Inside the Vatican Magazine Special Issue 2022

INSIDE THE

VATICAN

SPECIAL ISSUE 2022 $15 / EUR 15 / £12

specIal Issue

MARY

Behold your Mother

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A Mother’s GAze

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he single most important work a mother can do, say experts in child development, is to gaze into the eyes of her newborn child. From this gaze develops the trust and love which heneforth anchors the personality of that child. this special Issue on Mary chooses that moment of gaze between mother and child for our cover, but it is intended as a call, to all mothers and all fathers, to love their children as this mother, Mary, loved her newborn son, Jesus. this is the first such special issue ever published by Inside the Vatican magazine. It is intended to provide Catholic and non-Catholic readers alike with a picture of the Virgin Mary which can be a contribution to devotion and renewal of faith in a time of great challenge for the Church, for Christians in general, and for all men and women of good will. By presenting Mary as she was in her lifetime 2,000 years ago, as she has been throughout the 20 centuries since, and as she is understood in the challenging context of our own time, we hoped to offer a work of beauty in honor of the Virgin which could be a source of faith, hope and love.

We plan to do other similar special issues in the months and years ahead on some of the other great figures in the history of the faith, including st. Peter, st. Paul, st. Francis of Assisi, st. Catherine of siena, st. edith stein and st.

Mother teresa of Calcutta, and on some of the great issues in Christian history and Christian life, like the liturgy, monastic life, the social teaching of the Church, and the great mystics of the Catholic and orthodox traditions. In these efforts, the fundamental conviction remains always to speak “from the heart of the Church,” a “heart” which is both an actual, physical place (rome and the Vatican, the see of Peter) and yet also a spiritual place, a spiritual homeland, animated by the inspiration of the holy spirit, and the desire to offer hope and redemption to mankind in the face of every sin and frustration due to sin, which hope and redemption is in Jesus Christ. these special Issues with not be periodicals like our bimonthly magazine, but permanent, available to all subscribers but also to all who would like to share them with their families, their friends, their schools, their parishes, their shrines and bookstores and gift shops, so that they are widely distributed and become points of reference for seekers of faith worldwide. so with this special Issue on Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our Mother, we begin this effort to remind ourselves of the beautiful and hopeful things in our tradition, which call us to follow in ever deeper faith, hope, and charity, toward that promised kingdom which is above, where all tears are wiped away, all that was lost is redeemed, and the joy of the presence of the Lord is eternal.

—Robert Moynihan, Editor, Inside the Vatican l

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Virgin and Child by Dieric Bouts, 1455-1465, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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“Behold Your Mother”

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noble Virgin, truly you are greater than any other greatness. For who is your equal in greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word? To whom among all creatures shall I compare you, O Virgin? You are greater than them all. O Ark of the New Covenant, clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the Ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which divinity resides. Should I compare you to the fertile earth and its fruits? You surpass them, for it is written: “The earth is my footstool” (Isaiah 66:1). But you carry within you the feet, the head, and the entire body of the perfect God. If we say that the cherubim are great, you are greater than they, for the cherubim carry the throne (cf. Ps. 80:1; 99:1), while you hold God in your hands. If we say that the seraphim are great, you are greater than them all, for the seraphim cover their faces with their wings (cf. Isa. 6:2), unable to look upon the perfect glory, while you not only gaze upon His face but caress it and offer your breasts to His holy mouth…

—St. Athanasius of Alexandria, c. 297-373 A.D.

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n order to restore human beings to their original state of grace, God the Father sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to earth. He entered history at a particular moment in time, in a particular place in the world, among a particular people, born to a particular woman.

This woman is Mary: the New Eve, the Woman Clothed with the Sun, who is prepared to do battle, alongside her Son, for our souls.

Mary is “greater than them all” — “for who is your equal in greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word?” St. Athanasius wrote 1,700 years ago. This is why, through the centuries, Christian liturgy has applied to Mary the words of the Book of Proverbs: “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything, from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of old, before the earth was made.” (Proverbs 8:22-23) She is called by many in the Catholic Church “Co-Redemptrix,” not because she has any power of herself to save us, but because, by His will, she is so intimately tied into her Son’s work of salvation that the two are virtually inseparable.

“To Jesus through Mary” is the rallying cry of those who follow the way of “True Devotion to Mary,” as formulated and expounded by the great Marian saint of the 18th century, Louis de Montfort. Indeed, St. Louis de Montfort tells us that “Mary has produced, together with the Holy Ghost, the greatest thing which has been, or ever will be, which is a God-Man; and she will consequently produce the greatest things that there will be in the latter times… For it is only that singular and miraculous Virgin who can produce, in union with the Holy Ghost, singular and extraordinary things.”

And yet she remains, 20 centuries later, unknown, misunderstood, or reappropriated for worldly ends — even disdained as an enemy to woman’s final liberation from the shackles of nature.

So we will go back and look at a few of the great works of theological reflection, of art, of literature and poetry, to once again discern the form and the message of this unique Woman, the Mother of the Savior and Our Mother also.

In the words of Jesus Himself from the cross where He offered His life for the salvation of the world: “Behold your Mother.”

—Christina Deardurff, Assistant Editor, Inside the Vatican l

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This woman is The new eve, The woman CloThed wiTh The sun, who is prepared To do baTTle, alongside her son, for our souls Madonna della Misericordia (“Madonna of Mercy”) by the Maestro del Trittico di Chia, c. 1500, Museo Diocesano (Diocesan Museum), Orte, Italy INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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4 INTRODUCTION In the ongoIng project of workIng out our own salvatIon

– and buIldIng up the kIngdom of god – jesus saw fIt to gIve us a guIde, an exemplar, a helper…a mother…so that we need not walk thIs path alone

PaRT ONe 12 THe LIFe OF THe BLeSSeD VIRGIN MaRY t he lIfe of the b lessed v IrgIn , from begInnIng to end , was a sIgn poIntIng to g od ’ s covenant wIth m an PaRT TwO 38 MaRY THROUGHOUT HISTORY: a wOMaN FOR aLL SeaSONS “F OR , BeHOLD , FROM HeNCeFORTH aLL GeNeRaTIONS SHaLL CaLL Me BLeSSeD ”

PaRT THRee 70 MaRY IN OUR TIMe u nderstandIng m ary Is not only approprIate , but essentIal , for understandIng the solutIons to the vexIng questIons , the sorrows and passIons , and the malaIse of our age

Incoronazione della Vergine (“The Crowning of the Virgin”), fresco by il Bergognone, c. 1515, Church of San Simpliciano, Milan, Italy

The Woman the World Loves

by Archbishop Fulton J. sheen

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here is, actually, only one person in all humanity of whom God has one picture and in whom there is a perfect conformity between what He wanted her to be and what she is, and that is His Own Mother. Most of us are a minus sign, in the sense that we do not fulfill the high hopes the Heavenly Father has for us. But Mary is the equal sign. The Ideal that God had of her, that she is, and in the flesh. The model and the copy are perfect; she is all that was foreseen, planned, and dreamed. The melody of her life is played just as it was written.

Mary was thought, conceived, and planned as the equal sign between ideal and history, thought and reality, hope and realization.

That is why, through the centuries, Christian liturgy has applied to her the words of the Book of Proverbs.

Because she is what God wanted us all to be, she speaks of herself as the Eternal blueprint in the Mind of God, the one whom God loved before she was a creature. She is even pictured as being with Him not only at creation but also before creation. She existed in the Divine Mind as an Eternal Thought before there were any mothers. She is the Mother of mothers— she is the world’s first love.

“The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything, from the beginning. I was set up

from eternity, and of old, before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived; neither had the fountains of waters as yet sprung out; the mountains with their huge bulk had not as yet been established: before the hills I was brought forth. He had not yet made the earth, or the rivers, or the poles of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was present; when with a certain law and compass He enclosed the depths; when He established the sky above and poised the fountains of waters; when He compassed the sea with its bounds and set a law to the waters that they should not pass their limits; when He balanced the foundations of the earth; I was with Him, forming all things, and was delighted every day, playing before Him at all times, playing in the world: and my delights were to be with the children of men. Now, therefore, ye children, hear me: Blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me and that watcheth daily at my gates and waiteth at the posts of my doors. He that shall find me shall find life and shall have salvation from the Lord” (Prov 8:22-35).

But God not only thought of her in eternity; He also had her in mind at the beginning of time. In the beginning of history, when the human race fell through the

She exiSted in the divine Mind aS an eternal thought before there were any MotherS. She iS the Mother of MotherS— She iS the world’S firSt love Above, the late American homilist, preacher and evangelist Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979).

Opposite, Sacra Famiglia (“The Holy Family”), painted c. 1760 by Pompeo Batoni (1708-1787), now in the Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome, Italy 8

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solicitation of a woman, God spoke to the Devil and said, “I will establish a feud between thee and the woman, between thy offspring and hers; she is to crush thy head, while thou dost lie in wait at her heels” (Gen 3:15). God was saying that, if it was by a woman that man fell, it would be through a woman that God would be revenged. Whoever His Mother would be, she would certainly be blessed among women, and because God Himself chose her, He would see to it that all generations would call her blessed.

When God willed to become Man, He had to decide on the time of His coming, the country in which He would be born, the city in which He would be raised, the people, the race, the political and economic systems that would surround Him, the language He would speak, and the psychological attitudes with which He would come in contact as the Lord of History and the Savior of the World.

All these details would depend entirely on one factor: the woman who would be His Mother. To choose a mother is to choose a social position, a language, a city, an environment, a crisis, and a destiny.

His Mother was not like ours, whom we accepted as something historically fixed, which we could not change; He was born of a Mother whom He chose before He was born. It is the only instance in history where both the Son willed the Mother and the Mother willed the Son. And this is what the Creed means when it says “born of the Virgin Mary.” She was called by God as Aaron was, and Our Lord was born not just of her

flesh but also by her consent.

Before taking unto Himself a human nature, He consulted with the Woman, to ask her if she would give Him a man. The Manhood of Jesus was not stolen from humanity, as Prometheus stole fire from heaven; it was given as a gift.

The first man, Adam, was made from the slime of the earth. The first woman was made from a man in an ecstasy. The new Adam, Christ, comes from the new Eve, Mary, in an ecstasy of prayer and love of God and the fullness of freedom.

We should not be surprised that she is spoken of as a thought by God before the world was made. When Whistler painted the picture of his mother, did he not have the image of her in his mind before he ever gathered his colors on his palette? If you could have preexisted your mother (not artistically, but really), would you not have made her the most perfect woman that ever lived—one so beautiful she would have been the sweet envy of all women, and one so gentle and so merciful that all other mothers would have sought to imitate her virtues? Why, then, should we think that God would do otherwise? When Whistler was complimented on the portrait of his mother, he said, “You know how it is; one tries to make one’s Mummy just as nice as he can.” When God became Man, He too, I believe, would make His Mother as nice as He could—and that would make her a perfect Mother.

—From The World’s First Love: Mary the Mother of God, 1952, 1997, 2010.

God spoke to the devil and said, “i will establish a feud between thee and the woman, between thy offsprinG and hers; she is to crush thy head, while thou dost lie in wait at her heels” (Gen 3:15) Immacolata Concezione (“The Immaculate Conception”) by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770), executed in 1767. Mary is shown trampling a snake, representing her victory over the devil. The lilies and the rose are references to the hortus conclusus (“enclosed garden”), and symbolize Mary's love, virginity and purity.

Now in the Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain 10

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Part One: the Life Of Mary

The Birth of Mary The life of The Blessed Virgin, from Beginning To end, was a sign poinTing To god’s coVenanT On Mary’s parents and her conception and birth: “That blessed and glorious ever-virgin Mary, sprung from the royal stock and family of David, born in the city of Nazareth, was brought up at Jerusalem in the temple of the Lord. Her father was named Joachim, and her mother Anna.

Her father’s house was from Galilee and the city of Nazareth, but her mother’s family from Bethlehem. Their life was guileless and right before the Lord, and irreproachable and pious before men.... For about 20 years they lived in their own house, a chaste married life, without having any children. Nevertheless they vowed that, should the Lord happen to give them offspring, they would deliver it to the service of the Lord; on which account also they used to visit the temple of the Lord at each of the feasts during the year.... And so, having worshipped the Lord, they returned home, and awaited in certainty and in gladness the divine promise. Anna therefore conceived, and brought forth a daughter; and according to the command of the angel, her parents called her name Mary.”

—The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, translated by Alexander Walker (From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 8, 1886)

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cripture is “tight-lipped regarding details of Mary’s personality and life,” writes Sister M. Danielle Peters of the University of Dayton, handing down to us “only the essentials of her religious vocation and role in the Incarnation and Jesus’ salvific work.”

However, “the apocryphal writings, non-canonical early writings dealing with Jesus’ and Mary’s life as well as other apostles and events surrounding the earliest times of Christianity... sometimes generously complement lacunas found in Scripture.”

Sr. M. Danielle Peters adds: “This is not to say that apocryphal writers are of higher authority than Scripture. It is Scripture in all its sobriety and sometimes frustrating poverty of information that constitutes the measuring rod of our faith. However, the apocryphal writings have documentary value. They witness contemporary feeling and reverence about Mary. They tell us what some people at a given time thought about Mary, and what their expectations and spiritual beliefs on her behalf were.... The Church allows her children to examine these works in the spirit of pious devotion, but accords none of their claims the certitude of divine faith.”

And so we read this about Mary’s birth in the Protoevanglium of James: “And, behold, an angel of the Lord stood by, saying: ‘Anna, Anna, the Lord has heard your prayer, and you shall conceive, and shall bring forth; and your seed shall be spoken of in all the world.’ And Anna said: ‘As the Lord my God lives, if I beget either male or female, I will bring it as a gift to the Lord my God; and it shall minister to Him in holy things all the days of its life.’”l

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“anna therefOre cOnceived, and brOught fOrth a daughter; and accOrding tO the cOMMand Of the angeL, her Parents caLLed her naMe Mary” Madonna del Rosario (“Madonna of the Rosary”) with scenes from the life of the Virgin and of Christ, by Guglielmo Caccia, c. 1615, Chiesa di San Domenico (Church of St. Dominic), Chieri, Italy INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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A Map to Accompany Mary Mary’s life was centered on the holy land, between Galilee (nazareth) and JerusaleM. Mary and Joseph fled to eGpyt, and Mary went with the apostle John at the end of her life to live in turkey (in ephesus)

S EPPHORIS 1 Mary was born c. 18 B.C.

Presentation in the Temple at 2 J ERUSALEM the age of three years

to St. Joachim and St. Anne

3 Espousal of Mary, c. age 14, to St. Joseph

N AZARETH

E IN K AREM 4 Visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth

6 E GYPT Flight into Egypt to flee from Herod when Mary was c. 17 years old 14

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Annunciation of the Angel to Mary at c.15 years old

Birth of Christ: Mary was c. 16 years old

8 C ANA

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5 B ETHLEHEM

E PHESUS

Mary and Jesus at the wedding feast Dormition of Mary in Ephesus, where of Cana. She was c. 46. First miracle she went to live with St. John, c. age 60

TURKEY

9 E PHESUS

Map of the Holy Land with ancient Israel from the Hall of Maps on the Second Loggia of the Vatican Palace. At the bottom, the twelve tribes at the time of Moses preparing to enter the Promised Land

GALILEE Sepphoris 1

8 C ANA

3 NAZARETH

SEA OF GALILEE

JUDEA JERUSALEM

E IN K AREM 4 2

BETHLEHEM 5

HT IG L F

TO IN

T YP 6 G E DEAD SEA

EGYPT

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The Presentation of Mary “In the holy tent I ministered before him, and in Zion I fixed my abode. Thus in the chosen city he has given me rest, in Jerusalem is my domain.

I have struck root among the glorious people, in the portion of the Lord, his heritage” (Sir 24:10-12).

—Liturgy for the Feast of the Presentation of Mary

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he presentation of the child Mary in the temple is recounted in the Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal book. In the text, Mary, just three years of age, was brought to the Temple by her parents, Joachim and Anna, to be consecrated to God. She had to climb fifteen stairs to reach the altar of Holocausts where the High Priest was waiting for her. The fifteen stairs leading to the altar corresponded to the gradual psalms that the People of Israel sang when they went to offer their sacrifices to the Lord.

Religious parents never fail by devout prayer to consecrate their children to the divine service and love, both before and after their birth. Some among the Jews, not content with this general consecration of their children, offered them to God in their infancy, by the hands of the priests in the temple, to be lodged in apartments belonging to the temple, and brought up attending the priests and Levites in the sacred ministry. It is an ancient tradition, that the Blessed Virgin Mary was thus solemnly offered to God in the temple in her infancy. This festival of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, or, as it is often called by the Greeks, the Entrance of the Blessed Virgin into the Temple, is mentioned in the most ancient Greek menologies extant.l

Religious paRents neveR fail by devout pRayeR to consecRate theiR childRen to the divine seRvice and love, both befoRe and afteR theiR biRth Presentazione di Maria al Tempio (“Presentation of Mary in the Temple”) by Giotto (1267-1337), Cappella degli Scrovegni, Padua, Italy 16

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The Annunciation The angel gabriel Tells a humble virgin of nazareTh ThaT god wishes her To be The moTher of The savior

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n the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be.

And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

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The Annunciation by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), believed to be his first painting, done when he was 20, in 1472. Now in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy

“He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

And Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no husband?”

And the angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. “And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.”

And Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

–Luke 1:26-38 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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The Visitation, and Mary’s Hymn of Praise L

et us imagine the Virgin’s state of mind after the Annunciation, when the Angel left her. Mary found herself with a great mystery enclosed within her womb; she knew something extraordinarily unique had happened; she was aware that the last chapter of salvation history in the world had begun. But everything around her remained as before and the village of Nazareth was completely unaware of what had happened to her.

Before worrying about herself, Mary instead thought about elderly Elizabeth, who she knew was well on in her pregnancy and, moved by the mystery of love that she had just welcomed within herself, she set out “in haste” to go to offer Elizabeth her help. This is the simple and sublime greatness of Mary! When she reaches Elizabeth’s house, an event takes place that no artist could ever portray with the beauty and the intensity with which it took place. The interior light of the Holy Spirit enfolds their persons. And Elizabeth, enlightened from on high, exclaims: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Lk 1: 42-45).

These words could appear to us out of proportion with respect to the real context. Elizabeth is one of the many elderly people in Israel and Mary is an unknown young woman from a lost village of Galilee.

What can this be, and what can they accomplish in a world where other people count and other powers hold sway? Yet, once again Mary amazes us; her heart is limpid, totally open to God’s light. Her soul is without sin, it is not weighed down by pride or selfishness. Elizabeth’s words enkindle in her spirit a canticle of praise, which is an authentic and profound “theological” reading of history: a reading that we must continually learn from the one whose faith is without shadow and without wrinkle. “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.” Mary recognizes God’s greatness. This is the first indispensable sentiment of faith. It is the sentiment that gives security to human creatures and frees us from fear, even in the midst of the tempest of history.

Going beyond the surface, Mary “sees” the work of God in history with the eyes of faith. This is why she is blessed, because she believed. By faith, in fact, she accepted the Word of the Lord and conceived the Incarnate Word. Her faith has shown her that the thrones of the powerful of this world are all temporary, while God’s throne is the only rock that does not change or fall. Her Magnificat, at the distance of centuries and millennia, remains the truest and most profound interpretation of history, while the interpretations of so many of this world’s wise have been belied by events in the course of the centuries.

(Pope Benedict XVI, Address on the Feast of the Visitation, May 31, 2008)

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Her MAGNIFIcAt is tHe “truest and most profound interpretation of History”

The Magnificat My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel for he remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever.

Madonna of the Magnificat by Sandro Botticelli, 1481, now in the Uffizi Museum, Florence.

Left, Visitazione by Mariotto Albertinelli, 1503, also in the Uffizi Museum, Florence INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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The Incarnation F

or he was conceived by the Holy Spirit within the womb of the Virgin Mother, who gave birth to him in such a way that her virginity was undiminished, just as she conceived him with her virginity undiminished.... The Son of God, therefore, descending from his heavenly throne, enters into the infirmities of this world; and, not leaving his Father’s glory, he is generated in a new order and a new birth.... Nor does the Lord Jesus Christ, born from the womb of the virgin, have a nature different from ours just because his birth is miraculous. For he who is true God is likewise true man, and there is no falsehood in this unity, in which the lowliness of man and the height of divinity coincide.

(Pope Leo I, The Tome to Flavian, 2, 4, 5th century A.D.) *** Note well that the “miraculous birth” (Latin: nativitas mirabilis) of Jesus in no way detracts from the fullness of his humanity. Rather, it shows forth the paradox of the incarnation itself, in which the “lowliness” of being born of a woman “coincides” with the “height” of his divinity. As we’ve seen with other ancient Christians, what Leo believes about Mary is based on what he believes about Jesus. Since Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, we should expect him to both enter fully into the infirmities of this world and, at the same time, to come into the world with miracles that reveal he is more than just an ordinary man.

Furthermore, the miraculous birth of Jesus was seen as a sign of the new creation. Think about it for a minute. If… Jesus is the new Adam and Mary is the new Eve, then it is fitting that Mary would give birth to Jesus without undergoing the pain that was the result of Eve’s sin. *** “Christ’s birth alone occurred without labor pains, and he alone began to exist without sexual relations…This happened for an understandable reason; there is nothing absurd about it.

Just as she who introduced death into nature by sin was condemned to bear children in suffering and travail (Gen 3:16), it was necessary that the Mother of life, after having conceived in joy, should give birth in joy as well.”

(Gregory of Nyssa, On the Song of Songs 13, 4th century A.D.) *** Although modern-day people think of pain in childbirth as something “natural,” this is certainly not how ancient Christians saw it. They saw it through the lens of the Jewish Bible, in which the pangs of childbirth are the result of the first sin (Genesis 3:16). Hence, just as the ancient Jews believed that in the new creation women would no longer experience birth pangs, so ancient Christians believed that the nativity of Jesus itself was the beginning of the new creation. What they believed about Mary, the second Eve, flowed directly from what they believed about Jesus, the new Adam.

—Brant Pitre, Ph.D., Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary

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Sign of the New Creation

The Adoration of the Shepherds by French painter Georges de La Tour (1593-1652), 1644, Louvre Museum, Paris INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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The Massacre of the Innocents “T

hen Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying: A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, Refusing to be comforted, Because they are no more.” (Matthew 2:16 ff.) *** Mary A New Rachel Notice three things about this mysterious and tragic event.

First and foremost, the massacre of the infants happens in the vicinity of Rachel’s tomb. Just as Rachel is buried on the road “to Bethlehem” (Genesis 35:19), so the children who are slaughtered by Herod are “from Bethlehem” and the surrounding “region” (Matthew 2:16).

Second, although Rachel has died, she is somehow aware of the suffering of her descendants, and she laments for them as the mother of Israel. That is why Matthew quotes Jeremiah’s prophecy of “Rachel weeping for her children” (Matthew 2:18, Jeremiah 31:15). In the words of one Protestant scholar: “Rachel, who wept from her grave in Bethlehem during the captivity [of the exile], was now weeping at another, nearer crisis significant in salvation history.” Intriguingly, Matthew seems to share the Jewish belief that Rachel, though long dead, is not oblivious to the sufferings of her descendants. She knows what is taking place on earth and grieves for them.

Third and finally, as the contemporary Jewish scholar David Flusser has pointed out, insofar as they both suffer for their children, Rachel and Mary are counterparts of each other: “In Matthew, Rachel is a symbolic figure for the suffering mother, in this case, the suffering Jewish mother.

And Rachel’s pain for the dead children is also symbolic for the suffering of Mary in relation to her illustrious son.”

Along similar lines, the Jewish scholar Jacob Neusner describes Rachel as “Mary’s ancient Israelite counterpart.” In other words, as the suffering mother of the persecuted child who is driven into exile, Mary in Matthew’s Gospel is truly a new Rachel. Indeed, on a very human level, it is easy to imagine Mary weeping not only for the persecution and exile of her own son, but for the lives of all the boys who were massacred in the attempt to kill her child.

—Brant Pitre, Ph.D., Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary 24

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“A voice wAs heArd in rAmAh, LAmentAtion, weeping And greAt mourning, rAcheL weeping for her chiLdren...”

Massacre of the Innocents by Lattanzio Gambara, c. 1571-1573, Duomo of Parma, Italy.

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Finding the Lost Boy Jesus Mary “kept all these things in her heart”

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is parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. When they had finished the days, as they returned, the Boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem. And Joseph and His mother did not know it; but supposing Him to have been in the company, they went a day’s journey, and sought Him among their relatives and acquaintances. So when they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking Him. Now so it was that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers. So when they saw Him, they were amazed; and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You done this to us? Look, Your father and I have sought You anxiously.”

And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”

But they did not understand the statement which He spoke to them.

Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart.

They arrived at Nazareth, where they occupied themselves in what I shall record later on. The evangelist Luke compendiously mentions all the mysteries in few words, saying the Child Jesus was subject to His parents, namely Most Holy Mary and Saint Joseph, and that His heavenly Mother noted and preserved within her heart all these events; and that Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men (Luke 2, 52), of which, as far as my understanding goes, I will speak later on.

Just now I wish only to mention that the humility and obedience of our God and Master toward His parents

were the admiration of the angels. But so was also the dignity and excellence of His most blessed Mother, who thus merited that the incarnate God should subject Himself and resign Himself to her care; so much so, that She, with the assistance of Saint Joseph, governed Him and disposed of Him as her own.

To the obedience and subjection of her most holy Son the great Lady on her part responded by heroic works.

Among her other excellences She conceived as it were an incomprehensible humility and a most heartfelt gratitude for having regained the companionship of her Son. This blessing, of which the heavenly Queen deemed Herself unworthy, vastly increased in her most pure heart her love and her anxiety to serve her divine Son. And She was so constant in showing her gratitude, so punctual and solicitous to serve Him, kneeling before Him and lowering Herself to the dust, that it excited the admiration of the highest seraphim. Moreover, She sought with the closest attention to imitate Him in all His actions as they became known to Her and exerted Herself most anxiously to copy them and reproduce them in Her own life.

The plenitude of her perfection wounded the heart of our Christ and Lord, and, according to our way of speaking, held Him bound to Her with chains of invincible love (Hosea 11, 4). His being thus bound as God and as Son to this heavenly Princess, gave rise to such an interchange and divine reciprocity of love, as surpasses all created understanding. For into the ocean of Mary’s soul entered all the vast floods of the graces and blessings of the incarnate Word; and this ocean did not overflow (Ecclesiastes 1, 7), because it mined the depth and expanse necessary to receive them.

(Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God,Vol. III, Bk. V, Ch. IV)

Then he wenT down wiTh Them and came To nazareTh, and was subjecT To Them, buT his moTher kepT all These Things in her hearT Stained glass window, “Jesus Found in the Temple,”

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Mary at the Foot of the Cross I

t is especially consoling to note—and also accurate in accordance with the Gospel and history—that at the side of Christ, in the first and most exalted place, there is always his Mother through the exemplary testimony that she bears by her whole life to this particular Gospel of suffering. In her, the many and intense sufferings were amassed in such an interconnected way that they were not only a proof of her unshakeable faith but also a contribution to the redemption of all. In reality, from the time of her secret conversation with the angel, she began to see in her mission as a mother her “destiny” to share, in a singular and unrepeatable way, in the very mission of her Son. And she very soon received a confirmation of this in the events that accompanied the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, and in the solemn words of the aged Simeon, when he spoke of a sharp sword that would pierce her heart. Yet a further confirmation was in the anxieties and privations of the hurried flight into Egypt, caused by the cruel decision of Herod.

And again, after the events of her Son’s hidden and public life, events which she must have shared with acute sensitivity, it was on Calvary that Mary’s suffering, beside the suffering of Jesus, reached an intensity which can hardly be imagined from a human point of view but which was mysterious and supernaturally fruitful for the redemption of the world. Her ascent of Calvary and her standing at the foot of the Cross together with the Beloved Disciple were a special sort of sharing in the redeeming death of her Son. And the words which she heard from his lips were a kind of solemn handing-over of this Gospel of suffering so that it could be proclaimed to the whole community of believers.

As a witness to her Son’s Passion by her presence, and as a sharer in it by her compassion, Mary offered a unique contribution to the Gospel of suffering, by embodying in anticipation the expression of Saint Paul which was quoted at the beginning. She truly has a special title to be able to claim that she “completes in her flesh”—as already in her heart—“what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.”

In the light of the unmatchable example of Christ, reflected with singular clarity in the life of his Mother, the Gospel of suffering, through the experience and words of the Apostles, becomes an inexhaustible source for the ever new generations that succeed one another in the history of the Church. The Gospel of suffering signifies not only the presence of suffering in the Gospel, as one of the themes of the Good News, but also the revelation of the salvific power and salvific significance of suffering in Christ’s messianic mission and, subsequently, in the mission and vocation of the Church.

(Pope St. John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris, February 11, 1984)

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The Crucifixion (triptych detail) by Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1445, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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The Assumption of Mary into Heaven – also I

n Eastern Christianity, the tradition of the Dormition (“falling asleep”) of the Theotokos (the “God-bearer”) at the end of her earthly life, like the Latin Church’s doctrine of the bodily Assumption of Mary, conveys the truth that Mary’s body, like her soul, never tasted corruption before entering Heaven.

“In giving birth you retained your virginity.

In falling asleep you did not abandon the world, O Mother of God. You passed over into life, for you are the Mother of Life, and by your prayer you deliver our souls from death.”

– Orthodox Rite Troparion for the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos

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known as the Dormition of the Theotokos

Dormitio Virginis (“Dormition of the Virgin”)

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Mary and the Preparation of Israel

By Jean Danielou

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the divine. This human race is essentially idolatrous in he Virgin Mary plays a crucial role in the First that it worships a creature that it takes for the Creator.

Parousia. In her the expectation of the Jewish peoAs soon as it comes into contact with the Egyptians, ple reached its zenith, since in Mary all preparathe Canaanites and the Babylonians, it relapses, since it tions, strivings, inspirations, all graces and models, by has not yet got rid of its primitiveness, persists in its carwhich the Old Testament is fulfilled, converged and nal constraint, and is still too close to carnal nature. God flowed into one stream. So we may well say that she, has to tear it loose from its natural instincts, from the who stands on the eve of Christ’s coming, forms the final powers of the earth and the vegetation, in order to bring end, embodies the long expectation of the previous it to the knowledge of the Holy God who is a transcentwenty centuries. From it the longing of the whole Old dent, a consuming God, who is almost too difficult for a Testament speaks most eloquently; in it the preparation still young, unsteady humanity to endure, in the sense for the coming of the Lord experiences a more comprethat Rilke means when he says of the angels: “For beauty hensive spiritualization. Omnis vallis implebitur, et is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are bareomnis collis humiliabitur — “Every valley should be ly able to endure…every angel is filled in and every hill removed.” ... in Mary all preparations, terrible.” However mankind must The work of the Old Testament strivings, inspirations, all get used to carrying this God, had consisted in bringing up a graces and Models, by which whose weight on its shoulders is rough, unruly, still shapeless, carnal humanity so that it gradually the old testaMent is fulfilled, so crushing that it first tries to get rid of Him. Throughout the course grew to appreciate the gifts of converged and flowed into of Israel’s history, God’s people God and to receive the Holy Spirone streaM has repeatedly lapsed into infiit. It required a thorough educadelity because it wants to worship tion which culminated in the VirCrucifixion by Dutch painter Rogier van its idols on high mountains and gin Mary der Weyden, c. 1460, Museo del Prado, under every green tree. In the Even if her soul borrows from Madrid prophet Ezekiel we read the time and in a sense it represents lamentation in the sixteenth chapter: “After all the evil eternity in time, it has become what it is, as it were, deeds that you have already committed, you built a through the entire upbringing of her race. It is the wonmound for yourself and made a lofty shrine in every pubderful flower that sprouted from Israel, and indeed forms lic square. At every street corner you built your lofty as a result of the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit in shrines and degraded your beauty: you have engaged in the soul of all prophets and holy women of Israel. Everyprostitution many times.” Israel was unfaithful to its thing that previously happened in the soul of Rachel, only bride-to-be, Yahweh, who had chosen it before Rebekah, Sarah and Ruth, in the souls of all women in everyone, so that it might be the only one turning from the Old Testament, matures to perfection in the soul of the gods.

Mary. That is why it can also be said in truth that with it “every valley is filled and every hill is worn away.” It is THE FAITHFUL VIRGIN the earth on which the Lord can set his foot without being However in the Holy Virgin, who is the last object of hurt. the educational work that has been going on for so long But what kind of education did Israel need, and for the people of Israel, lives a wonderful sense of God through it all mankind, so that it could come to be such and his unity. A comparison of the unfaithfulness of that the Lord could set his bare foot on it? First of all, the Israel with her loyalty reveals how much the mystery sense of God had to be awakened in them, which primiof this education of Israel is realized in her. She is the tive Israel did not yet have, or at most possessed in a very Virgo fidelis, the faithful virgin, whose whole life has crude form. For to it everything is still God or nothing is known no infidelity, who answered the faithfulness of God. This primitive humanity, which divinizes everyGod with her faithfulness, who in her virginity consething, tends to find the true God in the smallest protrudcrated herself to the only God. The liturgy therefore ing stone, the most humble tree on a hill, the smallest rightly applied to her the words of the bride of the Song spring conceals for them a mysterious, dark presence of

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of Songs, that bridal consort of the marriage of the Word with his people, the poetry of the covenant; for her loyalty, after so great unfaithfulness, signified the answer of mankind to divine loyalty. That is why we can say that the first aspect of the mystery of the Blessed Virgin can be related to God the Father who is the source of all unity in the glorious Trinity.

THE UNION OF DIVINE WITH HUMAN In the second place, the mystery of the education of Israel contains the mystery of grace, that is, the union of divine life with humanity. As we can see, Israel did not understand from the outset what God was doing for it. It believed that God had chosen it and then bestowed it with temporal goods in order to liberate it from Egyptian slavery, from an unpleasant existence where, under the orders of Egyptian overlords, it made bricks from clay and crushed straw. It thought that God had led it through the desert to bring it into possession of the Promised Land, a land where milk and honey really flowed, milk to drink and honey to eat, and where it would find lush pastures for cattle grazing; a land of bees whose honey could nourish the children of Israel.

The people of Israel were interested in this and expected that God would give them all of this. God, who is good and patient, knows his creature: — “because I know what is in man” —takes people as they are, takes their humanity as it is, so long as we are still at the beginning. This means that he first gave the people what they asked of him in order to attract them. He cared for this chosen people, first offering a certain human, earthly happiness. He bestowed goods on this people. However he then tried to make humanity understand that his gift was not really about these goods.

Gradually God intertwined the mystery of Israel with the mystery of the cross, that mystery by which God pulls us away from the things to which we cling too eagerly, so that the emptiness that arises within us may be filled by Him. THE MYSTERY OF THE UNHAPPY RIGHTEOUs This mystery of the cross animates the history of Israel: it is the mystery of the unhappy righteous, as we find it in the book of Job, that mysterious book in the heart of the Old Testament which was an aggravation to the soul of the Jew because he did not see why God tried him. Job has no answer to the why of his suffering. “I only know this one thing: that I don’t deserve this pain and that I am unhappy; but I pray for the providence of God, which I do not understand.” In reality, a very insightful and meaningful plan is in operation. God taught Job, and with him the Jewish people, that he had never promised his friends the goods of the earth.

We remember here a word of Pope Pius XI, which he uttered on the occasion of the canonization of an Italian saint: to see what God thinks of earthly goods, one only has 34

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The unequal disTribuTion of earThly goods is evidence ThaT god aTTaches no imporTance To Them and ThaT The real goods are spiriTual Pentecost by Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, UK INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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to pay attention to those to whom he gives them; then one background as one people among other people, but it sees how little he feels obliged to give them to his friends, was not ready for this precisely; it refused to be classified since he also clearly gives them to his enemies. The among the other nations.

As we can see, only the Holy Virgin, the fruit of the unequal distribution of earthly goods to mankind, which in no way corresponds to the degree of merit, is evidence people of Israel, entered into God’s plan and professed a that God attaches no importance to them and that the real universal love. She is not only the daughter of Israel, but in her the Israelite race is united with all of humanity; for goods are spiritual. Thus, throughout Israel’s history, she is at the same time the daughter of Abraham and God has tried to detach His people from material goods David and also mater divinae gratiae, universal mediaand to teach them to understand that He has come to bring them something else. However, we know how difficult tor, mother of the human race.

She therefore fulfills the promise made to Israel to the it was for the people to understand this doctrine, since the fullest, and indeed the special role that it should be Jews were disappointed at the coming of Christ; they accorded with regard to the whole of humanity. She, who expected an earthly ruler from whom they hoped to rule was born of the race of Abraham and is therefore forever the peoples, and instead of this glory they saw a cross. On a Jew, also became the mother of humanity. She not only the eve of the Ascension, the apostles asked: “Lord, when accepted [the Incarnation] as a Jewess, she was also will you set up the kingdom of Israel again?” ready to let her heart belong to everyone to the limits of In the Virgin the educational work of God reaches its the earth, renouncing the priviconsummation. St. Bernard lege of her birth, for which she says of her that she only asked On the day Of resurrectiOn, received a far greater privilege, for one thing, grace: Et semper a cOmprehensive mOtherhOOd that of universality. So the inveniet gratiam. She did not awakens in her heart tOward Blessed Virgin, who stands at act like Solomon, who asked for all peOple the end of Israel’s history, is the wisdom. She asked for grace perfect realization of God’s because that is the only thing we plan. need. Mary is therefore very Detail of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment It is from there that the myswise. In her the work of wisdom (1536-1541) in the Sistine Chapel at the tery of the passion of her heart operated in the most perfect Vatican. Mary is under Christ’s raised arm can also be understood. What way, in her who is perfectly dies in the heart of Mary on the evening of the Passion is wise — sapientia means: recta sapere, to have a right this still human, still carnal love for Christ in particular. taste for spiritual things — she tasted these things, asked On the day of resurrection, a comprehensive motherfor grace and received it. Ave Maria gratia plena. She hood awakens in her heart towards all people. Someheard the blessed words: “You are full of grace.” But thing in her had to die for that. It is the end of a very great why was she full of grace? Because she desired grace happiness, those thirty-three years that she had spent and only it, because she understood that only one person with the incarnate Son of God. Therefore, at that moment confers it and she therefore received it. That is why we when Christ, pointing to John, said to her: “Woman, are allowed to say of Mary that she represents the combehold your son,” her heart was deeply pierced by a pletion of the divine educational work for Israel. sword, for this signified the end of a wonderful reality.

Now her love for the humanity of Jesus changed to a A UNIVERSAL LOVE worldly love belonging to all people. This could only Thirdly, God wanted to teach Israel that he was the happen over a dying, the death of the heart, whereby this God of all people, not just of Israel. At this point the fate had to go through a passion as great as the body of the of Israel may reach its peak, and the “stiff-necked” peoSon of God, for such an increase in love. Its extension to ple have great difficulty accepting God’s intentions for all of humanity required a dying that also takes place in them, which has a very paradoxical aspect. God had inithe life of each of us, when we, freed from inner narrowtially only chosen Israel and loved her. For nineteen cenness, expand our hearts like Christ. The same process turies this was the only choice, while the other peoples takes place in the history of a people that has to step out were ignored. Gradually, God tried to make His people of its narrowness and renounce its imperial stance in understand that He did not choose them for His sake, but order to become a member of the body of Christ. This so that they could serve as an instrument of His plans for also belongs to the aspect of the Christ mystery, which the other peoples. Israel at first understood this mandate unites all things through His cross. as if it were to exercise lordship over other peoples, taking the first place. Only gradually did it understand what —Excerpted from Le Mystère de l’Avent God wanted from it, who chose it to prepare for His com(Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1948), trans. ing, and then when this day had come, to step into the 36

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Part two

Mary Throughout History “F

or, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” This was one of relatively few passages in the New Testament that seemed to envision a long period of many generations to come, along with the prophecy of Christ that “this gospel shall be preached in the whole world.” The content with which those successive generations would invest the title “blessed” would vary greatly through the centuries, but the striking quality would be the success with which, in all seasons, Mary’s blessedness would be seen as relevant to men and women in an equal variety of situations. And that has truly made her the Woman for All Seasons.

—Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture, 1996

“In all seasons, Mary’s blessedness would be seen as relevant to Men and woMen In an equal varIety of sItuatIons” Fatima, Portugal. Chapel of the Apparitions in the Marian Shrine. Candlelight procession at the end of the Rosary

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“The Woman for All Seasons” Photo/Grzegorz Galazka

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The Past Meets the Future in Mary T

he typological content of the characters of Old Testament history is their relationship to Christ and to His Body, that is, to ourselves. All that happened to the Chosen People was “done in a figure, of us… upon whom the ends of the world are come (I Corinthians, 10:6, 11). Adam, the first man, is quite simply the “figure of Him who was to come” (Romans 5:14). The whole typology of the Old Testament points to Christ, but not only Him in His life from Bethlehem to Golgotha, but by Him and through Him to the “last times” when Christ is building up His Mystical Body, and finally to the events of the Parousia, when Christ “will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of His glory…and you also shall appear with Him in glory” (Philippians 3:21 and Colossians 3:4).

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nto this typological plan of Christ and His Church, the early theologians would also place Mary, the human mother of the Word made flesh. She is also “the type of what is to come,” for it was her Fiat that marks the end of the Old Testament: she now saw what prophets and kings had desired to see, and in her womb the New Testament begins, the kingdom of the true David, of whose “kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:33). She is the Queen of Patriarchs and of Prophets, and the Queen of Apostles. Past and future meet in her: all the light of the Old Testament, from Eve to the Book of Wisdom, shines in her, for the sun of justice entered her womb.

—Hugo Rahner, SJ Our Lady and the Church, 1961

“She iS the Queen of PatriarchS and of ProPhetS, and the Queen of aPoStleS. PaSt and PreSent meet in her” Maestà by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1335), Museum of Sacred Art, Massa Marittima, Italy 40

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Councils of the Church Defining Mary as the Mother of God

COUNCIL OF EPHESUS 431 A.D. Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople from 428–31 A.D., held that there were two separate persons, one human and one divine, in the incarnate Christ. A council was summoned to meet at Ephesus in 431 to examine his teaching, but, before either the papal legates or the Eastern bishops had arrived, St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria from 412–444, began the council. The council condemned Nestorius and his teaching, defining twelve anathemas against those who adhered to Nestorius’ heresy. Accordingly, when the Eastern bishops, led by John of Antioch who supported Nestorius, arrived at Ephesus, they set up their own council, refusing communion with Cyril. Once the papal legates reached the council, they confirmed the judgment against Nestorius, and the council then excommunicated John and his party for supporting Nestorius. Pope Sixtus III approved the decrees of the council in 432 and initiated the construction of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in the same year in recognition of the council’s decree that Mary is Theotokos, God-bearer. In 433 John of Antioch submitted his orthodox profession of faith to Cyril and was reconciled.

The first Anathema proposed by St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, and accepted by the Council of Ephesus If anyone does not confess that Emmanuel is God in truth, and therefore that the Holy Virgin is the mother of God, for she bore in a fleshly way the Word of God become flesh, let him be anathema.

The Formula of Union between the Eastern bishops and St. Cyril We confess, then, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, perfect God and perfect man of a rational soul and a body, begotten before all ages from the Father in his godhead, the same in the last days, for us and

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for our salvation, born of Mary the virgin, according to his humanity, one and the same, consubstantial with the Father in godhead and consubstantial with us in humanity, for a union of two natures took place. Therefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this understanding of the unconfused union, we confess the holy virgin to be the mother of God because God the Word took flesh and became man and from his very conception united to himself the temple he took from her.

CHALCEDON 451 A.D. Even after Ephesus reaffirmed the definitions of Nicea (325 A.D.), heresies concerning the nature of Christ persisted. Accordingly, a council was called in 451 to affirm again the teaching of the Church and to reconcile heretical bishops. The council was convoked at Nicea before moving to Chalcedon so as to be nearer Constantinople. The council promulgated the “Definition of the Faith,” in which Christ is defined as one person in two natures, and this affirmation of Christ accordingly led to a reaffirmation of Mary as Theotokos.

Excerpts from the Definition of the Faith This wise and saving creed, the gift of divine grace, was sufficient for a perfect understanding and establishment of religion. For its teaching about the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is complete, and it sets out the Lord’s becoming human to those who faithfully accept it.

But there are those who are trying to ruin the proclamation of the truth, and through their private heresies they have spawned novel formulas: some by daring to corrupt the mystery of the Lord’s economy on our behalf, and refusing to apply the word “God-bearer” to the Virgin; and others by introducing a confusion and mixture, and mindlessly imagining that there is a single nature of the flesh and the divinity, and fantastically supposing that in the confusion the divine nature of the Only-begotten is passible.n

A modern icon of the Theotokos, Mary the Mother of God. On the opposite page, from a medieval manuscript, a representation of the Council of Calcedon in 451 A.D., which declared Mary was the Mother of God

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The Middle Ages as the “Age of Mary” “Mary has divided the sea for us, that is the world, so that we might pass safely through it. Lift up the rod, and stretch forth thy hands over the sea, and divide it; so that thy children... may go through the midst of the sea on dry ground.”

(Ex 14:16) — St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Meditations A Timeline of Marian Devotion in the Middle Ages 11th c.: The “Angelic Salutation of the Blessed Virgin” comes into use in monastic prayer, and becomes the antecedent of the “Hail Mary” 12th c.: Marian devotion increasingly focuses on Mary’s compassion on Calvary and, based on the doctrine of her assumption into heaven, her present assistance to all Christians.

12th-13th c.: “The Age of the Virgin”: a sharp increase in literary and artistic treatments of Mary, associated with a focus on the unity of the Church on earth and in heaven (the saints) and a growing emphasis on the humanity of Jesus — the Passion, His Real Presence in the Eucharist, etc.

13th c.: St. Dominic de Guzman, founder of the Dominican Order, introduces the Rosary.

13th c.: Cathedrals dedicated to Mary.

13th c.: St. Francis proclaims special devotion to Mary; St. Dominic spreads the Rosary.

13th c.: Mary figures prominently in the theology of Bonaventure (d. 1274), Albert the Great (d. 1280), Thomas Aquin as (d. 1274) and Duns Scotus (d. 1308).

Late 14th c.: Feasts of the Presentation of Mary (Nov. 21) and the Visitation (July 2; now May 31) introduced 15th c.: The “Hail Mary” attains its current form.

15th c.: Meditation on the life of Mary, as on the life of Jesus, increasingly prominent, along with increased attention to attaining a deep, rich inner life.

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Madonna of the Rosary by Caravaggio (1607), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Opposite page, Madonna della Misericordia (“Madonna of Mercy”)

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Mary in the Byzantine Tradition Understanding the “mystery of mary” in the eastern chUrches

By Brother John M. SaMaha, SM IS THERE A “BYZANTINE MARIOLOGY?”

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esearching this question leads to a seeming paradox. On one hand we find a tremendous richness of Marian thought in the liturgy, but on the other hand a virtual absence of specifically Mariological studies in theology. In the Eastern Churches the understanding and appreciation of the Virgin Mother of God developed differently, and is not the result of scientific theological reflection. The Mariological experience and piety of the Byzantine Churches — Catholic and Orthodox — seem to be embodied almost entirely in their worship. But we find no prominent theological reflection on the subject, nothing that would parallel the specialized Mariological treatises of the Western Church.

Theology manuals contain no chapters dealing with the place of Mary in the economy of salvation. The veneration of Mary, which is so central in Byzantine worship, has not been extensively expressed, analyzed, or evaluated systematically.

The scarcity of theological reflection may seem to some a deficiency in Byzantine theology. How could the Byzantine Church which never prays to God or Jesus Christ without at the same time also addressing her prayers to Mary, and which constantly praises her who “is more honorable than the cherubim and beyond compare more glorious than the seraphim” neglect theologizing about her? Why has the Byzantine theological mind not been focused on this enormously important aspect of its life and worship?

In the Byzantine mind, this seeming absence of theological study and reflection is seen as an integral part of the “mystery of Mary” in the experience of the Church. The Byzantine scholar questions whether theology as the rational investigation of the truths of faith is adequate to transpose into precise terms the real content of that mystery. Perhaps the proper locus of Mariology is in liturgy and prayer, that is, in worship. This is reminiscent of Prosper of Aquitaine’s maxim: Lex orandi, lex credendi.

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In the Eastern traditions Mariology developed through liturgical veneration within the framework of the concomitant feasts; that is, it followed the development of Christology and the Church’s contemplation of the Incarnation. All Marian devotion — liturgical and popular — remained organically connected with the mystery of Christ. This has always been the norm and criterion.

In the Byzantine spiritual heritage the liturgy has been the principal locus of Mariology. The liturgical expression of piety is often found to be adorned with allegory and symbolism. This gave rise to questions about the biblical character and justification of these expressions or forms. Where in the Bible do we find information about Mary’s nativity, presentation in the temple, dormition? Yet these are celebrated as Marian festivals. Whatever their poetic, liturgical, and hymnographic expressions, all these events are real because they are self-evident. Mary was born; like every Jewish girl she was taken to the temple; she eventually died.

Simply because such information derives from the Apocrypha does not alter their reality. The Church contemplates the ultimate reality of these events, not the poetic elaborations in the prayers and hymns.

In Eastern Christianity, worship and liturgy are paramount. Liturgy is not seen as an action of the community. Liturgy is the procession or entrance into the eschatological reality of the Kingdom of God. It is the meeting-place between this world and the Kingdom of God fully realized. Worship is not the commemoration of a past event; it is participation in the events of salvation themselves, because, although these occurred historically, they also occur outside the category of time.

While this Byzantine tradition differs from the theological elaboration common in the West, it nonetheless “belongs to the full catholicity and the apostolicity of the Church.”

Some in the West have speculated that the Nestorian controversy, which was lived in Byzantine territory, may have contributed to fuller liturgical celebration of

“The veneraTion of Mary, which is so cenTral in ByzanTine worship, has noT Been exTensively expressed, analyzed, or evaluaTed sysTeMaTically” The faithful venerate an icon of Our Lady of Kazan in the cathedral dedicated to her in Kazan, Tatarstan INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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the Theotokos in the East. This development gave the East a more satisfying and habitual expression of devotion to Mary, and would support the notion that the proper locus of Mariology is primarily in liturgy.

The West, which lacks such regular liturgical expression, sought other means of elaborating Marian devotion, such as defining privileges and giving impetus to various movements.

The exploration of three areas may enlighten our appreciation of the Byzantine Marian heritage: the place of Mary in liturgical tradition, the development of the veneration of the Mother of God, and a synthetic view of its theological significance.

BYZANTINE LITURGY AND MARIOLOGY In the Byzantine liturgy we find four main expressions of Mariology: Marian liturgical prayers, feasts, iconography, and paraliturgical piety.

Marian Liturgical Prayers Each cycle of prayers concludes with a special prayer addressed to Mary. For example, the groups of hymns called stichiras in the structure of the daily services always conclude with the theotokion, which follows the doxology: “Glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages.” This rule applies to all liturgical prayer units — daily, weekly, and yearly cycles, and also the sanctoral cycle. Whatever the theme of any liturgical celebration, the last word and seal will be the Theotokos, Mary the Virgin Forthbringer of God. The theotokia, concluding prayers dedicated to Mary, vary for each day of the week in ordinary time, for special seasons, and for major feasts.

For a Tuesday that is an ordinary weekday, the proper theotokion reads: “O Mother of God and Virgin forever, through you we were made to share in the divine nature. You gave birth for us to the incarnate God. Therefore we all exalt you with great devotion.”

For the Annunciation on March 25: “Today is the fountainhead of our salvation and the revelation of the mystery that was planned from all eternity: the Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin and Gabriel announces this grace. Let us join him in crying out to the Mother of God, ‘Hail, O Woman, full of grace! The Lord is with you.’”

Marian Feasts The liturgical year includes a series of highly developed Marian commemorations. Four belong to the category of the twelve major feasts: the Nativity of the 48

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Virgin, September 8; the Presentation of the Theotokos in the Temple, November 21; the Annunciation, March 25; the Dormition, August 15. The feast of the Meeting of Our Lord in the Temple, February 2, belongs to the same category and is also deeply Marian in meaning.

Among the lesser Marian feasts are the Protection of the Virgin, October 1; the Synaxis of the Theotokos, December 26; the Conception of Mary, December 9, and others.

Marian Iconography The icons of the Theotokos are integral to the life of the Byzantine Church. Their very position in the apse and on the iconostasis indicates definite theological meaning.

An icon is not meant to be a visual representation to stimulate the imagination for devotional purposes.

Neither is it meant to teach or inspire. In the spiritual sense, it is a living thing, the point at which heaven and earth meet. St. John of Damascus called the icon a “channel of divine grace.” Laden with faith and grace, the icon is a mirror of divine revelation and gives testimony to the reality that the saving truth is not communicated only by mere human words but also through wordless beauty.

Also to be considered is the highly developed cult of the commonly termed “miraculous” icons of the Theotokos, some of which have given rise to important and extremely popular feasts. Some examples are the Protection of Mary, October 1 (celebrated by the Melkite Church only); the Theotokos of Kazan, July 8 ; the Theotokos of the Sign, November 27.

Paraliturgical Piety In addition to the official Marian prayers and celebrations of the liturgy, we find an enormous number of secondary or paraliturgical feasts and services. To gather all the akathistoi to Mary, written after the pattern of the renowned Akathistos attributed to Romanus, would result in several printed volumes. They testify to the constant flow of heartfelt piety, love, and praise directed to Mary.

Not all these compositions are of equal value and quality. However, the outstanding Byzantine hymnographers like St. John of Damascus, St. Andrew of Crete and St. Cosmas of Maioum, wrote some of their best works on Marian themes. In the products of their pens we find the true expression, contemplation, and understanding of Mary in Byzantine tradition.

—Excerpted from Catholic Faith magazine, July/August 2000

“The icon is a mirror of divine revelaTion and gives TesTimony ThaT The saving TruTh is noT communicaTed only by mere human words buT also Through wordless beauTy” Icon with many scenes from the life of Mary.

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A source of division – and of unity Mary and the Protestant reforMation

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ev. Peter Stravinskas, in his exhaustive two-part essay on “The Place of Mary in Classical Fundamentalism,” says his “guiding hypothesis” is “a modification of that of Charles Lees: ‘In modern dialogues between Catholics and their separated brethren, it is often ignored that, historically, the Protestant Reformers did not attack devotion to Our Blessed Mother; that such an attack came from their successors.’”

The lion’s share of such a discussion must be centered on Martin Luther (1483-1546), inasmuch as he is commonly acknowledged as the “Father of the Reformation.” Therefore, the question of the Reverend William Cole’s magisterial article is quite “ad rem”: “Was Luther a devotee of Mary?” [...]

An important point to ponder is that, in the very heat of the debate, “in the resolutions of the ‘95 Theses’(1517), Luther rejects every blasphemy against the Virgin and thinks that one should ask for pardon for any evil said or thought against her.” Cole also stresses the necessity of using official Reformation documents, like the Apology to the Augsburg Confession, to make a formal determination regarding Luther’s mind on this topic, adding to that the suggestion of taking into account Lutheran praxis after the fact: “[Luther’s] custom of preaching Marian sermons on the Marian feasts continued in the Lutheran Church a hundred years after his death. Following the example of Luther, other great songwriters of the Reformation glorified the greatness of Mary’s divine maternity. This lasting piety towards the Mother of God found an outlet in piety so that generally the celebrated pictures of

the Madonna and her statues from the Middle Ages were retained in Lutheran churches. According to Heiler, it was only the spirit of the Enlightenment with its lack of understanding of the mystery of the Incarnation, which in the 18th century began the work of destruction.”

However, John Calvin (15091564) did say concerning the title “Mother of God” as applied to Mary: “I cannot consider such language as good, proper, or suitable… for to say, the Mother of God for the Virgin Mary, can only serve to harden the ignorant in their superstitions.”

Influential 20th-century Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth accepted the term “Mother of God,” but said in his magnum opus published in 1932, Church Dogmatics, “Wherever Mary is venerated, and devotion to her takes place, there the Church of Christ does not exist” and again, “Mariology is an excrescence, i.e., a diseased construct of theological thought. Excrescences must be excised.”

In response, the Catholic Church encouraged and patronized in the Renaissance and Baroque eras an artcentered offensive against anti-Marianist Protestant sentiments and produced some of the most beautiful paintings and sculptures the world has ever known.

Marian dogmas declared in the 19th and 20th centuries by the Church (Immaculate Conception of Mary, 1854, and Assumption of Mary into Heaven, 1950) have helped solidify and unify the understanding and veneration of Mary that we practice in the Church today.l

“In the 95 theses, Luther rejects every bLasphemy agaInst the

vIrgIn, and thInks that one shouLd ask pardon for any evIL saId or thought agaInst her”

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Trinità by German painter Albrecht Dürer, 1511. Grouped around Christ on the cross, the artist portrays Our Lady with numerous saints. Facing page, a woodcut by Dürer

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Two Marian Dogmas Proclaimed in Modern Times IN THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES, TWO POPES EACH FELT IMPELLED TO SOLEMNLY PROMULGATE AN OFFICIAL DOGMA OF THE CHURCH CONCERNING THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY – UNDERLINING HER IMPORTANCE TO HUMANITY AS THE CORRUPTING INFLUENCES OF THE WORLD, AND OPPOSITION TO THE FAITH, WERE CLOSING IN THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF MARY Proclaimed by Pope Pius IX, December 8, 1854, in the encyclical Ineffabilis Deus Preservative redemption is one of the marvels of Catholic dogma. To truly understand it we must realize that not only is Jesus Christ Mary’s Savior, but that she benefited more than anyone else from His redemptive mission. Herein lies all the grandeur of the mystery.

Let us consider it in some detail. Indeed it is fitting that the absolutely perfect Savior should exercise sovereign redemption for at least one soul, the soul called to be most intimately united to Him in His work of salvation. But perfect redemption consists not only in rescuing a soul from sin, but also in preserving it from this sin even before sin has had a chance to sully it. He who preserves us from a mortal blow saves our life even better than if he healed the wound caused by this blow. It is therefore highly fitting that Christ Jesus, the perfect Redeemer, should bestow upon His Mother redemption in all its plenitude: a redemption that is not merely reparative and liberating, but a preservative redemption. It is highly fitting that Mary should not be liberated, purified, cured of Original Sin, but that she should be totally preserved from it by the future merits of her Son.[...]

At a time when all truths were being depreciated, when many refused to believe either in Original Sin or in the necessity of baptismal regeneration, it was fitting that the Church should solemnly define this dogma and that Mary should remind us of all these truths by telling us at Lourdes: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” This privilege, far from detracting from the dogma of the universal

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redemption of souls by Jesus Christ, discloses to us in the person of Mary sovereign redemption in its most perfect form conceivable.

– Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Our Savior and His Love for Us THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY Proclaimed by Pope Pius XII, November 1, 1950 in the encyclical Munificentissimus Deus Not unlike his predecessor, Pope Pius XII defined Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven. On November 1, 1950, the Pope responded to the all but unanimous request of the Catholic hierarchy by making a formal definition.

“By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare and define as divinely revealed dogma: the Immaculate Mother of God, Mary ever Virgin, after her life on earth, was assumed body and soul to the glory of heaven.”

The day after the definition, Pius XII told the assembled hundreds of bishops of his hope for the future. May this new honor given to Mary introduce “a spirit of penance to replace the prevalent love of pleasure and a renewal of family life stabilized where divorce was common and made fruitful where birth control was practiced.” If there is one feature that characterizes the modern world, observed the Pope, it is the worship of the body. Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven reminds us of our own bodily resurrection on the last day, provided we use our bodies on earth according to the will of God. – Fr. John Hardon, SJ, Mary in the Modern World

Assumption of the Virgin by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), Museum of the Louvre, Paris.

On the facing page: Popes Pius IX and Pius XII and, in the center, the miraculous image of Mary Immaculate in the Church of Sant'Andrea delle Fratte in Rome.

There Mary appeared to Alphonse Ratisbonne in 1842, converting him.

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Marian Shrines Around the World THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF MARIAN SHRINES AROUND THE GLOBE, DOZENS OF WHICH ARE ASSOCIATED WITH MIRACULOUS APPARITIONS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN, OFTEN TO CHILDREN. THESE ARE JUST A FEW OF THOSE THAT HAVE BEEN APPROVED BY THE CHURCH FOR PUBLIC VENERATION. OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE MEXICO Our Lady of Guadalupe, also known as the Virgin of Guadalupe, is venerated in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. This shrine is the most-visited Catholic shrine in the world, and the third most-visited sacred site of any kind. A young woman appeared on December 19, 1531 to the peasant Juan Diego, identified herself as the Blessed Virgin Mary, and asked that a church be erected in her honor at the site.

After more apparitions, miraculous healings and the famous sign of the mysterious image, not created by human hands, on Juan Diego’s tilma, the apparitions were approved by the Holy See and a magnificent shrine was eventually built. Our Lady of Guadalupe is patroness of Mexico, patroness of the Americas, and patroness of the unborn.

Marto, together with Jacinta’s brother Francisco Marto, while taking care of their sheep, saw a cloud descend carrying a lady in white, holding a rosary in her hands.

Mary continued to appear to the children on the 13th of every month until that October, when she performed a “miracle of the sun” witnessed by tens of thousands. She revealed to the children visions of the future, some of them frightening, but asked them to pray, to do penance, and to spread devotion to the rosary to avert the just anger of the Father at man’s sinfulness.

OUR LADY OF LORETO ITALY This shrine is actually the Shrine of the Holy House of Loreto, believed to be the actual house of Mary originally in Nazareth, and site of the Annunciation. Studies show that the methods used to cut the stones of which it is built are not of Italian OUR LADY OF LOURDES origin, and there is graffiti on one FRANCE of the stone walls that is identical The Sanctuary of Our Lady of to that found on early JudeoLourdes is in Lourdes, France. In Christian churches in Palestine 1858, the 14 year-old-girl Bernfrom before the 5th century. It adette Soubirous reported 18 was said that angels carried the apparitions of a “beautiful lady” in Holy House to Loreto — hence, a nearby cave. The lady subseOur Lady of Loreto is considered quently identified herself as the the patron saint of aviators. More St. John Paul II honors the Virgin during “Immaculate Conception” — a probably, according to Crusader his visit to the Sanctuary of Guadalupe term the simple peasant girl records, a wealthy family surBernadette had never heard before: it was Mary, the named Angeli had the house dismantled and brought to Mother of God, who spoke to her. Mary instructed Italy. The Holy House continues to be the site of miracuBernadette to dig in the ground for a spring near the grotlous healings and spiritual favors. to where she appeared, whose water would bring healing to many. The spring still flows; the miraculous healOUR LADY OF KNOCK ings have been countless, as numerous abandoned IRELAND crutches at the shrine testify.

On the evening of August 21, 1879, 15 witnesses, including an 11-year-old boy, saw a vision of the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist on the OUR LADY OF FATIMA gable wall of the parish church in the small village of PORTUGAL Knock, Ireland. Uniquely, the Eucharistic Lamb also The apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima are perhaps stood behind a cross, atop an altar and surrounded by the most famous. On May 13, 1917, the young shepangels. Our Lady of Knock Shrine is a Church-approved herdesses Lúcia dos Santos and her cousin Jacinta

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Photo/Grzegorz Galazka

The Holy House of Mary inside the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Loreto, Italy

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pilgrimage destination for people all over the world, some of whom have reported miraculous cures and, as at Fatima and Lourdes, leave crutches and wheelchairs behind in testimony.

OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE FRANCE Two shepherd children reported seeing an apparition of Mary while out tending their herds near the village of La Salette, France; she was weeping because of the disrespect shown to the Lord’s Day and to the Lord’s name.

She entrusted one secret to each of the two children, which they wrote down and delivered to Pope Pius IX. On August 21, 1879, Pope Leo XIII granted a canonical coronation to the image, with an unusual Russian-style tiara, now located within the Basilica of Our Lady of La Salette. The shrine is visited by more than a million people annually.

be able to end the persecution of Catholic Poles under Germany’s Kulturkampf. Mary also blessed a spring of water, from which pilgrims have subsequently reported healings. Our Lady of Gietrzwałd is the only approved Marian apparition in Poland.

OUR LADY OF BEAURAING BELGIUM Our Lady of Beauraing is also known as the Virgin of the Golden Heart. Five children, ages 9 to 15, reported seeing 33 apparitions of Mary between November 1932 and January 1933. Mary asked for prayer and for the construction of a chapel as a place of pilgrimage, promising to convert sinners. In the final vision, the Lady said to Fernande, “Do you love My Son? Do you love Me? Then sacrifice yourself for me” and bade them farewell. Numerous healings, both physical and spiritual, attributed to Our Lady of Beauraing have been reported, some certified by the Church.

OUR LADY OF GOOD HELP UNITED STATES In Robinsonville (now called Champion), Wisconsin, a young OUR LADY OF AKITA Belgian immigrant woman named JAPAN Adele Brise was walking through In 1973, on the outskirts of a wooded area in 1859 when she Akita, Japan, Sister Agnes Katsaw a beautiful woman standing suko Sasagawa reported seebetween a maple and a hemlock ing a statue of Our Lady of All tree. After further encounters with Nations illuminate, and she the mysterious lady, Adele asked began hearing messages, even her, “In God’s name, who are you though she was deaf. The and what do you want of me?” The same statue also miraculously Lady replied, “I am the Queen of wept, a phenomenon repeated Heaven who prays for the converon 101 occasions and once sion of sinners.” She asked Adele broadcast on Japanese nationto pray for sinners and teach the al television. The messages local children their catechism, warned of coming persecution, with the assurance, “Go and fear heresy and physical calamities nothing, I will help you.” Soon if mankind does not repent.

Adele Brise during the apparition of the after, Adele’s father built a small One such prophecy stated, Virgin of Good Help in 1859 in Wisconsin chapel between the trees; today a “If men do not repent and brick church stands, built in 1942. Our Lady of Good Help better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishis the only approved apparition in the United States. ment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never have seen before. Fire OUR LADY OF GIETRZWAŁD, will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of WARMIA-MAZURY, POLAND humanity ... the good as well as the bad, sparing neither A 13-year-old girl named Justyna Szafryńska reportpriests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so ed that, while praying the Angelus on June 27, 1877, she desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms saw a woman seated on a gold throne near a maple tree, which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign accompanied by an angel. The following day, she saw left by My Son. Each day recite the prayer of the Rosary. this apparition with the Christ child. Three days after the With the Rosary pray for the Pope, bishops and the first event, both she and 12-year-old Barbara Samulowspriests. The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the ka saw Mary, who told them, “I want you to pray the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposRosary daily.” Mary promised that fervent prayer would ing cardinals, and bishops against other bishops.”n 56

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Photo/Grzegorz Galazka

Pope Benedict XVI visits the grotto of the apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes below the Shrine

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Our Lady in Literature

By Joseph pearce

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mages of the Blessed Virgin are almost ubiquitous in the visual arts. From the earliest times, the Madonna and Child have been a favored source of inspiration for artists; so have images of the Nativity and visions of the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin. Even in art depicting Our Lord’s Passion, the Mother of God can be seen standing at the foot of the Cross, accompanying her Son in His suffering. She is also present in numerous musical settings, from Gregorian chant to the many polyphonous antiphons composed in her honor, not to mention the celebrated settings of the Ave Maria by Schubert, by Bach and Gounod, and by countless others.

The same can be said of her presence in the literary arts, especially with respect to the numerous poems addressed to her. She has been less visible, however, in the world of literary fiction. In the four centuries since the advent of the novel, she has been almost conspicuous by her absence. There are exceptions, of course. One thinks perhaps of Franz Werfel’s novel, The Song of Bernadette, which was inspired by the miraculous apparitions of the Blessed Virgin at Lourdes, but, generally speaking, Our Lady’s presence has been more subtle and subdued in modern literature, even subliminal, epitomized perhaps by J.R.R. Tolkien’s claim that he had put all his love and devotion to the Blessed Virgin into his characterization and depiction of Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings.

Perhaps the most powerful presentation of the Virgin in literature is to be found in Dante’s Divine Comedy, which is arguably the greatest literary work ever written. In this marvelous Christian epic, it is the Blessed Virgin who initiates the rescue of Dante from the Dark Wood into which he has strayed. It is she who sends St. Lucy, the patron saint of the blind, to Beatrice, the woman whom Dante loves, and it is Beatrice who sends Virgil to be Dante’s guide through the descent into the Inferno and thence

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the ascent of Mount Purgatory.

Finally, once Dante ascends into Paradise, it is the Blessed Virgin, in answer to an intercessory prayer by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who attains for the Poet the Beatific Vision of the Son Glorified in the Triune God. It is, however, a couple of poems by two English saints which will be the focus of the remainder of this brief excursion into the Marian presence in literature.

The first is The Ballad of Walsingham, sometimes known as The Lament for Walsingham, which is usually ascribed to the English martyr St. Philip Howard; the second is The Pilgrim Queen, written by St. John Henry Newman.

The Ballad of Walsingham, a lament for the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, was written a few decades after the shrine’s destruction by King Henry VIII in 1538. Prior to its destruction, Walsingham had been a major center of pilgrimage for more than 450 years, becoming the major Marian shrine of the whole of Christendom, rivalled only by the shrine of Our Lady of Loreto in Italy. A succession of English monarchs had made pilgrimages there and pilgrims arrived from all over Europe.

If St. Philip Howard is indeed the poet who wrote the Ballad, he would presumably have visited Walsingham in the 1580s, prior to his being imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1585, almost 50 years after the shrine’s destruction. As for the Ballad itself, it evokes the poet’s sadness upon visiting the ruins of the shrine: Bitter, bitter oh to behold The grass to grow Where the walls of Walsingham So stately did show.

Such were the worth of Walsingham While she did stand, Such are the wrackes as now do show Of that so holy land.

“The world is very much in need of The reTurn of The queen which The world’s wickedness has exiled” The modern version of the Walsingham Madonna and, on the opposite page, the possible original, conserved in The Victoria & Albert Museum in London INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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Level, level with the ground The Towers do lie Which with their golden, glitt’ring tops Pierced out to the sky.

Where were gates no gates are now, The ways unknown, Where the press of friars did pass While far her fame was known.

Owls do scrike where the sweetest hymns Lately were sung, Toads and serpents hold their dens Where the palmers did throng.

Weep, weep, O Walsingham, Whose days are nights, Blessings turned to blasphemies, Holy deeds to dispites.

Sin is where our Lady sat, Heaven turned to hell; Satan sits where our Lord did sway, Walsingham, oh, farewell!

St. Philip Howard would spend 10 years incarcerated in the Tower of London until his death of dysentery in 1595.

His own body, itself a holy shrine, had been ruined by the same anti-Catholic fanaticism that had desecrated and destroyed the ancient shrine of Our Lady in Walsingham. His eternal reward for such an embrace of suffering for the Faith is to be united with the Blessed Virgin in the eternal shrine in heaven of which she is the queen. This being so, we might be tempted to see Saint John Henry Newman’s poem, The Pilgrim Queen, as a postscript to The Ballad of Walsingham, signifying not merely the Virgin’s exile from England following the Tudor Terror but her prophesied return.

The Pilgrim Queen begins with the Virgin herself taking up the plaintive cry of The Ballad of Walsingham for the destruction wrought by King Henry VIII: “Here I sit desolate,” sweetly said she, “Though I’m a queen, and my name is Marie: Robbers have rifled my garden and store, Foes they have stolen my heir from my bower.

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The Pilgrim Queen, recalling English history in the centuries following the Reformation, speaks of the power of the Puritans in the seventeenth century who said they could keep her Son “far better than I,” placing him in a “palace of ice, hard and cold as were they.”

After this Puritan palace had “all melted away,” the people of England had bartered her Son for “the spice of the desert” and the “gold of the stream,” choosing mercantile materialism over the pearl of great price: And me they bid wander in weeds and alone, In this green merry land which once was my own.

This sad and sorry scenario would appear to be the unhappy ending for England, this most distressful country which has sent her true Queen into exile. And yet John Henry Newman, England’s most recently-canonized saint, prophesies in the final lines of his poem The Return of the Queen: I look’d on that Lady, and out from her eyes Came the deep glowing blue of Italy’s skies; And she raised up her head and she smiled, as a Queen On the day of her crowning, so bland and serene.

“A moment,” she said, “and the dead shall revive; The giants are failing, the Saints are alive; I am coming to rescue my home and my reign, And Peter and Philip are close in my train.”

These two poems by two of England’s saints serve as beacons of light and hope in the gloom of the death culture. They lament that the world, like Dante at the beginning of The Divine Comedy, is lost in the Dark Wood.

They show that, like Dante, the world is in dire need of the inspirational goodness of the saints and the beauty of their witness. They also illustrate that the world is very much in need of the return of the queen which the world’s wickedness has exiled. These two great poet-saints reveal that the pride of the world can only be defeated by the exaltation of the humble. This is, of course, the central message of that greatest of biblical poems, Our Lady’s Magnificat, a poem enunciated by a queen in her lowliness. It is perhaps fitting, therefore, that this brief discussion of Our Lady in literature should conclude with a reference to the Blessed Virgin’s own Magnificat, the finest of poems by a queen who is herself the greatest Poem that her Son, the Divine Poet, ever created.l

Dante on his journey through Paradise is at last presented to Mary by St. Bernard.

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Mary in the Eternal City

By Liz Lev

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he Eternal City has long and angelic attendants to emphasize loved the Blessed Virgin the regality of the Mother of God, a Mary. From her earliest title declared in 431 at the Council image secreted away in the Cataof Ephesus. combs of Priscilla, to Saint Mary As the Western Empire fell, the Major, the first Western church dedEastern Church gained influence icated to the Mother of God, to Saint over Roman art. Byzantine artists John Paul II’s Totus Tuus mosaic strove to connect viewers more peremblazoned above Saint Peter’s sonally with the Blessed Mother in Square, there is no shortage of Marthe numerous icons produced from ian imagery in this city. As the most the 5th through 8th centuries. The depicted woman in human history, enormous image of Mary in St. the number of paintings, sculptures, Mary Antiqua, the Virgin Mary mosaics, drawings, and icons can be Odigìtria in the Pantheon, and the overwhelming. In her honor, this litMadonna of Clemency in St. Mary tle visual bouquet of Marian art in Trastevere are but a few of these plucks a few of her greatest looks powerful portals for prayer prothrough the many ages of Rome. duced in Rome. The most famous of Though Mary’s life in Scripture all was the Madonna Salus Populi seems less action-packed than Romani kept in St Mary Major. CarJudith’s, David’s, or Mary Magdaried in procession during plagues lene’s, the early Christian commuand invoked during invasions, the nity honed its focus on the woman who bore God as her solemn image of the cloaked Virgin ready to receive son. The fresco of the Madonna and Child in the the petitions of the faithful is beloved by Romans and ancient catacomb of Priscilla on the Via Salaria was the pontiff to this day. one of the first Biblical representations in the history of The Middle Ages wrought a tremendous change in Christian art. Painted around 250AD amid a cluster of Roman art. The mendicant orders renewed interest in tombs, this haunting image shows Mary who appears nature and human experience, which meant new Marto envelop the tiny Christ Child with her body as He ian imagery as well. In 1290, Pietro Cavallini, a Roman turns to gaze at the viewer. A century later, the Blessed artist from the Franciscan circle, produced a stunning Mother became a leitmotif on Christian sarcophagi in mosaic cycle for Mary’s basilica in Trastevere. In the scenes of the Adoration of the Magi. She sits erect, Annunciation panel, he situated Mary inside a triresembling a throne, holding Jesus before three figures umphal arch, not only creating the illusion of depth, but in peaked caps who lean forward with their gifts. These also alluding to the imminent victory over sin assisted works, however, focused more

by Mary’s fiat. A bowl of olives on her form than her face, “As the most depicted womAn rests by her side as she reacts in depriving the viewer of a persurprise to the presence of the in humAn history, the number sonal connection. In 450, the angel, highlighting the natural of pAintings, sculptures, mosaics of the triumphal arch of human reaction of Mary to mosAics, drAwings, And icons Saint Mary Major unveiled a Gabriel’s amazing greeting. In new look for Mary, one that this new style, Mary became cAn be overwhelming” would last for the final years of more relatable to the 13th-centhe Roman Empire. For the tury audience.

Madonna Salus Populi in the wealthy denizens of the The Renaissance revealed Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome.

Esquiline Hill, Mary appeared Mary’s heroic side. MichelanOpposite, The Pietà by Michelangelo as a princess, with jeweled garb in the Basilica of St. Peter at the Vatican gelo’s monumental Virgin of

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the Pietà bears the weight of her in Sant’ Andrea della Valle was the earSon’s body with the valor of her liest attempt to sweep the viewer’s eye faith. She holds the exquisitely into heaven. His sotto in sù technique carved Jesus, its proportions and directed the gaze upwards from below limbs derived from Grecian statues, where Mary, framed by golden light, but her hand supports the sagging floats on a cloud while jubilant saints shoulder of a lifeless man. As Mary look on. The concentric circles culmigazes at the beautiful figure she has nate in an explosion of light below the raised from infancy slumped lifeless lantern where God the Father appears to in her arms, her expression recalls swoop down to greet His beloved. that of the moment she answered Baroque Mary became a guide to lead Gabriel that she was “the handmaidthe spirit away from the darkness of this en of the Lord,” conformed to His world to the glory of the next. will. Her heroic “yes” to God was The art of the Enlightenment preferred a more subdued Mary. Neoconstant even unto the moment of Christ’s death, an active decision to classical artists admired the cool beauty and clean lines of ancient trust in God, no matter what the cirGreece statuary and applied that cumstances.

As the Reformation raged through aesthetic to the Virgin. No more Europe, Mary’s intercessory power in fluttering drapery and ecstatic the affairs of the faithful was called smiles, in the paintings of Pompeo into question. Pride and practicality Batoni and Federico Chiari (Rome’s dismissed Marian pilgrimages and petitions as the most fèted artists), the Blessed Virgin turned a serene, superstitions of the simple. Caravaggio responded with classically-inspired profile towards her supplicants.

The bronze statue of the Immaculate Conception cast his lyrical Madonna of the Pilgrims, a striking CounterReformation vision of Mary’s personal concern for her in 1857 by Giovanni Obicì, crowning the column supplicants. In the first chapel entering the Church of erected in honor of the newly-declared dogma, epitoSant’Agostino, Caravaggio startles visitors with a mizes this understated elegance. She stands atop a painting featuring two dirty bare feet and a grubby rear crescent moon gently crushing a serpent under her end. The ragged pair of pilgrims have walked to the dainty foot. Her drapery softly envelops her body Holy House of Loreto and fallen to their knees, the long much like the that of the Muses contained in the Vatjourney ended. In contrast with the weary bodies, their ican Museums. Thirteen feet high, perched on a thirfaces are transformed by delight. A broad smile creases ty-six-foot column, Mary gazes tranquilly toward the woman’s face as the man’s eyes widen with amazeheaven, interceding for the busy shoppers around the ment. As we follow their gaze, it is clear that the attracPiazza di Spagna. tion is not the peeling plaster on the building, but the Mary’s modern guise appears to bring us full circle in miraculous vision of the Virgin in the doorway holding art. Jesuit mosaicist Marco Ivan Rupnik’s sloe-eyed Virthe Christ child. She leans deeply towards them, her gins swathed with shimmering tiles evoke the all-seeing compassionate gaze fixed on the couple. Brilliant light icons of old. The stained glass rose window added to St. erupts from an unseen source to illuminate the porcelain Mary Major in 1995 by Giovanni Hajnal recalls the features of Mary and bathe the pilgrims with its warmth. enveloping presence of the Blessed Mother of the cataTheir humble trusting faith is comb paintings as well as the conrewarded with joy. vergence of Old Testament and “Baroque Mary BecaMe a For its part, the Baroque opened New by pairing the symbols of the guide to lead the spirit walls, vaults, and domes to celestial menorah and the chalice. away froM the darkness of visions of glory. As Galileo had shown The papal devotion to Mary is Rome the moons of Jupiter with his a strong as ever, evidenced by this world to the glory of telescope, 17th-century painters Pope Francis’ frequent visits to the next” worked to reveal heaven to the naked the Madonna Salus Populi Roeye. The church cupolas became mani. It only remains to be seen Above, Madonna of the Pilgrims celestial observatories as painters what new and innovative Marian

by Caravaggio (1571-1610). Opposite, a pushed perspective to its limits depictrepresentations the next generaRoman fireman places a wreath on the ing the topography of paradise. Lantion of creative genius will have statue of Mary in Piazza di Spagna, Rome, to honor her on December 8 franco’s 1627 Assumption of the Virgin in store.l 64

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The Mother

By Anthony EsolEn Pray and be patient, and the fire will come.

My sons, for you are all my children now, This is a time most sacred, to be still, To hold your peace, and know that God is God. His is the thunder, and the silence too, The tempest, and the drop of water trickling Into a seed kept warm beneath the earth.

Be ready, like the seed, and have no fear.

Depend upon his promises of old, But never think to reckon up His ways: A single quiet movement of His will Stops up the trumpets of the proud, and brings The towns and towers they boast of to the dust.

Sons, I am not used to speaking. All I say Is what I know, though how I’ve come to know it I cannot tell you, no more than the seed Has language to describe the rain. It dwells All in an overshadowing power, as once The Word that spoke the sun and moon and stars, The earth and ocean full of living creatures, Dwelt in the darkness, even within my flesh.

What did I think of, how did I prepare?

Women are always busying about.

There was my husband, and our home to be.

Yes, I did everything a bride should do About the clothing and the furniture, The hens, the seed corn, and the yeast and flour.

If ever I mused of what my son might be, A prince of Israel, or an honored priest Summoning all the scribes with nimble pens To set down his decisions in the Law, I have no memory of it now. But this I do remember: it was summertime, The sun lay down in roses to the west, And a few stars shone in the still-blue sky; My Joseph had come in to wash and eat; And shepherd boys returning from the fields Brought their flocks home with shouts, and bursts of song, While the sheep grumbled in their harmless way And the dogs raced about and nipped and barked; And I set down the pot of stew, and saw – Or knew – I couldn’t put it into words – How sorrowful and beautiful it was, And when I looked into my husband’s face I saw he’d somehow caught the sorrow too, The love of things so precious and so frail.

Then it was I first felt the baby stir – I laid my hand upon my bosom – life, Life and not death was brooding on the waters.

How it should come was never mine to know.

Thomas, do you remember what He said When His hand took your hand, and guided it Into the wound still open in His side, And the life thrilled you to the fingertips?

You touched the truth, you cried, “My Lord and God!” 66

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You heard the words before you knew you spoke them.

He looked at you – it might have been a year – And with His boundless patience He replied, “Blessed are they who see not, yet believe.”

Now again comes for you the shadow-time; Not of the tomb, whose mouth is stopped forever, But of presentiments, whispers in the light, Shadow and flash of something drawing near – My children, don’t you feel it? Some new thing God will accomplish, to the eyes of men Dark, unless they will see it by the world It will make bright with wisdom. Do I wander Like an old woman? Rather like a girl When her first-born is at the gates of life.

Well, all is shrouded in His purposes.

But Thomas, hold your memory in that touch, Be fast in faith, whether you see or no.

A glory waits to lay His hand on you.

When He was born, I thought my heart would break, He was so spindly in the legs, and pale, A little hairless lamb, all washed in blood, My own. Some shepherds came, and there were sounds Like rolling armies in the fields of heaven, The roar of trumpets; words there must have been, But all the language I remember was When the child stretched His hands to me, and wailed, To have come to a world as cold as stone, As cold as stone, but not as sound or true.

We sponged Him then and swaddled Him in wool.

Joseph, poor fellow, fell asleep and dreamed; I was awake and must have dreamed all night, For when I took Him to my breast, I felt Fullness, folding the whole world roundabout, Pouring a language into me; no sounds Could I distinguish, nothing like a shape, No wheels in wheels, no eyes that strike men blind, But warmth in darkness, warmth and power and wonder.

My husband took direction from his dreams And so did I; he learned what he must do To save the child from Herod and his wolves; I knew – knew it without a messenger – I must obey, and love my son, and wait.

A new world from the waters would arise.

My children, what you say is true enough: Herod is near, his pack is on the prowl, With their tongues lolling and ribs sticking out, Longing for flesh to fill their emptiness; We must take care; the streets are full of ears; Treason is but a breath away, and men Cannot tell Egypt from Jerusalem.

This room is like a world within the world, Infinite riches, where we pray, we share The bread and wine, remembering all He said And did, the healing at a touch, a word, One secret motion of a human heart,

Nativity in a panel of the tryptych of Rogier van der Weyden (14001464) on the Altar of Our Lady (Miraflores Altar), in the Staatliche Museum, Berlin. On the next page, a rare depiction of the Risen Christ encountering his mother, Mary INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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His the most human, and the most divine, A pulse of life cast forth upon the sea.

And yet, somehow, it isn’t true at all – You are the hunters and the fishermen!

They trick their terrors in a dress-parade, They sound the trumpets lest the silence come, They sense the lion, and scurry to their holes.

Thomas, you brought your brother to Him once, The brother we could hardly tell from you Except for something brittle about the eyes.

“Master,” you stammered, and you spoke his name, And my son took his hand and welcomed him.

Then a dead silence fell as when a boy Tumbles a stone into a well and waits Till all the soundings and the splash are gone.

Your brother made a handsome life of it Trading in oil, and wore his riches well, A fringe of purple, and a garnet ring.

“My brother tells me you have new ideas About the scriptures and the reign of God. I take an interest in religious things.”

I caught your eyes then, Thomas; said a prayer, Only a word in hurry up to heaven, Then turned back to the leaven and the dough.

“What is this business of a mustard seed?

A splendid notion. Help me understand.

Is it like what Yehudi of Sousa said?”

You mustn’t be too hard upon him, Thomas.

The world’s a little thing – a wrinkled child That frets and struggles and won’t take the breast, A frail and helpless creature we must love Because God loves it, with a sheltering pity, Knowing that He who governs in the small Can bring its very nothingness to life.

Patience is all, my children. We must wait.

When He was small a whole day might pass by And I would hardly notice He was there, But I’d turn round from wringing out the wash To catch Him sitting at an open door Gazing upon the village and the hills, The housewives lugging buckets from the cistern, Gossiping as they halted now and then, Men with the harrow and oxen, or the sickle, Flinging a shout cross-wise over the shoulder, Boys hollering at their play, and half-wild dogs Yelping as if they understood the game, And laughing girls with limbs slender as willow, Some of them flushed and bold, and others shy.

“Yeshua,” I said, “what are you looking at?”

Such big eyes, and the traces of a smile.

It was two years before He said a word.

Then one day Joseph found a little dog Whose leg was broken, limping in the street.

And Yeshua watched him as he took some scraps Of supper, hunching down upon his knees, Biding his time until the dog came near To eat them from his hand; then bound a cloth About the leg, and clutched it with a splint.

At last he took the creature in his arms.

The dog whined softly, and did not bare his teeth.

“Abba is very good,” said Yeshua.

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I leapt up, nearly dropped a jar of oil, To catch Him by the shoulders. “All this time You could have talked to us, your father and me!

Say something now to please my heart.” He looked Into my eyes, grave as a boy can be, And said again, “Abba is very good.”

That was our dog Tzaddik, whom Yeshua loved.

The feast of seven weeks is drawing near, And soon the temple shall ring out with prayer From every pilgrim region of the world.

We too used to come to Jerusalem When Yeshua was a boy, to pray and sing In the place that He called his Father’s house.

Small as He was, He liked to linger there As if it and not Nazareth were his home.

But Thomas, you remember what He said, That not one stone would stand upon a stone?

Was it a warning or a promise? Sons, Though I still love the place where I was born, And feel the sunshine on the windowsill Where we three had our shelter, it is past; I shall not look on Nazareth again.

So it may be for all of us. The temple, This hideaway for thieves, a shepherd’s cave, The tent my Joseph in an alien land Raised up against the sand-storm and the sun, Were they to stand forever? What I see Is little enough, but when I think of it I am a girl again – the feast is near, Something is building in the wilderness, Someone approaches – I can almost touch Him, Thomas, reach out your hand! And when He comes With fire, will we have confidence and peace?

Will every tear at last be wiped away, And heaven be one with earth, and earth with heaven?

Let the shroud fall, and walk into the light?

It should be so! The day that has no evening Has dawned upon us; He is risen indeed And has appeared to Simon; we beheld Him, We have handled glory, eaten with Him, wept For pity of ourselves so small and poor, And He more splendid than the noonday sun.

How shall the world be as it was before?

True, and more true than we can understand.

Yet I still find Him in the sorrowful way And the sad question, “When the Son of Man Returns, will He find faith upon the earth?”

I think, my children, till the very end There will be need of such a little room As this of ours, too small to be regarded.

Mankind will grow aweary of the light, I fear it; or their shadows will be light, Not to illumine, but to daze the mind, Light like the clash of brass from hell’s own legions – A world of glare where nothing can be seen.

Then it falls to the few and silent ones To raise a tabernacle in the fields Of Bethlehem, and keep the memory warm, To fold it round with cloths and love it well, And pray, and wait, as sentries on the watch.

– From The Twelve-Gated City, Dr. Esolen’s upcoming book.l

“We have handled glory, eaten With him, Wept for pity of ourselves so small and poor,

and he more splendid than the noonday sun. hoW shall the World be as it Was before?”

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Part three: mary in our time

“Pray for Us Sinners” U

nderstanding Mary is not only appropriate, but essential, for understanding the solutions to the vexing questions, the sorrows and passions, and the malaise of our age. By the example of her life, her virtues and her unfailing love, she shows us the way, if we “have eyes to see.”

But she is also actively and constantly interceding for us.

The Church assures us that: “The motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. Taken up into heaven, she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. By her maternal charity, she cares for the brethren of her Son, who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties, until they are led into their blessed home.”

(Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, 62) Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. —CD

“By her maternal charity, she cares for the Brethren of her son, who still journey on earth surrounded By dangers and difficulties” October 25, 2014 Vatican City, Paul VI Audience Hall.

On the centenary of its founding, Pope Francis meets the participants of the Schoenstatt Movement, a Marian Catholic movement founded in 1914 in Schoenstatt, Germany by Father Joseph Kentenich. The image is of the Madonna with Child, symbol of the movement 70

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Photo/Grzegorz Galazka

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Mary Embodies True Femininity The DaughTer of Zion emboDies The spiriTual sTrengTh of all The olD TesTamenT’s greaT women — anD The True beauTy of The feminine

By Tracey rowland

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n urban myth in our time is that Our Lady was a common peasant girl, a simple woman, a lowly virgin betrothed to a tradesman, a social nobody. The reality was somewhat different.

According to oral tradition, her parents understood that she was a special child and had her brought up in the Jewish Temple. This means she was immersed in a social milieu embodying the highest liturgical, musical and intellectual traditions of the Jewish people. She would not have been lacking in cultural capital. She was nothing less than the Daughter of Zion. As Jesuit Cardinal Jean Daniélou wrote: Even if her soul borrows from time and in a sense it represents eternity in time, it has become what it is, as it were, through the entire upbringing of her race. It is the wonderful flower that sprouted from Israel, and indeed forms as a result of the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit in the soul of all prophets and holy women of Israel. Everything that previously happened in the soul of Rachel, Rebekah, Sarah and Ruth, in the souls of all women in the Old Testament, matures to perfection in the soul of Mary. That is why it can also be said in truth that with it “every valley is filled and every hill is worn away.”

St. Joseph was also born of a noble family. His genealogy is found in the Gospel of St. Matthew. The purpose of the genealogy is to make it clear that Jesus is “the son of David, the son of Abraham,” that is, the legal heir of both of these men. This is important because of the requirement that the occupant of the throne of Judah be of Davidic ancestry.

In the opinion of a number of saints, St. Joseph was not merely a member of the Royal House but actually a crown prince, someone who would have legitimately occupied the throne of David had it not been for political events that placed the Jewish people under the power of Rome and the Herodian kings. St. Peter Julian Eymard wrote: Therefore, since Christ was King, of the line of David, He made Saint Joseph to be born of this same royal line. He wanted him to be noble, of earthly nobility. In the veins of 72

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Adolescence of the Virgin by Guido Reni (1575-1642).

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St. Joseph, therefore, flows the blood of David and Solomon, and of all the noble kings of Judah. If his dynasty still sat on the throne, St. Joseph would be the heir and would have sat on the throne in his turn.

In the Eastern parts of Christendom, the tradition has been that St. Joseph was of mature years when he married Our Lady, and was possibly a widower. However, the widower concept has never been strong in the Western parts of the Church.

Three contemporary figures have argued that St. Joseph was not an old man when he married Our Lady.

Mother Angelica remarked, “Who has ever heard of an old man walking to Egypt?” What we now call the flight into Egypt sounds like getting out of Vienna just hours before the Anschluss. Mother Angelica’s point was that if Our Lady and Our Lord needed someone to protect them and manage the logistics of secretive border crossings and, after that, the task of earning a living in a foreign country, the Holy Spirit would not have chosen an old man for the job.

St. Josemaria Escrivà and the Venerable Fulton Sheen were of a similar view. Sheen remarked: “To make Joseph appear pure only because his flesh had aged is like glorifying a mountain stream that has dried.

The Church will not ordain a man to his priesthood who has not his vital powers. She wants men who have something to tame, rather than those who are tame because they have no energy to be wild. It should be no different with God.” Sheen concluded that Joseph was probably a young man, strong, virile, handsome, chaste and disciplined, and that he came to be depicted as an old man because of the view that “senility was a better protector of virginity than adolescence.”

Taken together these thoughts offer an image of the Holy Family composed of a well-educated young woman supported by a young, virile, handsome and courageous prince-carpenter (skilled artisan) husband who together set about homeschooling the redeemer of humanity.

A common theme in the accounts of Marian visionaries is the beauty of Our Lady. Often the children to whom she appears do not initially speak of seeing the Virgin Mary but of seeing a beautiful lady. She addresses them in their own dialects and her presence does not frighten them. One of the French bishops famously remarked that Our Lady could not be appearing to Bernadette because the woman of whom she spoke used the rustic patois of the Pyrenees villages, not formal French. It is clear, however, that on these occasions when Our Lady appears to children, she relates to them on a level they can comprehend and does not overwhelm them with anything except her beauty.

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der identity.” What do the concepts “masculinity” and “femininity” mean? Do they have any basis in nature, or are they just constructs of the human mind? If the latter, are they bad?

Lucia of Fatima said that Our Lady had given her to understand that the war against the inherent goodness of creation was to be the devil’s special form of attack on humanity in our time. Femininity is attacked by the claim that it is “feeble” and “weak” and a male construct to keep women in a subordinate social position. Masculinity is attacked by the claim that the desire to protect and defend is “toxic,” that chivalry is chauvinism, that paternal authority is oppressive. The social engineering policies that accompany these ideological attacks foster mental confusion, despair, teenage suicide, and above all, a great increase in ugliness.

Much was achieved during the pontificate of St. John Paul II to address these attacks. One of the intellectual leaders of that era was Angelo Scola, who persuasively argued that a culture that does not accept the revelation of the Trinitarian God ultimately renders itself incapable of understanding sexual difference in a positive sense. Essays by Scola, by Michele M. Schumacher, Prudence Allen, Margaret McCarthy and Deborah Savage, to name but a few of the leading scholars in this field, have provided affirmations of sexual difference consistent with the Trinitarian theological anthropology of St. John Paul II. These authors have offered the intellectual answers to the crisis generated by the devil’s attacks on humanity in our era.

However, the visual answer to the crisis is simply the beauty, indeed the splendor of women, in all areas of life, for whom Our Lady is their model of the feminine ideal. One can see this very clearly in the joy radiated by young Catholic nuns and consecrated virgins and by Catholic wives and mothers. Their beauty is the strongest foil against the devil. He knows this and wants to bring them down. From Revelation we know that he will be defeated and indeed, not just defeated, but crushed under the feet of the Virgin, against whose grace and beauty he is impotent.

She is the daughter of Zion, embodying the combined spiritual strength of the great women of the Old Covenant; and she is also (to borrow from Tolkien), as brave as Éowyn, and as loyal and as regal as Arwen. She has the Christian virtue of humility, but this is very different from being weak and powerless.

—Tracey Rowland, Ph.D., holds the St. John Paul II Chair of Theology at the University of Notre Dame (Australia)

“She iS the daughter of Zion, embodying the combined Spiritual Strength of the great women of the old covenant” Education of the Virgin by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (painted in the 1630s), in the Art Gallery of South Australia INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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Mary: Model of Motherhood, Patroness of Life T

he one who accepted “Life” in the name of all and for the sake of all was Mary, the Virgin Mother; she is thus most closely and personally associated with the Gospel of life. Mary’s consent at the Annunciation and her motherhood stand at the very beginning of the mystery of life which Christ came to bestow on humanity (cf. Jn 10:10).

Through her acceptance and loving care for the life of the Incarnate Word, human life has been rescued from condemnation to final and eternal death.

For this reason, Mary, “like the Church of which she is the type, is a mother of all who are reborn to life. She is in fact the mother of the Life by which everyone lives, and when she brought it forth from herself she in some way brought to rebirth all those who were to live by that Life.”

As the Church contemplates Mary’s motherhood, she discovers the meaning of her own motherhood and the way in which she is called to express it. At the same time, the Church’s experience of motherhood leads to a most profound understanding of Mary’s experience as the incomparable model of how life should be welcomed and cared for.

“A great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun” (Rev 12:1): the motherhood of Mary and of the Church The mutual relationship between the mystery of the Church and Mary appears clearly in the “great portent” described in the Book of Revelation: “A great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (12:1). In this sign the Church recognizes an image of her own mystery: present in history, she knows that she transcends history, inasmuch as she constitutes on earth the “seed and beginning” of the Kingdom of God. The Church sees this mystery fulfilled in complete and exemplary fashion in Mary. She is the woman of glory in whom God’s plan could be carried out with supreme perfection.

The “woman clothed with the sun” — the Book of Revelation tells us — “was with child” (12:2).

The Church is fully aware that she bears within herself the Savior of the world, Christ the Lord.

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She is aware that she is called to offer Christ to the world, giving men and women new birth into God’s own life. But the Church cannot forget that her mission was made possible by the motherhood of Mary, who conceived and bore the One who is “God from God,” “true God from true God.” Mary is truly the Mother of God, the Theotokos, in whose motherhood the vocation to motherhood bestowed by God on every woman is raised to its highest level. Thus Mary becomes the model of the Church, called to be the “new Eve,” the mother of believers, the mother of the “living” (cf. Gen 3:20).

The Church’s spiritual motherhood is only achieved – the Church knows this too – through the pangs and “the labor” of childbirth (cf. Rev 12:2), that is to say, in constant tension with the forces of evil which still roam the world and affect human hearts, offering resistance to Christ: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (Jn 1:4-5).

Like the Church, Mary too had to live her motherhood amid suffering: “This child is set ... for a sign that is spoken against — and a sword will pierce through your own soul also — that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed” (Lk 2:34-35).

The words which Simeon addresses to Mary at the very beginning of the Savior’s earthly life sum up and prefigure the rejection of Jesus, and with him of Mary, a rejection which will reach its culmination on Calvary. “Standing by the cross of Jesus” (Jn 19:25), Mary shares in the gift which the Son makes of himself: she offers Jesus, gives him over, and begets him to the end for our sake. The “yes” spoken on the day of the Annunciation reaches full maturity on the day of the Cross, when the time comes for Mary to receive and beget as her children all those who become disciples, pouring out upon them the saving love of her Son: “When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!’ “ (Jn 19:26).

—Pope St. John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, March 25, 1995

Photo/Grzegorz Galazka

Mosaic of the Madonna Mater Ecclesiae (“Mother of the Church”), on the wall high above St. Peter’s Square, placed there by Pope John Paul II in December 1981 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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The Holy Family: Creation Perfected and Crowned

By Mark Drogin

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n the beginning God created the heavens and the earth: our eternal home, and our temporary home.

God is present everywhere in the world, and present in heaven where we hope to see Him and offer eternal thanksgiving.

During the Great Jubilee, on March 25, Saint John Paul II celebrated the Third Millennium of the Incarnation in Nazareth; the Incarnation reveals the fullness and perfection of human life (see Gaudium et Spes, #22).

In the fullness of time, in Nazareth, the completion (fullness) and perfection – the Crown – of all creation, the Immaculate Virgin, becomes the Mother of God. When He came into the world, He said: “A body you prepared for me.” (Hebrews 10:5) God, Elohim, creates human life in Marriage-andFamily and redeems human life in Marriage-and-Family. Elohim, the Hebrew word for God, is a singular-plural noun: Elohim is Three Divine Persons Who are one.

In the beginning Elohim, the uncreated divine Holy Family, says, “Let us (plural) create humans in our (plural) image and likeness” (Genesis 1:26); Elohim creates humans in His/Their image, “male and female created He them (plural)” (Genesis 1:27).

In the fullness of time, in Nazareth (Ephesians 1:10 and Galatians 4:4), God perfects, completes, and crowns creation. At the moment of Mary’s Fiat, Jesus in Union with Mary-and-Joseph – the created Holy Family – becomes the image and likeness of the divine Holy Family. Hear! O Israel! The uncreated Holy Family is One; the created Holy Family is One. When He came into the world, He said: “A body you prepared for me.” Before the Incarnation, God preserved one human person free of any stain of sin from the moment of her Immaculate Conception. At the moment of our Blessed Mother’s Conception, God wrote the New Covenant in her Immaculate Heart. Only sin breaks this Covenant-Union with God (ComUnion): Mary’s Immaculate Heart remains united with God forever.

God also wrote the New Covenant in Joseph’s pure heart long before he met his wife. When Mary reached the age of motherhood, she “fell in love with Joseph” and the two were joined in Sacred Matrimonial Cove-

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nant Union (the first Sacrament of the New Covenant; see St. John Paul II, Redemptoris Custos; 1989; #7).

United in hearts, minds, and wills, Joseph and Mary became — and remain eternally — united in God’s Will.

Mary and Joseph are “no longer two but one flesh” (Genesis 2:24 and Matthew 19:5). Yes, one flesh in the true biblical sense: their hearts are joined in Holy ComUnion in the New and Eternal Covenant.

God prepared this virginal, immaculate Holy Union of Mary-and-Joseph — a virginal, immaculate body — before the Word became flesh; and, He said, a “body you prepared for me.”

God knows “from all eternity” every moment of time, knows the disobedience of Adam and Eve “before” He creates them. Without violating human freedom, our Creator — in infinite Wisdom — includes the Immaculate Conception and her Most Chaste Spouse in Divine Providence. God — three divine Persons — creates human life in His/Their image and likeness with a divine Plan for humans to participate in their own Redemption.

Immediately following the original disobedience, the sons of Adam and Eve offer sacrifice; the son who offers an acceptable sacrifice is murdered. Divine Providence provides for the only eternally acceptable Sacrifice offered by the Lamb Who takes away the sins of the world. Humanity and divinity are fully united in the Lamb: divinity and humanity act as one offering the only acceptable Sacrifice.

In the Presentation in the Temple (Luke 2:22-38), Mary and Joseph, with Jesus, initiate the only acceptable Sacrifice; on Calvary, Jesus and Mary — still united with Joseph in heart, mind, and will — complete and perfect the only eternal Holy Sacrifice.

Three persons — one divine and two human — who are One, offer the only acceptable Sacrifice, initiated in the Presentation in the Temple and completed on Calvary. Jesus declares, “It is finished”: the entire “work” of creation is finished, perfected, and crowned with thorns.

The Sacred Heart is pierced; the Immaculate Heart is pierced; Joseph’s Pure Heart is pierced; and these three hearts united rise in eternal triumph over sin and death.l

Holy Family with the Lamb by Raffaello Sanzio (1504), Museo del Prado, Madrid INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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Mary’s Heroic Faith

By Romano GuaRdini

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rom the first hour to the last, Jesus’ life is enfolded in the nearness of his mother. The strongest part of their relationship is her silence. Nevertheless, if we accept the words Jesus speaks to her simply as they arise from each situation, it seems almost invariably as if a cleft gaped between him and her. Take the incident in the temple of Jerusalem. He was, after all, only a child when he stayed behind without a word, at a time when the city was overflowing with pilgrims of all nationalities, and when not only accidents but every kind of violence was to be expected. Surely they had a right to ask why he had acted as he did. Yet his reply expresses only amazement. No wonder they failed to understand!

It is the same with the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee.

He is seated at table with the wedding party, apparently poor people, who haven’t much to offer. They run out of wine, and everyone feels the growing embarrassment.

Pleadingly, Mary turns to her son: “They have no wine.”

But he replies only: “What wouldst thou have me do, woman? My hour has not yet come.” In other words, I must wait for my hour; from minute to minute I must obey the voice of my Father — no other. Directly he does save the situation, but only because suddenly (the unexpected, often instantaneous manner in which God’s commands are made known to the prophets may help us to grasp what happens here) his hour has come ( John 2:1-11). Another time, Mary comes down from Galilee to see him: “Behold, thy mother and thy brethren are outside, seeking thee.” He answered, “Who are my mother and my brethren?

Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:32-35). And though certainly he went out to her and received her with love, the words remain, and we feel the shock of his reply and sense something of the unspeakable remoteness in which he lived.

Even his reply to the words, “Blessed is the womb that bore thee,” sometimes interpreted as an expression of nearness, could also mean distance: “Rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.”

Finally on Calvary, his mother under the cross, thirsting for a word, her heart crucified with him, he says with a glance at John: “Woman, behold, thy son.” And to John: “Behold, thy mother” John 19:26-27). Expression, certainly, of a dying son’s solicitude for his mother’s future, yet her heart must have twinged. Once again she is directed away from him. Christ must face the fullness of his ultimate hour, huge, terrible, all-demanding, alone; must fulfill it from the reaches of extreme isolation, utterly

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Commiato di Cristo dalla Madre (“Christ Taking Leave of His Mother”) by Lorenzo Lotto (1521), Gemäldegalerie, Berlin INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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alone with the load of sin that he has shouldered, before the justice of God. Everything that affected Jesus affected his mother, yet no intimate understanding existed between them. His life was hers, yet constantly escaped her. Scripture puts it clearly: he is “the Holy One” promised by the angel, a tide full of the mystery and remoteness of God. Mary gave that holy burden everything: heart, honor, flesh and blood, all the wonderful strength of her love. In the beginning she had contained it, but soon it outgrew her, mounting steadily higher and higher to the world of the divine beyond her reach.

Here he had lived, far removed from her. Certainly, Mary did not comprehend the ultimate. How could she, a mortal, fathom the mystery of the living God! But she was capable of something which on earth is more than understanding, something possible only through that same divine power which, when the hour has come, grants understanding: faith. She believed, and at a time when in the fullest sense of the word probably no one believed. “And blessed is she who has believed....” If anything voices Mary’s greatness, it is this cry of her cousin Elizabeth.

Mary believed blindly. Again and again she had to confirm that belief, and each time with more difficulty.

Her faith was greater, more heroic than that of any other human being. Involuntarily we call to mind Abraham and the sudden, terrible sublimity of his faith; but more was demanded of Mary than Abraham. For years she had to combat an only too natural confusion. Who was this “Holy One” whom she, a mere girl, had borne? This “great” one she had suckled and known in all his helplessness? Later she had to struggle against the pain of seeing him steadily outgrow her love, even purposely flee it to that realm of ineffable remoteness which she could not enter.

Not only did she have to accept this, but to rejoice in it as in the fulfillment of God’s will. Not understanding, never was she to lose heart, never to fall behind. Inwardly she accompanied the incomprehensible figure of her son every step of his journey, however dark. Perseverance in faith even on Calvary — this was Mary’s inimitable greatness.

—Excerpted from “The Mother,” The Lord, 1937, Eng. 1954.

“Inwardly she accompanIed the IncomprehensIble fIgure of her son every step of hIs journey, however dark” 82

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Andata al Calvario (“The Road to Calvary”) by Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520), painted in 1504-05, Prado Museum, Madrid INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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Mary’s Virginity: Why Does It Matter?

“In being born of a Virgin who chose to remain a Virgin even before she knew who was to be born of her, Christ wanted to approve virginity rather than to impose it. And he wanted virginity to be of free choice even in that woman in whom he took upon himself the form of a slave.”

—St. Augustine, Holy Virginity 4:4 (401 A.D.)

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any modern men and women may find the notion of voluntary sexual continence unintelligible, but Mary is a sign of contradiction: she voluntarily vowed to pratice sexual abstinence for the duration of her life – she who said, “All generations will call me blessed.”

Brant Pitre, in his book Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary, asks, “The Perpetual Virginity of Mary: Why Does It Matter?” He answers: “[...] the perpetual virginity of Mary matters because it points beyond her to the final resurrection of the dead and the coming of the new creation. Mary is the new Eve of the new creation…then it makes sense that she would also choose to live out, in a unique way, the virginal life of the resurrection. Mary’s perpetual virginity points us to the eternal life of the world to come, the resurrection, and the new creation, in which ordinary marital relations will pass away because death will be no more.”

In another sense, the perpetual virginity of Mary represents and foreshadows the victory here and now against the flesh’s attempted dominion over the spirit in every sphere, not just the sexual – a victory every Christian, though handicapped by our fallen state, must fight for: and Mary is our standard-bearer, and also our help and our comfort in the toil and discouragement of battle. —CDl

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“The perpeTual virginiTy of Mary MaTTers because iT poinTs beyond her To The final resurrecTion of The dead and The coMing of The new creaTion” Virgin of the Lily by Eugène Delaplanche (1836-1891), Musée d'Orsay, Paris INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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Mary, the Antidote to Materialism She teacheS uS to embrace poverty in order to enjoy the greateSt peace of heart

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eyond the Nativity story, Catholic Tradition tells us that the Blessed Virgin remained in material poverty throughout her life, and grew ever stronger in the virtue of poverty of spirit. St. Alphonsus sums up what we know about this in his book The Glories of Mary: Out of love for poverty she did not disdain to marry St. Joseph, who was only a poor carpenter, and afterwards, to maintain herself by the work of her hands, spinning and sewing, as we are assured by St. Bonanventure. The angel, speaking of Mary, told St. Bridget “that worldly riches were of no more value in her eyes than dirt.” In a word, she always lived poor, and she died poor; for at her death we do not know that she left anything but two poor gowns, to two women who had served during her life, as it is recorded by Metaphrastes and Nicephorous.

In her Magnificat, Mary shows that God offers a tremendous treasure to those who embrace a life of material poverty — that is, a life of what is sometimes called “Gospel simplicity” — for the sake of the cultivation of spiritual poverty and detachment: “He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty” (Lk 1:53). What are these “good things” to which Mary refers here?

Jesus Christ, born in a manger in the midst of her poverty, signifies the birth of the Christ Child in the center of every human heart that is poor in spirit. Moreover, when Christ is born in the hearts of His “anaw-

im,” they receive also the gift of holy joy, for the whole story of the Nativity in the Gospels is about the gift of joy from God that fills this poverty: “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant” (Lk 1:47-48); “Fear not, for behold I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people” (Lk 2:10); “And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God, for all they had heard and seen” (Lk 2:20).

The question remains: Do we have this “great joy” as followers of Jesus who live in the 21st century?

Have we found with Mary the treasure of the gift of the Christ Child, and of holy joy, in the midst of true poverty of spirit? This is the holy joy to which Jesus invites each one of us, and its link with holy poverty was a central theme of His gospel message. Fr. Cameli explains: [Jesus] said, ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Lk 6:20b). The reign of God belongs to those who are not owned by anything else. In the face of material possessions, Jesus poses the sharp question of our root identity. What is at the heart of our lives — what we have, or who we are? “What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?”

(Luke 9:25) l

—Robert Stackpole, STD is director of the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy.

“Jesus Christ, born in a manger in the midst of her poverty, signifies the birth of the Christ Child in the Center of every human heart that is poor in spirit” Nativity at Night by Geertgen tot Sint Jans (c. 1490), National Gallery, London 86

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The Humility of Mary “To Nazareth, a city of Galilee.” To this city the angel Gabriel was sent from God. To whom?

“To a Virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph.” Who is this Virgin so reverently saluted by the angel? And so lowly as to be espoused to a carpenter? Beautiful commingling of virginity with humility! That soul is in no small degree pleasing to God, in Whom humility commends virginity, and virginity adorns humility. But how much more worthy of veneration is she, in whom fecundity exalts humility, and child-bearing consecrates virginity. Virginity is a commendable virtue, but humility an indispensable one. The first is of counsel, the latter of precept. Of the one it is said, “He that can take, let him take it.”

Of the other, “Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

To the one reward is offered: the other is exacted under a threat.

“regarded the humility of his handmaid,” (Luke 1:48) rather than her virginity. And if by her virginity she was acceptable to Him, nevertheless, it was by her humility that she conceived Him. Hence it is evident that it was her humility that rendered even her virginity pleasing to God.

Again, we can be saved without virginity, but not without humility. A soul that has to deplore the loss of virginity may still be acceptable to God by humility: without humility, I will venture to say that even the virginity of Mary would not have been pleasing to Him, the Divine Majesty.

“Upon whom shall my spirit rest, if not on him that is humble and peaceable?” (Isa. xl.2) He says not on the virgin, but on the humble. If, therefore, Mary had not been humble the Spirit would not have rested on her. If the Holy Spirit had not rested on her, she would never have become fruitful; for how without Him could she have conceived of Him? Therefore, as she herself testifies, in order that she might conceive of the Holy Ghost, God the Father

Since the beginning of the world it had not been heard that a woman was at once a virgin and a mother. And if you consider of whom she is the mother, how great will be your admiration of her exalted dignity! Do you feel as if you can never sufficiently praise it? Do you not judge, and rightly, that she who has the God-man for her Son is exalted in greatness above all the choirs of angels? Did not Mary confidently call the God and Lord of Angels her Son, saying: “Son, why hast thou done so to us?” (Luke 2:48)) Which of the angels would have presumed thus to speak?

A proud virgin, what can you say? Mary forgets herself and her virginity, and glories only in her humility, and you, neglecting humility, presume to pride yourself on your virginity. She says: “He hath had regard to the humility of his handmaid.” And who is this handmaid? A holy virgin, a prudent virgin, a devout virgin. Are you more chaste than she? Are you more devout?

Is your purity more pleasing than the chastity of Mary, that without humility, you deem it sufficient for you, when without humility her virginity could not find favor?

—St. Bernard of Clairvaux Sermons, Homily I: The Praises of the Virgin-Mother

“Mary forgets herself and her virginity, and glories only in her huMility” Apparition of the Madonna to St. Bernard Writing

by Bartolomeo Della Porta (1472-1517), Uffizi, Florence 88

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Mary and Her Mission The firsT ChrisTian, and The firsT Theologian, her overarChing impulse is To give ChrisT To us

By Regis MaRtin

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ell me, dear reader, is there something you still need to know about Our Blessed Lady that may have escaped your attention? Well, there is a wonderful little book written back in 2010 by the former editor-in-chief of Magnificat, Fr. Peter Cameron, O.P., which has your answer. It is called Mysteries of the Virgin Mary (Servant Press), and in it Fr. Peter sets down in the most loving and luminous detail every relevant feature of the woman whom George Bernanos called “younger than sin.”

For instance, there is this lapidary line, informing us that in her journey into the hill country to visit her cousin Elizabeth, Mary became the very first to mount a Corpus Christi procession. Isn’t that a striking datum? That owing to God having assumed bodily residence in her womb, her immediate and overarching impulse is to bear His blessed presence to others.

This makes her, of course, the very first Christian. And not only because she freely gave her consent to the Son of the Most High God coming to dwell among us. She had, after all, already conceived Him in her heart, thus laying the groundwork for the yet more astonishing event of conceiving Him in her womb, but also because of her willingness to carry her unborn Child to others, beginning with Elizabeth, whose own unborn son becomes the beneficiary of an entirely unforeseen encounter with the living God. Thus, she presents Christ to the world, becoming herself a living monstrance before whom God invites us to pay homage to His Son. And, yet, from a strictly human standpoint, the circumstances are highly unusual. Are pregnant women ordinarily expected to undertake a ninety mile hike into the mountains?

And to do so alone and on foot? The Scriptures are silent on the subject, so what exactly was Mary thinking?

Well, it’s pretty clear, isn’t it? She’s on a mission that no hardship or inconvenience can prevent her from carrying out.

And while the stunning news she carries reaches her cousin in the course of an outwardly ordinary visit between two expectant mothers, it is the response of Elisabeth’s child that is truly remarkable, reaching right into the deepest regions of divine grace. Why else would the startled child commence to leap before a Mystery too staggering to explain? “The woman recognized the woman’s arrival,” writes St. Ambrose, “the child, that of the Child.” Which is to say, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the very Word whom the Father speaks

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“Mary in the Meeting with elizabeth presents Christ to the world, beCoMing herself a living MonstranCe before whoM god invites us to pay hoMage to his son” Visitation by Deodato Orlandi (c. 1288-c. 1331), Gemäldegalerie, Berlin INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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from all eternity. In short, this was no ordinary cousin John recognized.

What remains especially instructive about this, however, is the fact that the Annunciation would then be followed by the Visitation. This is true both in the order of devotion and in that of discipleship. It is certainly in keeping with the sequence we observe in saying the Rosary, in which Annunciation precedes Visitation.

First, she assents, then she ascends. Mystery followed

by Ministry. It is not enough that Mary be given Christ, you see, she must also be willing to give Him away.

Here, incidentally, is the whole splendor and sweep of theology. “That devouring fire,” Hans Urs von Balthasar has called it, “burning in the dark night of adoration and obedience, whose abysses it illuminates.”

Nor for a single moment, he tells us, may we forget either theology’s source in the one, nor its finality in the other. Its roots reach very deep down, indeed, to that place “from which all its nourishment is drawn: adoration, in which we see, in faith, the heavens opened; and obedience in living, which frees us to understand its truth.”

Mary, therefore, is not only the first Christian, she is also the first theologian. How so?

Because it is the worship of God, followed by the work of obedience to God, that furnishes the two bookends between which all theology, and life, are to move in solemn and rhythmic dance. Her life, and her thought, to a degree greater than that of any other Christian, represent a coursing, or procession, through time to eternity, history to heaven. Mary instinctively knows this, of course, having perfectly intuited the connection between her own adoring gaze upon the face of the Child she bears, and her constant transparence before others in order that they too might share the Glory of the Lord. “Do whatever He tells you,” is her constant refrain.

And who may see this light which Mary radiates out to the world? This sheer incandescence of light shining, as the poet Angelus Silesius has it, “in the breast of night”?

Only the childlike heart of those “whose eyes keep watch, e’er bright.” And unless, like Mary, we first gaze upon the Child, before whom we fall to our knees in adoration, we will not be able to carry out the apostolate of urging others to worship and adore. Once again, you cannot give what you haven’t got.

Why then did God not make a much larger splash on first coming into this world? Why so modest a manifestation of majesty and might? Especially if, as one naturally supposes, God wishes all humanity to find its way home to Him? Why no bells and whistles? No dazzling cosmic displays?

Those first few stirrings could hardly have impressed anyone. Certainly the wise and the worldly saw nothing of 92

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AgAinst every instinct of outrAged mAnhood, not to mention mAssive societAl norms rooted in A hArsh And exActing ethos, he does not turn her out, does not hAve her killed. rAther he renews his offer of love And protection.

The Marriage of the Virgin by Raphael, Church of San Francesco, Città di Castello, Italy INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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which they needed to take notice. How strange and unobtrusive are the ways of God. So, how does God do it? Quite simply, and without any fanfare whatsoever, he arranges for one of his archangels, Michael by name, to ask a young Jewish girl by the name of Mary, if she would be willing to become His Son’s Mother. That’s all. At the origin of all that God intended to happen, including a divinely directed institutional expansion that continues even now to extend its reach into everything, there appears this seemingly momentary ripple in the great sea of history. And that it should all happen to a perfectly ordinary girl seems a fitting backdrop to so outwardly banal a beginning.

Ah, but the fallout from it all! An entire universe convulsed by God’s wish to come among us as an innocent and helpless Child. As an old professor of mine used to say, “Once the Incarnation happened, nothing remained the same. Everything changed.”

It all began, accordingly, with this mysteriously expectant young Hebrew girl, who, not wanting to keep the secret to herself, goes and tells her husband Joseph. And what does he do? Against every instinct of outraged manhood, not to mention massive societal norms rooted in a harsh and exacting ethos, he does not turn her out, does not have her killed. Rather he renews his offer of love and protection. So now there are two Christians.

And for the next thirty years there will be no evident increase in number. Only with the dawn of the public life of Christ will numbers slowly begin to grow. Why is that?

What catalyzing event will cause the figures to start to swell, indeed, in a very short time, to explode?

Three events, actually, conspire to produce the contagion that will shortly sweep everything away. One, the compelling witness of His life. Two, the protracted horror of His death. Three, the climactic vindication of His Resurrection.

How easy it should be for us to picture those events, around which everything suddenly becomes clear.

We are not so different from those first disciples — Andrew or Peter or John — who first fell in with Him, eating and fishing in His company, listening to His stories, drawn as if by magic to a presence that instantly rivets the attention.

Is there anything they knew that we do not now know about Him? Have we not reached the same threshold in the relationship they had with Him, when it becomes absolutely, commandingly clear that if we refuse to follow in His footsteps, disdaining the company of One whom we know to be God, we consign ourselves everlastingly to a life without hope or joy or salvation? An eternity, no less, of self-inflicted loss? “In the Gospel,” asks Servant of God, Luigi Giussani, “who was able to under94

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stand the need to trust that man? Not the crowd looking for a cure, but those who followed Him and shared His life.” They were, in a word, willing to put themselves at risk, venturing everything in the hope that the Mystery itself having entered human history, they could not lose, their lives would surely be saved. Like Mother Mary, in other words.

If what Giussani has called “the formula for the journey to the ultimate meaning of reality… is to live always the real intensely, without preclusion, without negating or forgetting anything,” then who better than Mary to show us the way? Indeed, there was never in the entire history of the world another human being whose attraction for God, to whom every immaculate fiber of her being was drawn, was greater than hers. Nor anyone who wished more ardently than she to draw others to Him as well.

Who not only, to quote the immortal Hopkins, “Gave God’s infinity / Dwindled to infancy / Welcome in womb and breast, / Birth, milk, and all the rest / But mothers each new grace / That does now reach our race —” So what then does Mary do? How does she spend her time? There is, Fr. Gerald Manley Hopkins tells us, but one work for Mary to do: Let all God’s glory through, God’s glory which would go Through her and from her flow Off, and no way but so.

And so the lines of Hopkins’ finest tribute to Mary— The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe— flow lyrically on and on: And men are meant to share.

Her life as life does air.

If I have understood, She holds high motherhood Towards all our ghostly good And plays in grace her part About man’s beating heart, Laying, like air’s fine flood, The deathdance in his blood… …

Be thou then, O thou dear Mother, my atmosphere; My happier world, wherein To wend and meet no sin; Above me, round me lie Fronting my froward eye With sweet and scarless sky; Stir in my ears, speak there Of God’s love, O live air, Of patience, penance, prayer: Wound with thee, in thee isled, Fold home, fast fold the child.l

A Prayer to Our Merciful Mother The Memorare, a prayer that begins by “reminding” Mary of her power to intercede for her children on earth, has been prayed by saints and mystics for six centuries. It even played a part in the radical conversion to the Faith of the militantly anti-Catholic 19th-century Jew Alphonse Ratisbonne, who, on a dare, agreed to wear the Miraculous Medal and say the Memorare for a month. As the month ended, Mary appeared to him in a church in Rome, and he was coverted.

The Memorare ReMeMbeR, O MOst gRAciOus ViRgin MARy, thAt neVeR wAs it knOwn thAt AnyOne whO fled tO thy PROtectiOn, iMPlORed thy helP, OR sOught thine inteRcessiOn wAs left unAided. insPiRed by this cOnfidence, i fly untO thee, O ViRgin Of ViRgins, My MOtheR; tO thee dO i cOMe, befORe thee i stAnd, sinful And sORROwful.

O MOtheR Of the wORd incARnAte, desPise nOt My PetitiOns, but in thy MeRcy heAR And AnsweR Me. AMen.

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Mary is waiting for you I

n his famous commentary on the Gospel of John, Origen of Alexandria writes: The firstfruits of the Gospels is that according to John, whose meaning no one can understand who has not leaned on Jesus’ breast nor received Mary from Jesus to be his mother also (Origen, Commentary on John,1.23 [3rd century A.D.] In other words, Jesus is inviting all of his disciples to enter into a personal relationship with Mary as their own spiritual mother. His dying wish is for Mary to become the mother of all Christians, not just of the Beloved Disciple.

But what happens when you do this? What happens when you choose not to ignore or dismiss Mary but to really “behold” her?

What happens when you take Jesus’ dying words to heart, imitate the Beloved Disciple, and take Mary to be your own mother?

I’ll tell you what happens. You begin to know Jesus himself better. You begin to see him more clearly.You begin to understand that everything the Bible teaches about Mary is really based on what it teaches about Christ. That, at least, is what Christians have believed since ancient times.[...]

When you behold Mary as the new Eve, it does not take anything away from Jesus.

Instead, it helps you to see more clearly that he is the new Adam, who comes to triumph over sin and death and usher in the new heavens and the new earth.

When you behold Mary as the new Ark, it no more takes away from the glory of Christ than the Ark of the Covenant took away from the glory of God. Instead, you come to realize that Jesus is the new Bread of Life, who came down from heaven and was hidden inside the new Ark. He is also the new Moses, who has come to lead us on a journey that begins in this world and will end in the new promised land of the world to come.

When you behold Mary as the queen mother of the kingdom of God, it does not take away anything from the majesty of Jesus the King. To the contrary, you discover that her queenship and virginal motherhood

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reveal the deepest of all mysteries: that Jesus is truly Immanuel, “God with us.”

When you behold Mary as the mysterious mother of the Messiah, you begin to grasp the awesome and terrible truth that Jesus brings salvation through suffering and sorrow — not apart from it. And you also begin to realize that these sufferings, however painful, are nothing more than the “birth pangs” of the resurrection from the dead.

When you behold Mary as the new Rachel, mother of the new Joseph, who — against all odds — becomes the savior of the whole world, then you begin to realize that we are beloved younger brothers and sisters. You begin to see that he loves us so much that he even gave us his mother to be our mother–a mother who knows our sufferings and prays for us, just as Rachel did for her children on earth.

Finally, when you begin to behold Mary and take her to be your own mother, you will discover something amazing and precious.

You will discover that she is already there, waiting for you. You will discover that Mary was beholding you long before you ever looked at her. You will discover that Mary was praying for you before you ever began to talk with her. You will find that Mary was loving you long before you ever learned to love her. Because that’s how it is with mothers.

When a mother gives birth, she sees her child long before the child can even open its eyes to see her. Perhaps that is one reason why Jesus speaks first to Mary: “Woman, behold your son!”(John 19:26). Mary too beholds the Beloved Disciple before he beholds her. The same thing is true today.

Mary, like Jesus himself, is not dead. She is very much alive in the heavenly kingdom.

She already tastes the glory of the resurrection and the new creation. And she is beholding you; she is praying for you; she is loving you. Right now, she is waiting to see if you too will respond to Jesus’ last words and take her to be your own: “Behold, your mother.”

—Brant Pitre, Ph.D., Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary

“When you behold Mary as the neW eve, it does not take anything aWay froM Jesus. instead, it helps you to see More clearly that he is the neW adaM, Who coMes to triuMph over sin and death and usher in the neW heavens and the neW earth” Annunciation by Beato Angelico (1420s), Prado Museum, Madrid INSIDE THE VATICAN MARY SPECIAL 2022

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MARY: BeHOld YOUR MOTHeR

CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS JOSEPH PEARCE Joseph Pearce is Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. A native of England, Mr. Pearce is the St. John Henry Newman Visiting Chair of Catholic Studies at Thomas More College (Merrimack, NH), editor of the St. Austin Review, and series editor of the Ignatius Critical Editions. He is the author of numerous books, which include The Quest for Shakespeare, Tolkien: Man and Myth, The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde, C.S. Lewis and The Catholic Church, Literary Converts, Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G.K. Chesterton, Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile, Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc, and Further Up & Further In: Understanding Narnia.

ELIZABETH LEV Elizabeth Lev is an American art historian with degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Bologna. She has been working as a guide in Rome for over 20 years and teaches at Duquesne University’s Italian campus as well as the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. She has served as a commissioner of the tourism board of Rome and a didactic consultant for the Vatican Museums. Liz is also the author of four books, has commented on art and the papacy for several television networks, and has taught and lectured in Europe, the US, Singapore, and Australia. Her recent projects include a series of columns for the Epoch Times on the light of art throughout dark times in history.

ANTHONY ESOLEN Anthony Esolen, Ph.D., is a faculty member and Writer-in-Residence at Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts in New Hampshire. Dr. Esolen is a renowned scholar and translator of literature, and the author of multiple articles and several books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization (Regnery Press, 2008), Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child (ISI Books, 2010), Reflections on the Christian Life (Sophia Institute Press, 2013), and Sex and the Unreal City (Ignatius Press, 2020).

His book-length poem, The Hundredfold, was published by Ignatius Press in 2019. His poem The Mother comes from his upcoming book, The Twelve-Gated City.

TRACEY ROWLAND Tracey Rowland, PhD, STL, STD, holds the St. John Paul II Chair of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, Australia. She is the author of eight books, including Culture and the Thomist Tradition (Routledge, 2003), Benedict XVI: A Guide for the Perplexed (Bloomsbury, 2010), Portraits of Spiritual Nobility (Angelico, 2019) and Beyond Kant and Nietzsche: The Munich Defence of Christian Humanism (Bloomsbury, 2021). She is a member of the editorial board of Communio: International Catholic Review and was appointed to the ninth International Theological Commission in 2014. In 2009 she was awarded the Archbishop Michael J. Miller Award for the Promotion of Faith and Culture by the University of St. Thomas in Houston, and in 2010 she was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. In 2020 she won the Ratzinger Prize for theology.

REGIS MARTIN Regis Martin, STD, has been a professor of theology for more than 20 years, and is a faculty associate with the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. He studied in Rome at the Angelicum, graduating summa cum laude in 1988 with a doctorate in sacred theology. Dr. Martin is the author of a half-dozen books and specializes in courses on the Trinity, Christology, Church, grace, sacraments, the writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar, and the Catholic Literary Revival. He podcasts at In Search of the Still Point and his latest book, Looking for Lazarus: A Preview of the Resurrection, was published by Scepter in 2021.

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MARY SPECIAL 2022 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF SPECIAL ISSUE: Christina Deardurff EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Robert Moynihan - ASSOCIATE EDITOR: George “Pat” Morse (+ 2013) CULTURE EDITOR: Lucy Gordan CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Giuseppe Rusconi WRITERS: Anna Artymiak, Alberto Carosa, William D. Doino, Jr., David Quinn, Andrew Rabel, Vladimiro Redzioch, Serena Sartini, Father Vincent Twomey PHOTOS: Grzegorz Galazka LAYOUT: Giuseppe Sabatelli ILLUSTRATIONS: Stefano Navarrini CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: Deborah B. Tomlinson ADVERTISING: Katie Carr Tel: 202-536-4555 advertising@insidethevatican.com

v EDITORIAL OFFICES FOR MAIL: US: 14 West Main St. Front Royal, VA 22630 USA Rome: Inside the Vatican via delle Mura Aurelie 7c, Rome 00165, Italy Tel: 39-06-3938-7471 Fax: 39-06-638-1316 POSTMASTER: send address changes to Inside the Vatican c/o St. Martin de Porres Lay Dominican Community PO Box 57 New Hope, KY 40052 USA Tel: 800-789-9494 Fax: 270-325-3091 Subscriptions (USA): Inside the Vatican PO Box 57 New Hope, KY 40052 USA www.insidethevatican.com Tel: 800-789-9494

v INSIDE THE VATICAN (ISSN 1068-8579, 1 yr subscription: $49.95; 2 yrs, $94.95; 3 yrs, $129.95), provides a comprehensive, independent report on Vatican affairs published bimonthly with occasional special supplements.

Inside the Vatican is published by Urbi et Orbi Communications, PO Box 57, New Hope, Kentucky, 40052, USA, pursuant to a License Agreement with Robert Moynihan, the owner of the Copyright. Inside the Vatican, Inc., maintains editorial offices in Rome, Italy.

Periodicals Postage PAID at New Haven, Kentucky and additional mailing offices.

Copyright 2022 Robert Moynihan

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