The Sufferings of Mary as Co-redemptrix

We may conclude this section by noting that Mary the Co-Redemptrix has given us birth at the foot of the Cross by the greatest act of faith, hope and love that was possible to her on such an occasion. One may even say that her act of faith was the greatest ever elicited, since Jesus had not the virtue of faith but the beatific vision. In that dark hour when the faith of the Apostles themselves seemed to waver, when Jesus seemed vanquished and His work annihilated, Mary did not cease for an instant to believe that her Son was the Savior of mankind, and that in three days He would rise again as He had foretold. When He uttered His last words "It is consummated" Mary understood in the fullness of her faith that the work of salvation had been accomplished by His most painful immolation. The evening before, Jesus has instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice and the Christian priesthood; she sees now something of the influence the sacrifice of the Cross will exercise. She knows that Jesus is the true Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, that He is the conqueror of sin and the demon, and that in three days He will conquer death, sin’s consequence. She sees the hand of God where even the most believing see only darkness and desolation. Hers was the greatest act of faith ever elicited by a creature, a faith higher than that of the angels when they were as yet in their period of trial.

Calvary saw too her supreme act of hope at a moment when everything seemed lost. She grasped the force of the words spoken to the good thief: "This day thou shalt be with me in paradise"; heaven, she realized, was about to be open for the elect.

It was finally her supreme act of charity: so to love God as to offer His only Son in the most painful agony: to love God above everything at the moment when He tried her in the highest and deepest of her loves, even in the object of her adoration—and that because of our sins.

It is true that the theological virtues grew in Mary up to the time of her death, for these acts of faith, hope, and charity were not broken off but continued in her as a kind of state. They even expanded in the succeeding calm, like a river which becomes more powerful and majestic as it nears the ocean. The point which theology wishes to stress is not that of Mary’s subsequent growth in the virtues but the equality between her sacrifice and her merits at the foot of the Cross itself: both her sacrifice and her merits were of inestimable value and their fruitfulness, while not approaching that of Christ’s sacrifice and merits, surpasses anything the human tongue can utter. Theologians express this by saying that Mary made satisfaction for us de congruo in proportion to her immense charity, while Jesus made satisfaction de condigno.

Even the saints who have been most closely associated with the sufferings of the Savior did not enter as Mary did into the most secret depths of the Passion. St. Catherine de Ricci had every Friday during 12 years an ecstasy of pain which lasted 28 hours and during which she lived over again all the sufferings of the way of the Cross. But even such sufferings fell far short of those of Mary. Mary’s heart suffered in sympathy with all the agony of the Sacred Heart to such a point that she would have died of the experience had she not been especially strengthened.

Thereby she became the consoler of the afflicted, for she had suffered more than all, and patroness of a happy death. We have no idea how fruitful these sufferings of hers have been during 20 centuries.

Mary’s Participation as Co-Redemptrix in the Priesthood of Christ

Though Mary may be termed Co-Redemptrix in the sense we have explained, there can be no question of calling her a priest in the strict sense of the word since she has not received the priestly character and cannot offer Holy Mass nor give sacramental absolution. But, as we have seen already, her divine maternity is a greater dignity than the priesthood of the ordained priest in the sense that it is more to give our Savior His human nature than to make His body present in the Blessed Eucharist. Mary has given us the Priest of the sacrifice of the Cross, the Principal Priest of the sacrifice of the Mass and the Victim offered on the altar.

It is more also, and more perfect, to offer her only Son and her God on the Cross as Mary did, by offering herself with Him in community of suffering, than to make the body of Our Lord present and to offer It on the altar as the priest does at Holy Mass.

We must affirm, too, as has recently a careful theologian who has devoted years to the study of these questions (7) that "it is a certain theological conclusion that Mary cooperated in some way in the principal act of Jesus’ priesthood, by giving, as the divine plan required, her consent to the sacrifice of the Cross as it was accomplished by the Savior." In another context he writes: "If we consider only certain immediate effects of the priest’s action such as the Eucharistic consecration or the remission of sins in the sacrament of penance, it is true that the priest can do certain things which Mary, not having the priestly power, cannot. But to look at the matter so as not to compare dignities but merely particular effects which are produced by a power which Mary lacks and which do not necessarily indicate a higher dignity" (8).

But even if Mary cannot, for the reasons given, be spoken of as priest in the strict sense of the term, it remains true, as M. Olier has said, that she has received the fullness of the spirit of the priesthood, which is the spirit of Christ the Redeemer. That is the reason why she is called Co-redemptrix, a title which, like that of Mother of God, implies a higher dignity than that of the Christian priesthood (9).

Mary’s participation in the immolation and oblation of Jesus, Priest and Victim, cannot be better summed up than in the words of the Stabat Mater of the Franciscan Jacopone de Todi (1228-1286).

The Stabat Mater manifests in a singularly striking manner that supernatural contemplation of the mystery of Christ crucified is part of the normal way of holiness. In precise and ardent words it speaks of the wounding of the Savior’s Heart and shows the intimate and persuasive manner in which Mary leads us to Him. Not only does Mary lead us to the divine intimacy, in a sense she produces it in us: that is what the repetition of the imperative "Fac" in the following strophes brings out:

Eia Mater, fons amoris, O Thou Mother! Fount of love!

Me sentire vim doloris Touch my spirit from above,

Fac, ut tecum lugeam. Make my heart with thine accord!

Fac ut ardeat cor meum Make me feel as thou hast felt;

In amando Christum Deum, Make my soul to glow and melt

ut sibi complaceam. With the love of Christ my Lord.

Fac ut portem Christi mortemLet me, to my latest breath,

Passionis fac consortem In my body bear the death

Et plagas recolere. Of that dying Son of thine.

Fac me plagis vulnerariWounded with his every wound,

Fac me cruce inebriari, Steep my soul till it hath swoon’d

Et cruore Filii. In His very blood away.

This is the prayer of a soul which, under a special inspiration, wishes to know in a spiritual way the wound of love and to be associated in these painful mysteries of adoring reparation as were John and the holy women on Calvary—and Peter, too, when he shed his bitter tears. Those tears of adoration and sorrow are what the Stabat asks for in the following strophes:

Fac me tecum pie flere, Let me mingle tears with thee,

Crucifixo condolere, Mourning Him who mourn’d for me,

Donec ego vixero. All the days that I may live.

Juxta crucem tecum stare,By the cross with thee to stay.

Et me tibi sociare There with thee to weep and pray,

In planctu desidero. Is all I ask of thee to give,

—Fr Caswall

Mary exercised therefore a universal mediation on earth by meriting de congruo all that Jesus merited de condigno and also by making similar satisfaction in union with Him. For both Jesus and Mary, the mediation exercised on earth is the foundation of that now exercised in heaven …

Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (1877-1964), consultor to the Holy Office and other Congregations, taught at the Angelicum in Rome from 1909 to 1960 and authored over 500 books and articles. This article was excerpted from The Mother of the Savior and Our Interior Life, Tan, 1993.

Notes

(1) It is easier to knock down than to build up. The offense of a creature’s mortal sin has a certain infinity from the side of the Person offended, whereas the creature’s love is limited because of the limitations of its principle. Besides, mortal sin destroys the life of grace, and once that has been lost, we cannot be restored to it by ourselves.

(2) IIIa, q. I, a. 2, ad 2; q. 48, a. 2.

(3) Cf. St. Ephrem, Oratio ad Virginem; St. Ambrose, De Instit. Virg., c. 7; Epist. 25 ad Eccles. Vercell.;St. Bernard, Sermo de Passione, Sermo de duodecim stellis, Sermo Dom. infra Oct. Ass.; St. Albert the Great, Mariale, q. 42; St. Bonaventure, Sermo I de B. V.;St. Laurence Justinian, Sermo de nativ. Virginis.

(4) Encyclical Jucunda Semper, Sept. 8, 1894: "Censors cum Christo existit laboriosae pro humano genere expiationis."

(5) Encyclical Ad Diem Ilium, Feb. 2, 1904: "Reparatrix perditi orbis."

(6) Cf. Denz. 3034, no. 4. In this same place reference is made to the words of Pius XI: "Virgo perdolens redemptionis opus Jesu Christo participavit," and to a decree of the Holy Office* praising the custom of adding after the name of Jesus that of His Mother, our Co-Redemptrix, the Blessed Virgin Mary. The same Congregation has indulgenced (Jan. 22, 1914) the prayer in which Mary is addressed as Co-redemptrix of the human race. Cf. Dict, de Theol. Cath., art. Marie, col. 2396: "Since the word ‘Co-redemptrix’ signifies of itself simple co-operation in the work of redemption, and since it has received in the theological usage of centuries the very precise meaning of secondary and dependent cooperation … there can be no serious objection to its use, on condition that it be accompanied by some expression indicating that Mary’s role in this co-operation is secondary and dependent."

* The Holy Office is now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—Asst. Ed.

(7) E. Dublanchy, Dict, de Theol. Cath., art. Marie, col. 2396 sqq.

(8) Ibid., col. 2366

(9) Ibid., col. 2365.