Who Is the Mother of God?: A Deep Dive Into Lumen Gentium (Part 6)

Unlike any other chapter, Chapter 8 of Lumen Gentium is subdivided by subheadings, five in number, which I have reproduced in the notes below. This subdivision, unique to this chapter, gives it a special place as the conclusion, and, I would like to say, the recapitulation of Lumen Gentium as a presentation of the mystery of the Church, of the Church precisely as mystery. Note that even the title of the chapter announces a return to the theme of the Church as mystery, thus bookending Lumen Gentium with chapters on the Church as mystery.

Introduction

The Introduction solemnly recalls the opening chapters of LG by reminding us of the mystery of God’s eternal plan of salvation and of its intended fulfillment in the Church. This reprise of the theme of the mystery of the Church as God’s intended fulfillment of his plan is here stated, however, by quoting, for the first time in all of LG, Galatians 4:4. It thus inflects the theme of the Church as mystery by presenting her mystery as intrinsically interwoven with the mystery of Mary. Here is the beautiful text in full:

Wishing in his supreme goodness and wisdom to effect the redemption of the world, “when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman . . . that we might receive the adoption of sons.” “He for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary” (Nicene Creed). This divine mystery of salvation is revealed to us and continued in the Church, which the Lord established as his body. Joined to Christ the Head and in the unity of fellowship with all his saints, the faithful must in the first place reverence the memory “of the glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God and of Our Lord Jesus Christ” (Roman canon; LG §52).

The title of Mary which is both most ancient and most fully expressive of the mystery of her person is the first one given in the text, “Mother of God.” This title expresses the mystery of Mary through her connection to the mystery of Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, and through that connection to the mystery of the Church.

If so-called Marian “maximalism” is most closely attuned to her connection to Christ and the so-called “privileges” that flow from it, and so-called Marian “minimalism” is most closely attuned to her connection to the Church, then the document can be seen to align itself with the “maximalist” approach even as it integrates into that approach so-called Marian minimalism. This is in keeping with the emphasis of Chapter 1 on the connection of the mystery of the Church to the mystery of Christ. Here in Chapter 8, it is Mary’s connection to the mystery of Christ through which her connection to the mystery of the Church is articulated.

Thus, in §53 we see the pattern of these connections laid out in longhand, as it were.

First, the connection to Christ, flowing once again from her main title, “Mother of God”:

The Virgin Mary, who at the message of the angel received the Word of God in her heart and in her body and gave Life to the world, is acknowledged and honored as being truly the Mother of God and Mother of the Redeemer. Redeemed by reason of the merits of her Son and united to him by a close and indissoluble tie, she is endowed with the high office and dignity of being the Mother of the Son of God, by which account she is also the beloved daughter of the Father and the temple of the Holy Spirit. Because of this gift of sublime grace she far surpasses all creatures, both in heaven and on earth (LG §53).

Then, the connection to the Church:

At the same time, however, because she belongs to the offspring of Adam she is one with all those who are to be saved. She is “the mother of the members of Christ . . . having cooperated by charity that faithful might be born in the Church, who are members of that Head” (St. Augustine, On Holy Virginity §6). Wherefore she is hailed as a pre-eminent and singular member of the Church, and as its type and excellent exemplar in faith and charity. The Catholic Church, taught by the Holy Spirit, honors her with filial affection and piety as a most beloved mother (ibid.).

The so-called “ecclesio-typical approach,” the approach of the minimalists, is here clearly derived from the approach more favored by maximalists, the “Christo-typical” approach. At any rate, whatever terminology may be chosen, the point is that the document chooses to state Mary’s status as “type” of the Church (typus) as a function of her relation to Christ. A felicitous passage from Augustine is used to make the connection. Insofar as she is Mother of Christ, the Head, she is also Mother of all of the members of Christ as his mystical Body. Her charity is her love of the will and plan of God as announced to her by the angel Gabriel, and her response in accepting her place in it. This love, without requiring the specifics at the moment of the Annunciation, is her love of God the Son as, in the Incarnation, her Son, and of all his work in God’s plan. That would be—us!—as he incorporates us into his Body as his members.

As a brief side note, it is hard to capture the idea of Mary as “type” of the Church in English. It means something like “recapitulative realization,” a kind of “summing up” in her own person all that the Church is, both presented and represented in its fullness in her person. She is herself, in her own person, as we will see below, virgin and mother, and thus a “type” or “exemplary realization” of the Church.

Section 54 then briefly sketches out the intention of this chapter before moving on the next subheading.[1]

The Role of the Blessed Mother in the Economy of Salvation

Section 55 briefly traces the history of the figuration of Mary in the Old Testament, concluding with its culmination: “With [Mary] . . . the times are fulfilled . . . when the Son of God took a human nature from her, that he might in the mysteries of his flesh free man from sin.” This formulation emphasizes the initiative of Christ in the Incarnation, but the next section makes it clear that Mary is not thereby cast as a mere passive instrument. It treats the mystery of the Immaculate Conception as a mystery of Mary’s freedom, a freedom worked and upheld by the same freedom or grace that worked the Incarnation. Enriched by grace which has redeemed her in a unique way by preserving her from all sin from the moment of her conception, she is not “stained” by the fear of power or the susceptibility to blandishments that power can offer. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is the original anti-sexual harassment doctrine because it is the doctrine of Mary’s complete freedom, entirely buoyed up by grace, in the face of the most extreme power disparity possible, between the Almighty God and a low status girl of (most likely) early teenage years. And thus, section 56 can conclude with Mary, far from being a passive instrument in the hands of God,

rather as freely cooperating in the work of human salvation through faith and obedience. For, as St. Irenaeus says, she “being obedient, became the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race.” Hence “The knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience; what the virgin Eve bound through her unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosened by her faith” (LG §56, citing St. Irenaeus).

Christ, in emptying himself of the form of God to take the form of a servant, does not use Mary as the equivalent of an artificial womb, a necessary medium for acquiring flesh, but empties himself into a relationship, a concrete and unique relationship as concrete and unique as that of any mother and son. It comes with all the ties of such a relationship, including all of its vulnerabilities to loss and heartbreak. The idea of Mary’s “co-operation” in the work of salvation is a somewhat clumsy, technical expression for Christ’s self-emptying into this concrete relationship of Son and Mother and its continued outworking, so to speak, in this very concrete relationship.

Thus section 57 can begin, “This union of the Mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ’s virginal conception up to his death.” Sections 57 and 58 set about sketching out the evangelical dimensions of this relationship, recalling Mary’s joys and, increasingly, her sorrows, as she “advanced in her pilgrimage of faith,” faithfully persevering in the unique relationship to which she had given her consent. In a way, she is learning the almost fathomless depths of that very consent. She

faithfully persevered in her union with her Son unto the cross, where she stood, in keeping with the divine plan, grieving exceedingly with her only begotten Son, uniting herself with a maternal heart with his sacrifice, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of this Victim which she herself had brought forth (LG §58).

In a way, the depth of her charity is being revealed, to herself and to others, as she continues to assent, until “finally, she was given by the same Christ Jesus dying on the cross as a mother to his disciple with these words: ‘Woman, behold thy son’” (John 19:26-27). Thus the meaning of Mary’s motherhood of Jesus is fully revealed as extending beyond the Head to his beloved members, represented here by the “Beloved Disciple.” But at what a cost does she learn this, and continue to consent! This moment reveals the ultimate content of her initial consent as a moment of burning charity that continues to burn until it receives all of Christ’s beloved as her very own children. By her burning charity she embraces and accepts the full extent of her maternal vocation, and thus brings about, “co-works,” the birth of the Church, the very instrument of God’s salvation for humanity predestined in the mystery of his sovereign will from all eternity!

Section 59 completes the sketch of the unfolding of the mystery of the relationship denominated in the title, “Mother of God.” We find her “persevering with one mind in prayer with the women and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with his brothers” (Acts 1:14, LG §59). Then, when her earthly life was over, tradition teaches that she was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, where she was “exalted by the Lord as Queen of the universe, that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords (see Rev 19:16) and the conqueror of sin and death.” Important to note is that her status as Queen of the universe is not a (nearly) functionless honorific such as “professor emerita.” By her conformation to her Son in the freedom, the burning maternal charity with which she, the “immaculate Virgin preserved from all stain of original sin” (LG §59), welcomed him and all of us with him, she is sovereign as mother. Her sovereignty cannot be turned into an abstraction, a metaphor, a myth expressing some abstract spiritual truth. It defies abstraction and is defiance of abstraction. She reigns as Queen with a personal relationship to her Son, the contours of which are a burning charity that embraces with a loving intensity we can only imagine a concrete person, and in him and through him to his members, and as such, and not as abstracted from such, the whole Universe. A mother reigns. The personal is ultimate in the Universe, not the abstract, the impersonal, or the attractions, the “pomp,” of evil whose ultimate aim is to depersonalize.

And thus we come to the mystery of Mary and the Church, moving into the third subheading.

On the Blessed Virgin and the Church

Sections 60-62 reminds the reader that the Mediation of Christ is unique, and that Mary’s role as a participation in this mediation does not threaten its uniqueness but rather attracts people to it: “There is but one Mediator as we know from the words of the apostle, ‘for there is one God and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a redemption for all’ (1 Tim 2:5-6). The maternal office of Mary toward human beings in no wise obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows his power” (LG §60). This “power” must not be imagined as “magic” or “domination,” but is the power of self-emptying love, which, to be truly emptied into the “form of a servant,” had to become as completely helpless and dependent as any of us, had to have, in other words, a mother, had to enter into a relationship, had to empty itself far enough to ask and to, by the grace of this self-emptying, make it so it was a true asking and not a command or threat in disguise.

Mary’s participation in this mediation, free and total as it is, thus shows forth and specifies the ultimate power of the unique mediation of Christ. Her role is “predestined,” as section 61 continues to explain, but what is predestined is precisely her freedom and thus her ability to accept her vocation so that “in this singular way she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope, and burning charity in the work of the Savior in giving back supernatural life to souls. Wherefore she is our mother in the order of grace” (LG §61). We encounter the Lord within this relationship, not abstractly, not as a concept, but as someone with a mother, and so we encounter her as our mother, in a motherhood which “continues without interruption” from the Annunciation and “lasts until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect” (LG §62) such that she can be invoked now under the titles (for example) “of Advocate, Auxiliatrix (Helper), Adjutrix (Benefactress), and Mediatrix” (ibid.). Every time she is invoked under these titles, all derivative of her main title as “Mother of God,” we assent to the mystery of the Incarnation as a mystery that is irreducibly one of personal relationship eternally willed by God, far from relativizing that relationship by a competing mediation.

We come to the heart of Chapter 8, I believe, in the next three sections, viz. sections 63-65. We encounter the mystery of the Church within the mystery of the relationship that is or that effected the Incarnation, and this means within the mystery of Mary’s relationship to Jesus. Section 63 returns to the idea of Mary as “type” of the Church, and fills it out with specifics:

By reason of the gift and role of divine maternity, by which she is united with her Son, the Redeemer, . . . the Blessed Virgin is also intimately united with the Church. As St. Ambrose taught, the Mother of God is a type of the Church in the order of faith, charity and perfect union with Christ. For in the mystery of the Church, which is itself rightly called mother and virgin, the Blessed Virgin stands out in eminent and singular fashion as exemplar both of virgin and mother (LG §63).

The Church is aware of herself as mystery in the awareness of someone particular, Mary, whose particularity, whose mystery, is defined by a particular and unique relationship, as virgin and mother, to an actual son. The Church, “contemplating [Mary’s] hidden sanctity,” discovers the depth of her own mystery as she, “receiving the word of God in faith becomes herself a mother,” that is, “by her preaching she brings forth to a new and immortal life the sons who are born to her in baptism, conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of God.” This includes the awareness that she is herself “a virgin, who keeps the faith given to her by her Spouse whole and entire.” Thus, “imitating the mother of her Lord, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, she keeps with virginal purity an entire faith, a firm hope and a sincere charity” (LG §64).

“But,” the document continues, “while in the most holy Virgin the Church has already reached that perfection whereby she is without spot or wrinkle,” since Mary is the “type” or “exemplary realization” of the Church, “the followers of Christ still strive to increase in holiness by conquering sin. And so they turn their eyes to Mary who shines forth to the whole community of the elect as the model of virtues” (LG §65). But she is more than a model of virtues: “Devoutly meditating on her and contemplating her in the light of the Word made man, the Church with reverence enters more intimately into the great mystery of the Incarnation and becomes more and more like her Spouse” (ibid.). In other words, the Church becomes aware of herself as mystery, as Spouse of the Bridegroom, by contemplating Mary because in that contemplation she becomes aware of the mystery of the Incarnation more and more as a mystery of self-emptying into the particularity of a concrete relationship, of a helpless infant to his Mother. She contemplates more and more deeply the love by which she was and is constituted. Irreducibly the mystery of the Church is Marian. And, insofar “as she is preached and venerated,”—which seems almost to happen by exception nowadays—she “calls the faithful to her Son and his sacrifice and to love of the Father,” because “Mary, since her entry into salvation history unites in herself and re-echoes the greatest teachings of the faith” (ibid.), the most fundamental of which is the mystery of the Incarnation.

The Cult of the Blessed Virgin in the Church

Sections 66 and 67 sketch out the appropriate contours of such a cult, encouraging it by reminding us that the title “Mother of God” was originally a devotional title, the most ancient devotional title, even as these sections also call upon the faithful to avoid the exaggerations that may make it seem, to ourselves and to others, that we are worshipping Mary as we worship, or worse, instead of worshipping, Christ.

Mary, the Sign of Certain Hope and Comfort to the Pilgrim People of God

The final subheading brings the document to a conclusion by reminding the reader of the eschatological destiny of the Church, the People of God. Or rather, it reminds us that Mary reminds us of the mystery of the Church’s destiny, because, “glorified in body and soul in heaven, she is the image and beginning of the Church as it is to be perfected in the world to come.” Thus too “does she shine forth on earth, until the day of the Lord shall come, as a sign of sure hope and solace to the people of God during its sojourn on earth” (LG §68). The chapter, and the whole document therefore, ends with an exhortation to all Christians to pour forth supplications to the Mother of God, that she “intercede before her Son in the fellowship of all the saints, until all families of people, whether they are honored with the title of Christian or whether they still do not know the Savior, may be happily gathered together in peace and harmony into one people of God, for the glory of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity” (LG §69), a prayer for the ultimate communion in divine life to which, as the opening chapters taught, God has predestined his creation.

Where does this leave us in our reflections on church life? It leaves us where we started, namely, participation in the life of the Church as participation in a mystery, the mystery of a vocation to communion in divine life of which the Church is the sacrament, in the world, on behalf of the world, but not of the world. We are aware of our own identity as infused with a mystery of intimacy, as of the members of a body to the body’s head and, through the head, to the other members. We are aware that this identity did not come from ourselves and that it is a mystery of the grace of the Incarnation of the One who bent down in self-emptying love even to death on a Cross.

But now we are aware of that identity in an even deeper way, one that defies and resists abstraction from the personal relationships in which the mystery of our redemption is contracted. Devotion to Mary, Mother of God, is the x-axis of the y-axis of an ever more profound adoration of the Incarnate Word because it directs our attention to the absolutely concrete character of his self-emptying. Namely, that he is not into a concept—concepts do not have mothers—but into the fundamental relationship of absolute dependency that marks the human condition, that of a helpless infant dependent on his mother.

But if the members of the Church are members of Christ’s own Body, then Mary, as Mother of God, has also become Mother of the Church. Just as Mary is not the mother of a concept, but of the Incarnate Son, a concrete person, so she is not the mother of an “institution,” but of a Body. Institutions do not have mothers. The Church is irreducibly denominated, constituted, and defined within a personal relation. So she is herself irreducibly personal without being a “corporate personality,” which would be just another abstraction.

Instead in her devotion to Mary as Mother of the Church, she sees her own identity concretely and personally realized. That is what it means to call Mary the “type,” the “exemplary realization” of the Church. Devotion to Mary deepens one’s awareness of the Church to a profundity which can only find expression in personal terms and resists abstraction at every turn, such that the Church is fundamentally a “she,” not, fundamentally, an “it.” When we love the Church, we do not in the first instance love an abstraction, or an institution, or an “it.” It is hard to love an abstraction. Easier to disaffiliate. Instead, we are given something else. When we love the Church, we love someone, and that someone is Mary, and not because she in her turn is an abstraction, a symbol of the Church, someone whose personal existence as an individual is absorbed into her symbolic identity. Rather, because in loving her, we are loving and experiencing the Church as irreducibly personal, irreducibly inscribed within a relation and defined by that relation.

Yes, she is an “it.” She is a societas, she is a People, she is a visible fellowship within the world. The beauty of the mystery of the Church is that she is, on one level, an “it,” one that is not ultimately reducible to an “it.” She is in history, and yet transcends it as presenting to and in the world the destiny of the world, which is a personal relation. She transcends the world insofar as she is “personal,” defined by an outpouring of love that she did not give herself but, as its sacrament, pulls the whole world along into that love. Devotion to Mary rescues, recovers, and renews our appreciation of, our awe of, our gratitude for the Church life by permanently and irreducibly specifying it as fundamentally relational. No, even that is too abstract. Church life is awareness of oneself as participating in the gift of a concrete personal communion with the Son of God, who is himself defined by his relation to the Father in the Spirit, who emptied himself into a relationship of concrete dependence on his mother, and we encounter the Church as a work therefore of maternal love and in turn then mother, virgin and Bride. It is so much easier to love a mother than it is to love a rationalized flatlined version of the Church, that actually amounts to a rejection of the Incarnation.

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