BVM: Mary, The Mother of the Lord---Part II

In our discussion on "Haunted," our interlocutor generously provided the key text of the promulgation of the Immaculate Conception (IM):


"We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by almighty God in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of Original Sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful."

—Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus




As I noted in the discussion that ensued,  we must bear in mind that the Marian dogmas are about Mary, not about us. They take nothing from us, and the de fide claims for Mary are not at our expense, our experience of grace or our relationship with Christ and the Catholic Church. We receive the dogmas as gifts, and we accept them as such or at our own theological peril. The IM in particular has far-reaching ramifications for the theology of grace and nature, and it underscores a difference in the economy of grace for Mary and the rest of us. But it is still the same grace, and we, too, in Baptism, become free from Original Sin (OS). Like Mary, we still answer to the effects of OS (i.e., suffering, death) regardless of the sanctifying grace sacramentally given to us, or the unmediated grace given to her.




Mariology is thoroughly christological: none of the Marian dogmas are intelligible or even remotely coherent apart from the Christ-event. All her uniqueness, singularity and privilege derive from her maternal relationship to Jesus. The IM in particular has always been understood in terms of her being the god-bearer, the mother of God,  the mother of the Lord. Only after a strong rooting in the fact of her motherhood of Jesus, can anything about Mary enter theology.

The Church views Mary as singularly different, privileged because she alone carried the Word made flesh inside her very body, her very person. Because the Christ-event itself is unique, so too, is Mary. Jesus could only have one historical mother. Her singularity anchors into that singular historical foundation for her attributes in dogmatic theology. She is full of grace because she bore within in her the very source of grace. Her singular experience of grace is visited upon her own conception in the divine proclamation of the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15. Her conception in the divine imagination is in direct nexus with graced image and likeness enjoyed by the biblical characters, Adam and Eve: theologically speaking.
 


In is on this basis that most Catholics accept the Marian dogmas. Mary captures the Catholic imagination because she is experienced as a human phenomenon, certainly not the saturated phenomenon of the icon that bedazzles the intuition ducking the aim of intentionality, but perhaps as an idol, saturated by the reflection of the gaze of her fellow humans. This characterization likely explains the ease by which she so easily enters the s. fidei and s. fidelium. She is not divine, and like nature itself, is open to free inquiry and the freedom of the imagination. At every juncture, though, she opens the door to that saturated phenomenon par excellence, Christ; and that is the raison d'etre for her place in Catholic theology. She allows Christ to 'make sense' in the very world, the very history, which all Catholics inhabit. Mary's ''yes'' to God does not merit for her any special grace, for all grace is totally gratuitous and freely given by God alone (not to mention the inherent Pelagianism in such a thought). Rather, Mary's "yes" to God opens for Catholics access to the possibility of the impossible, a "yes" opens upon the horizon of sanctifying grace.


And yet, lest we fall into an unnecessary triumphalism, for those who struggle with the dogmas as Catholics, or for that matter, as atheists buttressing their arguments against the existence of God and the validity of Catholicism in particular and religion in general, we cannot dismiss the problems presented by the gymnastics of the theology of grace at work in the IM, or in the devotional logics of pdf. The trans-, or meta-historical workings of grace require a nuanced approach not always available to Catholics of conscience. The theodical elements of potuit, decuit, ergo fecit, will forever delight or torture thoughtful atheists, because each element challenges every claim made about the theistic God. 


The IM unifies the concept of grace as the totality of God's actus purus. Taken in its pure givenness, the IM enables the ''gifted'' with all humility to participate in the grace of God in a very complete way. Whether through the thorough-going Christology of the Angelus, or the Hallelujah of the Magnificat, Mary the idol, through the porosity of grace, always opens us up to icon of the Logos.

BVM: Mary, The Mother of the Lord---Part I

Chosen by God among all women to bear Jesus, whom she conceived miraculously as a virgin, Mary is honored, alone of all her sex, as one of only two persons (Jesus being the other) born untouched by Satan. She herself is the daughter of Joachim and Anna, and by at least one tradition, grew up in the Temple under the care of Zechariah. Gabriel announced to her that she would bear Jesus, a sign to all the world. Mary questioned the angel about the possibility of a virgin conceiving, and the astonished young maid was reassured that for God nothing is impossible. Because of these things she is remembered forever as an exemplar of faith, worship, and purity, of submission to the will of God, as singularly chosen, exalted mother of Jesus and Queen of all saints.


Such is the record, in the Quran, of Mary in the Islamic Tradition; she is the only woman in the Quran mentioned by name. Interestingly, she is mentioned more times in the Quran than in the entire New Testament. Of course, the Quran does not know of the divinity of Jesus, which would have detracted from the indivisible divinity of God. A divine Jesus is quite impossible in Islam; yet a maximalist Mariology is alive and well in Islam and its system of belief.


Recently in comments to this blog, the Marian dogmas in Catholicism have been cast as the "best" reason against the validity of Catholicism. Really, the "best?" One would think that the standard argument for atheism---theodicy---would have preemptively invalidated Catholicism (or any theistic system) without any further need of invalidation. But one needn't be an atheist to locate difficulties in the received dogmatic theology of Mary in Catholicism.


Putting aside the dogmas of the perpetual virginity and theotokos, the latest dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption are pronounced from a thoroughly modern church and papacy. Since the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was the bugaboo in the lengthy discussion in the 'comments' of "Haunted by the Holy Ghost," I would limit the content of this blogpost to that dogma and the gist of the conversation on "Haunted."


First I would point out that the modern Marian dogmas are each punctuated with a warning: any denial of them incurs upon the denier anathematization, and would be tantamount to a denial of the Catholic faith entire and a declaration that one is no longer a member of  the Catholic Church. Putting aside the ridiculous notion that a Catholic could put aside her unconditional preferential option for the Catholic faith by putting her conscience in relation to the dogmas, then the heart of the papal threats of excommunication is laid bare: it is not the content of the Marian dogmas that separates the Catholic from Catholicism, but the denial of papal infallibility. It is very likely that one could present her conscience to the Marian dogmas without fear of excommunication (the angelic doctor did the same regarding the Immaculate Conception (IM) and there is no posthumous excommunication of the author of the Summa), but papal infallibility is another matter entirely.


Interestingly, both the modern Marian declarations and the pronouncement on papal infallibility share the theological arguments that their authority and effectiveness is the Holy Spirit, and therefore their content is free of error in their matter of faith and morals. Since papal infallibility limits itself to faith and morals, so should we, in presenting the IM to our consciences, limit ourselves to the tenets of faith and morals. For, in fact, that is precisely what Pius IX and Pius XII did in promulgating the dogmas.


Quite simply, Pio Nono polled the Catholic world and found unanimity about the doctrine of the IM, which is one of the oldest beliefs about Mary. The early Franciscans citied the terse logic of the Scholastics in validating the celebration of the feast of the IM: potuit, decuit, ergo fecit (He[God] could do it, it was fitting that he do it, therefore he did do it.) The pope merely promulgated as de fide what was already entrenched in  the sensus fidei and sensus fidelium. For all that unanimity, why punctuate with a solemn threat? Was it fear that the polls were inaccurate or fickle? Probably not, since the very ideas of the sensus fidei and s. fidelium precluded such a possibility. Was it that the doctrinal expression of the transhistorical operations of grace was incoherent? Probably not, especially if the essentially devotional logic of pdf were still operational (they must have been). Was it that papal infallibility had entered the magisterium in its hottest configuration (and to be officially promulgated within Pius IX's reign, at Vatican I, 15 years after the IM) and was doing its own presenting to the consciences of the Catholic world? While the other explanations cannot be excluded with absolute certainty, this last reason seems the best explanation, especially in light of the signs of the times, informed by the loss of the papal states and a general state of siege inaugurated by what was perceived as the creep of modernity.