Mary, Co-redemptrix: The Self-Gift of Two Hearts

Between any expectant mother and the child in her womb, there is more than a merely physical presence of the one to the other, of the one in the other. The bodily closeness is the basis of an intimacy of knowledge and love, a union of hearts.¹

It has been said, and is often repeated that Mary conceived Jesus first in her heart and then in her body, and so is this seen in her perfect submissive obedience in union with her Son's perfect submissive obedience, and by virtue of her union, as the Immaculate Conception with her Spouse, the uncreated Immaculate Conception.

However, in considering the coredemptive qualities of the perfect submission of Jesus and Mary, at the moment of the Annunciation, it is necessary to investigate the physical traits of a pregnant woman, and the Child within her, Who in His sacramental presence, reveals Truth discernable by human eyes.

We cannot reduce the spiritual and divine mystery to its bodily sign. Nor does the body afford a total clearing of the mysteries it signifies. Yet, as human beings, we need the sign of the body in order to speak about the mystery of God's self-revelation. "The body, in fact, and it alone," John Paul says, "is capably of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and divine." ... The human body "speaks" of the ineffable, whispering to us something of the deepest secret hidden in God from all eternity.²

At the moment of Christ's conception, what was in the womb of Mary? Where did Jesus get his DNA? Since Mary is called the Mother of God, then it is true that she gave Christ His Body and His Blood. Her blood flows in His. Are we to assume that the Holy Spirit, as he overshadowed Mary, "fertilized" her egg?

His life began at fertilization, which in his case was miraculous, because his Virgin Mother was made fruitful, not by male seed, but by the power of the Holy Spirit. ...

God is come among men; he who cannot be contained is contained in a womb; the Timeless enters time; and strange wonder! His conception is without seed, his emptying is past telling; so great is this mystery!³

If Jesus was like us in all things but sin, then He must have begun as an embryo. The human will and divine will united. Christ Incarnate. Christ, the "fertilized egg" was called a zygote. He was more vulnerable at that moment, than he ever could be. Safe in His mother's womb, He sought nourishment.

The dividing zygote gets pushed along the Fallopian tube. By approximately four days after fertilization, the zygote has about 100 cells and is called a blastocyst. When the blastocyst reaches the uterine lining, it floats for about two days, finally implanting in the uterine wall by the sixth day after fertilization.⁴

Once Jesus, the Zygote, reached His mother's uterus, an incredibly coredemptive act took place. The placenta formed. The placenta in Mary was not just the organ through which Jesus was nourished; no, it was a common organ that they temporarily shared, as do all mothers with their unborn children.

The placenta is attached to the uterus, and the fetus is connected to the placenta by the umbilical cord. The placenta draws nourishment and oxygen, which it supplies to the fetus, from the maternal circulation. In turn, the placenta receives the wastes of fetal metabolism and discharges them into the maternal circulation for disposal.⁵

This placenta was connected to Jesus through the umbilical cord, where nutrients and oxygen passed from Mary's body into His. Waste and carbon dioxide flowed back into her. Is she not Co-redemptrix as she daily "saved" the Redeemer's life by means of the umbilical cord? "God-made-child sanctifies not only human life in the womb but all its properties. It is a state of total dependence of child on mother."⁶

And then Jesus grew. For nine months, hidden in the Ark of the Covenant, "he accept(ed) the limitations of the long, slow womb-way to birth."⁷ In the sixth week, His Sacred Heart began to beat, and his eyes and ears began to form. In the seventh week, He was one-third of an inch long, and His arms and legs were forming that one day would be nailed to the Cross. In the tenth week, He finally was able to move and by the end of the eleventh week, He took the name "fetus." In the fourteenth week, Jesus had grown to be about three-and-a-half inches, and He was beginning to make breathing motions. The tiny Infant continues to grow, nourished by His mother, until nine months later, He emerges: Immanuel - God with us.

The unborn Jesus reveals (first to Mary and through her to the apostolic Church) the Trinity's foolish love of mankind. God the Father so loved the world that he sent his Son in the lowliness of embryonic human flesh. Without ceasing to be omnipotent God, the Son assumes human nature in its tiniest, most powerless form .... Yes, and that prodigally generous love first revealed itself in the Virgin's womb.⁸

Impuissance, incapacite, indigence: this is the slavish condition of every unborn child, and this is the slavish condition, the forma servi, that the self-emptying Son of God has assumed for love of mankind. By this same path of voluntary vulnerability, he will go to the Cross .... The Eucharist, like the womb and the Cross, is a mystery of power through powerlessness.⁹

Mary, the Expectant Mother, Mediatrix of all Graces

Not only was Mary already fulfilling her role as Co-redemptrix while with Child, but she was also acting as Mediatrix, as is so beautifully seen in the story of the Visitation.

During those days Mary set out ... in haste to a town of Judah .... When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, "Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy" (Lk 1:39-44).

Mary, full of the Holy Spirit, and bearer of the God-man, brings the presence of the Lord to Elizabeth. This was not without effect. John, the infant in Elizabeth's womb, "leaped for joy" as he was being sanctified. Not only was the child in Elizabeth led to rejoice in the presence of God, but Elizabeth was also filled with the Holy Spirit. "The Handmaid of the Lord is the prime instrument for the transmission of the Gospel as announcement of joy."¹⁰

Thus it is clear that the "voice" of Mary has stimulated in the infant that joyful "leap." ... One may speak, then, of a current of grace that, originating with the Word Incarnate enclosed in the maternal womb, reached the Precursor by means of the "voice" of Mary and aroused in him joy. "At the Visitation, there are distributed through Mary the gifts of the Messiah Savior: the pouring out of the Spirit on Elizabeth and the joy of the future precursor.¹¹

In visiting Elizabeth, Mary and Jesus have done their first act of ministry. Their first act was not done in splendor, but in simplicity, and it is beautiful to reflect that the first "public" act of our Lord was to bring salvation and joy to a fetus.

God is a child, the world ignores, heaven adores, and a child is the first person in the universe to recognize and adore him .... He (the Lord) want to honour himself as child by giving the first knowledge of himself to a child in the world, making him his prophet in the universe. Thus the Infant-God is recognized and manifested, not by an angel, but by a child. So his first prophet is a child, just as shortly his first martyrs will be children.¹²

In the Visitation account, a beautiful parallel can be made between the Ark of the Covenant of the Old Testament, and Mary, as the Ark of the New Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant was the sacred container which held the stones of the Ten Commandments, manna which had fed the Israelites during their Exodus journey, and Aaron's rod. For the Israelites, the Ark of the Covenant contained the presence of God.¹³

In Second Samuel 6:1-15, is the account of the Ark of the Covenant being transferred from Abinidab's house to Jerusalem, with a three-month stay in Obed-edom. David, fearing the Lord said, "How can the ark of the LORD come to me (2 Sam 6:9)?" David, as a sign of his unworthiness, asked that the Ark of the Covenant stay in Obed-edom, and after three months it was transferred to Jerusalem, the city of David. When the Ark of the Covenant came into Jerusalem, David "came dancing before the Lord in abandon" (2 Sam 6:14). The parallels are not hard to see. Elizabeth exclaimed when Mary entered her house, "And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me (Lk 1:43)?" Mary stayed with Elizabeth three months. And David, the Precursor, who would go before the Lord, leaped, as David danced before the Lord.

Even before His birth, the Child Jesus is at his saving, sanctifying work. While still in the womb, the Savior consecrates the forerunner of his mission. What is more, grace comes to John through Mary who," is "already ... at her handmaidenly, motherly work of mediating the grace of her Son."¹⁴

Mary, Queen Mother and Advocate, in Her Song, the Magnificat

Mary, who is called Queen Mother and Advocate, takes this title from the Old Testament tradition that the mother of the King would be called the "Queen-Mother." The Queen Mother was the best of all advocates in the Davidic kingdoms, interceding on behalf of the people. Mary-as mother of the High Priest and King, Jesus-is the Queen Mother. In her song of praise, the Magnificat, Mary, as Queen-Mother, was foretelling the greatness of her Son's Kingdom, already realized in her.

The Virgin fills this little child (John) with joy, and his mother with the Holy Spirit, and the Virgin's tongue, more powerful than the tongues of fire that descended on the Apostles, fills the child and his mother with the fire of love and the Holy Spirit, and she herself receives a new gift of the Holy Spirit, a new elevation and a powerful rapture that transports her into the lovely canticle of praise that the Church has chosen for praising God every day of the year.¹⁵

Mary's song of praise, which is sung by God's people throughout the world each day, was more than a simple song of praise or an imitation of an Old Testament canticle. It is, according to Fr. Stefano M. Manelli, FI, to be examined from "a three-fold point of view: that of the personal, concerning Mary alone; that of the community, in regard to all people awaiting salvation; and that of the cosmic, embracing the whole history of redeemed humanity. It is the song of the Queen-Mother for her people."¹⁶

"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior" (Lk 1:46-47). Mary is praising the Lord who is in her womb. She calls God her Savior, who preserved her from any stain of sin in her Immaculate Conception. "For he has looked upon his handmaid's lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed" (Lk 1:48). This is the second time that Mary used the word "handmaid." This word, too, has a special meaning in understanding Mary, Co-redemptrix. The title "handmaid of the Lord" is the "feminine equivalent of the expression servant of Yahweh."¹⁷ This title points to two truths: "First, the close union of the 'handmaid of the Lord' with the 'servant of Yahweh' in the unique work of the 'suffering servant;' and second, the sharing of the painful events of the 'suffering servant,' immolated for the redemption of man."¹⁸

"The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name" (Lk 1:49). The great things done in Mary include her Immaculate Conception, but she refers, in a prophetic way to those great things included in God's future for her: "the co-redemption and spiritual motherhood of humanity, the glorious Assumption of body, and soul, the coronation as Queen of heaven and earth."¹⁹

"His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him" (Lk 1:50). Mary, Queen Mother, then begins to speak of the plan of her Son, Christ the King, "regarding all men awaiting salvation."²⁰ She is foretelling her "specifically maternal role of Mediatrix of mercy at this final coming, when all those who belong to Christ 'shall be made alive.'"²¹

"He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly" (Lk 1:51). Mary, has shown his greatest might in this humble virgin. To "disperse the arrogant of mind and heart" was a theme that the Israelites were familiar with in the stories of David and Goliath, and the crumbling of the walls of Jericho.

In these words of Mary (are) a particular "allusion to the vain pride of men who dare to judge the work of God par excellence: the Incarnation of the Word. Who ever thought that the Son of the Most High should have had to take flesh in the womb of a poor little creature like all the sons of men?" Choosing the poor and unknown Mary, God shows precisely that He takes no one into account and ignores any creature reputed important.²²

"The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty" (Lk 1:53). Mary is foretelling a kingdom that will be proclaimed by her Son in which the poor will be called "blessed" and in which her Son will proclaim, "Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God" (Mt 19:23-24).

Mary proclaims here a reversal on God's part: at the divine court, the poor man, the hungry man, he whose hands are empty, is satisfied and filled with good things. The rich man, instead, he whose hands are full, is sent away without receiving any of the good things of God. But to what good things is reference made? The answer is decisive: "messianic" goods, those spiritual goods of the Kingdom of God, such as grace and freedom, the Holy Spirit and the sacraments, interior peace and joy of spirit, sanctity and eternal life.²³

"He has helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever" (Lk 1:54-55). Of what promise does she speak? According to Fr. Manelli, the promise is a "reaffirmation of the promise of the Messiah Savior, initially made by God to our first parents, Adam and Eve, for the entire human race (Gen 3:15), and then expressly confirmed with Abraham ...."²⁴

Mary of the Magnificat is Israel in person. Her "I" recapitulates the "we" of her people. What God has done for her, he has done for all Israel. The grace poured out on the lowly Handmaid is a blessing for all the poor of Yahweh. In the Child in Mary's womb, every promise made to Abraham is fulfilled .... The Blessed Virgin (however) is more than just the culmination of Israel, she is also the beginning of the Church, the Church's model in faith and charity and union with Christ.²⁵

Jesus, our Savior, chose to come to us through a humble Virgin. He chose to die for us upon a wooden cross. Mary, His mother, was chosen by God, to bear Him, to love Him, to feed Him, to console Him, and to suffer with Him as He merited for us our salvation. Her yes at the Annunciation never left her heart all the way to the foot of the cross. His submission in becoming an embryo was mirrored in her submission to the Holy Spirit in becoming an unwed mother. She, the created Immaculate Conception, shared in the creative grace of the Trinity as the Spouse of the Uncreated Immaculate Conception, while at the same time physically nourishing the tiny embryo that lay hidden in her womb.

Helping to obtain the graces of our redemption, Mary now participates in mediating those graces. This role was first manifested as she brought the Good News of her Son to Elizabeth and John. She remains with us and desires to be our Queen-Mother and Advocate, yearning to complete in us the Kingdom that is already completed in her.

May we love our Mother who so loves us.