Our Lady's Role in Salvation

Madonna of the Rosegarden (Madonna del Roseto) - between 1469 and 1470
 - Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510)

Modern Protestant unease with veneration of Our Lady is well known. Catholics, too, while praying the Rosary and honoring her in other ways, sometimes fail fully too appreciate her true importance in Salvation History. Yet, she holds a central position in that history. For without Our Lady, there could have been no Incarnation, no Crucifixion and Resurrection; in short, no Salvation.

Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular has a long, deep-rooted tradition of pious reverence for Our Lord's Blessed Humanity. These many  cults include devotion to His Holy Face, His Holy Wounds, His Most Sacred Heart, His Most Precious Blood, and  culminate in a belief in the Real Presence and adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament. But how many of us pause to consider that the immediate author of that body and Blood was Our Lady? For, in a far more intimate and real sense than is true of any other mother's child, He was flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone. Without the cloak of humanity woven for Him by His mother and His mother alone, Our Lord would have had no feet to walk the hills and streets of Palestine; no hands to touch, comfort, and heal the blind, the leper, the sick, and the tormented of spirit; and no voice to call His followers, to teach, or to still the winds. He would have had no back to be scourged, no head to be crowned with thorns, no shoulders to bend beneath the weight of the Cross.

We must   always remember that Jesus in His Humanity is God, while Mary is a creature. Nonetheless, that creature made it possible for God to come into this world as a full participant in it. Our Blessed Lady gave her Son a gift even the Almighty Father could not give Him directly, the gift of physical mortality; so that, being immortal and sinless, He could take onto himself the sin of all mankind and, submitting His Body to death, at the same time destroy sin and death. An incorporeal being such as the Father and the Holy Spirit could not have performed such a task. Only the Son Who, passing through the womb of Mary   was clothed in her creaturehood, could perform it. Therefore, any love for and worship of Our Lord which does not include reverent love for Our Lady is incomplete.

Moreover, from the Cross Our Lord himself commended her to St. John with the words, "There is your mother." (John 19:27) Thenceforward Our Lady became, not only Jesus' mother, but the mother of all created things, notably of all people, who are created in the image of God (Gen 1:27) and who are, therefore, in a manner the sisters and brothers of her own Son.

As our mother, Our Lady protects, teaches, and guides us, gently leading us always to the Light, which is Jesus. Like any loving mother, she wishes us to be independent and self-reliant to the best of our ability. To this end, she gives us tools with which to help and defend ourselves. The best known and most widely used of these tools is the Holy Rosary, often described as a powerful weapon against evil. In this devotion, we contemplate and celebrate the intertwined lives of Our Lord and of His blessed mother. And, by doing so, we study both our Salvation and the means by which it was brought about.
We must always remember, however, that the relationship between us and the Blessed Mother, like any relationship, has two sides. For our part, we have received a sacred trust from Our Lord to love, honor, cherish, and obey her. Doing so means, most importantly, following Him. But, it also means speaking of and portraying her with reverence, and not allowing others to dishonor her. For with His words, "There is your mother," Our Lord left us both a trust and a command. We must love and protect her as we would our own physical mother, even as St. John did. We can be sure that she was a comfort to him in his sorrow over the death of his friend and Lord, a gladness to him in his joy at the Resurrection, and a great help to him in his work. And so she should be to us, comfort, gladness, and help in our lives.

The Blessed Virgin Mary is not divine. No Christian - Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant - worships her; worship being reserved for God.  Nonetheless, she is preeminent in creation. God Himself recognized her as such by assuming her into Heaven and crowning her Queen of the Universe. If the Father, Whose beloved daughter she is, the Holy Spirit, Whose beloved spouse she is, and the Son, Whose beloved mother she is, so greatly delight in honoring her, then it behooves us to revere her above all other creatures. Let us also remember that, though Our Lord Jesus Christ redeemed us, He could not have done so without Our Lady.

November 10, 2007