Aspects of Mary and the Church
through the Centuries
It is in history XE "History" ,[1]
where the actualisation of the Church becomes apparent in a twofold way: the respective
visible manifestation of her inner portrait as perceived by her own
representatives in the different epochs of time and her actual concrete
configuration in her members. The history of the Church shows the different
shifts in emphasis and the close correlation between both
aspects, idea and reality.[2]
Early
Patristic Period
The first centuries
are characterized by the image of the Church as mystery. [3]
The strong symbolical representation of this mystery is shown by the writers in images deriving from Sacred scripture, mythology, typology, and allegory.[4]
Augustine’s notion of the body of the Church as the Eucharistic Body of Christ
is particularly influential for the whole of this ecclesiology.[5]
The
Marian dimension of the patristic
ecclesiology must be seen in particular against the New Testament background
with the implications of the Pauline and Johannine
typology: Adam-Eve-Church-Mary.[6]
From this typological basis developed the Church-Mary parallel, with Mary as
the typos of the Church: “symbol,
central idea, and as it were, the summary of all that
is meant by the Church in her nature and vocation.”[7]
Augustine develops this further in that he places Mary before the Church as her
ideal image[8]
and as member of the body of Christ as part of the Church.[9]
From
the time of Constantine until the Reformation the notion of the Christian realm or imperium was in the foreground;
the populus Dei became the populus Christianus, which became a
sociological, political and cultural term.[10] The corpus
Christi mysticum, so far reserved for the
Eucharist XE "Eucharist"
, became the corpus ecclesiae mysticum[11] ; similar changes occurred in the
application of the term laoV,
now known as laity the term for those who are not part of the
clergy and the hierarchy. Although the Church was in the fore as imperatrix et domina,
her mystery character was present in the renewal movements and in the great
theological treatises of
that time.[12]
While the Church-Mary parallel continued into the
medieval period, the Marian reflection of the earlier part of this epoch,
strongly influenced by the Carolingian era, was characterized by the change
from the patristic’s predominantly
salvation-historical perspective of Mary to a more individualized,
privilege-oriented understanding of her.[13]
It was no longer the knowledge about Mary’s importance in the history XE
"History" of
salvation that stood in the foreground, but Mary’s effectiveness in the here
and now. Here we have a development from the truth of Mary’s position in the
objective work XE "Work" of salvation to her influence on the
subjective course of salvation: the Mother
of God became the Mother of the
faithful, the ancilla domini, the domina and regina nostra who in the present time fulfills
an essential task in distributing the fruits of salvation. The typology
Mary-Church is no longer seen as purely metaphorical, but, rather, Mary is the
model for the virginal-fruitful Church and the reason for the Church’s salvific efficacy
toward its members. [14]
This development remained prevalent throughout the medieval period.[15]
The
Catholic Reformation and Counter-Reformation
The
image of the Church as it became prevalent after the Reformation[16]
was counter reformation apologetic-oriented.[17]
Influential here in particular was Robert Bellarmine
with an ecclesiological concept, which emphasized the visible, institutional structure of the Church.[18]
Thus, in the foreground stood the Church, united in the papacy, with a strong
apologetic impetus.[19]
The division of
Christendom brought about through the Reformation in the sixteenth century
caused a setback to Marian devotion.
Against Luther’s and the other reformers’ increased distance from Catholic
Marian doctrine, the Catholic representatives pointed out the significance of
Mary in the work XE "Work" of
redemption XE "Redemption" .[20]
The Council of Trent and the post-Tridentine period,
marked by the mentioned apologetic impetus, gave rise to a new Catholic
self-confidence and a marked Marian piety; the latter was central to the
Counter-Reformation and particularly influential in strengthening the faith.
This new springtime of Mariology was vitally carried by the Marian
Congregations [established in 1563].[21]
In the ecclesiological perspective, Mary’s position remained that of being the
Mother of God and the most excellent member of Christ’s body. All gifts, graces
and divine influence proceed from Christ, the head of the Church, through Mary,
the neck, into the body of the Church.[22]
The
Age of the Enlightenment
In
the following epoch the image of the Church was affected by the impact of Deism
and Enlightenment with Rationalism, which brought about a new interpretation of
Christian teaching aimed at effacing all creedal differences.[23] The Church was to be reduced to a moral
institution through demythologising and desecrating efforts. On the one hand,
this resulted in the endeavours of a more people-oriented liturgical XE
"Liturgical"
emphasis and on the other hand a stronger clericalism emerged.
The strong apologetic orientation XE
"Orientation"
remained and was to be seen against the background of the
above-mentioned influences and political changes. [24]
The effects of the
Enlightenment on the Church were particularly felt in the area of Marian
devotion and teaching. In contrast to the more demonstrative and effusive
Catholic representation of Marian truth and devotion of the Baroque,[25] the time of Enlightenment presented a
reduction of Marian doctrine to a purely moral level of values and virtues
associated with a milieu of bourgeoisie. There is a marked descent from the
praise of Mary’s glories as Queen of
Heaven to her being a model character of a mother’s love and concern for
home duties. This Marian content, rationalized and reduced to mere morality and
ethics by many Church authorities, was kept alive to a significant degree in
popular piety.[26]
From
the Period of Romanticism to the Nineteenth Century
The
influence of the Romantic affected the concept of the Church in a way which
brought again to the fore the inner reality of the Church and its organic XE
"Organic" unity XE "Unity" .[27]
Through the impact of “modernism XE "Modernism" ” and the counter
orientation XE "Orientation" on neo-scholasticism, the Church
increasingly closed itself off to the spirit of the time and became defensive.[28]
Within this atmosphere of
Catholicism the ninetieth century inaugurated again a re-awakening of Marian
piety marked by Marian pilgrimages and apparitions,[29]
and inspired by the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which
commenced the so-called Marian century.[30] In spite of this renewal of Marian devotion,
essentially influenced through the dogmatic definition in 1854, there was considerably
less development in Marian theology[31];
however, two eminent theologians and contemporaries need to be mentioned: John
Henry Newman, who brought again to the fore the Eve-Mary parallel in support of
Mary’s original state of grace [Immaculate Conception], her part in redemption
XE "Redemption" , her eschatological XE
"Eschatological" fulfilment
and her intercession,[32]
and J. M. Scheeben.
The latter gives a fairly detailed Mariological-ecclesiological exposition. Mary, as the
grace-filled person [per se] in her relationship with the Trinity and in her
divine motherhood, is typologically significant for the Church.[33] From this perspective, Scheeben
speaks of a fundamental principle which is constitutive and serves as vantage
point for all mariological statements and the
understanding of Mary’s person and task in the order of salvation and the
history XE "History" of salvation:
Mary’s divine-spousal motherhood [Gottesbräutliche Mutterschaft ]
as her personal character–a term
unique to Scheeben’s Mariology.[34] He speaks of the fundamental principle
within the framework of the supernatural personal character of Mary.[35] This character distinguishes Mary from all
other people: “At the same time, of its very nature and according to the idea
of the Church, it is used also in the sense that, compared with all other
qualities of Mary, the distinguishing mark of ‘mother of Jesus’ forms the
capital, fundamental, and central quality to which, as subordinate attributes,
all others are joined.”[36] Further, Scheeben
underlines:
All the privileges belonging to the
Mother of God are of a super-natural character and thus find their principle in
a supernatural gift of grace, so this applies particularly to the motherhood
itself. This motherhood must therefore be defined as a supernatural
distinguishing mark of Mary’s person, to which, in addition to her nature, she
is raised through divine grace and which thus has its root in a divine gift of
grace through which it is constituted.[37]
The formative element of Mary’s
personal character is the “supernatural, spiritual union XE "Union" of the
person of Mary
with that of her Son”; it is the highest, most intimate and perfect union
between God and a human creature.[38]
“Mary, as united with the Logos, is
taken into complete possession by him; the Logos,
as infused and implanted in her, gives himself to her and takes her to himself
as partner and helper, in the closest, strictest, and most lasting community XE
"Community" of life.”[39] Scheeben considers Mary in the role of her divine-bridal
motherhood as the mother and heart XE "Heart" of the Mystical Body of Christ. Within the inner organic XE "Organic" unity XE
"Unity" of the Church he
highlights this heart function:
Mary is . . . the prototype XE
"Prototype"
of the Church, as the idea of the Church is originally realized
in her person and in the most perfect manner. Since she herself belongs to the
Church and at the same time forms the head-member as root and heart, the idea
of the Church as a supernatural principle assisting Christ also obtains its
full, concrete and living figure.[40]
Scheeben’s perception of a fundamental principle, and the
uniqueness of his concept of Mary’s personal character has found a resonance in
the years preceding Vatican II [from ca. 1940 on], for example in the works of
H. M. Köster, Kurl Rahner and Semmelroth.[41] The aspects and the orientations that Scheeben gives in this concept have generated negative and
positive critiques.[42] According to G. Philips, it is not possible
to combine the two terms “mother” and “bride” in the concept of “bridal
motherhood” without creating a misconception in the understanding of the
concept.[43] C. Feckes takes
the divine-bridal motherhood as the fundamental principal of Mariology: Mary is
mother, because she is bride and
co-worker of the Redeemer. Her first service as co-worker in the redemptive
work XE
"Work" of her Son is her maternal action. She is bride, because she
is mother, since her motherly action
includes in her Fiat a bridal dimension.[44] A pertinent modification and
application of Scheeben’s idea of the mariological fundamental principle is given by Fr. Kentenich[45] in his Marian paradigm. XE
"Paradigma"
XE "Paradigm" XE "Paradigma" XE
"Paradigm" [46]
In
accordance with a long tradition XE
"Tradition" acknowledging the essential unity
XE
"Unity" between Christ and Mary,[47] and in affiliation with Scheeben’s
concept, he defines, as a fundamental Marian principle, the personal character of Mary:[48] as “the unique bridal, permanent helpmate
and associate of Christ, who is the Head of the whole Church and world XE
"World", in the entire work XE
"Work" of redemption XE
"Redemption" ,”[49] or expressed in the shorter version from
1950: Mary is “the official companion and helpmate of Christ in the entire work
of redemption.”[50] Although all of Mary’s unique gifts–like her
immaculate conception, perpetual virginity, the intemerata and her divine motherhood–are included and
are to be interpreted from the above paradigm, yet Kentenich’s
choice of this definition as he stated in 1941 points beyond traditional Mariological interpretations toward Mary’s active involvement in salvation history XE "History" . She is, through her educative task
toward humanity, the free cooperative permanent
helpmate and associate of Christ in
the entire work of redemption.[51] The Christologically
founded and oriented unity between Christ and Mary is constitutive for Mary’s place in God’s divine plan, in the order of salvation and at the center of salvation history, and gives her an official
character.[52] For Kentenich,
Mary’s position in God’s plan of
salvation is the starting point for everything that can be said about her
person and her mission.
From Vatican I to Vatican
II
The First Vatican Council,
compelled through exterior circumstances, could deal only with the position and
task of the pope and could not go into the question of the Church’s
self-concept, a concept which should have found expression as the corpus Christi mysticum
and as the true, perfect, spiritual and supernatural community XE
"Community".[53]
At the beginning of
the present century a new understanding of the Church was emerging: a move from
a scholastic, institutional concept to a biblical and patristic image. “The
Church is awakening in souls,” wrote Romano Guardini
in 1922.[54]
His writing and those of Henri De Lubac and Yoes Congar address this new
awakening.[55]
It is well presented in De Lubac’s work:
The only
real Church, the Church which is the Body of Christ, is not merely that
strongly hierarchical and disciplined society whose divine origin has to be
maintained, whose organization has to be upheld against all denial and revolt.
That is an incomplete notion and but a partial cure for the separatist,
individualist tendency of the notion to which it is opposed; a partial cure
because it works only from without by way of authority, instead of effective
union XE "Union" . If Christ is the sacrament XE
"Sacrament" of God, the Church is for us the sacrament of Christ; she
represents him, in the full and ancient meaning of the term; she really makes
him present.[56]
This notion of the
inner reality of the Church was given a strong impetus by Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi,[57]
in which he brought together the Body of Christ and the People of God XE
"People of God" united to Christ, and Mediator Dei.[58]
The different streams of this newly-inspired reflection upon the Church’s inner
reality, its mystery, flowed into the discussions of Vatican II, and placed the
Church at the center of attention.[59]
The awareness of returning the image
of the Church to patristic notions also brought into the ecclesiological
foreground the patristic image of Mary
and the Church intertwined. The task of Mary is also the task of the Church:
“As it is the mother role of Mary to give to the world XE "World" the
God-man, so it is the mother role of the Church, culminating in the celebration
of the Eucharist XE "Eucharist" , to give us
also Christ as the head, sacrifice and nourishment for the members of his
mystical body.”[60]
Finally, the eschatological XE "Eschatological" significance of the
close association of Mary and the Church finds expression in the dogmatic
definition of Mary’s Assumption.[61]
During
the decades just prior to Vatican II, a particular representative of Scheeben’s mariological thinking
was C. Feckes. Known as the interpreter of Scheeben’ Mariology, he follows him in his understanding of
the basic Marian principle: the divine-bridal motherhood; Mary is mother
because she is bride and helpmate of Christ.[62]
In his ecclesiology Feckes attempts to present the
Church as the Christ-founded institution of salvation and places a strong
emphasis on the ministerial priesthood, the mystical body of Christ.[63]
Analogous to Augustine,[64] Feckes speaks of the Holy Spirit as the soul of the Church, as its animating and unifying power.[65]
In unison with Scheeben he refers to the relatedness
between Mary’s motherhood and that of the Church as a perichorese.[66]
Above all, Mary’s place in the Church is characterized as that of the heart XE "Heart" .[67]
Mary is typos of the Church. Under
the Cross she “becomes the mother of all the redeemed” and the mediatrix of graces. [68]
The most perfect and original way in which the idea of the Church is realized
is in Mary.[69]
She is “the first of the redeemed, she is the ideal image of all the redeemed,”[70]
and as the pre-redeemed she is Model
and Archetype of the Church as the sum of all
the after-redeemed.[71]
The latter statement closely resembles the Marian teaching of Vatican II:
Mary’s model character for all people
of God.
O. Cohausz is also
strongly influenced by Scheeben,[72]
and his argumentation is highly inspired by the Mary-Eve parallel XE
"Mary-Eve parallel" with the primacy of the masculine gender. Mary is
the model of creation XE "Creation" and the representative of creation in
the salvific event of Christ’s Incarnation XE "Incarnatio" .[73]
She is mother and bride of Christ. She is also our mother because she gave birth
to us when she gave birth to Christ. Her motherhood toward us continues in her
task as mediatrix of graces.[74]
K. Adam and E. Przywara speak of Mary as “the inner form of
the Church,”[75]
and A. Müller comes to the conclusion, after
investigating the patristic sources, that “Mary is the perfect realization of
the Church–the essential mystery of the Church is the mystery of Mary.”[76]
de Lubac also
refers to the patristic tradition XE "Tradition" in which “the same biblical symbols are
applied, either in turn or simultaneously, with one and the same
ever-increasing profusion, to the Church and Our Lady.”[77]
All the sources of the Church’s tradition point to the fact that everywhere the
Church finds in Mary “its type and model, its point of origin and perfection:
‘The form of our mother the Church is
according to the form of his
[Christ’s] mother.’”[78]
H. Rahner, too, speaks of the unity XE
"Unity"
between Mary and the Church in his studies of the Church Fathers:
“The early Church saw Mary and the Church as a single figure: type and antitype
form one print as seal and wax.”[79]
C. Dillenschneider depicts
Mary in her role as the mother of the Messiah; he shows her place next to
Christ and within the Church as the archetype
XE "Archetype" [Urbild ] and inner portrait [Inbild XE "Inbild" ] of the Church.[80]
Mary stands with Christ at the center of salvation
history XE "History" ,[81]
and as his helpmate she also cooperates as the representative of humanity and
the Church in the Incarnation XE "Incarnatio"
, as well as on Golgotha in the Redemption.[82] Dillenschneider perceives Mary’s mediating role to be a
consequence of her “yes” at the Incarnation as well as her “yes” under the
Cross. Her “yes” has an ecclesiological perspective since “her general
intercession in heaven is nothing else but the highest form of the
‘interceding’ community XE "Community" of saints.”[83]
Prior to Vatican II, the French Mariological Society made its particular contribution to
the Mary-Church theme through its three-year series of Marian studies,[84] whereby special mention needs to be made of
Canon Philips, one of its members, who repeatedly wrote on this theme and who
later became one of the main draftsmen of Chapter VIII of Lumen gentium XE
"Lumen
gentium" .[85] In 1958, the International Mariological Congress in Lourdes too had Maria et Ecclesia
as its theme.[86]
Among the German-speaking
theologians it was in particular Semmelroth who discussed Mariology in its relatedness to ecclesiology under the
aspect of archetype XE "Archetype" [Urbild ]. He sees in Ambrose’s expression, Mary as the type of the
Church, the sum of the Church’s tradition, XE "Tradition" “concerning the Church’s knowledge of its own
nature.”[87] It is within ecclesiology, where Mary’s
place in God’s plan of salvation should be viewed.[88] Semmelroth sees an
essential element in the relationship of Mary to the Church in the primitive
etymological meaning of type, which
in the fullest sense is threefold. It can signify [1] a personification or
representation of a spiritual entity through some sort of image; [2] “the
similarity between Mary and the Church is the consequence of a very real, inner
connection. The features that make the archetype similar to the image have
somehow grown from the archetype into the image”[89] ; [3] it can be a moral example as a result
of this relationship.[90] “When it has been established that Mary’s
relation to the Church and her members is factual and ontological XE
"Ontological" ,” then there will be moral
consequences, resulting in “a new relationship in the moral and exemplary
order.” Our lives will have to be ordered “according to the life led by the Archetype before us.”[91] Subsequently, in search of a basic mariological principle, he claims:
Because Mary was to be the type of the
Church, she was given existence as the virginal Mother of God. There is no
other Marian mystery which, as the intentional principle, could precede and
give root to the position that Mary holds as type of the Church . . . all other
Marian mysteries draw their inner meaning and connection from this basic
mystery.[92]
At
the center of the economy of salvation and its very
essence is the total Christ, that is,
Christ with the members of his mystical body. The Church is so intimately bound
to Christ that she becomes his mystical body, united to him as to her head
without any lessening of her bridal attitude toward him.[93]
It follows that
the basic
mystery of Mariology will be that which brings Mary closer to the center of the economy of salvation, which is the Church. This
coming-together takes place through the bridal aspect of the divine motherhood,
because here Mary shows herself as the completed bridal fiat for the advent and
work XE "Work"
of the Saviour.[94]
In this context Semmelroth
addresses also the question of co-redemption and speaks of Mary as “the type of
the truly co redeeming Church which gives salvation.”[95] The task of the Church as the community XE
"Community" of the redeemed in Christ[96] in God’s salvific
plan casts light on Mary’s role within the history XE
"History" of salvation. “Mary cooperated with her own redemptio objectiva,
which redemption, however, simultaneously
signifies the reception of the fruits of salvation for the entire Church
and which is therefore objective with regard to the individual.”[97]
Thus, Semmelroth
concludes that Mary, like the Church whose archetype XE
"Archetype" she is, also mediates all graces[98] and affirms as type and pinnacle of the
Church “Christ’s work and thereby disposed both herself and the Church within
her for the pleroma of salvation.”[99] “In the divine motherhood, Mary was given
the most perfect opportunity to prefigure the Church in a co-redemptive way,”[100] and in her Immaculate Conception “the Church
emerges as the one essentially redeemed, the one that could never exist tainted
with original sin and therefore, in the womb of humanity.”[101] Mary “personifies the Church as a symbol . . . personifies the Church as
the primordial cell from which the
Church extends in time and space . . . and is gathered into a juridically representative oneness.” However, writes Semmelroth, “There is no question of a Marian-Mystical
Body. Rather, it is a Marian-bridal element within the Mystical Body of
Christ.”[102] The redeemed state of the physical cosmos at
the end of time shines forth in her body in which she partook in Christ’s
death. As archetype, Mary’s body shows [in her Assumption] the Church’s fully
redeemed body; and it lights the way for the body of the Church and shows that the
transfiguration dwells like a seed within her corporeality.[103] Mary, the archetype, represents also the
ideal type, the model and moral example “against whom the Church as a whole and
all her members can examine their own attitude toward their redemption and
fullness of grace as they work out their own lives. . . The Church living in
her individual members needs Mary for her growth toward what she is and toward
her hidden potential. Mary causes the essence of the Church to shine before
individual human beings to appeal to their own moral efforts.”[104]
Although Semmelroth emphasizes Mary's archetypal function in “the Church insofar as she is the bride of Christ and mother of the individual faithful