by
Damien
F. Mackey
“We must conclude that, being
necessary to God by a necessity which is called "hypothetical", (that
is, because God so willed it), the Blessed Virgin is all the more necessary for
men to attain their final end. Consequently we must not place devotion to her
on the same level as devotion to the other saints as if it were merely
something optional.”
--Saint Louis Marie de Montfort
“True Devotion to Blessed Virgin Mary”
(39 §2)
‘The Marian Dimension’
“The Marian dimension of the life of a disciple of Christ is expressed
in a special way precisely through this filial entrusting to the Mother of
Christ, which began with the testament of the Redeemer on Golgotha. Entrusting
himself to Mary in a filial manner, the Christian, like the Apostle John,
"welcomes" the Mother of Christ "into his own home"130 and
brings her into everything that makes up his inner life, that is to say into
his human and Christian "I": he "took her to his own home”."
Pope John Paul II:
“Redemptoris Mater”
(# 45)
Just possibly, John Paul II may have picked up this
phrase, “The Marian Dimension”, from a one-time mentor of mine, Frits Albers,
who used the description twice in titles of books that he wrote, one of which
was apparently part of the Offertory at the pope’s Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne (Australia) in 1986. Frits’s book, The Marian Dimension in the Apocalypse of St.
John (1982) preceded
John Paul II’s sixth encyclical letter, Redemptoris
Mater (1987), by some 5 years.
Frits Albers, philosopher and maths
teacher, was an extraordinary and controversial character, who studied for ten
years to become a Jesuit at the Catholic University of Nijmegen in Holland. He claimed to have lost
his vocation, but never his faith, and he blamed his loss of vocation on the
teachings of Father Teilhard de Chardin that were rampant at the time. Moving
later to Geelong in Victoria (Australia), Frits married and he and his wife
together had ten children.
Frits was a relentless warrior in
defence of the Catholic Faith, and launched many broadsides against de Chardin.
Some of it must have rubbed off on me. See my:
Pope John Paul II makes another
mention of “the Marian dimension” in the same part of his encyclical, when
writing:
It can be
said that motherhood "in the order of grace" preserves the analogy
with what "in the order of nature" characterizes the union between
mother and child. In the light of this fact it becomes easier to understand why
in Christ's testament on Golgotha his Mother's new motherhood is expressed in
the singular, in reference to one man: "Behold your son."
lt can also
be said that these same words fully show the reason for the Marian dimension of
the life of Christ's disciples. This is true not only of John, who at that hour
stood at the foot of the Cross together with his Master's Mother, but it is
also true of every disciple of Christ, of every Christian. The Redeemer
entrusts his mother to the disciple, and at the same time he gives her to him
as his mother. Mary's motherhood, which becomes man's inheritance, is a gift: a
gift which Christ himself makes personally to every individual. The Redeemer
entrusts Mary to John because he entrusts John to Mary. At the foot of the
Cross there begins that special entrusting of humanity to the Mother of Christ,
which in the history of the Church has been practiced and expressed in
different ways. The same Apostle and Evangelist, after reporting the words
addressed by Jesus on the Cross to his Mother and to himself, adds: "And
from that hour the disciple took her to his own home" (Jn. 19:27). This
statement certainly means that the role of son was attributed to the disciple
and that he assumed responsibility for the Mother of his beloved Master. And
since Mary was given as a mother to him personally, the statement indicates,
even though indirectly, everything expressed by the intimate relationship of a
child with its mother. And all of this can be included in the word
"entrusting." Such entrusting is the response to a person's love, and
in particular to the love of a mother.
The “New Eve”
“The foundation of this beautiful alias is entirely biblical. Jesus
Christ is the New Adam. Now, the old Adam had a helpmate like unto himself who
was his partner in crime. It’s a parallelism that begs to be completed. Common
sense tells us we don’t have to look far to complete it. For those who have
eyes to see and ears to hear, the Gospels show us that Jesus had a partner in
redemption, and that partner was Mary”.
Sometimes it may seem to us as if it is Satan, and
not God, who really controls the show.
The Devil can certainly be accused, at least, of
ruining the show, as according to this famous quote from French Thomistic
philosopher, Jacques Maritain:
“Nowadays the devil has made such a mess of
everything in the system of life on earth that the world will presently become
uninhabitable for anybody but Saints. The rest will drag their lives out in
despair or fall below the level of man. The antinomies if human life are too
exasperated, the burden of matter too oppressive; merely to exist, one has to
expose oneself to many snares. Christian heroism will one day become the sole
solution for the problems of life.”
However, as the Book of Job reveals to us, it is
God, not Satan, who has the last word - or who has, one could say, the First
and the Last Word.
Satan is allowed a degree of interference for the
sake of a greater good. The prophet Job became a far better person for his
terrible ordeal, as did his three friends who had formerly accused him.
As St. Paul optimistically put it (Romans 5:20): “…
where sin
increased, grace abounded all the more”.
God will always re-write a discordant note into a
new and better symphony. He always has at hand what Tertullian called “a rival
operation”, to turn the Devil’s schemes upon himself.
This Divine method is most wonderfully illustrated
in the reversal, by the “New Adam” and the “New Eve”, of the sin of the first
Adam and Eve. I wrote about it as follows in my book:
The Five First Saturdays of Our Lady of Fatima
A Rival Operation
All the way through the history of
salvation, since sin fist entered into the universe, the Triune God has
employed what Tertullian called “a rival operation”, to turn the Devil’s own
schemes upon himself. This dramatic change of fortune against the forces of
evil, just when these had appeared to have the upper hand, always leaves them
stranded, trapped at their own game, and an easy target for God. It is a
process that is wonderfully demonstrated in the Book of Esther, where it is
consciously used by the sacred writer to create a dramatic tension. That this
same process of “rival operation” runs throughout the entire Scriptures in
fact, is attested by Fr. Papali, when he says that: “There is no parallelism in
the Scriptures so pronounced and so perfect as between the drama of the fall of
man and that of his restoration. St. Paul has emphasised the essential and
central point of that contrasting parallel:
“Therefore, as by the offence of one,
unto all men to condemnation; so also by the justice of one, unto all men to
justification of life. For as by the disobedience of one man, many were made
sinners; so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made just’ (Rom.
5:18-19)”. ….
Now what is the role of the Woman in
this parallel scheme of things? With this question we touch on the heart of the
Fatima message. And, as we are going to discover, this role is a central one.
Already, in the Introduction, we
briefly considered how Queen Vashti and Queen Esther typify, respectively, the
First Eve and the Second Eve. Now, Tertullian used this very example of the
Virgin Mary as the ‘Second Eve’, to illustrate exactly what he meant by his
term “rival operation”. Thus he wrote (in De Carn. Christ., 17):
“For into Eve, as yet a virgin, had
crept the word which was the framer of death, equally into a Virgin was to be
introduced the Word of God which was the builder-up of life”.
Now, considering that the hero and
heroine in the Book of Esther – that is, Mordecai and Queen Esther – typify
(and only typify) respectively Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, then we shall
have to go to the New Testament where the final details of their true
relationship lie revealed. We may expect Mordecai, even more than Esther, to be
the drama’s chief protagonist on the side of good. And whilst it is indeed
Mordecai who initiates the action, and who conveys vital instructions to the
ever-obedient Queen Esther, it was nevertheless she alone amongst the Jewish
race who had any hope of access to the king. If then it is Esther who will
stand before the royal presence – though it may mean her life – and plead for
mercy: ‘I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I
perish’ (4:16), then the final answer to this profound mystery, “Why this
preference for the Woman as the central figure in the drama?”, cannot be given
until they whom Mordecai and Queen Esther typify have made their appearance:
namely, Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His holy Mother.
We begin our search for the only
answer that can completely satisfy us (as far as the limitations of our earthly
existence will allow) at the level where two Popes (Pius IX in “Ineffabilis
Deus”, 1854, and Pius XII in “Munificentissimus Deus, 1950) have instructed us
to look for it: in eternity ….
A little earlier on we had displayed the important text which appears in both
of these papal documents:
“… the revered Mother of God, ‘from
all eternity joined in a hidden way with Jesus Christ in one and the same
Decree of Predestination’ …”..
Central to the answer is the
unbelievable power of an ‘instrument’ in the Divine Mind; power associated with
being a ‘causa instrumentalis’ in God’s Hands. To understand fully what is to
follow, it is absolutely essential that the truth be accepted as proposed by
the holy Catholic Church: that Mary is not only the Mother and the Model, but
also the beginning of the Church.
Central in the Mind of God as to this whole Mystery of Fall and Redemption is
this Revealed Truth: that Mary, as the New Eve, was at one stage the whole
Church when, on that momentous occasion of the Annunciation, She gave Christ
the two instruments that he needed under the Divine Decree of Redemption: the
physical Body that made Him human and the Mystical Body that made Him Head. And
by this simple act of being the singular instrument that Christ needed to
redeem the world in the form of a “rival operation” paralleling the Fall, the
world became inundated with the Flood of the Incarnation and Redemption; an
unleashing of Grace out of all proportion to the status of being a mere human instrument.
And the whole core of what this present book is about is that now, by that same
decree, this tremendous power of being a ‘causa instrumentalis’ has flowed from
Christ the Head, through Mary, through the holy Church to each of its members,
i.e. to each of this Mother’s children ….
“Many souls go to Hell because there
is no one to pray or to bring sacrifices for them ….”.
Christ
prayed and died for these souls. Mary prayed and suffered for them. The holy
Church prays and suffers. Yet, according to St. Paul [Col. 1:24] and the
above-quoted words of our Lady at Fatima, there is still something lacking,
there is still more to be done! Locked up in God’s inscrutable Decree of
Predestination lies the decision that other instruments have been set aside and
have been given the power to obtain the very special grace equally won by
Christ: the removal of individual obstructions to this ‘flood of Grace’;
obstructions which, due to fallen human nature, remain present in each parched
soul. And unless a substitute can be found in case the instruments, chosen
initially, refuse to pass on this flow and secure this individual grace, “many
souls go to Hell” ….
That this teaching of the New Adam and the New Eve,
stemming from biblical roots, represents a most ancient belief in the Christian
Church is apparent from what we read in the following article (http://catholicism.org/second-eve.html):
The foundation of this beautiful alias is
entirely biblical. Jesus Christ is the New Adam. Now, the old Adam had a
helpmate like unto himself who was his partner in crime. It’s a parallelism
that begs to be completed. Common sense tells us we don’t have to look far to
complete it. For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, the Gospels show
us that Jesus had a partner in redemption, and that partner was Mary.
The “Last Adam”
Saint Paul provides us with the first part of
our argument. It is this inspired title of Jesus Christ: The Last Adam. In two
passages, the Blessed Apostle teaches us that Adam was a type 1 of
Our Lord as the head of a new race. As Adam was the head of fallen humanity,
Christ Our Lord is head of a regenerated, sanctified humanity. In the Epistle
to the Romans, he tells us that “death reigned from Adam unto Moses, even over
them also who have not sinned, after the similitude of the transgression of
Adam, who is a figure of him who was to come” (5:14). He further
develops the thought in the Epistle to the Corinthians while speaking of the
Resurrection. Proving to the doubting Corinthians that there will indeed be a
resurrection on the last day, the Apostle contrasts the curse received through
Adam with the blessings received through Christ: “For by a man came death: and
by a man the resurrection of the dead. And as in Adam all die, so also in
Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:21-22).
Later, he continues the contrast by showing
its origin in the corrupted nature we inherit from Adam as opposed to the
heavenly nature we receive by the grace of Our Lord:
“The first man Adam was made into a living
soul; the last Adam into a quickening spirit. Yet that was not first which is
spiritual, but that which is natural: afterwards that which is spiritual. The
first man was of the earth, earthly: the second man, from heaven, heavenly.
Such as is the earthly, such also are the earthly: and such as is the heavenly,
such also are they that are heavenly. Therefore, as we have borne the image of
the earthly, let us bear also the image of the heavenly” (1 Cor. 15:45-49).
According to Saint Paul, Jesus is the “last
Adam” or the “second man” who came to restore to the human race what we lost in
the Fall.
All who call themselves Christian accept this
Adam-Christ parallel. We will not prove it or develop it here. Our task is to
complete the picture by showing that Christ, like Adam, had a “helpmate like
unto himself” (Gen. 2:18) who was his partner in the redemption. This will
establish a strong foundation for Catholic Marian beliefs and devotions. Our
approach is to present the doctrine of the “Second Eve” in the thoughts of the
Fathers of the Church, whose testimony to the Eve-Mary parallel shows that
these ancient defenders of the Christian religion were generous in their love
of Our Lady (like Catholics) and not “Marian minimizers.”
The Annunciation
Common to many of the Fathers’ texts on the
Second Eve is the notion that Our Lady’s Annunciation was the antithesis of
Eve’s disobedience. The parallels are obvious: both were women, both were
virgins, both were approached by angels who promised them something glorious
should they cooperate with their respective propositions, both stood at the
dawn of creation (Christ’s work was a “new creation”). The contrasts, too, are
obvious: In the one case, disobedience of God brought misery, while in the
other, obedience brought about happiness; the one was all-too-eager to hear
what the evil spirit was suggesting, while the second was “troubled” at the
angel’s wondrous greeting; the first accepted the angelic proposal even though
it contradicted God’s word, while the second tested the message by its fidelity
to God’s word. 2
The earliest known reference to the Eve-Mary
parallel is that of Saint Justin Martyr, who died around 165. It is likely that
this great philosopher-martyr was referring to an older tradition when he made
the following reference, contrasting Mary’s Annunciation with Eve’s encounter
with the serpent:
“[The Son of God] became man through a
Virgin, so that the disobedience caused by the serpent might be destroyed in
the same way it had begun. For Eve, who was virgin and undefiled, gave birth to
disobedience and death after listening to the serpent’s words. But the Virgin
Mary conceived faith and joy; for when the angel Gabriel brought her the glad
tidings that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and that the power of the Most
High would overshadow her, so that the Holy One born of her would be the Son of
God, she answered, ‘Let it be done to me according to thy word’ (Lk. 1:38).
Thus was born of her the [Child] about whom so many Scriptures speak, as we
have shown. Through Him, God crushed the serpent, along with those angels and
men who had become like the serpent.” (Dialogue with Trypho 100, quoted
in Mary and the Fathers of the Church, by Luigi Gambero, Ignatius Press,
1999 [hereafter, MFC], pg. 47.)
A later witness of the parallel between
Gabriel and the serpent is Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (+403): “Death came through
a virgin, Eve. It was necessary that life also should come through a virgin, so
that, as the serpent deceived the former, so Gabriel might bring glad tidings
to the latter.” (Catecheses 12,15; MFC, pg. 135.)
“Cause of Salvation”
Many of the patristic texts on this subject
assign to the Virgin an active role in man’s salvation. She was no mere passive
recipient of grace. For instance, here is Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (+c.202), who
tells us that Mary is the “cause of salvation,” whereas Eve had been the “cause
of death”:
“Even though Eve had Adam for a husband, she
was still a virgin. … By disobeying, she became the cause of death for herself
and for the whole human race. In the same way, Mary, though she also had a
husband, was still a virgin, and by obeying, she became the cause of
salvation for herself and for the whole human race. … The knot of Eve’s
disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience. What Eve bound through her
unbelief, Mary loosed by her faith.” (Against Heresies 3, 22; MFC, pg.
54. Unless otherwise noted, all italics in quotes are ours.)
Those tempted to object to this causality
attributed to Mary should note that it is a perfect expression of Catholic
Marian orthodoxy. The role of the Blessed Virgin is dependant on Christ in much
the same manner as the role of Eve was dependant on Adam. God, who was no
feminist, made salvation dependant on the action of a Man, just as He punished
our race because of the sin of a man. Here we need to repeat what many are
probably unaware of, namely, that it was Adam’s sin, not Eve’s,
which is the original sin. Saint Paul reminds us that, in the order of time,
the woman sinned first: “For Adam was first formed; then Eve. And Adam was not
seduced; but the woman, being seduced, was in the transgression” (1 Tim.
2:13-14). But he also lets us know that Adam’s fall was the fall of the entire
race: “For by a man came death: and by a man the resurrection of the dead. And
as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Cor.
15:21-22). For Catholics, Adam’s exclusive role in the original sin is dogma.
The same is true for many Protestants. The Calvinist New England Primer
memorably put it this way: “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.”
Now, while God was no feminist, He did give
woman a special place. Eve was, for Adam, a “helpmate like unto himself” (Gen.
2:18). When she sinned and encouraged him to sin, she failed in that role. All
this goes to show, that while Adam’s was the original sin, Eve had a
real, active, and causal role. Invert that in the case of the New Adam. The
work of redemption was the work of Christ. But He had a helpmate. Hence, we see
the reasonableness of Mary’s title, “Co-Redemptrix.” 3
Saint Irenaeus writes elsewhere about Mary’s
effective role in undoing what Eve did. This Father of the Church had a very
profound theology which developed Saint Paul’s doctrine in Ephesians (1:10) about
the “recapitulation” of all things in Christ. All human history, from Adam to
his last son, are “recapitulated” in Christ so that what went wrong in Adam
will be made right in the Second Adam. He details this theology in his Against
the Heresies, the work we cited earlier. Here, in another work, he makes
reference to the same idea, but with a beautiful Marian twist:
“Adam had to be recapitulated in Christ, so
that death might be swallowed up in immortality, and Eve [had to be
recapitulated] in Mary, so that the Virgin, having become another virgin’s
advocate, might destroy and abolish one virgin’s disobedience by the obedience
of another virgin.” (Proof of the Apostolic Preaching 33; MFC, pg. 55.)
Note again the active nature of the Blessed
Virgin’s role: Mary destroyed Eve’s disobedience.
Another who gives Our Lady an active role in
the redemption is Saint Ephrem the Syrian (+373), the “Harp of the Holy Ghost.”
Saint Ephrem is one of the early witnesses to the Immaculate Conception and to
the Marian interpretation of Genesis 3:15 (“she shall crush thy head”;
the “she” being Mary). Here he espouses this position, throwing in the Eve-Mary
typology: “Because the serpent had struck Eve with his claw, the foot of Mary
bruised him.” (Diatesseron 10, 13; MFC, pg. 117.)
The Woman
Saint Jerome (+420) was one of Our Lady’s
great defenders in the fifth century. It is he who stood up for her perpetual
virginity when … Helvidius attacked it. Speaking of the wife of Job, who
foolishly advised Job to “curse God and die” (Job 2:9), he notes the devil’s
trick of using women to ensnare men:
“Observe the cleverness of the ancient foe.
He ferociously preyed upon the substance of the just man [Job]. … He left him
nothing but his tongue and his wife, so that one tempted him while the other
blasphemed. The devil remembered the old trick by which he had once ensnared
Adam through the woman… thinking that he could always trap men by using woman.
But he did not consider that, if a man was ruined by a woman once, now the
whole world has been saved through a woman. You are thinking of Eve, but
consider Mary: the former drove us out of paradise; the latter leads us back
to heaven.” (Tract on Psalm 96, 1; MFC, pg. 212.)
Mary as New Ark of Covenant
Catholic biblical commentators have been, in recent times, drawing
magnificent and compelling parallels between the blessed Virgin Mary and the
ancient Ark of the Covenant, with Mary being described as, for example, “the
Ark of the New Covenant”.
Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant
….
Why
do Catholics call Mary the Ark of the New Covenant? Answering that question
will take us on a thrilling journey through the Old and New Testaments.
For
example, Luke wove some marvelous things into his Gospel that only a
knowledgeable Jew would have understood—a Jew who knew Jewish Scripture and had
eyes to see and ears to hear. One of the things he would have understood is
typology.
We
all know that the Old Testament is full of stories, people, and historical
events. A type is a person, thing, or event in the Old Testament that
foreshadows something in the New Testament. It is like a taste or a hint of
something that will be fulfilled or realized. Types are like pictures that come
alive in a new and exciting way when seen through the eyes of Christ’s revelation.
Augustine said that "the Old Testament is the New concealed, but the New
Testament is the Old revealed" (Catechizing of the Uninstructed
4:8).
The
idea of typology is not new. Paul says that Adam was a type of the one who was
to come—Christ (Rom 5:14). Early Christians understood that the Old Testament
was full of types or pictures that were fulfilled or realized in the New
Testament.
Here
are a few more examples of biblical typology:
Peter uses Noah’s ark as a type of Christian
baptism (1 Pt 3:18-22).
Paul explains that circumcision foreshadowed
Christian baptism (Col 2:11-12).
Jesus uses the bronze serpent as a type of his
Crucifixion (Jn 3:14; cf. Nm 21:8-9).
The Passover lamb prefigures the sacrifice of
Christ (1 Cor 5:7).
Paul says that Abraham "considered that God
was able to raise men even from the dead; hence, figuratively speaking, he did
receive him back" (Heb 11:19).
The Ark of the Old Covenant
God
loved his people and wanted to be close to them. He chose to do so in a very
special way. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, "The prayer
of the people of God flourished in the shadow of the dwelling place of God’s
presence on earth, the ark of the covenant and the temple, under the guidance
of their shepherds, especially King David, and of the prophets" (CCC
2594). God instructed Moses to build a tabernacle surrounded by heavy curtains
(cf. Ex 25-27). Within the tabernacle he was to place an ark made of acacia
wood covered with gold inside and out. Within the Ark of the Covenant was
placed a golden jar holding the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the stone
tablets of the covenant (cf. Heb 9:4).
When
the ark was completed, the glory cloud of the Lord (the Shekinah Glory)
covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle
(Ex 40:34-35; Nm 9:18, 22). The verb for "to cover" or "to
overshadow" and the metaphor of a cloud are used in the Bible to represent
the presence and glory of God. The Catechism explains:
In the theophanies of the Old Testament, the cloud,
now obscure, now luminous, reveals the living and saving God, while veiling the
transcendence of his glory—with Moses on Mount Sinai, at the tent of meeting,
and during the wandering in the desert, and with Solomon at the dedication of
the temple. In the Holy Spirit, Christ fulfills these figures. The Spirit comes
upon the Virgin Mary and "overshadows" her, so that she might
conceive and give birth to Jesus. On the mountain of Transfiguration, the
Spirit in the "cloud came and overshadowed" Jesus, Moses and Elijah,
Peter, James and John, and "a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This
is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’" Finally, the cloud took Jesus out
of the sight of the disciples on the day of his Ascension and will reveal him
as Son of Man in glory on the day of his final coming. The glory of the Lord
"overshadowed" the ark and filled the tabernacle. (CCC 697)
It’s
easy to miss the parallel between the Holy Spirit overshadowing the ark and the
Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary, between the Ark of the Old Covenant as the
dwelling place of God and Mary as the new dwelling place of God.
God
was very specific about every exact detail of the ark (Ex 25-30). It was a
place where God himself would dwell (Ex 25:8). God wanted his words—inscribed
on stone—housed in a perfect container covered with pure gold within and
without. How much more would he want his Word—Jesus—to have a perfect dwelling
place! If the only begotten Son were to take up residence in the womb of a
human girl, would he not make her flawless?
The Virgin Mary is the living shrine of the Word of
God, the Ark of the New and Eternal Covenant. In fact, St. Luke’s account of
the Annunciation of the angel to Mary nicely incorporates the images of the
tent of meeting with God in Sinai and of the temple of Zion. Just as the cloud
covered the people of God marching in the desert (cf. Nm 10:34; Dt 33:12; Ps
91:4) and just as the same cloud, as a sign of the divine mystery present in
the midst of Israel, hovered over the Ark of the Covenant (cf. Ex 40:35), so
now the shadow of the Most High envelops and penetrates the tabernacle of the
New Covenant that is the womb of Mary (cf. Lk 1:35). (Pontifical Council for
the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, The Shrine: Memory,
Presence and Prophecy of the Living God)
King David and Elizabeth
Luke
weaves additional parallels into the story of Mary—types that could be
overlooked if one is unfamiliar with the Old Testament. After Moses died,
Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan River into the Promised Land.
Joshua established the Ark of the Covenant in Shiloh, where it stayed for more
than 200 years. One day the Israelites were losing a battle with the
Philistines, so they snatched the ark and rushed it to the front lines. The
Philistines captured the ark, but it caused them great problems, so they sent
it back to Israel (1 Sm 5:1-6:12).
David
went out to retrieve the ark (1 Sm 6:1-2). After a man named Uzzah was struck
dead when he touched the ark, David was afraid and said, "How can the ark
of the Lord come to me?" He left the ark in the hill country of Judea for
three months. We are also told that David danced and leapt in front of the ark
and everyone shouted for joy. The house of Obed-edom, which had housed the ark,
was blessed, and then David took the ark to Jerusalem (2 Sm 6:9-14).
Compare
David and the ark to Luke’s account of the Visitation:
In those days Mary arose and went with haste into
the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah
and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe
leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she
exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is
the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord
should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears,
the babe in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there
would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." (Lk
1:39-45)
Mary arose and
went to the hill country of Judea. I have been to both Ein Kerem (where
Elizabeth lived) and Abu Ghosh (where the ark resided), and they are only a
short walk apart. Mary and the ark were both on a journey to the same hill
country of Judea.
When David saw
the ark he rejoiced and said, "How can the ark of the Lord come to
me?" Elizabeth uses almost the same words: "Why is this granted me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" Luke is telling us
something—drawing our minds back to the Old Testament, showing us a parallel.
When David
approached the ark he shouted out and danced and leapt in front of the ark. He
was wearing an ephod, the clothing of a priest. When Mary, the Ark of the New
Covenant, approached Elizabeth, John the Baptist leapt in his mother’s womb—and
John was from the priestly line of Aaron. Both leapt and danced in the presence
of the ark. The Ark of the Old Covenant remained in the house of Obed-edom for
three months, and Mary remained in the house of Elizabeth for three months. The
place that housed the ark for three months was blessed, and in the short
paragraph in Luke, Elizabeth uses the word blessed three times. Her home was
certainly blessed by the presence of the ark and the Lord within.
When the Old
Testament ark arrived—as when Mary arrived—they were both greeted with shouts
of joy. The word for the cry of Elizabeth’s greeting is a rare Greek word used
in connection with Old Testament liturgical ceremonies that were centered
around the ark and worship (cf. Word Biblical Commentary, 67). This word
would flip on the light switch for any knowledgeable Jew.
The ark returns
to its home and ends up in Jerusalem, where God’s presence and glory is
revealed in the temple (2 Sm 6:12; 1 Kgs 8:9-11). Mary returns home and
eventually ends up in Jerusalem, where she presents God incarnate in the temple
(Lk 1:56; 2:21-22).
It
seems clear that Luke has used typology to reveal something about the place of
Mary in salvation history. In the Ark of the Old Covenant, God came to his
people with a spiritual presence, but in Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant, God
comes to dwell with his people not only spiritually but physically, in the womb
of a specially prepared Jewish girl.
The
Old Testament tells us that one item was placed inside the Ark of the Old
Covenant while in the Sinai wilderness: God told Moses to put the stone tablets
with the Ten Commandments inside the ark (Dt 10:3-5). Hebrews 9:4 informs us
that two additional items were placed in the Ark: "a golden urn holding
the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded." Notice the amazing parallels: In
the ark was the law of God inscribed in stone; in Mary’s womb was the Word of
God in flesh. In the ark was the urn of manna, the bread from heaven that kept
God’s people alive in the wilderness; in Mary’s womb is the Bread of Life come
down from heaven that brings eternal life. In the ark was the rod of Aaron, the
proof of true priesthood; in Mary’s womb is the true priest. In the third
century, St. Gregory the Wonder Worker said that Mary is truly an
ark—"gold within and gold without, and she has received in her womb all
the treasures of the sanctuary."
While
the apostle John was exiled on the island of Patmos, he wrote something that
would have shocked any first-century Jew. The ark of the Old Covenant had been
lost for centuries—no one had seen it for about 600 years. But in Revelation
11:19, John makes a surprising announcement: "Then God’s temple in heaven
was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple."
At
this point chapter 11 ends and chapter 12 begins. But the Bible was not written
with chapter divisions—they were added in the 12th century. When John penned
these words, there was no division between chapters 11 and 12; it was a
continuing narrative.
What
did John say immediately after seeing the Ark of the Covenant in heaven?
"And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun,
with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was
with child" (Rv 12:1-2). The woman is Mary, the Ark of the Covenant,
revealed by God to John. She was seen bearing the child who would rule the
world with a rod of iron (Rv 12:5). Mary was seen as the ark and as a queen.
But
does this passage really refer to Mary? Some say the woman represents Israel or
the Church, and certainly she does. John’s use of rich symbolism is well known,
but it is obvious from the Bible itself that the woman is Mary. The Bible
begins with a real man (Adam), a real woman (Eve), and a real serpent (the
devil)—and it also ends with a real man (Jesus, the Last Adam [1 Cor 15:45]), a
real woman (Mary, the New Eve [Rv 11:19-12:2]), and a real serpent (the devil
of old). All of this was foretold in Genesis 3:15.
John
Henry Cardinal Newman wrote about this passage in Revelation:
What I would maintain is this, that the Holy
Apostle would not have spoken of the Church under this particular image unless
there had existed a Blessed Virgin Mary, who was exalted on high and the object
of veneration to all the faithful. No one doubts that the "man-child"
spoken of is an allusion to our Lord; why then is not "the Woman" an
allusion to his mother? (On the Blessed Virgin Mary)
in
the same chapter we read that the devil went out to persecute the woman’s other
offspring—Christians—which certainly seems to indicate that Mary is somehow the
mother of the Church (Rv 12:17).
Even
if someone rejects Catholic teaching regarding Mary, he cannot deny that
Catholics have scriptural foundations for it. And it is a teaching that has
been taught by Christians from ancient times. Here are a few representative
quotations from the early Church—some written well before the New Testament
books were officially compiled into the final New Testament canon:
Athanasius
of Alexandria (c. 296–373) was the main defender of the deity of
Christ against the second-century heretics. He wrote: "O noble Virgin,
truly you are greater than any other greatness. For who is your equal in
greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word? To whom among all creatures shall
I compare you, O Virgin? You are greater than them all O [Ark of the] Covenant,
clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the ark in which is found the
golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which divinity
resides" (Homily of the Papyrus of Turin).
Gregory
the Wonder Worker (c. 213–c. 270) wrote: "Let us chant the
melody that has been taught us by the inspired harp of David, and say, ‘Arise,
O Lord, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy sanctuary.’ For the Holy Virgin
is in truth an ark, wrought with gold both within and without, that has
received the whole treasury of the sanctuary" (Homily on the Annunciation
to the Holy Virgin Mary).
The
Catechism of the Catholic Church echoes the words from the
earliest centuries: "Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his
dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the Ark of the Covenant, the place
where the glory of the Lord dwells. She is ‘the dwelling of God . . . with
men’" (CCC 2676).
The
early Christians taught the same thing that the Catholic Church teaches today
about Mary, including her being the Ark of the New Covenant. ….
A Marian Church
“This Marian profile is also – even perhaps more so
– fundamental and characteristic for the Church as is the apostolic and Petrine
profile to which it is profoundly united…. The Church lives on this authentic
‘Marian profile’, the ‘Marian dimension’…. The Marian dimension of the Church
is antecedent to that of the Petrine…. Mary… precedes all others, including
obviously Peter himself and the Apostles…”.
Pope
John Paul II
to
Roman Curia (Christmas 1987)
Similarly one reads in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
The Church
- mystery of men's union with God
772 It is in
the Church that Christ fulfills and reveals his own mystery as the purpose of
God's plan: "to unite all things in him."189 St. Paul
calls the nuptial union of Christ and the Church "a great mystery."
Because she is united to Christ as to her bridegroom, she becomes a mystery in
her turn.190 Contemplating this mystery in her, Paul exclaims:
"Christ in you, the hope of glory."191
773 In the
Church this communion of men with God, in the "love [that] never
ends," is the purpose which governs everything in her that is a
sacramental means, tied to this passing world.192 "[The Church's]
structure is totally ordered to the holiness of Christ's members. And holiness
is measured according to the 'great mystery' in which the Bride responds with
the gift of love to the gift of the Bridegroom."193 Mary goes
before us all in the holiness that is the Church's mystery as "the bride
without spot or wrinkle."194 This is why the "Marian"
dimension of the Church precedes the "Petrine."195
“The “Marian” dimension of the Church precedes the
“Petrine”.”
It seems that Pope
Francis lives in a more personal, compassionate and collegial Church, rather
than in a legalistic, hierarchical and ritualistic Church. He does not refer to
himself as Pope so much as Bishop of Rome, he prefers to live in community rather
than alone in the papal apartment, he dreams of a poor church for the poor, he
spurns the trappings of ritual and power, he celebrates Mass with a community
rather than in private. This could be described as a Marian Church, the Church
of Pentecost, a Church of a community guided by charism rather than by law.
In the Catechism
of the Catholic Church, at #773, it is taught that ‘the “Marian” dimension
of the Church precedes the “Petrine”.’ The supporting reference for this
statement is to John Paul II’s 1988 apostolic letter on the dignity and
vocation of women, Mulieris Dignitatem #27. In that paragraph John Paul
II writes not so much about precedence as about the Church being ‘both “Marian”
and “Apostolic-Petrine”. However, as Brendan Leahy notes in his contribution to
The Legacy of John Paul II, John Paul II stressed the priority of the
Marian in an address to the Roman Curia before Christmas 1987:
This Marian
profile is also – even perhaps more so – fundamental and characteristic for the
Church as is the apostolic and Petrine profile to which it is profoundly
united…. The Church lives on this authentic ‘Marian profile’, the ‘Marian
dimension’…. The Marian dimension of the Church is antecedent to that of the
Petrine…. Mary… precedes all others, including obviously Peter himself and the
Apostles….
Leahy then shows
how the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar influenced both John Paul II and
Benedict XVI in their view of ‘the Church’s charism-institution polarity within
the interplay between the Marian-Petrine profiles”.
In his essay on
‘Von Balthasar and the Office of Peter in the Church’, John McDade explains
that for von Balthasar
Mary is at the
centre of the Church because her faith represents ‘the all-inclusive,
protective and directive form of all ecclesial life’, ‘the model of all being
and acting’ in the Church…. ‘The entire Church is Marian’, von Balthasar says …
because ‘Mary disappears into the heart of the Church to remain there as a real
presence which, however, always gives place to her Son’. For von Balthasar, the
radiant heart of the Church is lay, faithful and holy….
By displacing the
Petrine office from the ‘centre’ or ‘top’ of the Church, von Balthasar aims to
restore an ecclesiological balance which an over-juridical, ultramontane
approach to papal authority has disturbed…. He argues that one nourishes the
other—the Church is both Marian and Petrine—and that they are not to be
opposed….
While the Marian
Church of von Balthasar, John Paul II and Benedict XVI is described in abstract
principles, Pope Francis stresses the Marian dimension to the Church in
uncompromising practical ways.
For example, in
his address to the Italian Bishops on 23 May 2013, his closing prayer included
not only addressing Mary at the heart of the Church, but also the practical
implications of being a tender and compassionate Church on pilgrimage, rather
than a more hierarchical institution: ‘being pastors also means to be ready to
walk in the midst of and behind the flock: capable of listening to the silent
story of the suffering and bearing up the steps of those who are afraid of not
succeeding; careful to raise up, to reassure, and inspire hope’. And so he
prayed:
Mother of the
silence that preserves the mystery of God…
Purify the eyes of
pastors with the balm of memory: that we might return to the freshness of the
beginning, for a praying and penitent Church….
Cloak Pastors with
that compassion that unifies and integrates: that we might discover the joy of
a humble and fraternal servant Church…. Mother, we will be the People of God,
on pilgrimage towards the Kingdom. Amen.
It seems that in
Pope Francis’s practice, the “Marian” dimension of the Church actually does
precede the “Petrine”.
