Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces

Brian has recently insisted that "all Mariology must resolve into Christology." I agree, but my ecclesial commitments demand from me a substantial degree of fundamental trust that seemingly mariolotrous titles – Queen of Heaven, Coredepmtrix, Mediatrix of All Graces, Dispensatrix of Heavenly Graces, etc. – actually are Christological inferences, even if I do not understand them.

    Let me guarantee you: I do not understand them. But I would like to try.

    The Mother of God is said to be the mediatrix of all graces in two senses: the subjective and the objective. Subjectively, she is seen to mediate the actual appropriation of grace by individuals, the totality of whom have already been objectively saved by the work of the Incarnate God, to whose presence Mary consented. The subjective dimension does not yet make sense to me, so I will have to leave it for another day.

    The objective dimension, though, is merely good Christology and soteriology. "Dead in our transgressions," we are only raised to life "with Christ" (Eph. 2:5). Our spiritual life is dependent on the work of Christ: God would not be present to us without the work of the absolutely unique and unparalleled mediation of the Incarnate Word (1 Tim. 2:5). That is to say, we would not have God's grace without the Incarnation. The stress here is on the humanity of Christ, for if the Son of God had remained God alone, eschewing our humanity, we would be ungraced and unsaved. We would be ungraced and unsaved were it not for the human flesh of Jesus Christ. That flesh grounds and is the presence of God for us. Insofar as all grace is merely (merely!) the presence of God, the flesh of Christ grounds and is all grace we receive.

    Mary's role here becomes more obvious. Christ would have had no flesh had it not been knit for him in that Virgin's womb. In the most concrete sense, then, all grace comes through Mary: the grace-flesh of Christ comes to us only through Mary's virginal cervix. Mary's physical body mediates to us the grace which saves the whole world. Furthermore, God's offer to Mary depends on her obedient fiat. In her obedience, therefore, Mary has won for humanity that fruit whose loss is mediated to us through the disobedience of Eve. I would not at all be able to say "yes" to the redemptive mystery of Christ were it not for Mary's own prior "yes." None of us would. The possibility of all obedience comes only through the obedience of this handmaid of the Lord. Mary mediates all grace to us both physically and spiritually only because she is the Mother of God. Mary's mediation of all grace is, therefore, the reverse side of a Christological fact: we are graced only by the Word become flesh.

    Hail Mary, Mother of God, Mediatrix of All Graces!

Jesus Came to Die

When I worked at Casa Juan Diego, we had "team meetings" with all of the staff from both the youth center and its parent church, St. Pius V, every Wednesday. These meetings were dedicated to personal development issues, such as communication, self-assertiveness, social action, and religion. I would cringe inwardly whenever a religious topic came up. The presenter (it varied from week to week) would regularly say things like denying that transubstantiation had ever been defined, that the penitential rite at the beginning of Mass was a sacramental confession, or offer some near-Marxist view of "the People of God." It is to my great discredit that I never felt comfortable enough to really offer much of a challenge to these views when they came up, but I didn't - even though most of these people had become my friends and were all kind people.
One particular statement has left me replaying the scene in my mind, searching for something to say. I have been replaying this scene for two years now. We were talking about who knows what when someone said that Jesus did not come to die for our sins. Stunned silence came over the group, and one woman raised her hand to disagree, but her protests were met with some answer that quieted her down. (I'm not sure of the details because it was in rapid Spanish.)
Yesterday I found a response.
We were looking at the beginning of John in a conversation about spirituality in Liberation Theology, when I noticed 1:25. There, in the very first chapter, John the Baptist recognizes Jesus:

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

This is a clear sacrificial reference. Exodus 12 details the use of the Passover lamb's blood for keeping death at bay, and Isaiah 63 describes the servant of God who, "like a lamb led to the slaughter" (7) constitutes an "offering for sin" (10).
This clear sacrificial reference at the beginning of John reminded me of the beginning of Mark. Eleven lines into that Gospel, at the baptism by John, we are given a reliable statement about Jesus' identity:

And a voice came from the heavens, "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased."

This verse is a reference to psalm 2:7:

I will proclaim the decree of the LORD, who said to me, "You are my son; today I am your father.

It describes the Davidic king in Jerusalem divinely set against the marauding nations. Mark lets us know that this is good news for those "nations" by combining this psalm with Isaiah 42:1:

Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased, Upon whom I have put my spirit; he shall bring forth justice to the nations

The Davidic messiah is the servant of the Lord, come to "establish justice on the earth" (42:4). So far, so good. But Mark's voice from heaven weaves in one more allusion: "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased." Mark is clearly referencing the "beloved son" whom Abraham was called to sacrifice (Gen 22:2, 12, and 17). This Davidic king has come to establish justice on earth - through his own death. Mark tells us this from this very first and most reliable identity statement about Jesus.
Both Mark and John, then begin with statements about Jesus' death. What about the other Gospels? Luke doesn't seem to have any comparable "thesis statement" at the head of his Gospel, but Matthew does.

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. (Matt 1:1)

"Son of David" is a standard messianic reference, but what about "son of Abraham?" The note on the verse in the USCCB hypertext Bible says that this reference to Abraham reflects Matthew's interest in the "universal scope" of Jesus' mission. Yes, but we all know how well that turned out for the first "son of Abraham." In case the point is too obscure, the second verse clarifies: Abraham became the father of Isaac Why does Matthew begin his genealogy with Abraham and Isaac? Luke gets across the point of universality by tracing Jesus back to Adam (Luke 3:38). Matthew's choice of the most famous father-son sacrificial pair is probably not insignificant. Especially not in the light of 1:21:

She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

Another heavenly messenger (i.e., reliable source) identifies Jesus with a salvation which later we learn is effected by the shedding of Christ's blood (26:28). These references in the first chapter point to Christ's ultimate fate on the cross.
So Matthew, Mark, and John all clearly explain Jesus' identity and mission in terms of his death. The crucifixion is not just some accidental feature of an otherwise life-giving proclamation of peace and justice. The crucifixion is somehow at the heart of the good news of Jesus. My co-worker was wrong: Jesus did indeed come to die for our sins. He certainly came to do more, but he did no less that that.

Natural Law Difficulties

I have difficulties with the theory of natural law, and this puts me at odds with my Church’s official teachings. In an effort to make the “religious submission of mind and will” that Vatican II commands (Lumen Gentium 25), I am writing my understanding of the natural law for others to critique. My assumption regarding the religious submission of “mind and will” is that my will must direct my mind to be convinced of the intellectual compulsion of the rationality of the Church’s teaching, if possible. I leave open room for not being convinced of the Church’s teaching with respect to a non-definitive doctrine while nonetheless submitting my will. In this respect, some aspects which I will discuss below are more pressing for me, as they have been dogmatically defined by Vatican I. I begin with these considerations on authority to give an indication of the kind of aid I seek – the aid of argument, not assertion. (I am, however, also open to arguments that I have misunderstood the nature of religious submission or of authority, as well.)

It will be helpful if I outline my understanding of natural law first. Natural law takes a basically Aristotelian approach to morality: human beings, like all things, have a proper function and their purpose is to fulfill that function. For humans, the habits which fulfill this function are virtues, the habits which do not are vices. Happiness consists in the life of virtue. Basically, you should be virtuous because it will make you happy. But Christian natural law goes beyond Aristotle, making for a stronger obligation in the moral “should.” Created by God to be the kinds of things they are, human beings have an obligation to live according to their function insofar as they have an obligation to obey God. We might list these components in this way:

(1) God exists.
(2) God has created human beings to have a specific function.
(3) God desires for human beings to live according to this function.
(4) Human beings owe obedience to God.
(5) Human beings can identify the details of their specific function.

In order for natural law to serve as the basis for public conversation and argument in the way the Church says it should, we must add that the factuality of each of these components can be determined by reason unaided by revelation. If natural reason can determine only that the Prime Mover exists, for example, it can discern (1), but not (2), (3), or (4). Without (3) or (4), natural law can at best be a suggestion for good living: live this way and you’ll be happy according to God’s will. If natural law is to be a conceptual tool which unearths moral and civic obligations, we must have all 5 components accessible to natural reason.

My problem is that, as far as I can tell, only (5) seems to be available to natural reason. As a Christian, I of course believe in (1) – (4), but I believe it on the basis of God’s self-revelation in Christ. I am actually willing to go a bit further and say that revelation (and its authentic interpretation by the Church) tells me that (1) is in principle open to reason (Romans 1 hints at something like the cosmological argument and Vatican I’s first canon on revelation appears to have defined the same basic principle). My difficulty is that no argument of which I am aware seems convincing on any of these points. It may well be that I either do not understand these arguments or am missing their logical flow. I may even be misunderstanding the structure of natural law in the first place. In either case, I thought that perhaps some people smarter than me could help clear things up, in order that I might better live out my religious submission of intellect and will.