We hold this marian symposium in Fatima, a sacred place where shepherd children communed with the Mother of God, and where the sun careened in the sky, confounding human certainties about what is possible and controllable. St. Augustine reminded us that all creation bears vestiges of the Trinity. Through human history, however, certain persons, places, and events, inexplicably chosen by divine intent, have occasioned deeper understanding of the mysteries of faith. Christ chose simple material things like bread, salt, and breakfast on a Galilean lakeshore to mark the giving of Revelation. In this sacramental place called Fatima, the Mother of God brought together ordinary shepherd tasks and a plummeting sun. In every era of history, there are concrete signs and events that open significant questions and evoke deeper understanding of the Faith.

I would like to begin with an analogy from our time that seems particularly apt for reflecting on Mary, Mediatrix, as exemplar for the contemporary world. It involves the launching of a military space vehicle, as told in simple layman's terms by the technician who worked on it. A few years ago, he had particular responsibility for deploying this military craft, worth billions of dollars. The vehicle was designed to be empowered with energy from the sun through what is known as triangulation. Triangulation means that the craft would be held in its orbit in relation to three entities: in this instance, two stars and the center of the earth. When it reached a designated altitude, the vehicle was designed to deploy panels sensitive to the sun, and obtain energy for its operation. On the day that the craft was launched, the panels opened as they were designed to do-but they immediately closed in again. From earth, there began a series of attempts to maintain the panels in an open position. There was only an eight-hour window of opportunity to accomplish this. After that, if the panels kept retracting, the mission would be lost, and the vehicle, a multi-billion dollar project, would simply be "space-junk." Six hours passed without success. It became clear, however, that the problem came from inside the vehicle itself. Something within it had a stronger attraction for the panels than one of the stars in the triangulation pattern. With only two hours remaining, the launchers re-constituted the triangulation pattern. An alternate star was selected that would have a stronger attraction for the craft than whatever small item inside it kept drawing the panels to itself. Before the eight hours elapsed, a new pattern was established, the panels remained open, and the mission could go forward.

This true account, the "stuff " of our age, offers a helpful analogy for naming major qualities of mediation, and the manner in which they are lived with such perfection in Mary, Mother of God. In this symposium, where we are always reflecting in the context of faith, any analogy from the realm of space technology will be partial-never adequate to the mystery in a quid pro quo manner.

Consider, however, four basic aspects of mediation to which the analogy points:

1) In triangulation, the possibility of genuine, effective mediation is triadic. Like all that is true (even a technical apparatus), it has its basis in the Mystery of Trinitarian Life.

2) Mediation involves being centered-a "being in the middle"-that provides an interface for communication, for exchange, for bringing others into union.

3) In creation, this requires matter-material bodies.

4) Since mediation conveys what is intended to be for the good of others, it must be authentic, respecting the truths of being.

It is through these four aspects that I would like to reflect today on Our Lady as Mediatrix, and to affirm how she is exemplar for contemporary cultures which so often lack these traits.

Even the military space vehicle, a non-human speck in the cosmos, was based on a trinitarian principle. So long as it opened itself to the triangulation pattern of two stars and the center of the earth, the sun could empower it. If relation to even one of these was severed-if something within proved more attractive, the craft was useless. Once closed in on itself, it could not receive the gift of the sun and be empowered to receive and communicate that for which it was made. It had been fashioned to receive and transmit (what the makers at least considered) to be for the good of others.

Before suggesting how these four aspects are helpful in understanding marian mediation, it is essential to state briefly how Our Lady's mediation is always understood in relation to her Son, The Mediator. Quoting Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, the Catechism of the Catholic Church [from here forward = CCC] speaks of Mary as the "Church's model of faith and charity," its " 'exemplary realization' (typus)."¹ Further, through her "wholly singular way" of cooperating in "the Savior's work of restoring supernatural life to souls ... she is a mother to us in the order of grace" (#968). In calling Mary Mediatrix, the Church celebrates and affirms that as sinless Mother of the Son of God, "her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation" (#969). Lumen Gentium says:

In the words of the apostle there is but one mediator: 'for there is but one God and one mediator of God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a redemption for all' (I Tim 2:5-6). But Mary's function as mother of men in no way obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power ... It flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on his mediation, depends entirely upon it and draws all its power from it ... No creature could ever be counted along with the Incarnate Word and Redeemer; but just as the priesthood of Christ is shared in various ways both by his ministers and the faithful, and as the one goodness of God is radiated in different ways among his creatures, so also the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a sharing in this one source. ²

Mary intercedes for us. In the Rosary, the prayer which Our Lady of Fatima specified as a way of seeking and receiving the gifts of conversion and unity, we ask her intercession again and again: "Pray for us, now and at the hour of our death." There is the (perhaps apocryphal) story that the question was posed to an assembly of bishops: "Why do we pray to Mary?" After extensive, wonderful explanations, the questioner suggested that "Basically, we pray to her 'that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.' " How often those familiar words are addressed to her! They are an all-inclusive prayer, asking Our Lady's intercession for worthiness to receive Christ's promises. In the Litany of the Blessed Mother, we ask under one title after another "pray for us." Why do we seek HER intercession? 

Mary's Person as Mediatrix

First, in and through Jesus Christ, Mary's mediation is rooted in the Trinity. As Lumen Gentium states: "[T]he Blessed Virgin's salutary influence on men originates not in any inner necessity but in the disposition of God. It flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on His mediation, depends entirely on it and draws all its power from it" (#60). In speaking of the Blessed Virgin in the plan of salvation, Lumen Gentium states that: "The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined mother ..." (#56). Further, "...it was customary for the Fathers to refer to the Mother of God as all holy and free from every stain of sin, as though fashioned by the Holy Spirit and formed as a new creature" (#56). With the Second Vatican Council, there was a great re-emphasis on the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, a plumbing anew of the perichoretic mystery that is inner trinitarian life, and its centrality in Christian faith. What a gift-that Lumen Gentium incorporates Mary within the exposition of the Church which "in Christ, is in the nature of sacrament-a sign and instrument-that is, of communion with God and of unity among all men" (#1).

Many of us have been to the Holy Land in recent years and have had the privilege of visiting the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth. The left wall of the basilica's upper church opens to several lower levels, where remnants of earlier churches over the holy site have been excavated and preserved. In looking down from the upper nave, the eye is led across and down several levels to earthen stairs and a small room with an altar. Beneath that altar is a circular stone marker inscribed with the words "Verbum caro factum est." In complement, behind the main altar of the upper church, is an immense mosaic which artistically interprets Lumen Gentium. How fitting that, in Nazareth, the sacred place of the Annunciation and the Incarnation, contemporary art interprets Lumen Gentium. The basilica at Nazareth celebrates the coinherence of the mysteries of faith and it marks the place where Our Lady became the living interface between divine and human life.

Our Lady's first unique privilege, her preservation from original sin from the first moment of her Conception, was gift from the Trinity, preparing her to receive in her body-person the Eternal Son of the Father, through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. Nothing separated her from trinitarian choice, self-gift, and presence. The Gospels first tell of Mary as a young woman of Nazareth, already betrothed and promised in marriage to Joseph ... and then the Angel Gabriel came. She was already "full of grace," a creature, yet mediatrix, through whom a Divine Person would enter into enfleshed, saving communion with humanity in need of redemption. As Pope Benedict XVI so recently reaffirmed: God is Love.

The Catechism says lyrically that "God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-and he has destined us to share in that exchange" (#221). This inner life of the Trinity is described by the term Perichoresis. It is, Boff wrote, the "interpenetration of one Person by the others ... Its first meaning is that of being contained in another, dwelling in, being in another ... Its second meaning is active and signifies the interpenetration or interweaving of one Person with the others and in the others." ³

Perhaps no one has theologized more profoundly and simply concerning inner trinitarian life than the twelfth century theologian Richard of St. Victor. In Chapter Three of his De Trinitate, he shows why the one God could not be a monad, or a dyad-why there must be Three Persons in God. It is a matter of perfect love. Perfect love cannot be turned in on itself. Neither can there be perfect love between two: sooner or later such love turns in on itself. Supreme, divine, mutual love will extend beyond, says Richard, to a "Third" who is mutually divine and equal:

Certainly in mutual and very fervent love nothing is rarer or more magnificent than to wish that another be loved equally by the one whom you love supremely, and by whom you are supremely loved ... Therefore it is necessary that each of those loved supremely and loving supremely should search with equal desire for someone who would be mutually loved and with equal concord willingly possess him. Thus you see how the perfection of charity requires a Trinity of persons, without which it is wholly unable to subsist in the integrity of its fullness. ⁴