour Our Lady. They are ashamed of their mother and their lord is the devil. We would be naïve to assume these men are not in high places in the Vatican, pulling strings.

Nevertheless, is it fair to say that some Catholics are confused about Mary? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know.

I remember when I was Protestant I once met a very pious woman at a church who said to me “I never speak directly to Jesus, only to Mary.” I thought to myself, this person is either extremely humble and perhaps holy, or maybe she’s actually de facto worshipping Mary with invincible ignorance?

I was also struck by a Franciscan writer recently who talked about the presence of Mary in the Eucharist. That seemed a bit strange to me.

I know there are certain strange cults that worship “Mary as God,” and the Muhammadan’s own “sacred text,”  Qur’an (that is, demonic text) implies that Christians worship Mary and Jesus as gods (Surah 5:116).

It could be one nefarious tactic of the devil in some cases to exalt Mary to such a degree that she obscures Christ. But if that’s your Mary, you don’t know the Real Immaculata. If she’s not drawing you to Christ, then that’s not Our Lady.

To its great credit, the document affirms the eternal enmity between Our Lady and Satan in a way that again affirms the Co-Redemption spirituality: “Mary is foreshadowed in Genesis3:15 because she is the woman who shares in the definitive victory over the serpent” (5).

In any case, I’m not a pastor and I don’t know to whatever degree there is indeed confusion about these things. I remember, too, explaining to a Coptic Orthodox Christian in Egypt that Protestants think that Catholics and Orthodox “worship Mary.” She was literally flabbergasted and couldn’t believe that anyone would think that they worship Mary. Having converted myself, I can understand why she was flabbergasted. Marian devotion just makes complete sense because we follow the Ten Commandments: “Honour thy Father and Mother.” Christians have a mother according to Revelation 12:17 (which the document notes as well). Therefore she is honoured above everyone except God. And that chapter in Revelation also shows Mary’s Co-Redemption “birth pains” in suffering to give birth to the Church.

Getting back to the document, it goes on to give a similar treatment to the title “Mediatrix of all Graces.” However in sections 68-69 there is a positive aspect given to this title.

But besides all this, there are also some beautiful passages of Marian spirituality which are filled with wonder, stirring us to love Mary more and more against the heretics and win them over to the Immaculata:

[Mater Populi Fidelis] The Mother of the Faithful People of God is viewed with affection and admiration by Christians because, since grace makes us like Christ, Mary is the most perfect expression of Christ’s action that transforms our humanity. She is the feminine manifestation of all that Christ’s grace can accomplish in a human being (1).

…

Mary’s “Yes” to Gabriel’s  message — so that the Word of God might become flesh in her womb (cf. Lk 1:26-37) — opens for humanity the possibility of divinization. For this reason, Saint Augustine calls the Virgin “cooperator” in Christ’s Redemption, thereby emphasizing both Mary’s action at Christ’s side as well as her subordination to him, for Mary cooperates with Christ so that “the faithful might be born in the Church.” For this reason, we can call her the Mother of the Faithful People of God (9).

…

She is the icon in which Christ is venerated (11).

…

Mary’s participation in Christ’s work becomes evident when one begins from the conviction that the risen Lord promotes, transforms, and enables believers to collaborate with him in his work. This does not happen due to some weakness, incapacity, or need on Christ’s part but because of his glorious power, which is capable of taking us up, generously and freely, as collaborators in his work. What must be emphasized in this case is that when Christ allows us to accompany him and — under the impulse of his grace — to give our very best, it is ultimately his power and his mercy that are glorified.

The following text is particularly illuminating in connection with this theme: “he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father” (Jn 14:12). Believers united to the risen Christ, who has returned to the Father’s right hand, can accomplish deeds that surpass the wonders that were done by the earthly Jesus, but always thanks to their union through faith with the glorious Christ.

…If this holds true for every believer — whose cooperation with Christ becomes increasingly fruitful to the extent that one allows oneself to be transformed by grace — how much more must it be affirmed of Mary in a unique and supreme way. For she is the one who is “full of grace” (Lk 1:28) and who said, without putting any obstacle in God’s work, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38) (29-30, 32).

…

By physically bearing Christ — through her free, believing acceptance of that mission — Mary also, in faith, gave birth to all Christians who are members of the Mystical Body of Christ. In other words, she gave birth to the total Christ: Head and members (35).

…

Mary, in heaven, loves the “rest of her offspring” (Rev 12:17), and so, as she once accompanied the Apostles’ prayer when they received the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 1:14), she now accompanies our prayers from heaven with her maternal intercession. In this way, she continues the attitude of service and compassion that she showed at the wedding in Cana (cf. Jn 2:1-11) as she still today turns to Jesus to say: “They have no wine” (Jn 2:3). In her song of praise, we see Mary as a woman of her people, who praises God because “he has lifted up the lowly, he has filled the hungry with good things” (Lk 1:52-53), and because “he has come to the help of his servant Israel, for he has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers” (Lk 1:54-55); and we recognize her promptness when she went without delay to help her cousin Elizabeth (cf. Lk 1:39-40). For these reasons, the People of God trust firmly in her intercession (41).

…

Her countenance sings the mystery of the Incarnation. In the face of the Mother who was pierced by the sword (cf. Lk 2:35), the People of God recognize the mystery of the Cross, and in that same face — bathed in paschal light — they perceive that Christ is alive. And it was she, who received the Holy Spirit in plenitude, who sustained the Apostles in prayer in the Upper Room (cf. Acts 1:14). Therefore, we can say that “Mary’s faith, according to the Church’s apostolic witness, in some way continues to become the faith of the pilgrim People of God.” (77).

…

The Mother’s closeness gives rise to a “popular” Marian piety that takes different forms in different peoples. The various faces of Mary — Korean, Mexican, Congolese, Italian, and so many others — are ways the Gospel is inculturated that reflect, in every place on earth, “the paternal tenderness of God,” which reaches into the very core of our peoples (79).

Passages such as these fulfil, in this author’s opinion, the more important intention of the document to glorify the Immaculata:

Marian devotion, which Mary’s motherhood engenders, is presented here as a treasure of the Church. The piety of the faithful People of God — who find in Mary refuge, strength, tenderness, and hope — is not contemplated here to correct it but, above all, to appreciate, admire, and encourage it. For this piety is a mystagogical and symbolic expression of an evangelical attitude of trust in the Lord, which the Holy Spirit freely stirs up in believers. In fact, the poor “also find God’s affection and love in the face of Mary. In her, they see reflected the essential Gospel message” (prologue).

Now, let’s see what St. Louis de Montfort – the greatest Marian saint and author of the greatest Marian book – has to say about the danger of over-exalting Mary:

I AVOW, with all the Church, that Mary, being but a mere creature that has come from the hands of the Most High, is, in comparison with His Infinite Majesty, less than an atom; or rather she is nothing at all “He who is,” and thus by consequence that grand Lord, always independent and sufficient to Himself, never had, and has not now, any absolute need of the Holy Virgin for the accomplishment of His will and for the manifestation of His glory. He has but to will, in order to do every, because He only is thing.

Nevertheless I say that, things being supposed as they are now, God having willed to commence and to complete His greatest works by the most holy Virgin, since He created her, we may well think He will not change His conduct in the eternal ages; for He is God, and He changes not either in His sentiments or in His conduct.

God the Father has not given His Only-begotten to the world except by Mary. Whatever sighs the patriarchs may have sent forth—whatever prayers the prophets and the saints of the ancient law may have offered up to obtain that treasure for full four thousand years—it was but Mary that merited it; it was but Mary who found grace before God by the force of her prayers and the eminence of her virtues. The world was unworthy, says St. Augustine, to receive the Son of God immediately from the Father’s hands. He has given Him to Mary in order that the world might receive Him through her (14-16).

If we consider the passage above from St. Louis de Montfort, Mary is the one who helps us accept that even though grace can come to us directly from God, He has willed that we receive grace in Christ through the mediation of His creatures. First, because it is through Mary, we accept that we need priests to receive Sacramental grace, and also even actual graces from the prayers of our brethren. The heretics who reject Mary also reject priests. They assert that grace comes directly from God. But because they do not humble themselves before creatures, they are proud. We are saved from pride through Mary, because she is a creature, she humbles us in a way that God does not, since He is not created. This is why the devil hates her so much, and the heretics hate her too.

Where is the concern for this 500 year old heresy which has ravaged the world, including Fernández’s native South America? Nevertheless we hope that Protestants will see that we do not given Our Lady latreia, but we only seek to follow the Fourth Commanment and honour our Father (God) and Mother (Mary).

Yet as the document expounds the mysteries of nature and grace, we see that even priests are not the principles of grace, quoting St. Thomas’s Quaestiones disputatae de Veritate and Summa:

Indeed, only God reaches our innermost center to bring about elevation and transformation when he gives himself as a Friend, and thus, “no creature can confer grace.” Saint Thomas reiterates this point when speaking about sacramental grace: as the principal cause, “only God produces the interior effect of the sacrament: first, because God alone can enter the soul wherein the sacramental effect takes place (and no agent can operate immediately where it is not): secondly, because the grace that is an interior effect of the sacrament comes from God alone” (50).

In footnote 164 the document seems to be somewhat definitive about this Thomistic account of grace: “The arguments that Saint Thomas Aquinas used to explain why only God, and no creature, can confer grace cannot be considered superseded, either within his own work or subsequently.”

To its great credit the document supplements the Angelic Doctor with the Seraphic Doctor in a beautiful passage on grace which inspires any pious soul to mental prayer:

Other authors have expressed themselves in a similar way. In this context, it is worth highlighting Saint Bonaventure, who taught that when God works with sanctifying grace in a human being, he makes that person absolutely immediate to himself. By grace, God becomes fully near to the human being, with an absolute immediacy, an “entering into” the person’s innermost part that only God can achieve. Created grace, then, does not work like an “intermediary” but is the direct effect of the friendship that God bestows, which touches the human heart directly. And so, since it is God who brings about the person’s transformation when he gives himself as a Friend, there is no intermediary between God and the transformed person. Only God is capable of entering in so deeply, to sanctify us to the point of becoming absolutely immediate to us, and only God can do so without nullifying the person (51).

However, I would be curious to see what Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange would say to this, who discussed Our Lady as Mediatrix in Three Ages of the Interior Life. But I’m not a theologian and the mystery of nature and grace has dominated their world for a few generations. I will leave those theologians to work that out, and I’ll just keep relying on the Immaculata to get me into the royal chamber of His Majesty’s presence. Nevertheless, the document seems to affirm the very concept of “Mediatrix of all graces” and its spirituality:

At the same time, since Mary is full of grace and since the good always seeks to communicate itself to others, the idea easily emerges of a kind of “overflow” of grace from Mary — an idea that can only have an appropriate meaning if it does not contradict what has already been said. Such an interpretation poses no difficulty if we are dealing especially with the forms of cooperation that have already been discussed (Mary’s intercession and her maternal closeness that invite us to open our hearts to God’s sanctifying grace), and which the Second Vatican Council presented as a varied cooperation on the part of the creature “who shares in this one source” (56).

After this there is an extensive section speaking about the Marian participation of the faithful in Christ’s redeeming work. This very much in the same spirit as the Militia Immaculata.

One concern I have is this: will this make the faithful scared to turn to Mary? I hope not. Even if a pious woman (like the one aforementioned) piously calls upon the real Mary more than Christ, Our Lady will undoubtedly bring her to Christ.

Later on in no. 75, the document returns the subject of apparitions:

Should expressions or titles, such as those mentioned above, emerge in cases of alleged supernatural phenomena that have already received a positive judgment from the Church, one ought to bear in mind that “whenever a Nihil obstat is granted by the Dicastery… such phenomena do not become objects of faith, which means the faithful are not obliged to give an assent of faith to them” (75).

In other words, the apparition does not become a dogma, but neither is it a heresy. So if I’m understanding this correctly, that means you are free to use Mediatrix and Co-Redemptrix, understood properly, especially if you believe in an apparition which uses these titles in some way.

All in all the document inspired me to win more souls for the Immaculata, and revisit the aforementioned text from Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange.

Try asking for her help to bring you into mental prayer. Ad Jesum per Mariam!

Jesus is King and Mary is Queen!

In saecula saecluorum, amen!