| SALVE, Regina, mater misericordiae, vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve. Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevae. Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hac lacrimarum valle. | HAIL holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. |
| Eia, ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte. Et Iesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exsilium ostende. O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria. Amen. | Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us. And after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary. Amen. |
| V. Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genetrix. R. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi. | V. Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God. R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. |
| Oremus Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui gloriosae Virginis Matris Mariae corpus et animam, ut dignum Filii tui habitaculum effici mereretur, Spiritu Sancto cooperante, praeparasti: da, ut cuius commemoratione laetamur; eius pia intercessione, ab instantibus malis, et a morte perpetua liberemur. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen. | Let us pray Almighty, everlasting God, who by the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, didst prepare the body and soul of the glorious Virgin-Mother Mary to become a worthy dwelling for Thy Son; grant that we who rejoice in her commemoration may, by her loving intercession, be delivered from present evils and from the everlasting death. Amen. |
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Salve Regina, Mater Misericordiae - Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy
Friday, April 29, 2011
Mary: The Mother of Mercy - Meditation for Divine Mercy Sunday
By Dr. Robert Stackpole, STD (Oct 22, 2008)
By now, after three installments of this column, some of my readers may be wondering just how many reasons we can find for rejoicing in Mary's title, "Mother of Mercy"! Well, the answer is, no doubt: "more than I can name, and more than I have the wisdom even to appreciate." But I promised to restrict myself to the four biggest ones that I could think of. So here is the forth and final reason.
Mary is "Mother of Mercy" because from heaven she continues to come to our aid. By her tender intercession for us, she looks after our needs and nurtures the Christ-life within us, from now until the hour of death.
Mary's continuing role as our Mother of Mercy was actually foreshadowed at the time of the Annunciation. Remember how the angel Gabriel promised that Mary's Son would reign forever as the Messiah? The angel said:
Now, if Mary's Son was to inherit an everlasting kingdom, this implies that Mary was to become literally "Queen-Mother" of His Kingdom, for we know for a fact that in ancient Israel, the mother of a king usually received the title and role of "Queen-Mother." As the theologian Dr. Mark Miravalle has pointed out:
It was at the foot of the Cross, however, that Mary explicitly received her role as our everlasting Mother of Mercy. Jesus said to her from the Cross, "Woman, behold thy Son," and then, turning to His beloved disciple St. John, "Son, behold thy mother" (Jn 19:25-27). According to the ancient Fathers of the Church, all Christian believers were prefigured in this beloved disciple who stood beneath the Cross, and to whom Jesus said "Behold thy Mother." Thus, Mary was given to be not only St. John's mother, but our mother, too, the mother of all the faithful disciples of Christ. What could this mean for us, if it did not mean, principally, that she was meant to be our Mother in Heaven, who ever comes to our aid by her loving intercessions on our behalf? If she is willing to intercede for us and pray for us, and open the door (so to speak) to all the graces that Christ wants to shower upon us, then she is indeed our "Mother of Mercy" — for all of God's graces are acts of His Divine Mercy to weak and sinful creatures such as we all are. In short, by her maternal intercession and compassion for us, Mary opens the floodgates to all the merciful love that God wants to pour out upon the world.
The Second Vatican Council summed up for us this role of Mary, Mother of Mercy, which the Council Father wrote these words in the Council document entitled Lumen Gentium (no. 62):
Now, let us move off of the theological level, and bring this whole discussion "down to earth."
What do we think of when we think of a "mother?" A mother is someone who cares for us tenderly, someone we can run to whenever we are hurt or sad, someone in whom we can always find understanding and compassion. A mother is always ready to comfort us, to care for our needs, to help us go on, and even to help us grow up.
If Mary Immaculate is our Mother of tender compassion, therefore, she must be a mother who understands all our sorrows because her own life was full of them. The Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy's first Cenacle Formation Manual tells us:
When speaking to St. Faustina on suffering and humility, Our Lady told her "Know my daughter, that although I was raised to the dignity of the Mother of God, seven swords of pain pierced my heart" (entry 786). On another occasion, Our Lady told her, "I know how much you suffer, but do not be afraid. I share with you your suffering, and I shall always do so (entry 25). Thus, Mary, "full of grace," is the Mother who understands our joys, our sorrows, and our true needs better than anyone.
Saint Maria Faustina knew all this very well. That is why she placed her complete trust in Mary right from the beginning: a childlike trust that knew no bounds. In the early pages of her Diary, for example, she consecrated her whole being to Mary, entrusting her life to Mary with these words (entry 79):
Later, when St. Faustina went to Czestochowa to pray there before the great miraculous icon of Our Lady, she wrote (entry 260):
Toward the end of Faustina's life, Mary encouraged her again to place complete childlike trust in her by saying to her (entry 1414): "My daughter, at God's command I am to be in a special and exclusive way your Mother; but I desire that you too, in a special way be My child."
Saint Faustina's childlike trust in Mary was especially evident in the times of great suffering. It was then, above all, that she placed herself in the arms of her Mother Mary, and entrusted herself completely to Mary's tender care and heavenly intercession. In Diary entry 315, for example, Faustina prayed:
As her physical and spiritual sufferings increased St. Faustina again entrusted herself to the care of the Mother of God, and fortified herself by meditating on Mary's own patience and courage (entry 915).
Whether in times of sorrow or of joy, the Blessed Virgin Mary was the one St. Faustina always turned to, again and again, to help her live in close union with Jesus Christ. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Mother of God often appeared to St. Faustina or spoke to her right before Holy Communion, as if Mary's special office was to prepare Faustina for receiving Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament (e.g., entries 449, 597, 608, 846, 1414). As she wrote in entry 840:
Again, this is precisely what we should expect. Jesus says to us in the Book of Revelation (3:20): "Behold. I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." So, at each Holy Communion Jesus stands at the door of our hearts and knocks — but He will not force His way in. As He said, He waits for us to "open the door" and let Him in of our own free will. We may think to ourselves: "Of course I will let Him in; I will welcome Him and accept Him as my Lord and Savior every day of my life, and at every Holy Communion." Sadly, however, it is not as easy as that! The door of our hearts is heavy with pride, the hinges rusted by our doubts, the latches chained by our fears. It is not so easy to swing such a door open wide, even if we want to do so. And that is another reason we have such need of Mary, our Mother of Mercy. She is always ready to help us by her prayers to open the door of our hearts to her Son.
Moreover, in carrying out this role, our heavenly Mother does not reckon our sins (after all, when in the Catholic Tradition did you ever hear her called "Mother of Divine Punishment"? Of course not — she is never that!). Her role is not to be concerned with our moral debts, but with the application of the Merciful Love of her Son to our wounded souls.
To conclude our entire four-part series, let us review the four ways in which Mary is rightly called our "Mother of Mercy."
First of all, we said that Mary is Mother of Mercy because, through her Immaculate Conception, God made her the created masterpiece of His Mercy in the world.
Second, we can call her Mother of Mercy because she was the one chosen by God to be the Mother of our merciful Savior, Mercy Incarnate; she literally brought Divine Mercy Himself to birth in our world.
Third, we can call her Mother of Mercy because she showed us the way to live as disciples of Jesus Christ. Through living her 10 "evangelical virtues," she set the shining example for us of true Christian discipleship, and this was a great work of mercy she did for us all.
Finally, we said that Mary is our Mother of Mercy because, from heaven, she continues to come to our aid with her intercessory prayers, nurturing and caring for all of our needs, both of body and of soul, from now until the hour of our death.
In the end, the merciful motherhood of Mary is one of those topics for meditation that can never be exhausted. Until we join her one day in heaven, we shall never know all the ways in which Mary has been, and always will be, our Mother of Mercy!
By now, after three installments of this column, some of my readers may be wondering just how many reasons we can find for rejoicing in Mary's title, "Mother of Mercy"! Well, the answer is, no doubt: "more than I can name, and more than I have the wisdom even to appreciate." But I promised to restrict myself to the four biggest ones that I could think of. So here is the forth and final reason.
Mary is "Mother of Mercy" because from heaven she continues to come to our aid. By her tender intercession for us, she looks after our needs and nurtures the Christ-life within us, from now until the hour of death.
Mary's continuing role as our Mother of Mercy was actually foreshadowed at the time of the Annunciation. Remember how the angel Gabriel promised that Mary's Son would reign forever as the Messiah? The angel said:
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. (Lk 1:32-33)
Now, if Mary's Son was to inherit an everlasting kingdom, this implies that Mary was to become literally "Queen-Mother" of His Kingdom, for we know for a fact that in ancient Israel, the mother of a king usually received the title and role of "Queen-Mother." As the theologian Dr. Mark Miravalle has pointed out:
Because the kings of Israel normally had numerous wives, the mother of the king was chosen to be queen of the kingdom, due to her singular familial relationship with the king. The "Gabirah" or "Great Lady" of the kingdom assisted the king in the ruling of the kingdom in her noble office as the queen mother (cf. 2 Kings 11:3, 1 Kings 2:19; 1 Kings 15:9-13; Jer 13:18-20).
The office and authority of the queen mother in her close relationship with the king made her the strongest "advocate" to the king for the people of the kingdom ... no one had more intercessory power to the king than the queen mother, who at times sat enthroned at the right side of the king (cf. 1 Kings 2:19-20). The queen mother also had the function of "counselor" to the king in regards to matters of the kingdom (Prov 31:8-9; 2 Chr 22:2-4) The Old Testament image and role of the queen mother, the "Great Lady," as advocate to the king for the people of the kingdom prophetically foreshadows the role of the great Queen Mother and Lady of the New Testament. For it is Mary of Nazareth who becomes the Queen and Mother in the Kingdom of God, as the Mother of Christ, King of All Nations. (Introduction to Mary, Queenship Press)
It was at the foot of the Cross, however, that Mary explicitly received her role as our everlasting Mother of Mercy. Jesus said to her from the Cross, "Woman, behold thy Son," and then, turning to His beloved disciple St. John, "Son, behold thy mother" (Jn 19:25-27). According to the ancient Fathers of the Church, all Christian believers were prefigured in this beloved disciple who stood beneath the Cross, and to whom Jesus said "Behold thy Mother." Thus, Mary was given to be not only St. John's mother, but our mother, too, the mother of all the faithful disciples of Christ. What could this mean for us, if it did not mean, principally, that she was meant to be our Mother in Heaven, who ever comes to our aid by her loving intercessions on our behalf? If she is willing to intercede for us and pray for us, and open the door (so to speak) to all the graces that Christ wants to shower upon us, then she is indeed our "Mother of Mercy" — for all of God's graces are acts of His Divine Mercy to weak and sinful creatures such as we all are. In short, by her maternal intercession and compassion for us, Mary opens the floodgates to all the merciful love that God wants to pour out upon the world.
The Second Vatican Council summed up for us this role of Mary, Mother of Mercy, which the Council Father wrote these words in the Council document entitled Lumen Gentium (no. 62):
The motherhood of Mary in the order of grace lasts without interruption from the consent which she faithfully gave at the annunciation, and which she sustained without hesitation under the cross until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. In fact, being assumed into heaven, she has not laid aside this office of salvation, but by her manifold intercession, she continues to obtain for us the graces of eternal salvation. By her maternal charity, she takes care of the brethren of her Son who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties, until they are led into their blessed home.
Now, let us move off of the theological level, and bring this whole discussion "down to earth."
What do we think of when we think of a "mother?" A mother is someone who cares for us tenderly, someone we can run to whenever we are hurt or sad, someone in whom we can always find understanding and compassion. A mother is always ready to comfort us, to care for our needs, to help us go on, and even to help us grow up.
If Mary Immaculate is our Mother of tender compassion, therefore, she must be a mother who understands all our sorrows because her own life was full of them. The Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy's first Cenacle Formation Manual tells us:
Mary's life was full of contradictions. She carried the Son of God in her womb and had many joys, but also many sorrows. Reflecting on her sorrows, we recall the prophecy of Simeon (Lk 2:34-35), the flight into Egypt (Matt 2:13-14), the loss of Jesus in the Temple (Lk 2:43-45), the meeting of Jesus and Mary on the Way of the Cross, the crucifixion (Jn 19:25-27), the taking down of the body of Jesus from the Cross, and the burial of Jesus. Each of these must have pierced her heart like a sharp sword, and inflicted pain that only a loving mother could understand.
When speaking to St. Faustina on suffering and humility, Our Lady told her "Know my daughter, that although I was raised to the dignity of the Mother of God, seven swords of pain pierced my heart" (entry 786). On another occasion, Our Lady told her, "I know how much you suffer, but do not be afraid. I share with you your suffering, and I shall always do so (entry 25). Thus, Mary, "full of grace," is the Mother who understands our joys, our sorrows, and our true needs better than anyone.
Saint Maria Faustina knew all this very well. That is why she placed her complete trust in Mary right from the beginning: a childlike trust that knew no bounds. In the early pages of her Diary, for example, she consecrated her whole being to Mary, entrusting her life to Mary with these words (entry 79):
O Mary, my Mother and my Lady, I offer You my soul, my body, my life and my death, And all that will follow it. I place everything in Your hands.
Later, when St. Faustina went to Czestochowa to pray there before the great miraculous icon of Our Lady, she wrote (entry 260):
The Mother of God told me many things. I entrusted my perpetual vows to her. I felt that I was her child and she was my Mother. She did not refuse any of my requests.
Toward the end of Faustina's life, Mary encouraged her again to place complete childlike trust in her by saying to her (entry 1414): "My daughter, at God's command I am to be in a special and exclusive way your Mother; but I desire that you too, in a special way be My child."
Saint Faustina's childlike trust in Mary was especially evident in the times of great suffering. It was then, above all, that she placed herself in the arms of her Mother Mary, and entrusted herself completely to Mary's tender care and heavenly intercession. In Diary entry 315, for example, Faustina prayed:
Mother of God, Your soul was plunged into a sea of bitterness; look upon Your child and teach her to suffer and to love while suffering. Fortify my soul that pain may not break it. Mother of grace, teach me to live by [the power of] God.
As her physical and spiritual sufferings increased St. Faustina again entrusted herself to the care of the Mother of God, and fortified herself by meditating on Mary's own patience and courage (entry 915).
O Mary, today a terrible sword has pierced Your holy soul. Except for God, no one knows of Your suffering. Your soul does not break; it is brave because it is with Jesus. Sweet mother, unite my soul to Jesus, because it is only then that I will be able to endure all trials and tribulations, and only in union with Jesus will my little sacrifice be pleasing to God. Sweetest Mother, continue to teach me about the interior life. May the sword of suffering never break me. O pure Virgin, pour courage into my heart and guide it.
Whether in times of sorrow or of joy, the Blessed Virgin Mary was the one St. Faustina always turned to, again and again, to help her live in close union with Jesus Christ. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Mother of God often appeared to St. Faustina or spoke to her right before Holy Communion, as if Mary's special office was to prepare Faustina for receiving Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament (e.g., entries 449, 597, 608, 846, 1414). As she wrote in entry 840:
I am spending this time with the Mother of God, and preparing myself for the solemn coming of the Lord Jesus. The Mother of God is instructing me in the interior life of the soul with Jesus; especially in Holy Communion.
Again, this is precisely what we should expect. Jesus says to us in the Book of Revelation (3:20): "Behold. I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." So, at each Holy Communion Jesus stands at the door of our hearts and knocks — but He will not force His way in. As He said, He waits for us to "open the door" and let Him in of our own free will. We may think to ourselves: "Of course I will let Him in; I will welcome Him and accept Him as my Lord and Savior every day of my life, and at every Holy Communion." Sadly, however, it is not as easy as that! The door of our hearts is heavy with pride, the hinges rusted by our doubts, the latches chained by our fears. It is not so easy to swing such a door open wide, even if we want to do so. And that is another reason we have such need of Mary, our Mother of Mercy. She is always ready to help us by her prayers to open the door of our hearts to her Son.
Moreover, in carrying out this role, our heavenly Mother does not reckon our sins (after all, when in the Catholic Tradition did you ever hear her called "Mother of Divine Punishment"? Of course not — she is never that!). Her role is not to be concerned with our moral debts, but with the application of the Merciful Love of her Son to our wounded souls.
To conclude our entire four-part series, let us review the four ways in which Mary is rightly called our "Mother of Mercy."
First of all, we said that Mary is Mother of Mercy because, through her Immaculate Conception, God made her the created masterpiece of His Mercy in the world.
Second, we can call her Mother of Mercy because she was the one chosen by God to be the Mother of our merciful Savior, Mercy Incarnate; she literally brought Divine Mercy Himself to birth in our world.
Third, we can call her Mother of Mercy because she showed us the way to live as disciples of Jesus Christ. Through living her 10 "evangelical virtues," she set the shining example for us of true Christian discipleship, and this was a great work of mercy she did for us all.
Finally, we said that Mary is our Mother of Mercy because, from heaven, she continues to come to our aid with her intercessory prayers, nurturing and caring for all of our needs, both of body and of soul, from now until the hour of our death.
In the end, the merciful motherhood of Mary is one of those topics for meditation that can never be exhausted. Until we join her one day in heaven, we shall never know all the ways in which Mary has been, and always will be, our Mother of Mercy!
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Mary: The Mother of Mercy - Meditation for Divine Mercy Sunday
By Dr. Robert Stackpole, STD (Oct 15, 2008)
The fact is, one reason that we are right to call Mary our "Mother of Mercy" is that during her sojourn on earth, she performed a tremendous work of mercy for us all: She showed us the way to be true disciples of Jesus Christ. As St. Faustina wrote, "Mary is my Instructress, who is ever teaching me how to live for God. My spirit brightens up in Your gentleness and Your humility, O Mary" (Diary, 620).
On the one hand, Mary taught St. Faustina how to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ by her words: her exhortations to practice the virtues. For example, in Diary entry 1711 St. Faustina reports:
In Diary entry 1415, Mary gave to Faustina a message that focused on the importance of three virtues above all. Mary said to her:
Here Mary teaches us that humility is the only good soil from which any spiritual growth can arise. Unless the soil of humility is in us first, nothing good in us can grow and bear fruit. In other words, unless we can first humbly admit our need for our heavenly Father — our need for His forgiveness for our past, His strength within us for the present, and His guiding light for our future — unless we can admit our need for Him in these ways, our hearts cannot be open to receive all that the Lord wants to give to us. In other words, how can God fill us with His grace if we are already full of ourselves? There is just no room in our hearts for his grace to be poured in!
Saint Maria Faustina learned this lesson well. Just remember how many times in her Diary she refers to herself simply as "misery," almost as if that were her proper name. Even in the very last entry of her Diary, St. Faustina wrote:
On the other hand, while Mary was a good "Instructress" for St. Faustina in words, we must not think that this was the only way that she taught St. Faustina how to be a true disciple of Christ. Even more important for St. Faustina, and for us, is that Mary taught us true discipleship by her own example, shining out to us from the pages from the gospels.
In fact, there are few things more profitable and refreshing for the soul than to meditate on the evangelical virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For example, the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception — the very same religious order called by the Lord to spread the Divine Mercy message and devotion throughout the world — has a long spiritual tradition of meditating on the virtues of Mary. In the 18th century they developed a set of prayers called "The Chaplet of the Ten Evangelical Virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary," which is still recited by the Marians today, as well as by the members of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception. The symbol that the Marians used for Mary's 10 gospel virtues was a ten-pointed star, with each ray representing a virtue. One of their earliest saintly founders, the Venerable Fr. Casimir Wyszynski, opened his own meditations on Mary's virtues with these words:
Let us look very briefly at each of the 10 rays of this Morning Star, and see how Mary's example of virtue lights the way for us.
The first is purity: in other words, the ordering of our passions and bodily appetites, so that they always move us toward the true following of Jesus Christ, in faith and love, and never away from Him. We see this clearly in Mary, who was so "full of grace," according to St. Luke, that she became for us the first great example both of Christian Motherhood, and of Consecrated Virginity in the service of God.
Mary's second gospel virtue is prudence: prudence in the capacity to consider one's options reasonably, and to choose the right course of action in the light of Faith. Remember how Mary carefully considered the angel Gabriel's words to her at the Annunciation. First she was "troubled" at his words, Scripture says, "and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be" (Lk 1:29). Then she asked for more information (Lk 1:34): "How can this be, since I have no husband." Then, when the angel explained to her the Lord's wondrous plan, Mary submitted to it with all prudence, for the expressed will of the Almighty, All-Wise and All-Merciful God was reason enough for her! "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord," she said, "be it unto me according to Thy word."
Mary's third gospel virtue is humility: the knowledge and acceptance of one's dependence upon God for everything good, from the gift of life itself, to every natural and supernatural blessing. Mary is the shining example of gospel humility, for even when she was told that she was chosen to be the very Mother of the Messiah, the Mother of the King of Israel, the Son of God, yet she referred to herself as the mere "handmaid of the Lord" (Lk 1:38), and she gave all the credit to God for the privileges she received, in the words of her Magnificat (Lk 1:46-49):
Mary's fourth virtue is faith: this means the capacity to surrender oneself, in the heart and mind, to all that the Lord has revealed through Christ and His Church about His nature, His works, and His saving purposes for us. St. Elizabeth commended Mary for her faith with the words: "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord" (Lk 1:45). And Mary showed that she had surrendered herself completely to God, trusting Him to fulfill all His promises to Israel, when she declared at the end of her Magnificat (Lk 1:54-55):
Mary's fifth evangelical virtue is devotion. Of course, the English word "devotion" has several possible meanings, but here we use it to mean the virtue of using to the full all of the means of grace that our Lord has given to us to draw near to Him, especially prayer and the sacraments. Mary showed herself a truly devout woman of prayer when she offered, in praise and thanksgiving, her Magnificat, "My soul magnifies the Lord" (Lk 1:46), and again in the cenacle after Christ's ascension, when she was found at prayer in the midst of the disciples, waiting and praying for the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit promised by the Lord (Acts 1:14).
We know that Mary was also given to prayerful meditation upon the mysteries of Christ, especially upon the wonders of His Nativity. Twice in the gospels we are told "she kept all these things, pondering them in her heart" (Lk 2:19, 51). The coming of the shepherds, the wise men, the star, and the prophecies: she treasured and cherished these memories, pondering them frequently, and uncovering their true meaning. This is an authentic exercise of religious devotion.
Mary's sixth virtue is obedience: Obedience means following loyally all the lawful directives of one's parents, employers, governors, and ecclesiastical superiors, in so far as those directives do not require us to break the commandments of God. Mary was a model of obedience when (even though she was with child) she obeyed the decree from Caesar Augustus, and journeyed with Joseph to Bethlehem for the common enrollment (Lk 2:1-5). Not only was Mary obedient to civil law, she was also obedient to ecclesiastical law, for when the time came for her purification according to the Law of Moses, she and Joseph brought the child Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, offering there the sacrifice required by the Jewish law: "a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons" (Lk 2:22-24). Above all, Mary was obedient to the will of her son, the Son of God. As she said to the servants at the wedding feast at Cana: Just "do whatever he tells you" (Jn 2:5).
Mary's seventh evangelical virtue is poverty: By this we mean not just material poverty, but true simplicity of heart, in other words, detachment from all created things. The poor in spirit know that accumulating and enjoying worldly goods is not the purpose of our lives; rather, material goods ought to be a "means," not an "end": a means to be used for the service of God and the relief of human need. How poor in spirit Mary showed herself to be when she "gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn" (Mt 2:7). Mary did not complain bitterly about suffering this hardship. On the contrary, she must have rejoiced at the birth of Jesus, despite the poverty of her surroundings. Though she was a homeless young mother, she trusted in God to provide what was truly most needful, and she received with joy, even in the midst of material poverty, the divine gift of the Christ Child.
Mary's eighth gospel virtue is patience. This is the virtue that enabled her to endure all the wrongs and misfortunes of life without discouragement, but with trust in God instead. Think of the patience and trust in divine providence that Mary must have had when she was awakened by Joseph in the middle of the night and told that their family had to make a quick, nocturnal escape from Herod's murderous soldiers — indeed, that they had to flee for safety all the way to a foreign land, to live as refugees in Egypt, a place where they had (as far as we know) no job, no friends or acquaintances, in fact, nothing at all! Only patience, founded upon complete trust in God's providence, could have borne Mary through this sudden flight, and prolonged exile.
Mary's ninth gospel virtue is mercy or charity. See how merciful she was to her cousin Elizabeth. No sooner had Mary heard from the angel Gabriel that her elderly kinswoman was with child, than she journeyed with haste through the hill-country to visit her, and stayed with her three whole months to help her (Lk 1:36-56). Moreover, Mary went to Elizabeth not just to help her with the daily chores, but also to share with her the secret of the Christ Child that was to be born. In fact, no sooner had Mary crossed the threshold of Elizabeth's house than a bond of the Holy Spirit was formed between them (Lk 1:41).
How charitable also was Our Lady at the wedding feast at Cana when she noticed that the young couple was running out of wine for their guests. Eager to preserve them from shame and embarrassment on their wedding day, Mary brought their needs before her Son with the simple words, "They have no more wine." By her intercession, therefore, Mary came to their aid (Jn 2:1-3). To come to the aid of those in need is the essence of "mercy" or "charity."
Mary's tenth evangelical virtue is sorrow. Of course, there is nothing especially virtuous just in "feeling sad." But whenever we take our pain, grief, and sorrow, and offer them up, in union with Christ's passion, then our sufferings can merit graces for the good of souls, both on earth and in purgatory. In this way, we can share in the redemptive work of our Savior (see Col 1:24). As Pope John Paul II taught in his apostolic letter on the meaning of human suffering, Salvifici Dolores: Our unavoidable sufferings and sorrows can find meaning in Christ, and can be put to good use. We are not only to do good to the suffering, he wrote, we are also to be good by our sufferings.
This is precisely what Mary did. As old Simeon had foretold, sorrow like a sharp sword would one day pierce her heart (Lk 2:35). She had a foretaste of this when she lost her 12-year-old son in Jerusalem at the time of the Passover, only to find him again in the Temple three days later (Lk 2:48). But Simeon's prophecy was fulfilled most of all at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus, as Mary remained faithfully with Him, standing at the foot of His cross, and bearing with Him the greatest sorrow that a mother's heart could ever endure: She witnessed the torturous death of an innocent man, her own beloved Son, the true Son of God.
The Venerable Casimir Wyszynski, MIC, was surely right: Mary's virtues shine out from the gospels with matchless radiance. And this is a tremendous work of mercy that she has done for us all: modeling for us the path of virtue that, if we follow it faithfully, will make us true disciples of Jesus Christ.
Saint Maria Faustina did not write out for us in any detail her own meditations on Mary's evangelical virtues. But we know that Mary's example was very important to her in her struggle to become a true disciple of Christ. She wrote in Diary entry 843: "The more I imitate the Mother of God, the more deeply I get to know God." Again, listen to what St. Faustina wrote in her beautiful prayer in Diary entry 1232:
The fact is, one reason that we are right to call Mary our "Mother of Mercy" is that during her sojourn on earth, she performed a tremendous work of mercy for us all: She showed us the way to be true disciples of Jesus Christ. As St. Faustina wrote, "Mary is my Instructress, who is ever teaching me how to live for God. My spirit brightens up in Your gentleness and Your humility, O Mary" (Diary, 620).
On the one hand, Mary taught St. Faustina how to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ by her words: her exhortations to practice the virtues. For example, in Diary entry 1711 St. Faustina reports:
When I was left alone with the Blessed Virgin she instructed me in the interior life. She said "The soul's true greatness lies in loving God and in humbling oneself in His presence, completely forgetting oneself and believing oneself to be nothing; because the Lord is great, but He is well-pleased only with the humble; he always opposes the proud."
In Diary entry 1415, Mary gave to Faustina a message that focused on the importance of three virtues above all. Mary said to her:
I desire, my dearly beloved daughter, that you practice the three virtues that are dearest to Me — and most pleasing to God. The first is humility, humility, and once again humility; the second virtue, purity; the third virtue, love of God. As my daughter, you must especially radiate with these virtues.
Here Mary teaches us that humility is the only good soil from which any spiritual growth can arise. Unless the soil of humility is in us first, nothing good in us can grow and bear fruit. In other words, unless we can first humbly admit our need for our heavenly Father — our need for His forgiveness for our past, His strength within us for the present, and His guiding light for our future — unless we can admit our need for Him in these ways, our hearts cannot be open to receive all that the Lord wants to give to us. In other words, how can God fill us with His grace if we are already full of ourselves? There is just no room in our hearts for his grace to be poured in!
Saint Maria Faustina learned this lesson well. Just remember how many times in her Diary she refers to herself simply as "misery," almost as if that were her proper name. Even in the very last entry of her Diary, St. Faustina wrote:
Although I am such misery, I do not fear You, because I know Your mercy well. Nothing will frighten me away from You, O God, because everything is so much less that what I know [Your mercy to be] ...(1803):
On the other hand, while Mary was a good "Instructress" for St. Faustina in words, we must not think that this was the only way that she taught St. Faustina how to be a true disciple of Christ. Even more important for St. Faustina, and for us, is that Mary taught us true discipleship by her own example, shining out to us from the pages from the gospels.
In fact, there are few things more profitable and refreshing for the soul than to meditate on the evangelical virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For example, the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception — the very same religious order called by the Lord to spread the Divine Mercy message and devotion throughout the world — has a long spiritual tradition of meditating on the virtues of Mary. In the 18th century they developed a set of prayers called "The Chaplet of the Ten Evangelical Virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary," which is still recited by the Marians today, as well as by the members of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception. The symbol that the Marians used for Mary's 10 gospel virtues was a ten-pointed star, with each ray representing a virtue. One of their earliest saintly founders, the Venerable Fr. Casimir Wyszynski, opened his own meditations on Mary's virtues with these words:
Mary is the noble Star rising from the house of Jacob, whose rays illuminate the whole world. ... Let us then watch the rise and movements of this brightest Star carefully; let us follow her; let us rise up from the sleep of death by sin. If we want to see this Morning Star rising, we must zealously imitate the ten Virtues of the Virgin Mary. For just as a star once led the three wisemen to Jesus as he lay in a stable in Bethlehem, so will this Morning Star, shining with the ten rays of these evangelical virtues, lead us to Jesus sitting at the right hand of the Father in the heavenly kingdom.
Let us look very briefly at each of the 10 rays of this Morning Star, and see how Mary's example of virtue lights the way for us.
The first is purity: in other words, the ordering of our passions and bodily appetites, so that they always move us toward the true following of Jesus Christ, in faith and love, and never away from Him. We see this clearly in Mary, who was so "full of grace," according to St. Luke, that she became for us the first great example both of Christian Motherhood, and of Consecrated Virginity in the service of God.
Mary's second gospel virtue is prudence: prudence in the capacity to consider one's options reasonably, and to choose the right course of action in the light of Faith. Remember how Mary carefully considered the angel Gabriel's words to her at the Annunciation. First she was "troubled" at his words, Scripture says, "and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be" (Lk 1:29). Then she asked for more information (Lk 1:34): "How can this be, since I have no husband." Then, when the angel explained to her the Lord's wondrous plan, Mary submitted to it with all prudence, for the expressed will of the Almighty, All-Wise and All-Merciful God was reason enough for her! "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord," she said, "be it unto me according to Thy word."
Mary's third gospel virtue is humility: the knowledge and acceptance of one's dependence upon God for everything good, from the gift of life itself, to every natural and supernatural blessing. Mary is the shining example of gospel humility, for even when she was told that she was chosen to be the very Mother of the Messiah, the Mother of the King of Israel, the Son of God, yet she referred to herself as the mere "handmaid of the Lord" (Lk 1:38), and she gave all the credit to God for the privileges she received, in the words of her Magnificat (Lk 1:46-49):
My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden ...
For He who is mighty has done great things for me ...
Mary's fourth virtue is faith: this means the capacity to surrender oneself, in the heart and mind, to all that the Lord has revealed through Christ and His Church about His nature, His works, and His saving purposes for us. St. Elizabeth commended Mary for her faith with the words: "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord" (Lk 1:45). And Mary showed that she had surrendered herself completely to God, trusting Him to fulfill all His promises to Israel, when she declared at the end of her Magnificat (Lk 1:54-55):
He has helped His servant Israel
in remembrance of His mercy,
as He promised to our fathers,
to Abraham and his posterity forever.
Mary's fifth evangelical virtue is devotion. Of course, the English word "devotion" has several possible meanings, but here we use it to mean the virtue of using to the full all of the means of grace that our Lord has given to us to draw near to Him, especially prayer and the sacraments. Mary showed herself a truly devout woman of prayer when she offered, in praise and thanksgiving, her Magnificat, "My soul magnifies the Lord" (Lk 1:46), and again in the cenacle after Christ's ascension, when she was found at prayer in the midst of the disciples, waiting and praying for the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit promised by the Lord (Acts 1:14).
We know that Mary was also given to prayerful meditation upon the mysteries of Christ, especially upon the wonders of His Nativity. Twice in the gospels we are told "she kept all these things, pondering them in her heart" (Lk 2:19, 51). The coming of the shepherds, the wise men, the star, and the prophecies: she treasured and cherished these memories, pondering them frequently, and uncovering their true meaning. This is an authentic exercise of religious devotion.
Mary's sixth virtue is obedience: Obedience means following loyally all the lawful directives of one's parents, employers, governors, and ecclesiastical superiors, in so far as those directives do not require us to break the commandments of God. Mary was a model of obedience when (even though she was with child) she obeyed the decree from Caesar Augustus, and journeyed with Joseph to Bethlehem for the common enrollment (Lk 2:1-5). Not only was Mary obedient to civil law, she was also obedient to ecclesiastical law, for when the time came for her purification according to the Law of Moses, she and Joseph brought the child Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, offering there the sacrifice required by the Jewish law: "a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons" (Lk 2:22-24). Above all, Mary was obedient to the will of her son, the Son of God. As she said to the servants at the wedding feast at Cana: Just "do whatever he tells you" (Jn 2:5).
Mary's seventh evangelical virtue is poverty: By this we mean not just material poverty, but true simplicity of heart, in other words, detachment from all created things. The poor in spirit know that accumulating and enjoying worldly goods is not the purpose of our lives; rather, material goods ought to be a "means," not an "end": a means to be used for the service of God and the relief of human need. How poor in spirit Mary showed herself to be when she "gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn" (Mt 2:7). Mary did not complain bitterly about suffering this hardship. On the contrary, she must have rejoiced at the birth of Jesus, despite the poverty of her surroundings. Though she was a homeless young mother, she trusted in God to provide what was truly most needful, and she received with joy, even in the midst of material poverty, the divine gift of the Christ Child.
Mary's eighth gospel virtue is patience. This is the virtue that enabled her to endure all the wrongs and misfortunes of life without discouragement, but with trust in God instead. Think of the patience and trust in divine providence that Mary must have had when she was awakened by Joseph in the middle of the night and told that their family had to make a quick, nocturnal escape from Herod's murderous soldiers — indeed, that they had to flee for safety all the way to a foreign land, to live as refugees in Egypt, a place where they had (as far as we know) no job, no friends or acquaintances, in fact, nothing at all! Only patience, founded upon complete trust in God's providence, could have borne Mary through this sudden flight, and prolonged exile.
Mary's ninth gospel virtue is mercy or charity. See how merciful she was to her cousin Elizabeth. No sooner had Mary heard from the angel Gabriel that her elderly kinswoman was with child, than she journeyed with haste through the hill-country to visit her, and stayed with her three whole months to help her (Lk 1:36-56). Moreover, Mary went to Elizabeth not just to help her with the daily chores, but also to share with her the secret of the Christ Child that was to be born. In fact, no sooner had Mary crossed the threshold of Elizabeth's house than a bond of the Holy Spirit was formed between them (Lk 1:41).
How charitable also was Our Lady at the wedding feast at Cana when she noticed that the young couple was running out of wine for their guests. Eager to preserve them from shame and embarrassment on their wedding day, Mary brought their needs before her Son with the simple words, "They have no more wine." By her intercession, therefore, Mary came to their aid (Jn 2:1-3). To come to the aid of those in need is the essence of "mercy" or "charity."
Mary's tenth evangelical virtue is sorrow. Of course, there is nothing especially virtuous just in "feeling sad." But whenever we take our pain, grief, and sorrow, and offer them up, in union with Christ's passion, then our sufferings can merit graces for the good of souls, both on earth and in purgatory. In this way, we can share in the redemptive work of our Savior (see Col 1:24). As Pope John Paul II taught in his apostolic letter on the meaning of human suffering, Salvifici Dolores: Our unavoidable sufferings and sorrows can find meaning in Christ, and can be put to good use. We are not only to do good to the suffering, he wrote, we are also to be good by our sufferings.
This is precisely what Mary did. As old Simeon had foretold, sorrow like a sharp sword would one day pierce her heart (Lk 2:35). She had a foretaste of this when she lost her 12-year-old son in Jerusalem at the time of the Passover, only to find him again in the Temple three days later (Lk 2:48). But Simeon's prophecy was fulfilled most of all at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus, as Mary remained faithfully with Him, standing at the foot of His cross, and bearing with Him the greatest sorrow that a mother's heart could ever endure: She witnessed the torturous death of an innocent man, her own beloved Son, the true Son of God.
The Venerable Casimir Wyszynski, MIC, was surely right: Mary's virtues shine out from the gospels with matchless radiance. And this is a tremendous work of mercy that she has done for us all: modeling for us the path of virtue that, if we follow it faithfully, will make us true disciples of Jesus Christ.
Saint Maria Faustina did not write out for us in any detail her own meditations on Mary's evangelical virtues. But we know that Mary's example was very important to her in her struggle to become a true disciple of Christ. She wrote in Diary entry 843: "The more I imitate the Mother of God, the more deeply I get to know God." Again, listen to what St. Faustina wrote in her beautiful prayer in Diary entry 1232:
O sweet Mother of God,
I model my life on You;
You are for me the bright dawn:
In you I lose myself enraptured.
O Mother, Immaculate Virgin,
In You the divine ray is reflected,
Midst storms, 'tis You who teach me to love the Lord,
O my shield and defense from the foe.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Mary: The Mother of Mercy - Meditation for Divine Mercy Sunday
By Dr. Robert Stackpole, STD (Oct 6, 2008)
The second reason we are right to call Mary "Mother of Mercy" is that she was the one chosen to be the Mother of God — in other words, she was the Mother of the merciful Savior, and in this way she literally brought Divine Mercy Himself to birth in our world. Of course, this is nothing more than the common faith of the Church. When Mary humbly accepted the angel Gabriel's call, she actually conceived in her womb, and brought to birth into our world, the merciful God made flesh, Mercy Incarnate, Jesus Christ.
In the conclusion of his encyclical Veritatis Splendor (1993), Pope John Paul II summarized this Gospel truth for us:
It is ironic that this very simple theological truth — that Mary is our Mother of Mercy because she gave birth to our merciful Savior — has now become the focal point for a modern theological controversy: the claim that as Mother of Mercy, she is also the "Co-Redemptrix," and the "Mediatrix of all graces." The issue is not as complex as these theological phrases sound. Dr. Mark Miravalle, professor of theology at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, tells of an encounter with Mother Teresa of Calcutta when she expressed the truth of the matter in all its simplicity:
As Mother of Mercy and Co-Redemptrix, Mary is also rightly called the "Mediatrix of all graces," and in his encyclical Redemptoris Mater (1987), Pope John Paul II called her "Mediatrix of Mercy." If we think of ourselves as the little children in God's family (and that is precisely what Jesus said we must become: like little children), then it only stands to reason that we are dependent upon the mother in God's family, Mary our Mother, to "mediate" to us (that is, to pass on to us) everything that we need. Dr. Miravalle explains for us the truth behind these exalted titles, "Mediatrix":
In short, Mary, as Mother of our merciful Savior, is rightly called the Co-Redemptrix and the Mediatrix of all His graces and mercies to us. She plays a unique and unequalled role in God's plan to shower His mercy upon us all. Like any true and loving mother, her children can be trustfully and completely dependent upon her to bring us all that we need for life and growth. And that's all that Mary's "mediation" really means. It sounds complex at first, but it's really as simple and dependable as a mother's love!
The second reason we are right to call Mary "Mother of Mercy" is that she was the one chosen to be the Mother of God — in other words, she was the Mother of the merciful Savior, and in this way she literally brought Divine Mercy Himself to birth in our world. Of course, this is nothing more than the common faith of the Church. When Mary humbly accepted the angel Gabriel's call, she actually conceived in her womb, and brought to birth into our world, the merciful God made flesh, Mercy Incarnate, Jesus Christ.
In the conclusion of his encyclical Veritatis Splendor (1993), Pope John Paul II summarized this Gospel truth for us:
Mary is Mother of Mercy because her Son, Jesus Christ, was sent by the Father as the revelation of God's mercy (cf Jn 3:16-18). Christ came not to condemn but to forgive, to show mercy (cf Mt 9:13). And the greatest mercy of all is found in His being in our midst and calling us to meet Him and to confess, with Peter, that He is "the Son of the living God" (Mt. 16:16). No human sin can erase the mercy of God, or prevent Him from unleashing all His triumphant power, if we only call upon Him. Indeed, sin itself makes even more radiant the love of the Father who, in order to ransom a slave, sacrificed His Son: His mercy toward us is Redemption. This mercy reaches its fullness in the gift of the Spirit who bestows new life and demands that it be lived. No matter how many and great the obstacles put in His way by human frailty and sin, the Spirit who renews the face of the earth (cf Ps 104:30), makes possible the miracle of the perfect accomplishment of the good. This renewal, which gives the ability to do what is good, noble, beautiful, pleasing to God and in conformity with His will, is in some way the flowering of the gift of mercy, which offers liberation from the slavery of evil and gives the strength to sin no more. Through the gift of new life, Jesus makes us sharers in His love, and leads us to the Father in the Spirit.
It is ironic that this very simple theological truth — that Mary is our Mother of Mercy because she gave birth to our merciful Savior — has now become the focal point for a modern theological controversy: the claim that as Mother of Mercy, she is also the "Co-Redemptrix," and the "Mediatrix of all graces." The issue is not as complex as these theological phrases sound. Dr. Mark Miravalle, professor of theology at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, tells of an encounter with Mother Teresa of Calcutta when she expressed the truth of the matter in all its simplicity:
Sacred Scripture profoundly reveals the role of our Blessed Mother as Co-Redemptrix. At the Annunciation, when Mary says "yes" to the angel and thereby gives her "fiat" (Lk 1:38), she gives to the Redeemer the instrument of redemption, His human body. In a discussion I had with the late Mother Teresa of Calcutta regarding the solemn papal definition of the co-redemptive role of Our Lady, within the first two minutes of speaking, Mother said, "Of course she is Co-Redemptrix, of course. She gave Jesus his body and the body of Jesus is what saved us." I replied, "Mother, that's the difference between sanctity and theology. You say in two minutes what it takes the theologians three volumes to write." (from Divine Mercy: The Heart of the Gospel, published by the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy, 1999).
As Mother of Mercy and Co-Redemptrix, Mary is also rightly called the "Mediatrix of all graces," and in his encyclical Redemptoris Mater (1987), Pope John Paul II called her "Mediatrix of Mercy." If we think of ourselves as the little children in God's family (and that is precisely what Jesus said we must become: like little children), then it only stands to reason that we are dependent upon the mother in God's family, Mary our Mother, to "mediate" to us (that is, to pass on to us) everything that we need. Dr. Miravalle explains for us the truth behind these exalted titles, "Mediatrix":
We see the beginning of Mary's unique sharing in the salvific mediation of Christ at the Annunciation, where the free consent of the Virgin to be the Theotokos, the "God-bearer," mediates to the world Jesus Christ, Savior and Author of all grace.
It is in virtue of Mary's yes that He who is the source and mediation of all graces of redemption came to the human family. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth...And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace" (Jn 1:14, 16). Mary's moral and physical mediation of Christ as Mother brought into the world the Uncreated Grace from which flows every grace received in his Body, which constitutes the People of God. The Church confirms: "From Him flows out into the body of the Church all light through which the faithful receive supernatural enlightenment, and every grace, through which they became holy, as He himself is holy ... (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis).
The maternal mediation of Mary in bringing to the lost world its Savior was already prophesied in the ancient prophecy (cf. Gen 3:15), where the Woman would bring to the world as Mother the seed of victory over Satan. It is Mary, the New Eve, who by freely and physically mediating the New Adam, source of our salvation in grace, becomes "for the whole human race," as St. Irenaeus tells us, "the cause of our salvation."
In short, Mary, as Mother of our merciful Savior, is rightly called the Co-Redemptrix and the Mediatrix of all His graces and mercies to us. She plays a unique and unequalled role in God's plan to shower His mercy upon us all. Like any true and loving mother, her children can be trustfully and completely dependent upon her to bring us all that we need for life and growth. And that's all that Mary's "mediation" really means. It sounds complex at first, but it's really as simple and dependable as a mother's love!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Mary: The Mother of Mercy - Meditation for Divine Mercy Sunday
By Dr. Robert Stackpole, STD (Oct 1, 2008)
from http://thedivinemercy.org/
Every once in a while someone sends me a question that I file away because I know it is so big and so important that I cannot tackle it right away. Well, a few months ago, a fellow named Ted sent me the following question that I just knew I would have to deal with eventually. After all, this website is an apostolate of the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception, and the Marians have a special calling, as part of their charism, to spread the message of the merciful love of God. It was only a matter of time, therefore, before one of my readers "put two and two together," as the saying goes, and asked me this question:
Well, Ted, I will certainly try. But there is so much to say here precisely because the connection between Mary and Divine Mercy runs so deep that you will have to pardon me if I take about four instalments to say it all!
When you say that we call her "Mother of Mercy," I presume you are referring to the traditional prayer:
For centuries, Christians all over the world have cried out to the Blessed Virgin Mary with these words, placing themselves under her tender care as "Mother of Mercy." We hear a clear echo of this cry in the life of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, especially in that beautiful and tender passage in her diary where Mary encourages us all to approach her as a merciful mother:
This calls to mind Our Lady's words to St. Brigid of Sweden (Rev. 1.6, c.10): " I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the door through which sinners are brought to God." Mary's words here also remind us of what she said to St. Juan Diego in Guadalupe:
Mary is truly our Mother of tender compassion, our "Mother of Mercy." If we look at the life and writings of St. Maria Faustina, we can find at least four ways in which Mary can be truly called the merciful Mother of Christians, and of every soul searching for God.
I.
First of all, Mary is Mother of Mercy because, through her Immaculate Conception, God fashioned her to be the created masterpiece of his mercy in the world.
After all, what is Divine Mercy? It is God's undeserved, unmerited, often even unsought for divine grace — the grace that our compassionate God pours out upon us to help us overcome our miseries and meet our true needs. Theologians call one form of that mercy God's "prevenient" grace, from the Latin prae-venire, which means "to come before." In other words, even before we ask for it, and quite apart from the fact that we do not deserve it, and have not earned it in the least, God graciously takes the initiative and comes to our aid. Prevenient grace is this completely free gift of God's mercy. We see a faint reflection of it in a parent's love for a child. A child is loved by its parents not because the child has "earned" it, or deserved it, or even asked for it in any way. Rather, the parent's love comes right from the start, a completely free gift, just because the child is the parent's own child. That is human mercy "par excellence," and it is a mirror image of the divine.
When you think about it, that is exactly what is on display in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Immaculate Conception is really the supreme manifestation of God's prevenient, unmerited mercy. After all, Mary did not "merit" her Immaculate Conception. Nor could she ask for it. It was something done in her and for her by the Father of Mercy, and solely on the basis of the foreseen merits of His incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. As Pope John Paul II wrote in His encyclical Dives in Misericordia (Rich in Mercy), section 9: "Mary is the one who experienced mercy in an exceptional way — as no one else."
We see this reflected in the Bible in the Gospel according to St. Luke, where the angel Gabriel addressed Mary with the words, "Hail, full of grace." The Greek word used here is kecharitomene, which means, "graced one," or in this context, "transformed by grace." God's transforming grace cannot be just some external blessing. It must be the gift of His grace that fills a soul to overflowing. What a tremendous, prevenient, free gift — this grace overflowing in Mary's soul from the very moment of her conception! And this special grace is the reason why the angel Gabriel could go on to say to Mary: "Fear not, Mary, for you have found favor with God." She found divine favor not because of her merits or deserving, but because of God's special grace within her. Father Seraphim Michalenko, MIC, relying on the work of the French theologian M.D. Philippe, once explained the matter this way:
In fact, we can go further and say that the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was the great divine act of grace that lay at the foundation of God's whole work of salvation through Christ. The Father of Mercy took the initiative with sinful mankind, fashioning Mary's soul from the moment of conception, preserving it from the effects of original sin, making her soul the very masterpiece of His mercy, and it was this unique and extraordinary foundation of grace in Mary's soul that enabled her, years later, to respond to the angel Gabriel's message with total, trustful surrender: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to Thy word." By God's prevenient grace, therefore, she was made the masterpiece of the Father's mercy, and in the fullness of time, this special grace within her enabled her to receive our Savour into the world. In short, the whole world's salvation began with a foundational act of unmerited, unprompted, freely given Divine Mercy: That act of mercy was Mary's Immaculate Conception.
Is it any wonder, then, that our Lord called the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception to be not only the custodians of the U.S. National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, in Stockbridge, Mass., and the sponsors of the work of the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy, but also to be the official translators of St. Faustina's Diary into English and Spanish — and indeed, the first agent of the worldwide spread of The Divine Mercy message and devotion? The theological connection between The Divine Mercy and the Immaculate Conception is just too deep and profound for all of this to be an historical accident.
Also, we should not be surprised to find that St. Maria Faustina, the great apostle of Divine Mercy, had a special devotion to our Lady's Immaculate Conception. Although she usually referred to Mary as "the Most Holy Mother," or simply as "Mother of God," another form of address for Mary that Faustina cherished was simply: "The Immaculate Mother." Look at what St. Faustina wrote in Diary entries 1412 and 1413:
In short, the first reason we can rightfully call Mary our "Mother of Mercy" is that by God's special, prevenient grace, He created her soul to be the masterpiece of His Mercy in the world, and this special gift of grace within her was the foundation of His whole work of mercy in the world through Christ. Everything about Mary was fashioned by Divine Mercy and for the work of Divine Mercy. No other creature, therefore, so completely manifests God's mercy as does Mary Immaculate.
Robert Stackpole, STD, is director of the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy.
from http://thedivinemercy.org/
Every once in a while someone sends me a question that I file away because I know it is so big and so important that I cannot tackle it right away. Well, a few months ago, a fellow named Ted sent me the following question that I just knew I would have to deal with eventually. After all, this website is an apostolate of the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception, and the Marians have a special calling, as part of their charism, to spread the message of the merciful love of God. It was only a matter of time, therefore, before one of my readers "put two and two together," as the saying goes, and asked me this question:
Some of my friends are really into Divine Mercy, but others prefer to focus on devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. I know there is no conflict between Mary and Divine Mercy; I'm sure she is in favor of it just as much as her Son. But does the connection run deeper than that? I mean, we do call her "Mother of Mercy" for some reason, right? Could you explain that to me?
Well, Ted, I will certainly try. But there is so much to say here precisely because the connection between Mary and Divine Mercy runs so deep that you will have to pardon me if I take about four instalments to say it all!
When you say that we call her "Mother of Mercy," I presume you are referring to the traditional prayer:
Hail Holy Queen,
Mother of Mercy,
Our life, our sweetness, and our hope ...
For centuries, Christians all over the world have cried out to the Blessed Virgin Mary with these words, placing themselves under her tender care as "Mother of Mercy." We hear a clear echo of this cry in the life of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, especially in that beautiful and tender passage in her diary where Mary encourages us all to approach her as a merciful mother:
Once, the confessor told me to pray for his intention, and I began a novena to the Mother of God. This novena consisted in the prayer "Hail, Holy Queen" recited nine times. Toward the end of the novena I saw the Mother of God with the Infant Jesus in her arms. ... I could not stop wondering at His beauty. ... I heard a few of the words that the Mother of God spoke. ... The words were: "I am not only the Queen of Heaven, but also the Mother of Mercy, and your Mother" (Diary of St. Faustina,330).
This calls to mind Our Lady's words to St. Brigid of Sweden (Rev. 1.6, c.10): " I am the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Mercy; I am the joy of the just, and the door through which sinners are brought to God." Mary's words here also remind us of what she said to St. Juan Diego in Guadalupe:
Am I not here, I who am your Mother ? Are you not under my shadow and protection ? Am I not the source of your joy ? Are you not in the folds of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms ? Is there anything else that you need?
Mary is truly our Mother of tender compassion, our "Mother of Mercy." If we look at the life and writings of St. Maria Faustina, we can find at least four ways in which Mary can be truly called the merciful Mother of Christians, and of every soul searching for God.
I.
First of all, Mary is Mother of Mercy because, through her Immaculate Conception, God fashioned her to be the created masterpiece of his mercy in the world.
After all, what is Divine Mercy? It is God's undeserved, unmerited, often even unsought for divine grace — the grace that our compassionate God pours out upon us to help us overcome our miseries and meet our true needs. Theologians call one form of that mercy God's "prevenient" grace, from the Latin prae-venire, which means "to come before." In other words, even before we ask for it, and quite apart from the fact that we do not deserve it, and have not earned it in the least, God graciously takes the initiative and comes to our aid. Prevenient grace is this completely free gift of God's mercy. We see a faint reflection of it in a parent's love for a child. A child is loved by its parents not because the child has "earned" it, or deserved it, or even asked for it in any way. Rather, the parent's love comes right from the start, a completely free gift, just because the child is the parent's own child. That is human mercy "par excellence," and it is a mirror image of the divine.
When you think about it, that is exactly what is on display in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Immaculate Conception is really the supreme manifestation of God's prevenient, unmerited mercy. After all, Mary did not "merit" her Immaculate Conception. Nor could she ask for it. It was something done in her and for her by the Father of Mercy, and solely on the basis of the foreseen merits of His incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. As Pope John Paul II wrote in His encyclical Dives in Misericordia (Rich in Mercy), section 9: "Mary is the one who experienced mercy in an exceptional way — as no one else."
We see this reflected in the Bible in the Gospel according to St. Luke, where the angel Gabriel addressed Mary with the words, "Hail, full of grace." The Greek word used here is kecharitomene, which means, "graced one," or in this context, "transformed by grace." God's transforming grace cannot be just some external blessing. It must be the gift of His grace that fills a soul to overflowing. What a tremendous, prevenient, free gift — this grace overflowing in Mary's soul from the very moment of her conception! And this special grace is the reason why the angel Gabriel could go on to say to Mary: "Fear not, Mary, for you have found favor with God." She found divine favor not because of her merits or deserving, but because of God's special grace within her. Father Seraphim Michalenko, MIC, relying on the work of the French theologian M.D. Philippe, once explained the matter this way:
The mystery of the Immaculate Conception ... is the expression of the first act of the heavenly Father's mercy in Mary's regard — an act of absolute gratuity. This is why we can see in it the Father's mercy in its pure state. The first act is the Father's prevenient mercy for this very tiny child that is to be born.
In fact, we can go further and say that the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was the great divine act of grace that lay at the foundation of God's whole work of salvation through Christ. The Father of Mercy took the initiative with sinful mankind, fashioning Mary's soul from the moment of conception, preserving it from the effects of original sin, making her soul the very masterpiece of His mercy, and it was this unique and extraordinary foundation of grace in Mary's soul that enabled her, years later, to respond to the angel Gabriel's message with total, trustful surrender: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to Thy word." By God's prevenient grace, therefore, she was made the masterpiece of the Father's mercy, and in the fullness of time, this special grace within her enabled her to receive our Savour into the world. In short, the whole world's salvation began with a foundational act of unmerited, unprompted, freely given Divine Mercy: That act of mercy was Mary's Immaculate Conception.
Is it any wonder, then, that our Lord called the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception to be not only the custodians of the U.S. National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, in Stockbridge, Mass., and the sponsors of the work of the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy, but also to be the official translators of St. Faustina's Diary into English and Spanish — and indeed, the first agent of the worldwide spread of The Divine Mercy message and devotion? The theological connection between The Divine Mercy and the Immaculate Conception is just too deep and profound for all of this to be an historical accident.
Also, we should not be surprised to find that St. Maria Faustina, the great apostle of Divine Mercy, had a special devotion to our Lady's Immaculate Conception. Although she usually referred to Mary as "the Most Holy Mother," or simply as "Mother of God," another form of address for Mary that Faustina cherished was simply: "The Immaculate Mother." Look at what St. Faustina wrote in Diary entries 1412 and 1413:
It is with great zeal that I have prepared for the celebration of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. I have made an extra effort to keep recollected in spirit, and have meditated on that unique privilege of our Lady. And thus my heart was completely drowned in her, thanking God for having accorded this great privilege to Mary.
I prepared not only by means of the novena said in common by the whole community, but I also made a personal effort to salute her a thousand times each day, saying a thousand "Hail Marys" for nine days in her praise....Although I must admit that such a matter requires a good deal of attention and effort, nothing is too much when it comes to honoring the Immaculate Virgin.
In short, the first reason we can rightfully call Mary our "Mother of Mercy" is that by God's special, prevenient grace, He created her soul to be the masterpiece of His Mercy in the world, and this special gift of grace within her was the foundation of His whole work of mercy in the world through Christ. Everything about Mary was fashioned by Divine Mercy and for the work of Divine Mercy. No other creature, therefore, so completely manifests God's mercy as does Mary Immaculate.
Robert Stackpole, STD, is director of the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Our Lady and the Resurrection
Our Lady and the Resurrection
by Fr. John Hardon, S.J.
Our Lady, the First Witness
It is not only a pious opinion that the Risen Savior first appeared to His Mother Mary on Easter Sunday. No less than six Doctors of the Church, including SS. Ambrose, Anselm and Albert the Great held that Our Lady was the first witness of the Resurrection. Pope Benedict XIV declared that this fact is "based on the tradition proclaimed by ancient architectural and liturgical monuments, starting from Jerusalem itself."Therefore it is not surprising that St. Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises simply assumes that Jesus "appeared in body and soul to His Blessed Mother" immediately after rising from the dead. In fact, Ignatius makes this Marian mystery the first of fourteen meditations on the risen life of Christ. It is also the key meditation which introduces the capstone of the Spiritual Exercises, the "Contemplation for Obtaining Divine Love." We are to learn from Mary that "love ought to be found in deeds rather than words," and that "love consists in mutual interchange on either side."
The Resurrection Fulfills the Annunciation
Over the centuries, the Church's masters of the spiritual life have explained why Christ opened His forty days on earth after the Resurrection by appearing to His Mother. It is because the Resurrection was the fulfillment of the Annunciation.- At the Annunciation, Mary submitted her will by faith to the word of God. At the Resurrection, her faith was rewarded by actually seeing and speaking with her glorified Son.
- At the Annunciation, Mary represented the human race still needing to be redeemed. At the Resurrection, She represented the human race already redeemed.
Mary's Motherhood
- At the Annunciation, Mary became Mother of the Redeemer by giving Him the human nature with which He offered Himself on the cross. At the Resurrection, She received Him in her arms, after having received from Him on Calvary the Motherhood of the Church.- At the Annunciation, Mary accepted her vocation to suffer with her Son in His mission of redeeming the world from sin. On Easter Sunday, She shared with Him in the joy of His glorious Resurrection.
Mediatrix
- At the Annunciation, Mary became the link between Christ's humanity and our own. She provided Him with the body He needed to sacrifice to His Father for our salvation.At the Resurrection, Mary completed this link by cooperating with Him as the mediatrix of the graces He began to dispense to a human family restored to merciful friendship with God.
Thus in Jerusalem Mary's role in the Resurrection of Christ was the completion of her mission at the Annunciation in Nazareth. The Mother of Sorrows became the Cause of Our Joy twice over:
- Once because the joy She experienced on being reunited with her Risen Son is the promise of the joy we should experience on earth in knowing that we have done the will of God.
- Once again because the joy she experienced on Easter Sunday is the prelude to the perfect joy we shall experience on seeing Christ, in soul when He calls us into eternity, and in body and soul after the final resurrection on the last day.
But all of this depends on our faith. We will be blessed, provided like Mary we too have believed that the things promised us by the Lord will be fulfilled.
Copyright © 2003 Inter Mirifica
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Regina Coeli - A Joyous and Blessed Easter to All!
Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia.
For He whom you did merit to bear, alleluia.
Has risen, as He said, alleluia.
Has risen, as He said, alleluia.
Pray for us to God, alleluia.
Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia.
Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia.
For the Lord has truly risen, alleluia.
Let us pray.
Let us pray.
O God, who gave joy to the world through the resurrection of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant we beseech Thee, that through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, His Mother, we may obtain the joys of everlasting life. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Stabat Mater Dolorosa - At the Cross Her Station Keeping
| STABAT Mater dolorosa iuxta Crucem lacrimosa, dum pendebat Filius. | AT, the Cross her station keeping, stood the mournful Mother weeping, close to Jesus to the last. |
| Cuius animam gementem, contristatam et dolentem pertransivit gladius. | Through her heart, His sorrow sharing, all His bitter anguish bearing, now at length the sword has passed. |
| O quam tristis et afflicta fuit illa benedicta, mater Unigeniti! | O how sad and sore distressed was that Mother, highly blest, of the sole-begotten One. |
| Quae maerebat et dolebat, pia Mater, dum videbat nati poenas inclyti. | Christ above in torment hangs, she beneath beholds the pangs of her dying glorious Son. |
| Quis est homo qui non fleret, matrem Christi si videret in tanto supplicio? | Is there one who would not weep, whelmed in miseries so deep, Christ's dear Mother to behold? |
| Quis non posset contristari Christi Matrem contemplari dolentem cum Filio? | Can the human heart refrain from partaking in her pain, in that Mother's pain untold? |
| Pro peccatis suae gentis vidit Iesum in tormentis, et flagellis subditum. | Bruised, derided, cursed, defiled, she beheld her tender Child All with scourges rent: |
| Vidit suum dulcem Natum moriendo desolatum, dum emisit spiritum. | For the sins of His own nation, saw Him hang in desolation, Till His spirit forth He sent. |
| Eia, Mater, fons amoris me sentire vim doloris fac, ut tecum lugeam. | O thou Mother! fount of love! Touch my spirit from above, make my heart with thine accord: |
| Fac, ut ardeat cor meum in amando Christum Deum ut sibi complaceam. | Make me feel as thou hast felt; make my soul to glow and melt with the love of Christ my Lord. |
| Sancta Mater, istud agas, crucifixi fige plagas cordi meo valide. | Holy Mother! pierce me through, in my heart each wound renew of my Savior crucified: |
| Tui Nati vulnerati, tam dignati pro me pati, poenas mecum divide. | Let me share with thee His pain, who for all my sins was slain, who for me in torments died. |
| Fac me tecum pie flere, crucifixo condolere, donec ego vixero. | Let me mingle tears with thee, mourning Him who mourned for me, all the days that I may live: |
| Iuxta Crucem tecum stare, et me tibi sociare in planctu desidero. | By the Cross with thee to stay, there with thee to weep and pray, is all I ask of thee to give. |
| Virgo virginum praeclara, mihi iam non sis amara, fac me tecum plangere. | Virgin of all virgins blest!, Listen to my fond request: let me share thy grief divine; |
| Fac, ut portem Christi mortem, passionis fac consortem, et plagas recolere. | Let me, to my latest breath, in my body bear the death of that dying Son of thine. |
| Fac me plagis vulnerari, fac me Cruce inebriari, et cruore Filii. | Wounded with His every wound, steep my soul till it hath swooned, in His very Blood away; |
| Flammis ne urar succensus, per te, Virgo, sim defensus in die iudicii. | Be to me, O Virgin, nigh, lest in flames I burn and die, in His awful Judgment Day. |
| Christe, cum sit hinc exire, da per Matrem me venire ad palmam victoriae. | Christ, when Thou shalt call me hence, by Thy Mother my defense, by Thy Cross my victory; |
| Quando corpus morietur, fac, ut animae donetur paradisi gloria. Amen. | While my body here decays, may my soul Thy goodness praise, safe in paradise with Thee. Amen. |
Stabat Mater Dolorosa is considered one of the seven greatest Latin hymns of all time. It is based upon the prophecy of Simeon that a sword was to pierce the heart of His mother, Mary (Lk 2:35). The hymn originated in the 13th century during the peak of Franciscan devotion to the crucified Jesus and has been attributed to Pope Innocent III (d. 1216), St. Bonaventure, or more commonly, Jacopone da Todi (1230-1306), who is considered by most to be the real author.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Meditation for Holy Week: The Martyrdom of Mary Was Never Equaled by St. Alphonsus Liguori
When Jesus was dead, He was taken down from the Cross. Mary received Him with outstretched arms; she then pressed Him to her heart, and examined that head wounded by the thorns, those hands pierced with nails, and that body all lacerated and torn. "Ah, Son," she said, "to what has Your love for men reduced You!" But the disciples, fearing that with her Son clasped in her arms she would die of grief, out of compassion approached her, and with reverential determination, removed her Son from her arms, wrapped Him in the winding sheet, and carried Him away to bury Him. The other holy women accompanied Him, and with them the sorrowful Mother followed her Son to the tomb; where, having herself deposited Him with her own hands, she bade Him a last farewell and retired. Saint Bernard says, that ''as Mary passed along the way, her sorrow and grief were such, that all who met her were thereby moved to tears;" and he adds that "those who accompanied her were weeping rather for her than for Our Lord."
My readers, let us be devout to the sorrows of Mary. Saint Albert the Great writes, that ''as we are under great obligations to Jesus Christ for His death, so also are we under great obligations to Mary for the grief which she endured when she offered her Son to God by death for our salvation." This the Angel revealed to Saint Bridget: he said that the Blessed Virgin, to see us saved, herself offered the life of her Son to the Eternal Father: a sacrifice which, as we have already said, cost her greater suffering than all the torments of the Martyrs, or even death itself. But the Divine Mother complained to Saint Bridget that very few pitied her in her sorrows, and that the greater part of the world lived in entire forgetfulness of them. Therefore she exhorted the Saint, saying: "Though many forget me, don't you, my daughter, forget me." For this purpose the Blessed Virgin herself appeared in the year 1239 to the founder of the Order of the Servites, or Servants of Mary, to requested them to institute a religious order in remembrance of her sorrows; and this they did.
Jesus Himself one day spoke to Blessed Veronica of Binasco, saying, "Daughter, tears shed over My Passion are dear to Me: but as I love My Mother Mary with an immense love, the meditation of the sorrows which she endured at My death is also very dear to Me." It is also well to know, as Pelbart relates it, that it was revealed to Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, that Our Lord had promised four special graces to those who are devout to the sorrows of Mary: 1st, that those who before death invoke the Divine Mother, in the name of her sorrows, should obtain true repentance of all their sins: 2nd, that He would protect all who have this devotion in their tribulations, and that He would protect them especially at the hour of death: 3rd, that He would impress upon their minds the remembrance of His Passion, and that they should have their reward for it in Heaven: 4th, that He would commit such devout clients to the hands of Mary, with the power to dispose of them in whatever manner she might please, and to obtain for them all the graces she might desire.
There are two kinds of Martyrs, one in open suffering, the other in the hidden virtue of the spirit. For many, enduring the snares of the enemy and resisting all carnal desires, because they have sacrificed themselves in their hearts to Almighty God, have also become martyrs in time of peace, and if they had lived in time of persecution, they could have been Martyrs in reality.
---Saint Isidore
My readers, let us be devout to the sorrows of Mary. Saint Albert the Great writes, that ''as we are under great obligations to Jesus Christ for His death, so also are we under great obligations to Mary for the grief which she endured when she offered her Son to God by death for our salvation." This the Angel revealed to Saint Bridget: he said that the Blessed Virgin, to see us saved, herself offered the life of her Son to the Eternal Father: a sacrifice which, as we have already said, cost her greater suffering than all the torments of the Martyrs, or even death itself. But the Divine Mother complained to Saint Bridget that very few pitied her in her sorrows, and that the greater part of the world lived in entire forgetfulness of them. Therefore she exhorted the Saint, saying: "Though many forget me, don't you, my daughter, forget me." For this purpose the Blessed Virgin herself appeared in the year 1239 to the founder of the Order of the Servites, or Servants of Mary, to requested them to institute a religious order in remembrance of her sorrows; and this they did.
Jesus Himself one day spoke to Blessed Veronica of Binasco, saying, "Daughter, tears shed over My Passion are dear to Me: but as I love My Mother Mary with an immense love, the meditation of the sorrows which she endured at My death is also very dear to Me." It is also well to know, as Pelbart relates it, that it was revealed to Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, that Our Lord had promised four special graces to those who are devout to the sorrows of Mary: 1st, that those who before death invoke the Divine Mother, in the name of her sorrows, should obtain true repentance of all their sins: 2nd, that He would protect all who have this devotion in their tribulations, and that He would protect them especially at the hour of death: 3rd, that He would impress upon their minds the remembrance of His Passion, and that they should have their reward for it in Heaven: 4th, that He would commit such devout clients to the hands of Mary, with the power to dispose of them in whatever manner she might please, and to obtain for them all the graces she might desire.
There are two kinds of Martyrs, one in open suffering, the other in the hidden virtue of the spirit. For many, enduring the snares of the enemy and resisting all carnal desires, because they have sacrificed themselves in their hearts to Almighty God, have also become martyrs in time of peace, and if they had lived in time of persecution, they could have been Martyrs in reality.
---Saint Isidore
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Meditation for Holy Week: The Martyrdom of Mary Was Never Equaled by St. Alphonsus Liguori
Saint Bonaventure, considering the sorrow of Mary in the death of her Son, writes, that "no grief was more bitter than hers, because no son was as dear as her Son." Since, then, there never was a son more worthy than Jesus, nor any mother who ever loved as Mary loved, what sorrow can be compared with the sorrow of Mary? "Ah, there never has been in the world a more amiable Son than Jesus," says Richard of St. Lawrence, "nor was there ever so loving a Mother. Had there been less love between this Mother and Son, His death would have been less cruel, their griefs would have been diminished: but the more tender were their loves, the deeper were their wounds." Mary saw that death approached her Son; therefore, casting her compassionate eyes upon Him, she seemed to say, "Ah, Son, You already depart, already You leave me; and are You silent? Give me a last remembrance." Yes, He did so. Jesus Christ left her a remembrance; it was this: Woman, He said, behold your son, referring to Saint John, who stood near; and with these words He bade her farewell. He called her woman, that by the sweet name of mother He might not increase her grief: Woman, behold your son, he will take charge of you when I am dead.
There stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother. Let us, finally observe Mary, who stood at the foot of the Cross and beheld her Son expire. But, a God, what Son was it that died? It was a Son Who from all eternity had chosen her for His Mother, and had preferred her in His love to all men and Angels: it was a Son so beautiful, so holy, so amiable; a Son Who had always obeyed her; a Son Who was her only love, for He was her Son and her God; and Mary had to see Him die before her eyes, of pure suffering. But behold, the hour of the death of Jesus has already come; the afflicted Mother saw her Son then enduring the last assaults of death; behold, again, His Body was already sinking, His head drooped down on His breast, His mouth opened, and He expired. The people cry out, "He is dead! He is dead!" And Mary also said, "Ah, my Jesus, my Son, You are now dead!"
There stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother. Let us, finally observe Mary, who stood at the foot of the Cross and beheld her Son expire. But, a God, what Son was it that died? It was a Son Who from all eternity had chosen her for His Mother, and had preferred her in His love to all men and Angels: it was a Son so beautiful, so holy, so amiable; a Son Who had always obeyed her; a Son Who was her only love, for He was her Son and her God; and Mary had to see Him die before her eyes, of pure suffering. But behold, the hour of the death of Jesus has already come; the afflicted Mother saw her Son then enduring the last assaults of death; behold, again, His Body was already sinking, His head drooped down on His breast, His mouth opened, and He expired. The people cry out, "He is dead! He is dead!" And Mary also said, "Ah, my Jesus, my Son, You are now dead!"
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Meditation for Holy Week: The Martyrdom of Mary Was Never Equaled by St. Alphonsus Liguori
The greater the love of the Martyrs for Jesus Christ, the less they felt their pains: and in the midst of them all, the remembrance of the Passion of Christ sufficed to console them. With Mary it was precisely the reverse; for the torments of Jesus were her Martyrdom, and love for Jesus was her only executioner. Here we must repeat the words of Jeremias: As the sea is all bitterness, and has not within its bosom a single drop of water which is sweet, so also was the heart of Mary all bitterness, and without the least consolation: Who shall heal you? Her Son alone could heal her and heal her wounds; but how could Mary receive comfort in her grief from her crucified Son, since the love she bore Him was the whole cause of her Martyrdom?
"To understand, then, how great was the grief of Mary, we must understand," says Cornelius a Lapide, "how great was the love she bore her Son." But who can ever measure this love?
Blessed Amadeus says, that "natural love towards Him as her Son, and supernatural love towards Him as her God, were united in the heart of Mary."
These two loves were blended into one, and this so great a love that William of Paris does not hesitate to assert, that Mary loved Jesus ''as much as it was possible for a pure creature to love Him." So that, as Richard of St. Victor says, ''as no other creature loved God as Mary loved Him, so there was never any sorrow like Mary's sorrow."
Now there stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother. Let us stay awhile to consider these words before concluding our discourse; but I entreat you to renew your attention.
There stood. When Jesus was on the Cross, the disciples had already abandoned Him; they had done so from the moment in which He was taken in the Garden of Olives: then the disciples all leaving Him fled. (Matt. 26:56) The disciples abandoned Him; but His loving Mother did not abandon Him; she remained with Him until He expired.
There stood by. Mothers fly when they see their children suffer much, and are unable to give them relief; they have not the strength to endure the torment, and therefore fly to a distance. Mary beheld her Son in agony on the Cross; she saw that His sufferings were slowly depriving Him of life; she desired to relieve Him in that last extremity, but could not; but with all this she did not fly, she did not go to a distance, but drew nearer to the Cross on which her Son was dying.
She stood by the Cross. The Cross was the hard bed on which Jesus Christ had to die. Mary, who stood by its side, never turned her eyes from Him; she beheld Him all torn by the scourges, thorns, and nails; she saw that her poor Son, suspended by those three iron hooks, found no repose. She, as I have already said, would have desired to give Him some relief; she would have desired, at least, that He should have expired in her arms; but no, even this is forbidden her. "Ah, Cross!" she must have said, "restore me my Son; you are a gibbet for malefactors, but my Son is innocent." But wait, O sorrowful Mother; God's will is that the Cross should only restore you your Son when He has expired.
"To understand, then, how great was the grief of Mary, we must understand," says Cornelius a Lapide, "how great was the love she bore her Son." But who can ever measure this love?
Blessed Amadeus says, that "natural love towards Him as her Son, and supernatural love towards Him as her God, were united in the heart of Mary."
These two loves were blended into one, and this so great a love that William of Paris does not hesitate to assert, that Mary loved Jesus ''as much as it was possible for a pure creature to love Him." So that, as Richard of St. Victor says, ''as no other creature loved God as Mary loved Him, so there was never any sorrow like Mary's sorrow."
Now there stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother. Let us stay awhile to consider these words before concluding our discourse; but I entreat you to renew your attention.
There stood. When Jesus was on the Cross, the disciples had already abandoned Him; they had done so from the moment in which He was taken in the Garden of Olives: then the disciples all leaving Him fled. (Matt. 26:56) The disciples abandoned Him; but His loving Mother did not abandon Him; she remained with Him until He expired.
There stood by. Mothers fly when they see their children suffer much, and are unable to give them relief; they have not the strength to endure the torment, and therefore fly to a distance. Mary beheld her Son in agony on the Cross; she saw that His sufferings were slowly depriving Him of life; she desired to relieve Him in that last extremity, but could not; but with all this she did not fly, she did not go to a distance, but drew nearer to the Cross on which her Son was dying.
She stood by the Cross. The Cross was the hard bed on which Jesus Christ had to die. Mary, who stood by its side, never turned her eyes from Him; she beheld Him all torn by the scourges, thorns, and nails; she saw that her poor Son, suspended by those three iron hooks, found no repose. She, as I have already said, would have desired to give Him some relief; she would have desired, at least, that He should have expired in her arms; but no, even this is forbidden her. "Ah, Cross!" she must have said, "restore me my Son; you are a gibbet for malefactors, but my Son is innocent." But wait, O sorrowful Mother; God's will is that the Cross should only restore you your Son when He has expired.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Meditation for Holy Week: The Martyrdom of Mary Was Never Equaled by St. Alphonsus Liguori
Blessed Amadeus also writes, that "Mary suffered much more in the Passion of her Son than she would have done if she herself had endured it; for she loved her Jesus much more than she loved herself," Hence Saint Ildephonsus did not hesitate to assert, that "the sufferings of Mary exceed those of all Martyrs united together." Saint Anselm, addressing the Blessed Virgin, says, "The most cruel torments inflicted on the holy Martyrs were trifling or as nothing in comparison with your Martyrdom, O Mary." The same Saint adds, "Indeed, O Lady, in each moment of your life your sufferings were such that you could not have endured them, and would have expired under them, had not your Son, the source of your life, preserved you." Saint Bernadine of Sienna even says, that "the sufferings of Mary were such that had they been divided among all creatures capable of suffering, they would have caused their immediate death." Who, then, can ever doubt that the Martyrdom of Mary was without its equal, and that it exceeded the sufferings of all the Martyrs; since, as Saint Antoninus says, "they suffered in the sacrifice of their own lives; but the Blessed Virgin suffered by offering the life of her Son to God, a life which she loved far more than her own."
The Martyrs suffered under the torments inflicted on them by tyrants; but Our Lord, Who never abandons His servants, always comforted them in the midst of their sufferings. The love of God, which burnt in their hearts, rendered all these sufferings sweet and pleasing to them. Saint Vincent suffered, when on the rack he was torn with pincers and burnt with hot iron plates; but Saint Augustine says that "the Saint spoke with such contempt of his torments, that it seemed as if it was one who spoke and another who suffered." Saint Boniface suffered when the flesh was torn from his body with iron hooks, sharp reeds were forced under his nails and melted lead was poured into his mouth; but in the midst of all, he could never cease to thank Jesus Christ, Who allowed him to suffer for His love. Saint Lawrence suffered when roasting on a gridiron; "but the love which inflamed him," says Saint Augustine, "did not allow him to feel the fire, or even that prolonged death itself."
The Martyrs suffered under the torments inflicted on them by tyrants; but Our Lord, Who never abandons His servants, always comforted them in the midst of their sufferings. The love of God, which burnt in their hearts, rendered all these sufferings sweet and pleasing to them. Saint Vincent suffered, when on the rack he was torn with pincers and burnt with hot iron plates; but Saint Augustine says that "the Saint spoke with such contempt of his torments, that it seemed as if it was one who spoke and another who suffered." Saint Boniface suffered when the flesh was torn from his body with iron hooks, sharp reeds were forced under his nails and melted lead was poured into his mouth; but in the midst of all, he could never cease to thank Jesus Christ, Who allowed him to suffer for His love. Saint Lawrence suffered when roasting on a gridiron; "but the love which inflamed him," says Saint Augustine, "did not allow him to feel the fire, or even that prolonged death itself."
Monday, April 18, 2011
Meditation for Holy Week: The Martyrdom of Mary Was Never Equaled by St. Alphonsus Liguori
The same Saint Lawrence considers Jesus on His road to Calvary, with the Cross on His shoulders, turning to Mary and saying to her, "Alas, My Own dear Mother, where are you going? What a scene will you witness? You will be agonized by My sufferings, and I by yours." But the loving Mother would follow Him all the same, though she knew that, by being present at His death, she would have to endure a torment greater than any death. She saw that her Son carried the Cross to be crucified upon it; and, adds Abbot William, she also took up the cross of her sorrows, and followed her Son to be crucified with Him. Hence Saint Bonaventure considers Mary standing by the Cross of her dying Son, and asks her, saying, "O Lady, tell me where did you then stand---was it near the Cross? No, you were on the Cross itself, crucified with your Son." About these words of the Redeemer, foretold by the prophet Isaias, I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the Gentiles there is not a man with me. (Isaias 63:3) Richard of St. Lawrence says, "It is true, O Lord, that in the work of human redemption You did suffer alone, and that there was not a man that sufficiently pitied You; but there was a woman with You, and she was Your Own Mother; she suffered in her heart all that You endured in Your Body."
To show the sufferings endured by other Martyrs they are represented with the instruments of their torture; Saint Andrew with a cross, Saint Paul with a sword, Saint Lawrence with a gridiron; Mary is represented with her dead Son in her arms; for He alone was the instrument of her Martyrdom, and compassion for Him made her the Queen of Martyrs. On this subject of Mary's compassion in the death of Jesus Christ, Father Pinamonti gives expression to a beautiful and remarkable opinion: he says, that "the grief of Mary in the passion of her Son was so great, that she alone compassionated in a degree by any means adequate to its merits the death of a God made man for the love of man."
To show the sufferings endured by other Martyrs they are represented with the instruments of their torture; Saint Andrew with a cross, Saint Paul with a sword, Saint Lawrence with a gridiron; Mary is represented with her dead Son in her arms; for He alone was the instrument of her Martyrdom, and compassion for Him made her the Queen of Martyrs. On this subject of Mary's compassion in the death of Jesus Christ, Father Pinamonti gives expression to a beautiful and remarkable opinion: he says, that "the grief of Mary in the passion of her Son was so great, that she alone compassionated in a degree by any means adequate to its merits the death of a God made man for the love of man."
Sunday, April 17, 2011
The Martyrdom of Mary Was Never Equaled by St. Alphonsus Liguori
Today, Sunday, April 17, 2011, marks the beginning of Holy Week. This holiest of weeks in the Church calendar marks the final week of Jesus - the week in which He suffered, died, was buried, and rose again. Mary participated in Jesus' Passion in a most special way. St. Alphonsus Liquouri describes her participation in this Mystery of Salvation in the following article - portions of which will be posted each day this week. Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!
Saturday, April 16, 2011
LUX VERITATIS - ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUX XI ON THE ECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF EPHESUS
39. Now from this head of Catholic doctrine upon which We have touched hitherto, there follows of necessity the dogma of the divine maternity which We preach as belonging to the Blessed Virign Mary. "Not that the nature of the Word or His Godhead"-as Cyril admonishes us-"took the source of its origin from the holy Virgin; but because He derived from her that sacred body, perfected by an intellectual soul, whereto the Word of God was hypostatically united, and therefore is said to be born according to the flesh." (Mansi, I.c. IV. 891.)
And, indeed, if the Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary is God, assuredly she who bore him is rightly and deservedly to be called the Mother of God. If there is only one person in Christ, and this is Divine, without any doubt Mary ought to be called, by all, not the mother of Christ the man only, but Theotocos, or God-bearer. Let us all, therefore, venerate the tender Mother of God, whom her cousin Elizabeth saluted as "the Mother of my Lord" (Luke i. 43), who, in the words of Ignatius Martyr, brought forth God (Ad Ephes. vii. 18-20); and from whom, as Tertullian professes, God was born; whom the Eternal Godhead has gifted with the fulness of grace and endowed with such great dignity.
40. Nor can anyone reject this truth, handed down from the first age of the Church, on the pretext that the Blessed Virgin Mary did, indeed, supply the body of Jesus Christ, but did not produce the Word of the Heavenly Father; since, as Cyril already rightly and lucidly answered in his time (cf. Mansi, I.c. IV. 599), even as those in whose womb our earthly nature, not our soul is procreated, are rightly and truly called our mothers; so did she, from the unity of her Son's person, attain to divine maternity.
41. Wherefore, the impious opinion of Nestorius, which the Roman Pontiff, led by the Holy Spirit, had condemned in the preceding year, was deservedly and solemnly condemned again by the Synod of Ephesus. And the populace of Ephesus were drawn to the Virgin Mother of God with such great piety, and burning with such ardent love, that when they understood the judgment passed by the Fathers of the Council, they hailed them with overflowing gladness of heart, and gathering round them in a body, bearing lighted torches in their hands, accompanied them home. And assuredly, the same great Mother of God looked down from heaven on this spectacle, and smiling sweetly on these her children of Ephesus, and on all the faithful Christians throughout the Catholic world, who had been disturbed by the snares of the Nestorian heresy, embraced them with her most present aid and her motherly affection.
42. From this dogma of the divine maternity, as from the outpouring of a hidden spring, flow forth the singular grace of Mary and her dignity, which is the highest after God. Nay more, as Aquinas says admirably: "The Blessed Virgin, from this that she is the Mother of God, has a certain infinite dignity, from the infinite good which is God." (Summ. Theo., III. a.6.) Cornelius a Lapide unfolds this and explains it more fully, in these words: "The Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God; therefore she is far more excellent than all the Angels, even the Seraphim and Cherubim. She is the Mother of God; therefore she is most pure and most holy, so that under God no greater purity can be imagined. She is the Mother of God; therefore whatever privilege (in the order of sancti*ing grace) has been granted to any one of the Saints, she obtains it more than all" (In Matt. i. 6).
43. Why, therefore, do the Reformers (Novatores) and not a few nonCatholics bitterly condemn our piety towards the Virgin Mother of God, as though we were withdrawing the worship due to God alone? Do they not know, or do they not attentively consider that nothing can be more pleasing to Jesus Christ, who certainly has an ardent love for his own Mother, than that we should venerate her as she deserves, that we should return her love, and that imitating her most holy example we should seek to gain her powerful patronage?
44. Here, however, We would not omit to mention a matter which has given Us no little consolation, namely that in the present time, even among the Reformers, some understand the dignity of the Virgin Mother of God better, and are led and moved to reverence her duly, and hold her in honour. This, when it comes from the inward and sincere conscience, and is not as sometimes happens effected to conciliate the minds of Catholics, bids Us hope that by the prayers and efforts of all the good, and by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, who cherishes a mother's love for her erring children, they may at length be brought back to the one true flock of Jesus Christ, and therefore to Us who, though unworthily, hold His place and His authority on earth.
45. But there is another matter, Venerable Brethren, which We think We should recall in regard to Mary's office of Maternity, something which is sweeter and more pleasing; namely that she, because she brought forth the Redeemer of mankind, is also in a manner the most tender mother of us all, whom Christ our Lord deigned to have as His brothers (Romans viii. 29). As Our predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII, says: "Such a one God has given as one to whom by the very fact that He chose her as the Mother of His only begotten Son, He clearly gave the feelings of a mother, breathing nothing but love and pardon-such did Jesus Christ show her to be, by His own action, when He spontaneously chose to be under her, and submit to her as a son to a mother; such did He declare her to be, when, from the Cross, He committed all mankind, in the person of His disciple John, to her care and protection; and as such, lastly, she gave herself, when embracing with a great heart, this heritage of immense labour from her dying Son, she began at once to fulfil all a mother's duties to us all." (Encyclical Letter Octobri mense adveniente. September 21, 1892.) From this it comes that we are all drawn to her by a powerful attraction, that we may confidently entrust to her all things that are ours-namely our joys, if we are gladdened; our troubles, if we are in anguish; our hopes, if we are striving to reach at length to better things. From this it comes that if more difficult times fall upon the Church; if faith fail, if charity have grown cold, if private and public morals take a turn for the worse; if any danger be hanging over the Catholic name and civil society, we all take refuge with her, imploring heavenly aid. From this it comes lastly that in the supreme crisis of death, when no other hope is given, no other help, we lift up to her our tearful eyes and our trembling hands, praying through her for pardon from her Son, and for eternal happiness in heaven.
46. Let all, therefore, with more ardent zeal in the present necessities with which we are afflicted, go to her and beseech her with instant supplication "that, through her prayers to her Son, the erring nations may return to the Christian institutions and precepts, which are the firm support of public safety, and from which arises an abundance of much desired peace and of true happiness. Let them implore of her the more earnestly, what ought to be desired above all things by all the good, namely that the Church our mother may gain and tranquilly enjoy her liberty; which she always uses for the best advantage of men, and from which individuals and states have never suffered any losses, but have at all times experienced very many and very great benefits." (From the aforesaid Encyclical Letter.)
47. But one thing in particular, and that indeed one of great importance, We specially desire that all should implore, under the auspices of the heavenly Queen. That is to say, that she who is loved and worshipped with such ardent piety by the separated peoples of the East would not suffer them to wander and be unhappily ever led away from the unity of the Church, and therefore from her Son, whose Vicar on earth We are. May they return to the common Father, whose judgment all the Fathers of the Synod of Ephesus most dutifully received, and whom they all saluted, with concordant acclamations, as "the guardian of the faith"; may they all turn to Us, who have indeed a fatherly affection for them all, and who gladly make Our own those most loving words which Cyril used, when he earnestly exhorted Nestorius that "the peace of the Churches may be preserved, and that the bond of love and of concord among the priests of God may remain indissoluble." (Mansi, I.c. IV. 891.)
48. And would that that most happy day might speedily dawn upon us when the Virgin Mother of God, who is admirably depicted in the tessellated work of Our predecessor, Sixtus III, in the Liberian Basilica-which We Ourselves have had restored to its pristine beauty-may see all the sons separated from Us returning, that they may venerate her along with Us with one mind and with one faith. This will assuredly be for Us a source of the very greatest pleasure.
49. Moreover, We may well regard it as a happy omen, that it has fallen to Us to celebrate this fifteenth centenary: to Us, We say, who have defended the dignity and the sanctity of chaste wedlock against the encroaching fallacies of every kind (Encyclical Letter, Casti connubii, December 21, 1930), and who have both solemnly vindicated the sacred rights of the Catholic Church over the education of youth, and have declared and explained the manner in which it should be given, and the principles to which it should be conformed. (Encyclical Letter, Divini illius Magistri, December 21, 1929.) For the precepts which We have set forth, concerning both these matters, have in the office of the divine maternity, and in the family of Nazareth, an excellent example proposed for the imitation of all. As Our predecessor, Leo XIII of happy memory, says: "Fathers of families indeed have in Joseph a glorious pattern of vigilance and paternal prudence; mothers have in the most holy Virgin Mother of God a remarkable example of love and modesty and submission of mind, and of perfect faith; but the children of a family have in Jesus, who was subject to them, a divine model of obedience, which they may admire, and worship and imitate." (Apostolic Letter, Neminem fugit, January 14, 1882.)
50. But in a more special manner it is fitting that those mothers of this our age, who being weary, whether of offspring or of the marriage bond, have the office they have undertaken degraded and neglected, may look up to Mary and meditate intently on her who has raised this grave duty of motherhood to such high nobility. For in this way there is hope that they may be led, by the help of grace of the heavenly Queen, to feel shame for the dishonour done to the great sacrament of matrimony, and may happily be stirred up to follow after the wondrous praise of her virtues, by every effort in their power.
51. If all these things prosper according to Our purpose, that is to say if the life of the family, the beginning and the foundation of all human society, is recalled to this most worthy model of holiness, without doubt We shall at length be able to meet the formidable crisis of evils confronting Us, with an effective remedy. In this way, it will come to pass that "the peace of God which passeth all understanding" may "keep the hearts and minds" of all (Phil. iv. 7), and that the much desired Kingdom of Christ, minds and forces being joined together, may be everywhere established.
52. We will not close this Encyclical Letter, Venerable Brethren, without mentioning a matter which will surely be pleasing to you all. Desiring that there may be a liturgical monument of this commemoration, which may help to nourish the piety of clergy and people towards the great Mother of God, We have commanded Our supreme council presiding over Sacred Rites to publish an Office and Mass of the Divine Maternity, which is to be celebrated by the universal Church. And, meanwhile, as an earnest of heavenly gifts, and a pledge of Our paternal affection, We impart the Apostolic Benediction, very lovingly in the Lord, to you, Venerable Brethren, one and all, and to your clergy and people.
Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, December 25, the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the year 1931, the tenth of Our Pontificate.
And, indeed, if the Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary is God, assuredly she who bore him is rightly and deservedly to be called the Mother of God. If there is only one person in Christ, and this is Divine, without any doubt Mary ought to be called, by all, not the mother of Christ the man only, but Theotocos, or God-bearer. Let us all, therefore, venerate the tender Mother of God, whom her cousin Elizabeth saluted as "the Mother of my Lord" (Luke i. 43), who, in the words of Ignatius Martyr, brought forth God (Ad Ephes. vii. 18-20); and from whom, as Tertullian professes, God was born; whom the Eternal Godhead has gifted with the fulness of grace and endowed with such great dignity.
40. Nor can anyone reject this truth, handed down from the first age of the Church, on the pretext that the Blessed Virgin Mary did, indeed, supply the body of Jesus Christ, but did not produce the Word of the Heavenly Father; since, as Cyril already rightly and lucidly answered in his time (cf. Mansi, I.c. IV. 599), even as those in whose womb our earthly nature, not our soul is procreated, are rightly and truly called our mothers; so did she, from the unity of her Son's person, attain to divine maternity.
41. Wherefore, the impious opinion of Nestorius, which the Roman Pontiff, led by the Holy Spirit, had condemned in the preceding year, was deservedly and solemnly condemned again by the Synod of Ephesus. And the populace of Ephesus were drawn to the Virgin Mother of God with such great piety, and burning with such ardent love, that when they understood the judgment passed by the Fathers of the Council, they hailed them with overflowing gladness of heart, and gathering round them in a body, bearing lighted torches in their hands, accompanied them home. And assuredly, the same great Mother of God looked down from heaven on this spectacle, and smiling sweetly on these her children of Ephesus, and on all the faithful Christians throughout the Catholic world, who had been disturbed by the snares of the Nestorian heresy, embraced them with her most present aid and her motherly affection.
42. From this dogma of the divine maternity, as from the outpouring of a hidden spring, flow forth the singular grace of Mary and her dignity, which is the highest after God. Nay more, as Aquinas says admirably: "The Blessed Virgin, from this that she is the Mother of God, has a certain infinite dignity, from the infinite good which is God." (Summ. Theo., III. a.6.) Cornelius a Lapide unfolds this and explains it more fully, in these words: "The Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God; therefore she is far more excellent than all the Angels, even the Seraphim and Cherubim. She is the Mother of God; therefore she is most pure and most holy, so that under God no greater purity can be imagined. She is the Mother of God; therefore whatever privilege (in the order of sancti*ing grace) has been granted to any one of the Saints, she obtains it more than all" (In Matt. i. 6).
43. Why, therefore, do the Reformers (Novatores) and not a few nonCatholics bitterly condemn our piety towards the Virgin Mother of God, as though we were withdrawing the worship due to God alone? Do they not know, or do they not attentively consider that nothing can be more pleasing to Jesus Christ, who certainly has an ardent love for his own Mother, than that we should venerate her as she deserves, that we should return her love, and that imitating her most holy example we should seek to gain her powerful patronage?
44. Here, however, We would not omit to mention a matter which has given Us no little consolation, namely that in the present time, even among the Reformers, some understand the dignity of the Virgin Mother of God better, and are led and moved to reverence her duly, and hold her in honour. This, when it comes from the inward and sincere conscience, and is not as sometimes happens effected to conciliate the minds of Catholics, bids Us hope that by the prayers and efforts of all the good, and by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, who cherishes a mother's love for her erring children, they may at length be brought back to the one true flock of Jesus Christ, and therefore to Us who, though unworthily, hold His place and His authority on earth.
45. But there is another matter, Venerable Brethren, which We think We should recall in regard to Mary's office of Maternity, something which is sweeter and more pleasing; namely that she, because she brought forth the Redeemer of mankind, is also in a manner the most tender mother of us all, whom Christ our Lord deigned to have as His brothers (Romans viii. 29). As Our predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII, says: "Such a one God has given as one to whom by the very fact that He chose her as the Mother of His only begotten Son, He clearly gave the feelings of a mother, breathing nothing but love and pardon-such did Jesus Christ show her to be, by His own action, when He spontaneously chose to be under her, and submit to her as a son to a mother; such did He declare her to be, when, from the Cross, He committed all mankind, in the person of His disciple John, to her care and protection; and as such, lastly, she gave herself, when embracing with a great heart, this heritage of immense labour from her dying Son, she began at once to fulfil all a mother's duties to us all." (Encyclical Letter Octobri mense adveniente. September 21, 1892.) From this it comes that we are all drawn to her by a powerful attraction, that we may confidently entrust to her all things that are ours-namely our joys, if we are gladdened; our troubles, if we are in anguish; our hopes, if we are striving to reach at length to better things. From this it comes that if more difficult times fall upon the Church; if faith fail, if charity have grown cold, if private and public morals take a turn for the worse; if any danger be hanging over the Catholic name and civil society, we all take refuge with her, imploring heavenly aid. From this it comes lastly that in the supreme crisis of death, when no other hope is given, no other help, we lift up to her our tearful eyes and our trembling hands, praying through her for pardon from her Son, and for eternal happiness in heaven.
46. Let all, therefore, with more ardent zeal in the present necessities with which we are afflicted, go to her and beseech her with instant supplication "that, through her prayers to her Son, the erring nations may return to the Christian institutions and precepts, which are the firm support of public safety, and from which arises an abundance of much desired peace and of true happiness. Let them implore of her the more earnestly, what ought to be desired above all things by all the good, namely that the Church our mother may gain and tranquilly enjoy her liberty; which she always uses for the best advantage of men, and from which individuals and states have never suffered any losses, but have at all times experienced very many and very great benefits." (From the aforesaid Encyclical Letter.)
47. But one thing in particular, and that indeed one of great importance, We specially desire that all should implore, under the auspices of the heavenly Queen. That is to say, that she who is loved and worshipped with such ardent piety by the separated peoples of the East would not suffer them to wander and be unhappily ever led away from the unity of the Church, and therefore from her Son, whose Vicar on earth We are. May they return to the common Father, whose judgment all the Fathers of the Synod of Ephesus most dutifully received, and whom they all saluted, with concordant acclamations, as "the guardian of the faith"; may they all turn to Us, who have indeed a fatherly affection for them all, and who gladly make Our own those most loving words which Cyril used, when he earnestly exhorted Nestorius that "the peace of the Churches may be preserved, and that the bond of love and of concord among the priests of God may remain indissoluble." (Mansi, I.c. IV. 891.)
48. And would that that most happy day might speedily dawn upon us when the Virgin Mother of God, who is admirably depicted in the tessellated work of Our predecessor, Sixtus III, in the Liberian Basilica-which We Ourselves have had restored to its pristine beauty-may see all the sons separated from Us returning, that they may venerate her along with Us with one mind and with one faith. This will assuredly be for Us a source of the very greatest pleasure.
49. Moreover, We may well regard it as a happy omen, that it has fallen to Us to celebrate this fifteenth centenary: to Us, We say, who have defended the dignity and the sanctity of chaste wedlock against the encroaching fallacies of every kind (Encyclical Letter, Casti connubii, December 21, 1930), and who have both solemnly vindicated the sacred rights of the Catholic Church over the education of youth, and have declared and explained the manner in which it should be given, and the principles to which it should be conformed. (Encyclical Letter, Divini illius Magistri, December 21, 1929.) For the precepts which We have set forth, concerning both these matters, have in the office of the divine maternity, and in the family of Nazareth, an excellent example proposed for the imitation of all. As Our predecessor, Leo XIII of happy memory, says: "Fathers of families indeed have in Joseph a glorious pattern of vigilance and paternal prudence; mothers have in the most holy Virgin Mother of God a remarkable example of love and modesty and submission of mind, and of perfect faith; but the children of a family have in Jesus, who was subject to them, a divine model of obedience, which they may admire, and worship and imitate." (Apostolic Letter, Neminem fugit, January 14, 1882.)
50. But in a more special manner it is fitting that those mothers of this our age, who being weary, whether of offspring or of the marriage bond, have the office they have undertaken degraded and neglected, may look up to Mary and meditate intently on her who has raised this grave duty of motherhood to such high nobility. For in this way there is hope that they may be led, by the help of grace of the heavenly Queen, to feel shame for the dishonour done to the great sacrament of matrimony, and may happily be stirred up to follow after the wondrous praise of her virtues, by every effort in their power.
51. If all these things prosper according to Our purpose, that is to say if the life of the family, the beginning and the foundation of all human society, is recalled to this most worthy model of holiness, without doubt We shall at length be able to meet the formidable crisis of evils confronting Us, with an effective remedy. In this way, it will come to pass that "the peace of God which passeth all understanding" may "keep the hearts and minds" of all (Phil. iv. 7), and that the much desired Kingdom of Christ, minds and forces being joined together, may be everywhere established.
52. We will not close this Encyclical Letter, Venerable Brethren, without mentioning a matter which will surely be pleasing to you all. Desiring that there may be a liturgical monument of this commemoration, which may help to nourish the piety of clergy and people towards the great Mother of God, We have commanded Our supreme council presiding over Sacred Rites to publish an Office and Mass of the Divine Maternity, which is to be celebrated by the universal Church. And, meanwhile, as an earnest of heavenly gifts, and a pledge of Our paternal affection, We impart the Apostolic Benediction, very lovingly in the Lord, to you, Venerable Brethren, one and all, and to your clergy and people.
Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, December 25, the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the year 1931, the tenth of Our Pontificate.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
LUX VERITATIS - ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUX XI ON THE ECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF EPHESUS
28. But now, Venerable Brethren, let us examine more deeply those points of doctrine which the Synod of Ephesus, by the very fact of its condemnation of Nestorius, openly professed and sanctioned by its authority. Now, apart from the rejection of the Pelagian heresy and the condemnation of those who favoured it-one of whom, without doubt, was Nestroius-there was one matter mainly in question, and it was solemnly and almost unanimously confirmed by the Fathers, that is to say that the opinion of this heresiarch was wholly impious and repugnant to the Sacred Scriptures; and that, therefore, that which he denied was altogether certain, namely, that there is one Person in Christ, and that the same is Divine. For when Nestorius, as We have said, obstinately contended that the Divine Word was not united to the human nature in Christ substantially and hypostatically, but by a certain accidental and moral bond, the Fathers of Ephesus, in condemning Nestorius, openly professed the right doctrine concerning the Incarnation, which must be firmly held by all. And indeed, Cyril in the letters and chapters already addressed to Nestorius beforehand, and inserted in the acts of this Ecumenical Synod, in wonderful agreement with the Roman Church, maintained these things in eloquent and reiterated words: "In no wise, therefore, is it lawful to divide the one Lord Jesus Christ into two Sons.... For the Scripture does not say that the Word associated the person of a man with Himself, but that He was made flesh. But when it is said that the Word was made flesh, that means nothing else but that He partook of flesh and blood, even as we do; wherefore, He made our body His own, and came forth man, born of a woman, at the same time without laying aside His Godhead, or His birth from the Father; for in assuming flesh He still remained what He was." (Mansi, l.c. IV. 891.)
29. For we are taught, by Holy Scripture and by Divine Tradition, that the Word of God the Father did not join Himself to a certain man already subsisting in Himself, but that Christ the Word of God is one and the same, enjoying eternity in the bosom of the Father, and made man in time. For, indeed, that the Godhead and Manhood in Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of mankind, are bound together by that wondrous union which is justly and deservedly called hypostatic, is luminously evident from the fact that in the Sacred Scriptures the same one Christ is not only called God and man, but it is also clearly declared that He works as God and also as man, and again that He dies as man and as God He arises from the dead. That is to say, He who is conceived in the Virgin's womb by the operation of the Holy Ghost, who is born, who lies in a manger, who calls Himself the son of man, who suffers and dies, fastened to the cross, is the very same who, in a solemn and marvellous manner, is called by the Eternal Father "my beloved Son" (Matthew iii. 17; xvii. 5; 2 Peter i. 17), who pardons sins by His divine authority (Matt. ix. 2-6; Luke v. 20-24; vii. 48; and elsewhere), and likewise by His own power recalls the sick to health (Matt. viii. 3; Mark i. and 41; Luke v. 13; John ix; and elsewhere). As all these things show clearly that in Christ there are natures by which both divine and human works are performed, so do they bear witness no less clearly that the one Christ is at once both God and man because of that unity of person from which He is called "Theanthropos" (God-Man).
30. Moreover, this doctrine which has ever been handed down may be proved and con firmed, as all can see, from the dogma of man's Redemption. For how indeed could Christ be
called "the firstborn among many brethren" (Romans viii. 29), or be wounded because of our iniquities (Isaias liii. 5; Matt. viii. 17), and redeem us from the servitude of sin, unless He had a human nature like as we have? And so, too, how could He make perfect satisfaction to the justice of the Heavenly Father which had been violated by mankind, unless He possessed an immense and infinite dignity by reason of His Divine Person?
31. Nor can this point of Catholic truth be disputed on the ground that, if our Redeemer had no human person, then it would seem that some perfection would be wanting to His human nature, which would make Him as man less than we are. For as it is acutely and sagaciously observed by Aquinas, "personality pertains to the dignity and perfection of any thing in so far as it pertains to the dignity and perfection of any thing that it should exist by itself, which is what we understand by the name of personality; but there is more dignity in any thing if it exists in another of greater dignity than itself, than if it existed by itself, and therefore there is more dignity in the human nature of Christ than in ours, on this very ground, that in us it has its own personality, as existing by itself, but in Christ it exists in the person of the Word; even as it pertains to the dignity of a form to be completive of the species; nevertheless, the sensitive is more noble in man, because of the conjunction with the more noble completive form, than it can be in a brute animal, in which it is itself the completive form." (Summ. Theol., III. ii. 2.)
32. Moreover, it may be worth while to remark here that, just as Arius, that most crafty subverter of Catholic unity, attacked the Word's Divine nature consubstantial to the Eternal Father, so Nestorius, taking quite another way, namely by rejecting the Redeemer's hypostatic union, denied the full and perfect divinity of Christ, though not of the Word. For if, as he wrongly imagined, it was only by a moral union that the divine and human nature were joined together in Christ-to which, indeed, as We have said, the prophets, also, and the other heroes of Christian sanctity, have in some manner attained, according to their respective union with God-the Saviour of mankind would differ but little, or not at all, from those whom He redeemed by His grace and by His precious blood. Thus, when once the doctrine of the hypostatic union is abandoned, whereon the dogmas of the Incarnation and of man's Redemption rest and stand firm, the whole foundation of the Catholic religion falls and comes to ruin. Wherefore, we do not wonder that, when the peril of the Nestorian heresy arose, the whole Catholic world was shaken: We do not wonder that, when the Bishop of Constantinople rashly and wrongly opposed the faith of the fathers, the Synod of Ephesus keenly contended against him, and carrying out the sentence of the Roman Pontiff, struck him down with a dire anathema.
33. We, therefore, in full accordance with all the ages of Christian history, venerate the Redeemer of mankind not as "Elias . . . or one of the Prophets," in whom the heavenly Godhead dwelt by His grace, but together with the Prince of the Apostles, who knew this mystery by divine revelation, we make profession with one voice: "Thou are Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matt. xvi. 16.)
34. When once this dogma of the truth is securely established, it is easy to gather from it that by the mystery of the Incamation the whole creation of men and of mundane things has been endowed with a dignity than which, certainly, nothing greater can be imagined, and surely grander than that to which it was raised by the work of creation. For here in the race of Adam we have one, namely Christ, who has attained unto the eternal and infinite Godhead, and is joined thereto in a most close and mysterious manner; Christ, indeed, we call our brother, endowed with human nature, but also God with us, or Emmanuel, who by His grace and His merits, draws us all back to our divine Author and also recalls us to that heavenly beatitude from which we had miserably fallen away by original sin. Let us, therefore, turn to Him with a thankful heart; let us follow His precepts; let us imitate His examples. For thus shall we become sharers of His divinity "who deigned to become a partaker of our humanity" (Roman Missal).
35. But if, as We have said, at all times throughout the course of ages, the true Church of Christ has most diligently defended this genuine and uncorrupted doctrine concerning the personal unity and the divinity of her Founder, it has not been so, alas! with those who wander unhappily outside the one fold of Christ. For whenever anyone pertinaciously withdraws himself from the infallible teaching authority of the Church, We grieve to say that he gradually loses the true and certain doctrine concerning Jesus Christ. And, indeed, with regard to the many and various religious sects, especially those dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which still bear the Christian name, and which, at the beginning of their separation, firmly professed that Christ is God and man; if we ask them now what they hold about Him, we shall certainly receive diverse and contradictory answers. For a few among them, indeed, have kept the full doctrine and the full faith concerning the person of our Redeemer; but others, if in a manner they affirm something like it, yet they seem to savour of vaporous scents whose reality is departed. For they set Jesus Christ before us as a man endowed with divine gifts and in a mysterious manner united to the Divinity beyond all others and very near to God; but they are far removed from the full and sincere profession of the Catholic faith. Others again, recognising nothing of the Divine in Christ, profess that He is a mere man, adorned indeed with excellent gifts of soul and body, but subject to errors and to human infirmity. From which it is clearly seen that all these, no less than Nestorius, make a temerarious attempt to "dissolve Christ," and that, therefore, on the testimony of John the Evangelist, they are not of God (cf. 1 John iv. 3).
36. Wherefore, with a fatherly heart, from the summit of this Apostolic See, We exhort all those who glory in being the followers of Christ, and who place in Him their own hope and salvation and that of human society, that they should ever join themselves more firmly and more closely to this Roman Church, in which alone Christ is believed in with whole and perfect faith, is worshipped with the sincere worship of adoration, and is beloved with the perpetual flame of burning charity. Let them remember, and in particular those who preside over a flock separated from Us, that the faith which their fathers solemnly professed at Ephesus is preserved unchanged and is strenuously defended, as in past ages so also in the present, by this supreme Chair of Truth. Let them remember that the unity of this genuine faith rests and stands firm only on the one rock set by Christ, and can be preserved safe and intact by the supreme authority of the successors of Blessed Peter.
37. We spoke more fully, indeed, on this unity of the Catholic religion, a few years ago, in Our Encyclical letter Mortalium animos; still it may be useful to recall the matter briefly here; for the hypostatic union of Christ, solemnly confirmed in the Synod of Ephesus, bears and sets before us the image of that unity with which our Redeemer willed that His mystical body, that is to say the Church, should be adorned; "one body" (I Corinthians xii. 12) "compacted and fitly joined together" (Ephesians iv. 16). For if the personal unity of Christ is the mystical exemplar to which He Himself willed that the union of Christian society should be conformed, every wise man will see that this can only arise, not from any pretended conjunction of many disagreeing among themselves, but from one hierarchy, from one supreme teaching authority, from one law of believing, and from one faith of Christians. (See the Encyclical Letter Mortalium animos.) To this unity of the Church, consisting in communion with the Apostolic See, Philip, the Legate of the Roman Bishop, bore admirable testimony in the Synod of Ephesus; for when the Fathers of the Council, with one voice, were applauding the letters sent by Celestine, he addressed them in these memorable words: "We give thanks to the holy and venerable Synod that, when the letters of our holy Pope were recited, as holy members by your holy voices and exclamations, ye joined yourselves to the Holy Head. For your beatitude is not ignorant that the Blessed Peter is the head of the whole faith, as also of the Apostles." (Mans, I.c. IV 1290.)
38. But if at any time, now more than ever, does it behove all the good to bind themselves by a sincere profession of faith to Jesus Christ and to the Church, His mystical Bride, now when so many men everywhere are striving to cast off the sweet yoke of Christ, when they reject the light of His doctrine, spurn the streams of His grace, and repudiate the divine authority of Him who has become, according to the words of the Gospel, "a sign which shall be contradicted" (Luke ii. 34). And now, since numberless and daily growing evils come forth from this lamentable falling away from Christ, let all seek an opportune remedy from Him who alone under heaven has been given to men whereby we must be saved (Acts iv. 12). For it is in this way only, when the Sacred Heart of Jesus inspires the minds of mortal men, that happier times can arise for each of us one by one, for family life, and for civil society, at present so sadly disturbed.
29. For we are taught, by Holy Scripture and by Divine Tradition, that the Word of God the Father did not join Himself to a certain man already subsisting in Himself, but that Christ the Word of God is one and the same, enjoying eternity in the bosom of the Father, and made man in time. For, indeed, that the Godhead and Manhood in Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of mankind, are bound together by that wondrous union which is justly and deservedly called hypostatic, is luminously evident from the fact that in the Sacred Scriptures the same one Christ is not only called God and man, but it is also clearly declared that He works as God and also as man, and again that He dies as man and as God He arises from the dead. That is to say, He who is conceived in the Virgin's womb by the operation of the Holy Ghost, who is born, who lies in a manger, who calls Himself the son of man, who suffers and dies, fastened to the cross, is the very same who, in a solemn and marvellous manner, is called by the Eternal Father "my beloved Son" (Matthew iii. 17; xvii. 5; 2 Peter i. 17), who pardons sins by His divine authority (Matt. ix. 2-6; Luke v. 20-24; vii. 48; and elsewhere), and likewise by His own power recalls the sick to health (Matt. viii. 3; Mark i. and 41; Luke v. 13; John ix; and elsewhere). As all these things show clearly that in Christ there are natures by which both divine and human works are performed, so do they bear witness no less clearly that the one Christ is at once both God and man because of that unity of person from which He is called "Theanthropos" (God-Man).
30. Moreover, this doctrine which has ever been handed down may be proved and con firmed, as all can see, from the dogma of man's Redemption. For how indeed could Christ be
called "the firstborn among many brethren" (Romans viii. 29), or be wounded because of our iniquities (Isaias liii. 5; Matt. viii. 17), and redeem us from the servitude of sin, unless He had a human nature like as we have? And so, too, how could He make perfect satisfaction to the justice of the Heavenly Father which had been violated by mankind, unless He possessed an immense and infinite dignity by reason of His Divine Person?
31. Nor can this point of Catholic truth be disputed on the ground that, if our Redeemer had no human person, then it would seem that some perfection would be wanting to His human nature, which would make Him as man less than we are. For as it is acutely and sagaciously observed by Aquinas, "personality pertains to the dignity and perfection of any thing in so far as it pertains to the dignity and perfection of any thing that it should exist by itself, which is what we understand by the name of personality; but there is more dignity in any thing if it exists in another of greater dignity than itself, than if it existed by itself, and therefore there is more dignity in the human nature of Christ than in ours, on this very ground, that in us it has its own personality, as existing by itself, but in Christ it exists in the person of the Word; even as it pertains to the dignity of a form to be completive of the species; nevertheless, the sensitive is more noble in man, because of the conjunction with the more noble completive form, than it can be in a brute animal, in which it is itself the completive form." (Summ. Theol., III. ii. 2.)
32. Moreover, it may be worth while to remark here that, just as Arius, that most crafty subverter of Catholic unity, attacked the Word's Divine nature consubstantial to the Eternal Father, so Nestorius, taking quite another way, namely by rejecting the Redeemer's hypostatic union, denied the full and perfect divinity of Christ, though not of the Word. For if, as he wrongly imagined, it was only by a moral union that the divine and human nature were joined together in Christ-to which, indeed, as We have said, the prophets, also, and the other heroes of Christian sanctity, have in some manner attained, according to their respective union with God-the Saviour of mankind would differ but little, or not at all, from those whom He redeemed by His grace and by His precious blood. Thus, when once the doctrine of the hypostatic union is abandoned, whereon the dogmas of the Incarnation and of man's Redemption rest and stand firm, the whole foundation of the Catholic religion falls and comes to ruin. Wherefore, we do not wonder that, when the peril of the Nestorian heresy arose, the whole Catholic world was shaken: We do not wonder that, when the Bishop of Constantinople rashly and wrongly opposed the faith of the fathers, the Synod of Ephesus keenly contended against him, and carrying out the sentence of the Roman Pontiff, struck him down with a dire anathema.
33. We, therefore, in full accordance with all the ages of Christian history, venerate the Redeemer of mankind not as "Elias . . . or one of the Prophets," in whom the heavenly Godhead dwelt by His grace, but together with the Prince of the Apostles, who knew this mystery by divine revelation, we make profession with one voice: "Thou are Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matt. xvi. 16.)
34. When once this dogma of the truth is securely established, it is easy to gather from it that by the mystery of the Incamation the whole creation of men and of mundane things has been endowed with a dignity than which, certainly, nothing greater can be imagined, and surely grander than that to which it was raised by the work of creation. For here in the race of Adam we have one, namely Christ, who has attained unto the eternal and infinite Godhead, and is joined thereto in a most close and mysterious manner; Christ, indeed, we call our brother, endowed with human nature, but also God with us, or Emmanuel, who by His grace and His merits, draws us all back to our divine Author and also recalls us to that heavenly beatitude from which we had miserably fallen away by original sin. Let us, therefore, turn to Him with a thankful heart; let us follow His precepts; let us imitate His examples. For thus shall we become sharers of His divinity "who deigned to become a partaker of our humanity" (Roman Missal).
35. But if, as We have said, at all times throughout the course of ages, the true Church of Christ has most diligently defended this genuine and uncorrupted doctrine concerning the personal unity and the divinity of her Founder, it has not been so, alas! with those who wander unhappily outside the one fold of Christ. For whenever anyone pertinaciously withdraws himself from the infallible teaching authority of the Church, We grieve to say that he gradually loses the true and certain doctrine concerning Jesus Christ. And, indeed, with regard to the many and various religious sects, especially those dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which still bear the Christian name, and which, at the beginning of their separation, firmly professed that Christ is God and man; if we ask them now what they hold about Him, we shall certainly receive diverse and contradictory answers. For a few among them, indeed, have kept the full doctrine and the full faith concerning the person of our Redeemer; but others, if in a manner they affirm something like it, yet they seem to savour of vaporous scents whose reality is departed. For they set Jesus Christ before us as a man endowed with divine gifts and in a mysterious manner united to the Divinity beyond all others and very near to God; but they are far removed from the full and sincere profession of the Catholic faith. Others again, recognising nothing of the Divine in Christ, profess that He is a mere man, adorned indeed with excellent gifts of soul and body, but subject to errors and to human infirmity. From which it is clearly seen that all these, no less than Nestorius, make a temerarious attempt to "dissolve Christ," and that, therefore, on the testimony of John the Evangelist, they are not of God (cf. 1 John iv. 3).
36. Wherefore, with a fatherly heart, from the summit of this Apostolic See, We exhort all those who glory in being the followers of Christ, and who place in Him their own hope and salvation and that of human society, that they should ever join themselves more firmly and more closely to this Roman Church, in which alone Christ is believed in with whole and perfect faith, is worshipped with the sincere worship of adoration, and is beloved with the perpetual flame of burning charity. Let them remember, and in particular those who preside over a flock separated from Us, that the faith which their fathers solemnly professed at Ephesus is preserved unchanged and is strenuously defended, as in past ages so also in the present, by this supreme Chair of Truth. Let them remember that the unity of this genuine faith rests and stands firm only on the one rock set by Christ, and can be preserved safe and intact by the supreme authority of the successors of Blessed Peter.
37. We spoke more fully, indeed, on this unity of the Catholic religion, a few years ago, in Our Encyclical letter Mortalium animos; still it may be useful to recall the matter briefly here; for the hypostatic union of Christ, solemnly confirmed in the Synod of Ephesus, bears and sets before us the image of that unity with which our Redeemer willed that His mystical body, that is to say the Church, should be adorned; "one body" (I Corinthians xii. 12) "compacted and fitly joined together" (Ephesians iv. 16). For if the personal unity of Christ is the mystical exemplar to which He Himself willed that the union of Christian society should be conformed, every wise man will see that this can only arise, not from any pretended conjunction of many disagreeing among themselves, but from one hierarchy, from one supreme teaching authority, from one law of believing, and from one faith of Christians. (See the Encyclical Letter Mortalium animos.) To this unity of the Church, consisting in communion with the Apostolic See, Philip, the Legate of the Roman Bishop, bore admirable testimony in the Synod of Ephesus; for when the Fathers of the Council, with one voice, were applauding the letters sent by Celestine, he addressed them in these memorable words: "We give thanks to the holy and venerable Synod that, when the letters of our holy Pope were recited, as holy members by your holy voices and exclamations, ye joined yourselves to the Holy Head. For your beatitude is not ignorant that the Blessed Peter is the head of the whole faith, as also of the Apostles." (Mans, I.c. IV 1290.)
38. But if at any time, now more than ever, does it behove all the good to bind themselves by a sincere profession of faith to Jesus Christ and to the Church, His mystical Bride, now when so many men everywhere are striving to cast off the sweet yoke of Christ, when they reject the light of His doctrine, spurn the streams of His grace, and repudiate the divine authority of Him who has become, according to the words of the Gospel, "a sign which shall be contradicted" (Luke ii. 34). And now, since numberless and daily growing evils come forth from this lamentable falling away from Christ, let all seek an opportune remedy from Him who alone under heaven has been given to men whereby we must be saved (Acts iv. 12). For it is in this way only, when the Sacred Heart of Jesus inspires the minds of mortal men, that happier times can arise for each of us one by one, for family life, and for civil society, at present so sadly disturbed.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
LUX VERITATIS - ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUX XI ON THE ECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF EPHESUS
History, the light of truth, and the witness of the ages, if only it be rightly discerned and diligently examined, teaches us that the divine promise of Jesus Christ: "I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world" (Matthew xxviii, 20), has never failed the Church His Bride, and therefore that it will never fail her in time to come. Nay, further, the more turbulent the waves by which the divine bark of Peter is tossed, in the course of ages, the more present and powerful is her experience of the help of heavenly grace. This happened more especially in the first age of the Church, not only when the Christian name was regarded as an execrable crime, to be punished by death, but also when the genuine faith of Christ, confounded by the perfidy of the heretics who were spreading, chiefly in the eastern regions, was placed in grave jeopardy. For even as the persecutors of the Catholic name, one after another, perished miserably, and the Roman Empire itself came to ruin, so all the heretics, as withered branches (cf. John xv, 6) torn from the divine vine, could neither drink the sap of life nor bring forth fruit.
2. The Church of God, on the contrary, in the midst of so many storms and the vicissitudes of things that perish, trusting in God alone, has ever gone on her way, with firm, secure steps, and has never ceased from her strenuous defence of the integrity of the sacred deposit of Gospel truth, entrusted to her by her Founder.
3. These things come to our mind, Venerable Brethren, when we are about to speak to you, in these letters, concerning that most auspicious event, namely, the Ecumenical Synod which was held at Ephesus, fifteen hundred years ago; for there, assuredly, the crafty perversity of those who erred was exposed, and there, too, was manifest the most firm faith of the Church upheld by heavenly aid.
4. We know, indeed, that two Committees of distinguished men have been set up, at Our desire, to secure that this centenary commemoration may be worthily celebrated not only here in the city which is the capital of the Catholic world, but also among all nations. (See the letter to the most eminent Cardinals, B. Pompili and A. Sincero, December 25, 1930. Acta Apostolicae Sedis, Vol. XXIII, pp. 10-12). And we are well aware that those to whom we have committed this special office have spared no care and labour and have used every effort to secure its successful accomplishment. These generous efforts have, almost everywhere, met with a willing and spontaneous response, with remarkable unanimity, from both Pastors and people; all which is a matter for heartfelt congratulation, because we are confident that it will prove to be a source of no mean benefits to the cause of Catholicism.
5. But when we carefully consider this event and all the facts and circumstances connected therewith, we feel that it becomes the office commited to Us by God, that We Ourselves should speak with you in these Encyclical Letters concerning this most important matter, before the end of the celebration, and just when we have come again to the sacred season when the Blessed Virgin Mary brought forth our Saviour for us. For We cherish a good hope that not only will these words of ours be pleasing and profitable to you and to your flock; but also that if the same are considered and weighed by some of those who differ from the Apostolic See, brethren and sons most dear to us, moved thereto by the desire of the truth, it may well be that, taught by history the guide of life, they will at least be affected by a longing, or nostalgia, for the one fold and the one Shepherd, and for embracing that genuine faith which is ever preserved safe and whole in the Roman Church. For in the plan which the fathers of the council followed in their attack on the Nestorian heresy, and in the whole celebration of the Ephesian Synod, three dogmas of the Catholic religion, with which we are chiefly concerned here, were luminously manifest to the eyes of all; namely, that there is one person in Jesus Christ and this is Divine; that the Blessed Virgin Mary is to be acknowledged and venerated by all as really and truly the Mother of God; and likewise that in matters of faith and morals, the Roman Pontiff has a God-given authority, supreme, high, and subject to none over all and several faithful Christians.
6. Wherefore, let us pursue the subject in order, taking as our beginning the doctrine and the admonition which the Apostle of the Gentiles addressed to the Ephesians: "Until we all meet into the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ: That henceforth we be no more children tossed to and from, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive. But doing the truth in charity, we may in all things grow up in Him who is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body being compacted and fitly joined together, by what ever joint supplieth, according to the operation in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edi*ing of itself in charity." (Ephesians iv, 13-16.)
7. Now, even as the Fathers of the Synod of Ephesus followed these apostolic injunctions by that wonderful union of minds, so we would fain have all, without distinction, and laying aside prejudiced opinions, take these words as addressed to themselves and happily put them into practice.
8. As all know, Nestorius was the author of the whole controversy; not that he had produced a new doctrine by his own ingenuity and study; for he had, rather, borrowed it from Theodore the Mopsuestine Bishop; and having developed it more fully, and clothed it with an appearance of novelty, with a great apparatus of words and sentences-for he was gifted with a flow of eloquence-he began to proclaim it, and used every effort to spread it abroad. Born at Germanicia, a town in Syria, he went to Antioch as a youth, in order that he be educated there in sacred and profane learning. In this city, which was very famous in that age, he first of all entered the monastic life; and then left it, from mobility of mind; and being made a priest, gave himself wholly to the office of preaching, desiring the applause of men rather than the glory of God. But the fame of his eloquence so affected the people, and spread so far and wide, that he was called to Constantinople, which was then widowed of its Pastor: and, amid great expectations on the part of all, he was raised to the episcopal dignity. Seated in this famous See, far from abandoning his novel doctrine, he persisted in teaching it and propagating it, with greater authority and more arrogance of mind.
9. In order that the case may be rightly understood it may be well to touch briefly on the chief points of the Nestorian heresy. For that arrogant man, thinking that two whole hypostases, namely, that of Jesus which was human and that of the Word which was divine, came together in one "prosopon," as he called it, denied that wondrous and substantial union of the two natures which we call hypostatic; and for this reason he asserted that the Only begotten Word of God was not made man but was in human flesh, by indwelling, by good pleasure and by the power of operation. Wherefore he was to be called "Theophoros," or God-bearer, in much the same way as prophets and other holy men can be called God-bearers by reason of the divine grace imparted to them.
10. From these perverse novelties of Nestorius it was an easy step to recognize two persons in Christ, one divine and the other human; and it followed further by necessity that the Blessed Virgin Mary was not truly the Mother of God or Theotocos; but was, rather, the Mother of the man Christ, or Christotocos, or at most Theodocos; that is to say, the receiver of God (cf. Mansi Conciliorum Amplissima Collectio IV, I.c. 1007; Schwartz, Acta Conciliorum Ecumenicorum, 1, 5, p. 408).
11. These evil dogmas, which were not taught now covertly and obscurely by a private individual, but were openly and plainly prodaimed by the Bishop of the Constantinopolitan See himself, caused a very great disturbance of the minds of men, more especially in the Eastern Church. And among the opponents of the Nestorian heresy, some of whom were found in the capital city of the Eastern Empire, the foremost place was undoubtedly taken by that most holy man, the champion of Catholic integrity, Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria. For as he was most zealous in his care of his own sons and likewise in that of erring brethren, he had no sooner heard of the perverse opinion of the Bishop of Constantinople than he strenuously defended the orthodox faith in the presence of his own flock, and also addressed letters to Nestorius and endeavoured in the manner of a brother to lead him back to the rule of Catholic truth.
12. But when the hardened pertinacity of Nestorius had frustrated this charitable attempt, Cyril, who understood and strenuously maintained the authority of the Roman Church, would not himself take further steps, or pass sentence in such a very grave matter, until he had first applied to the Apostolic See and had ascertained its decision. Accordingly he addressed most dutiful letters to "the most blessed Father Celestine, beloved of God," wherein among other things he writes as follows: "The ancient custom of the Churches admonishes us that matters of this kind should be communicated to Your Holiness. . . " (Mansi, l.c. IV. 1011.) "But we do not openly and publicly forsake his Communion (i.e. Nestorius') before indicating these things to your piety. Vouchsafe, therefore, to prescribe what you feel in this matter so that it may be clearly known to us whether we must communicate with him or whether we should freely declare to him that no one can communicate with one who cherishes and preaches suchlike erroneous doctrine. Furthermore, the mind of Your Integrity and your judgment on this matter should be clearly set forth in letters to the Bishops of Macedonia, who are most pious and devoted to God, and likewise to the Prelates of all the East." (Mansi, l.c. IV. 1015.)
13. Nor was Nestorius ignorant of the supreme authority of the Roman Bishop over the universal Church, for more than once in letters addressed to Celestine he attempted to justify his own teaching and to prevent the mind of the most holy Pontiff and win it over to himself. But all in vain; for the ill-considered words of the heresiarch contained serious errors, and when once the Bishop of the Apostolic See clearly discerned them he forthwith applied his hand to a remedy, and lest the plague of heresy should become more perilous through delay he had them examined by a synodical judgment and solemnly condemned them, and decreed that they must be condemned by all.
14. And here, Venerable Brethren, We would have you consider carefully how much the Roman Pontiff's manner of acting in this case differed from that which had been followed by the Bishop of Alexandria. For the latter, although he occupied the See which was held to be the first in the Eastern Church, would not, as we have said, decide a very grave controversy concerning the Catholic faith for himself before he had certain knowledge of judgment of the Apostolic See. Celestine, on the contrary, having summoned a Roman Synod and weighed the matter maturely in virtue of his supreme and absolute authority over the whole of the Lord's flock, made and solemnly sanctioned these decrees concerning the Bishop of Constantinople: "Know clearly, therefore," he wrote to Nestorius, "that this is Our judgment: that unless you preach concerning Christ our God those things which are held by the Romans, the Alexandrian and the whole Catholic Church, and which the holy Church of the City of Constantinople most rightly held up till your time; and unless you shall condemn in an open and written confession this perfidious novelty which seeks to separate that which the venerable Scripture joins together; within ten days, to be numbered from the first day on which this decision becomes known to you, you are cast out from the communion of the Universal Catholic Church. We have sent this form of Our judgment to you by Our said son, the deacon Possidonius, together with all the documents addressed to Our holy brother priest, the aforesaid Bishop of the city of Alexandria, who has given us further information on this matter; we have sent these so that he may act in Our place so that Our statute may be known, whether to you or to all the brethren; for all ought to know what is being done in a matter wherein the cause of all is concerned." (Mansi, I.c. IV. 1034 sq.)
15. The Roman Pontiff ordered the Patriarch of Alexandria to execute his sentence in the following grave words: "Wherefore in virtue of the authority of Our See, and acting in Our stead, you will strictly enforce this sentence that he must either within ten days to be numbered from the day of this decision condemn his evil preachments in a written profession, and prove that he holds the same faith concerning the birth of Christ our God which is held by the Roman Church and that of your holiness and by the devotion of all; or if he will not do this, then your holiness to make provision for that Church, must know that he must by all means be removed from our body." (Migne, P.L. 50, 463; cf. Mans, I.c. IV. 1019 sq.)
16. But some writers of the past age and of more recent days, seeking to evade the luminous authority of the documents which we have cited, have given the following account of the whole matter, which they often set forth in somewhat arrogant fashion. It may be granted, they say readily, that the Roman Pontiff issued a peremptory and absolute judgment which the Bishop of Alexandria had provoked in his animosity for Nestorius, and which he very gladly made his own; none the less, the council afterwards summoned at Ephesus took the matter already judged and together condemned by the Apostolic See, and judged it afresh from the beginning and decreed by its supreme authority what must be believed about it by all. From this they say it may be gathered that an Ecumenical Council is possessed of rights altogether more powerful and more valid than the authority of the Roman Bishop.
17. But in this they have constructed a fabric of falsehood clothed with a specious appearance of truth. This may be readily seen by any one who, laying aside preconceived opinions, looks at the faithful record of fact and diligently examines the documentary evidence. For, in the first place, it must be observed that when the Emperor Theodosius, acting also in the name of his colleague Valentinian, summoned the Ecumenical Council, the judgment of Celestine had not yet arrived at Constantinople, and nothing was known about it there. Moreover, when Celestine found that a Synod at Ephesus had been ordered by the Emperors, he made no manner of objection against it; nay, more, in letters to Theodosius (Mansi, I.c. IV. 1291) and to the Bishop of Alexandria (Mansi, I.c. IV. 1292) he both praised this proposal and delegated and proclaimed his legates who were to preside at the Council, namely, the Patriarch Cyril, the Bishops Arcadius and Projectus, and the Priest Philip. But by acting thus the Pontiff did not leave an unjudged case to the decision of the Council; but, as he said himself, the things which he had already decreed (Mansi, I.c. IV. 1287) were still to remain, and he ordered the Fathers of the Council to execute the sentence passed by himself, yet so that, by taking counsel together, and offering prayers to God, they were to strive, as far as possible, to bring back the erring Bishop of Constantinople to the unity of the faith. Thus, when Cyril asked the Pontiff how he was to act in this matter, that is to say, "whether the holy Synod ought to receive the man on his condemning the things which he had preached, or whether, because the appointed time had now run out, the sentence long since passed must abide," Celestine answered as follows: "It is for your holiness, together with the venerable council of brethren, to see that the disturbances that have arisen in the Church may be repressed, and when by the help of God the matter is finished, We may learn this from the correction which has been decided. We do not say that We are absent from your assembly; for We cannot be absent from those with whom, wheresoever they may be, We are joined together by one faith. . . We are there because We are thinking that which is being done there for all; We do that spiritually which We seem not to do in a bodily manner. We yearn for Catholic peace; We yearn for the salvation of him who is perishing, yet so if he will but confess his sickness. We say this that We may not seem to be wanting to one who is willing to correct himself. May he prove that We do not have feet swift to shed blood, when he knows that a remedy is offered also to him." (Mansi, l.c. IV. 1292.)
18. But if these words of Celestine show us his fatherly heart, and make it abundantly clear that he desired nothing more earnestly than that the light of the true faith should illuminate the eyes that were blinded, and that he would rejoice when those who were in error came back to the Church, at the same time, the instructions which he gave to his Legates, when they were setting out for Ephesus, prove how great was the Pontiff's care and solicitude in bidding them preserve the divinely given rights of the Roman See safe and intact. Thus, among other things, he says: "We command you that the authority of the Apostolic See ought to be safeguarded; for the instructions delivered to you tell you this, that you are to be present in the assembly, and if they come to a discussion you are to judge of their opinions but are not to engage in the contest." (Mansi, 1.c. IV. 556.)
19. And the Legates acted in this way with the assent of the Fathers of the sacred Synod. For, following firmly and faithfully the aforesaid absolute commands of the Pontiff when they arrived at Ephesus after the first act was completed, they demanded that all the things decreed in the previous assembly should be submitted to them so that they might be confirmed and ratified in the name of the Apostolic See: "We pray you to order that all things that have been done in this holy Synod before our arrival may be shown to us, so that we also may confirm them according to the judgment of our blessed Pope and of this present holy Synod. . . " (Mansi, 1.c. IV. 1290.)
20. Philip the Priest also, in the presence of the whole Council, gave utterance to that excellent pronouncement on the Primacy of the Roman Church which is cited in the dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aetemus of the Vatican Council (Conc. Vatic. sess. IV. cap. 2): Namely: "No one doubts, as it was known in all ages, that the holy and most blessed Peter, the prince and head of the Apostles, the pillar of the faith, and the foundation of the Catholic Church, received from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of mankind, the keys of the kingdom; and the power of binding and loosing sins was given to him; and unto this time, and ever, he lives and exercises judgment in his successors." (Mansi, I.c. IV. 1295.)
21. What more need be said? Did the Fathers of the Ecumenical Council make any objection to this manner of acting adopted by Celestine and his Legates, or oppose it in any way? By no manner of means. On the contrary, written monuments remain which plainly show their own dutiful observance and reverence. For when, in the second session of the sacred synod, the Papal Legates, reading the letters of Celestine, said among other things: "In Our solicitude, We have sent to you our holy brothers and fellowpriests of one mind with Ourselves, those trustworthy men Arcadius and Projectus the Bishops, and Philip our Priest, that they may be present at what is being done, and may execute the things which have already been decreed by Us; whereunto we doubt not that your holiness will give your consent" (Mansi, 1.c., IV. 1287); the Fathers of the Council were so far from refusing this sentence as it were of a supreme judge that, praising it with one voice, they saluted the Roman Pontiff with these abundant acclamations: "This is a just judgment! The whole synod gives thanks to Celestine the new Paul, to Cyril the new Paul, to Celestine the guardian of the faith, to Celestine one at heart with the Synod, to Celestine the whole Synod gives thanks; there is one Celestine, one Cyril, one faith of the Synod, one faith of the whole world." (Mansi, 1.c., IV. 1287.)
22. But when they came to the condemnation and rejection of Nestorius, the same Fathers of the Council did not think that they were free to judge the whole cause afresh; but openly profess that they are prevented and compelled by the sentence of the Roman Pontiff: "Understanding that he (Nestorius) thinks and preaches impiously, and compelled by the sacred canons and by the letter of our most holy Father and fellowminister Celestine the Bishop of the Roman Church, we come of necessity, and with tears, to this lamentable sentence against him. Wherefore our Lord Jesus Christ, who was assailed by this
man's words of blasphemy, has declared, through this most holy Synod, that the said Nestorius is deprived of the Episcopal dignity, and is a stranger to the whole fellowship and company of Priests." (Mansi, 1.c. IV. 1294 sq.)
23. And in the second session of the Council, Firmus Bishop of Caesarea, in like manner, openly professed the same thing in these words: "The Apostolic and Holy See, through the letters of the most Holy Bishop Celestine, which he sent to the most religious Bishops, prescribed beforehand the judgment and rule concerning the present matter, which we also have followed; and because Nestorius, having been cited by us has not appeared, we have put that form in execution, declaring the canonical and apostolic judgment against him." (Mansi, 1.c., IV. 1287 sq.)
24. Now all the various documents which have been rehearsed by Us, one after another, prove so expressly and significantly that already, throughout the universal Church, there was a strong and common faith in the authority of the Roman Pontiff over the whole flock of Christ, an authority subject to no one and incapable of error, so that these things bring back to Our mind the clear and luminous words of Augustine, uttered a few years before this, concerning the judgment passed by Pope Zosimus against the Pelagians in his Epistula Tractatoria: "In these words of the Apostolic See, the Catholic faith is so venerable, so firmly founded, so certain and so clear, that it were impious for a Christian to doubt of it." (Epist. 190; Corpus Scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, 57, p. 159 sq.)
25. Would that that most holy Bishop of Hippo could have been present at the Synod of Ephesus; how much his marvellously acute intellect, perceiving the dividing line in the discussions, would have illustrated the dogmas of Catholic truth, and how he would have defended them with all his strength of mind! But when the imperial legates, bearing the letters of invitation, arrived at Hippo, there was nothing left them to do but to lament that that great luminary of Christian wisdom was extinguished and that his See was laid waste by the Vandals.
26. We are well aware, Venerable Brethren, that some of those who, especially in the present age, devote themselves to historical research, use every effort to clear Nestorius from the stain of heresy; and that they also accuse the most holy Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, of unjust animosity, saying that, because Nestorius was obnoxious to him, he calumniated him and strove with all his strength to procure his condemnation for things which he had never taught. Our most blessed predecessor Celestine, whose simplicity is said to have been abused by Cyril, and the holy Synod of Ephesus also, are involved in this most grave accusation by these defenders of the Bishop of Constantinople.
27. The Church, however, protests against this futile and temerarious attempt; for she has at all times acknowledged the condemnation of Nestorius as rightly and deservedly decreed; and has regarded the doctrine of Cyril as orthodox; and has counted the Council of Ephesus among the Ecumenical Synods, celebrated under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and has held it in veneration. For, to omit very many luminous monuments of documentary evidence, all know, assuredly, that many associates of Nestorius, who had seen with their own eyes the whole course of events, and who had no friendly intimacy with Cyril: despite the fact that they were drawn to the opposite side, by their friendship with Nestorius, by the great charm of his writings, and by the very heat engendered in the disputations; nevertheless, after the Synod of Ephesus, moved as it were by the light of truth, gradually deserted the heretical Bishop of Constantinople, who by the just law of the Church was to be avoided. Some of these were certainly still living when Our predecessor of happy memory, Leo the Great, wrote in these terms to Paschasinus, Bishop of Lilybeta, and his own legate to the Council of Chalcedon: "Know that the whole Church of Constantinople, with all its monasteries and many Bishops, has given its consent, and has subscribed to the anathematization of Nestorius and Eutyches and their dogmas" (Mansi, 1.c. VI. 124); but in his dogmatic letter to the Emperor Leo, he quite openly rebukes Nestorius as a heretic and a teacher of heresy, without any one gainsaying it; for he says: "Let Nestorius, therefore, be anathematized, who believed the Blessed Virgin Mary to be the mother, not of God, but of man only, so that he made one person of the flesh, and another of the Godhead, and did not perceive that there was but one Christ, in the Word of God and in the flesh; but preached separately and severally one the Son of God, and the other of man." (Mansi, 1.c. VI. 351-354.) The same thing, as every one knows,
was solemnly sanctioned by the Council of Chalcedon, when it condemned Nestorius again, and praised the teaching of Cyril. And Our most holy predecessor Gregory the Great, when he had just been raised to the Chair of Blessed Peter, in his synodical letter to the Eastern Churches, having mentioned these four Ecumenical Councils, namely, those of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, speaks of them in these words of great moment and nobility: " . . . On these, as on a four square stone, the structure of the holy faith arises; and of whatever life or office he may be, whosoever does not hold their solidity, even though he is seen to be a stone, yet he lieth outside the edifice." (Migne, P.L. 77, 478; cf. Mansi, l.c. IX. 1048.) Wherefore all should hold it as certain that Nestorius really preached heretical novelties; that the Patriarch of Alexandria was a strenuous defender of the Catholic faith; and that the Pontiff Celestine, together with the Synod of Ephesus, maintained both the ancient doctrine of the fathers and the supreme authority of the Apostolic See.
2. The Church of God, on the contrary, in the midst of so many storms and the vicissitudes of things that perish, trusting in God alone, has ever gone on her way, with firm, secure steps, and has never ceased from her strenuous defence of the integrity of the sacred deposit of Gospel truth, entrusted to her by her Founder.
3. These things come to our mind, Venerable Brethren, when we are about to speak to you, in these letters, concerning that most auspicious event, namely, the Ecumenical Synod which was held at Ephesus, fifteen hundred years ago; for there, assuredly, the crafty perversity of those who erred was exposed, and there, too, was manifest the most firm faith of the Church upheld by heavenly aid.
4. We know, indeed, that two Committees of distinguished men have been set up, at Our desire, to secure that this centenary commemoration may be worthily celebrated not only here in the city which is the capital of the Catholic world, but also among all nations. (See the letter to the most eminent Cardinals, B. Pompili and A. Sincero, December 25, 1930. Acta Apostolicae Sedis, Vol. XXIII, pp. 10-12). And we are well aware that those to whom we have committed this special office have spared no care and labour and have used every effort to secure its successful accomplishment. These generous efforts have, almost everywhere, met with a willing and spontaneous response, with remarkable unanimity, from both Pastors and people; all which is a matter for heartfelt congratulation, because we are confident that it will prove to be a source of no mean benefits to the cause of Catholicism.
5. But when we carefully consider this event and all the facts and circumstances connected therewith, we feel that it becomes the office commited to Us by God, that We Ourselves should speak with you in these Encyclical Letters concerning this most important matter, before the end of the celebration, and just when we have come again to the sacred season when the Blessed Virgin Mary brought forth our Saviour for us. For We cherish a good hope that not only will these words of ours be pleasing and profitable to you and to your flock; but also that if the same are considered and weighed by some of those who differ from the Apostolic See, brethren and sons most dear to us, moved thereto by the desire of the truth, it may well be that, taught by history the guide of life, they will at least be affected by a longing, or nostalgia, for the one fold and the one Shepherd, and for embracing that genuine faith which is ever preserved safe and whole in the Roman Church. For in the plan which the fathers of the council followed in their attack on the Nestorian heresy, and in the whole celebration of the Ephesian Synod, three dogmas of the Catholic religion, with which we are chiefly concerned here, were luminously manifest to the eyes of all; namely, that there is one person in Jesus Christ and this is Divine; that the Blessed Virgin Mary is to be acknowledged and venerated by all as really and truly the Mother of God; and likewise that in matters of faith and morals, the Roman Pontiff has a God-given authority, supreme, high, and subject to none over all and several faithful Christians.
6. Wherefore, let us pursue the subject in order, taking as our beginning the doctrine and the admonition which the Apostle of the Gentiles addressed to the Ephesians: "Until we all meet into the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ: That henceforth we be no more children tossed to and from, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive. But doing the truth in charity, we may in all things grow up in Him who is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body being compacted and fitly joined together, by what ever joint supplieth, according to the operation in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edi*ing of itself in charity." (Ephesians iv, 13-16.)
7. Now, even as the Fathers of the Synod of Ephesus followed these apostolic injunctions by that wonderful union of minds, so we would fain have all, without distinction, and laying aside prejudiced opinions, take these words as addressed to themselves and happily put them into practice.
8. As all know, Nestorius was the author of the whole controversy; not that he had produced a new doctrine by his own ingenuity and study; for he had, rather, borrowed it from Theodore the Mopsuestine Bishop; and having developed it more fully, and clothed it with an appearance of novelty, with a great apparatus of words and sentences-for he was gifted with a flow of eloquence-he began to proclaim it, and used every effort to spread it abroad. Born at Germanicia, a town in Syria, he went to Antioch as a youth, in order that he be educated there in sacred and profane learning. In this city, which was very famous in that age, he first of all entered the monastic life; and then left it, from mobility of mind; and being made a priest, gave himself wholly to the office of preaching, desiring the applause of men rather than the glory of God. But the fame of his eloquence so affected the people, and spread so far and wide, that he was called to Constantinople, which was then widowed of its Pastor: and, amid great expectations on the part of all, he was raised to the episcopal dignity. Seated in this famous See, far from abandoning his novel doctrine, he persisted in teaching it and propagating it, with greater authority and more arrogance of mind.
9. In order that the case may be rightly understood it may be well to touch briefly on the chief points of the Nestorian heresy. For that arrogant man, thinking that two whole hypostases, namely, that of Jesus which was human and that of the Word which was divine, came together in one "prosopon," as he called it, denied that wondrous and substantial union of the two natures which we call hypostatic; and for this reason he asserted that the Only begotten Word of God was not made man but was in human flesh, by indwelling, by good pleasure and by the power of operation. Wherefore he was to be called "Theophoros," or God-bearer, in much the same way as prophets and other holy men can be called God-bearers by reason of the divine grace imparted to them.
10. From these perverse novelties of Nestorius it was an easy step to recognize two persons in Christ, one divine and the other human; and it followed further by necessity that the Blessed Virgin Mary was not truly the Mother of God or Theotocos; but was, rather, the Mother of the man Christ, or Christotocos, or at most Theodocos; that is to say, the receiver of God (cf. Mansi Conciliorum Amplissima Collectio IV, I.c. 1007; Schwartz, Acta Conciliorum Ecumenicorum, 1, 5, p. 408).
11. These evil dogmas, which were not taught now covertly and obscurely by a private individual, but were openly and plainly prodaimed by the Bishop of the Constantinopolitan See himself, caused a very great disturbance of the minds of men, more especially in the Eastern Church. And among the opponents of the Nestorian heresy, some of whom were found in the capital city of the Eastern Empire, the foremost place was undoubtedly taken by that most holy man, the champion of Catholic integrity, Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria. For as he was most zealous in his care of his own sons and likewise in that of erring brethren, he had no sooner heard of the perverse opinion of the Bishop of Constantinople than he strenuously defended the orthodox faith in the presence of his own flock, and also addressed letters to Nestorius and endeavoured in the manner of a brother to lead him back to the rule of Catholic truth.
12. But when the hardened pertinacity of Nestorius had frustrated this charitable attempt, Cyril, who understood and strenuously maintained the authority of the Roman Church, would not himself take further steps, or pass sentence in such a very grave matter, until he had first applied to the Apostolic See and had ascertained its decision. Accordingly he addressed most dutiful letters to "the most blessed Father Celestine, beloved of God," wherein among other things he writes as follows: "The ancient custom of the Churches admonishes us that matters of this kind should be communicated to Your Holiness. . . " (Mansi, l.c. IV. 1011.) "But we do not openly and publicly forsake his Communion (i.e. Nestorius') before indicating these things to your piety. Vouchsafe, therefore, to prescribe what you feel in this matter so that it may be clearly known to us whether we must communicate with him or whether we should freely declare to him that no one can communicate with one who cherishes and preaches suchlike erroneous doctrine. Furthermore, the mind of Your Integrity and your judgment on this matter should be clearly set forth in letters to the Bishops of Macedonia, who are most pious and devoted to God, and likewise to the Prelates of all the East." (Mansi, l.c. IV. 1015.)
13. Nor was Nestorius ignorant of the supreme authority of the Roman Bishop over the universal Church, for more than once in letters addressed to Celestine he attempted to justify his own teaching and to prevent the mind of the most holy Pontiff and win it over to himself. But all in vain; for the ill-considered words of the heresiarch contained serious errors, and when once the Bishop of the Apostolic See clearly discerned them he forthwith applied his hand to a remedy, and lest the plague of heresy should become more perilous through delay he had them examined by a synodical judgment and solemnly condemned them, and decreed that they must be condemned by all.
14. And here, Venerable Brethren, We would have you consider carefully how much the Roman Pontiff's manner of acting in this case differed from that which had been followed by the Bishop of Alexandria. For the latter, although he occupied the See which was held to be the first in the Eastern Church, would not, as we have said, decide a very grave controversy concerning the Catholic faith for himself before he had certain knowledge of judgment of the Apostolic See. Celestine, on the contrary, having summoned a Roman Synod and weighed the matter maturely in virtue of his supreme and absolute authority over the whole of the Lord's flock, made and solemnly sanctioned these decrees concerning the Bishop of Constantinople: "Know clearly, therefore," he wrote to Nestorius, "that this is Our judgment: that unless you preach concerning Christ our God those things which are held by the Romans, the Alexandrian and the whole Catholic Church, and which the holy Church of the City of Constantinople most rightly held up till your time; and unless you shall condemn in an open and written confession this perfidious novelty which seeks to separate that which the venerable Scripture joins together; within ten days, to be numbered from the first day on which this decision becomes known to you, you are cast out from the communion of the Universal Catholic Church. We have sent this form of Our judgment to you by Our said son, the deacon Possidonius, together with all the documents addressed to Our holy brother priest, the aforesaid Bishop of the city of Alexandria, who has given us further information on this matter; we have sent these so that he may act in Our place so that Our statute may be known, whether to you or to all the brethren; for all ought to know what is being done in a matter wherein the cause of all is concerned." (Mansi, I.c. IV. 1034 sq.)
15. The Roman Pontiff ordered the Patriarch of Alexandria to execute his sentence in the following grave words: "Wherefore in virtue of the authority of Our See, and acting in Our stead, you will strictly enforce this sentence that he must either within ten days to be numbered from the day of this decision condemn his evil preachments in a written profession, and prove that he holds the same faith concerning the birth of Christ our God which is held by the Roman Church and that of your holiness and by the devotion of all; or if he will not do this, then your holiness to make provision for that Church, must know that he must by all means be removed from our body." (Migne, P.L. 50, 463; cf. Mans, I.c. IV. 1019 sq.)
16. But some writers of the past age and of more recent days, seeking to evade the luminous authority of the documents which we have cited, have given the following account of the whole matter, which they often set forth in somewhat arrogant fashion. It may be granted, they say readily, that the Roman Pontiff issued a peremptory and absolute judgment which the Bishop of Alexandria had provoked in his animosity for Nestorius, and which he very gladly made his own; none the less, the council afterwards summoned at Ephesus took the matter already judged and together condemned by the Apostolic See, and judged it afresh from the beginning and decreed by its supreme authority what must be believed about it by all. From this they say it may be gathered that an Ecumenical Council is possessed of rights altogether more powerful and more valid than the authority of the Roman Bishop.
17. But in this they have constructed a fabric of falsehood clothed with a specious appearance of truth. This may be readily seen by any one who, laying aside preconceived opinions, looks at the faithful record of fact and diligently examines the documentary evidence. For, in the first place, it must be observed that when the Emperor Theodosius, acting also in the name of his colleague Valentinian, summoned the Ecumenical Council, the judgment of Celestine had not yet arrived at Constantinople, and nothing was known about it there. Moreover, when Celestine found that a Synod at Ephesus had been ordered by the Emperors, he made no manner of objection against it; nay, more, in letters to Theodosius (Mansi, I.c. IV. 1291) and to the Bishop of Alexandria (Mansi, I.c. IV. 1292) he both praised this proposal and delegated and proclaimed his legates who were to preside at the Council, namely, the Patriarch Cyril, the Bishops Arcadius and Projectus, and the Priest Philip. But by acting thus the Pontiff did not leave an unjudged case to the decision of the Council; but, as he said himself, the things which he had already decreed (Mansi, I.c. IV. 1287) were still to remain, and he ordered the Fathers of the Council to execute the sentence passed by himself, yet so that, by taking counsel together, and offering prayers to God, they were to strive, as far as possible, to bring back the erring Bishop of Constantinople to the unity of the faith. Thus, when Cyril asked the Pontiff how he was to act in this matter, that is to say, "whether the holy Synod ought to receive the man on his condemning the things which he had preached, or whether, because the appointed time had now run out, the sentence long since passed must abide," Celestine answered as follows: "It is for your holiness, together with the venerable council of brethren, to see that the disturbances that have arisen in the Church may be repressed, and when by the help of God the matter is finished, We may learn this from the correction which has been decided. We do not say that We are absent from your assembly; for We cannot be absent from those with whom, wheresoever they may be, We are joined together by one faith. . . We are there because We are thinking that which is being done there for all; We do that spiritually which We seem not to do in a bodily manner. We yearn for Catholic peace; We yearn for the salvation of him who is perishing, yet so if he will but confess his sickness. We say this that We may not seem to be wanting to one who is willing to correct himself. May he prove that We do not have feet swift to shed blood, when he knows that a remedy is offered also to him." (Mansi, l.c. IV. 1292.)
18. But if these words of Celestine show us his fatherly heart, and make it abundantly clear that he desired nothing more earnestly than that the light of the true faith should illuminate the eyes that were blinded, and that he would rejoice when those who were in error came back to the Church, at the same time, the instructions which he gave to his Legates, when they were setting out for Ephesus, prove how great was the Pontiff's care and solicitude in bidding them preserve the divinely given rights of the Roman See safe and intact. Thus, among other things, he says: "We command you that the authority of the Apostolic See ought to be safeguarded; for the instructions delivered to you tell you this, that you are to be present in the assembly, and if they come to a discussion you are to judge of their opinions but are not to engage in the contest." (Mansi, 1.c. IV. 556.)
19. And the Legates acted in this way with the assent of the Fathers of the sacred Synod. For, following firmly and faithfully the aforesaid absolute commands of the Pontiff when they arrived at Ephesus after the first act was completed, they demanded that all the things decreed in the previous assembly should be submitted to them so that they might be confirmed and ratified in the name of the Apostolic See: "We pray you to order that all things that have been done in this holy Synod before our arrival may be shown to us, so that we also may confirm them according to the judgment of our blessed Pope and of this present holy Synod. . . " (Mansi, 1.c. IV. 1290.)
20. Philip the Priest also, in the presence of the whole Council, gave utterance to that excellent pronouncement on the Primacy of the Roman Church which is cited in the dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aetemus of the Vatican Council (Conc. Vatic. sess. IV. cap. 2): Namely: "No one doubts, as it was known in all ages, that the holy and most blessed Peter, the prince and head of the Apostles, the pillar of the faith, and the foundation of the Catholic Church, received from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of mankind, the keys of the kingdom; and the power of binding and loosing sins was given to him; and unto this time, and ever, he lives and exercises judgment in his successors." (Mansi, I.c. IV. 1295.)
21. What more need be said? Did the Fathers of the Ecumenical Council make any objection to this manner of acting adopted by Celestine and his Legates, or oppose it in any way? By no manner of means. On the contrary, written monuments remain which plainly show their own dutiful observance and reverence. For when, in the second session of the sacred synod, the Papal Legates, reading the letters of Celestine, said among other things: "In Our solicitude, We have sent to you our holy brothers and fellowpriests of one mind with Ourselves, those trustworthy men Arcadius and Projectus the Bishops, and Philip our Priest, that they may be present at what is being done, and may execute the things which have already been decreed by Us; whereunto we doubt not that your holiness will give your consent" (Mansi, 1.c., IV. 1287); the Fathers of the Council were so far from refusing this sentence as it were of a supreme judge that, praising it with one voice, they saluted the Roman Pontiff with these abundant acclamations: "This is a just judgment! The whole synod gives thanks to Celestine the new Paul, to Cyril the new Paul, to Celestine the guardian of the faith, to Celestine one at heart with the Synod, to Celestine the whole Synod gives thanks; there is one Celestine, one Cyril, one faith of the Synod, one faith of the whole world." (Mansi, 1.c., IV. 1287.)
22. But when they came to the condemnation and rejection of Nestorius, the same Fathers of the Council did not think that they were free to judge the whole cause afresh; but openly profess that they are prevented and compelled by the sentence of the Roman Pontiff: "Understanding that he (Nestorius) thinks and preaches impiously, and compelled by the sacred canons and by the letter of our most holy Father and fellowminister Celestine the Bishop of the Roman Church, we come of necessity, and with tears, to this lamentable sentence against him. Wherefore our Lord Jesus Christ, who was assailed by this
man's words of blasphemy, has declared, through this most holy Synod, that the said Nestorius is deprived of the Episcopal dignity, and is a stranger to the whole fellowship and company of Priests." (Mansi, 1.c. IV. 1294 sq.)
23. And in the second session of the Council, Firmus Bishop of Caesarea, in like manner, openly professed the same thing in these words: "The Apostolic and Holy See, through the letters of the most Holy Bishop Celestine, which he sent to the most religious Bishops, prescribed beforehand the judgment and rule concerning the present matter, which we also have followed; and because Nestorius, having been cited by us has not appeared, we have put that form in execution, declaring the canonical and apostolic judgment against him." (Mansi, 1.c., IV. 1287 sq.)
24. Now all the various documents which have been rehearsed by Us, one after another, prove so expressly and significantly that already, throughout the universal Church, there was a strong and common faith in the authority of the Roman Pontiff over the whole flock of Christ, an authority subject to no one and incapable of error, so that these things bring back to Our mind the clear and luminous words of Augustine, uttered a few years before this, concerning the judgment passed by Pope Zosimus against the Pelagians in his Epistula Tractatoria: "In these words of the Apostolic See, the Catholic faith is so venerable, so firmly founded, so certain and so clear, that it were impious for a Christian to doubt of it." (Epist. 190; Corpus Scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, 57, p. 159 sq.)
25. Would that that most holy Bishop of Hippo could have been present at the Synod of Ephesus; how much his marvellously acute intellect, perceiving the dividing line in the discussions, would have illustrated the dogmas of Catholic truth, and how he would have defended them with all his strength of mind! But when the imperial legates, bearing the letters of invitation, arrived at Hippo, there was nothing left them to do but to lament that that great luminary of Christian wisdom was extinguished and that his See was laid waste by the Vandals.
26. We are well aware, Venerable Brethren, that some of those who, especially in the present age, devote themselves to historical research, use every effort to clear Nestorius from the stain of heresy; and that they also accuse the most holy Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, of unjust animosity, saying that, because Nestorius was obnoxious to him, he calumniated him and strove with all his strength to procure his condemnation for things which he had never taught. Our most blessed predecessor Celestine, whose simplicity is said to have been abused by Cyril, and the holy Synod of Ephesus also, are involved in this most grave accusation by these defenders of the Bishop of Constantinople.
27. The Church, however, protests against this futile and temerarious attempt; for she has at all times acknowledged the condemnation of Nestorius as rightly and deservedly decreed; and has regarded the doctrine of Cyril as orthodox; and has counted the Council of Ephesus among the Ecumenical Synods, celebrated under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and has held it in veneration. For, to omit very many luminous monuments of documentary evidence, all know, assuredly, that many associates of Nestorius, who had seen with their own eyes the whole course of events, and who had no friendly intimacy with Cyril: despite the fact that they were drawn to the opposite side, by their friendship with Nestorius, by the great charm of his writings, and by the very heat engendered in the disputations; nevertheless, after the Synod of Ephesus, moved as it were by the light of truth, gradually deserted the heretical Bishop of Constantinople, who by the just law of the Church was to be avoided. Some of these were certainly still living when Our predecessor of happy memory, Leo the Great, wrote in these terms to Paschasinus, Bishop of Lilybeta, and his own legate to the Council of Chalcedon: "Know that the whole Church of Constantinople, with all its monasteries and many Bishops, has given its consent, and has subscribed to the anathematization of Nestorius and Eutyches and their dogmas" (Mansi, 1.c. VI. 124); but in his dogmatic letter to the Emperor Leo, he quite openly rebukes Nestorius as a heretic and a teacher of heresy, without any one gainsaying it; for he says: "Let Nestorius, therefore, be anathematized, who believed the Blessed Virgin Mary to be the mother, not of God, but of man only, so that he made one person of the flesh, and another of the Godhead, and did not perceive that there was but one Christ, in the Word of God and in the flesh; but preached separately and severally one the Son of God, and the other of man." (Mansi, 1.c. VI. 351-354.) The same thing, as every one knows,
was solemnly sanctioned by the Council of Chalcedon, when it condemned Nestorius again, and praised the teaching of Cyril. And Our most holy predecessor Gregory the Great, when he had just been raised to the Chair of Blessed Peter, in his synodical letter to the Eastern Churches, having mentioned these four Ecumenical Councils, namely, those of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, speaks of them in these words of great moment and nobility: " . . . On these, as on a four square stone, the structure of the holy faith arises; and of whatever life or office he may be, whosoever does not hold their solidity, even though he is seen to be a stone, yet he lieth outside the edifice." (Migne, P.L. 77, 478; cf. Mansi, l.c. IX. 1048.) Wherefore all should hold it as certain that Nestorius really preached heretical novelties; that the Patriarch of Alexandria was a strenuous defender of the Catholic faith; and that the Pontiff Celestine, together with the Synod of Ephesus, maintained both the ancient doctrine of the fathers and the supreme authority of the Apostolic See.
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