Ave Maria!
As a follow up on our previous post on this subject here is an excellent and detailed article Her Station Keeping: Immaculate Conception to CoRedemptrix on the connection between the Immaculate Conception and the Coredemptrix by Matthew Tsakanikas on Catholic Exchange. The article has many references to patristics, magisterial statements and a heavy emphasis on the strongly Marian statements of Benedict XVI before he was pope. Referring to a quote from Cardinal Ratzinger about how Our Lady loses her personhood in service to Christ and so finds it again, he sates:
Ratzinger’s comment becomes more revealing. It is Mary who loses herself for Jesus’ sake: “it is as if she had handed over her personal dimension, in order to be solely at [Jesus’] disposal, and precisely thereby had become a person” (Mary: The Church at the Source, p.16). In her self-emptying at the foot of the Cross, something greater is occurring in her than in any other human redeemed by Christ. As the Immaculate Conception she is already the Church (the Spouse) in person and an actual part of Jesus’ Redemption by her special share in the Spirit prior to all others. Jesus’ Spirit is at work in her at the Cross to suffer in faith with the Redeemer. The fuller meaning of the Immaculate Conception is being revealed. The “mournful mother weeping” is the Woman, “wailing aloud in pain as she labored to give birth” (Rev 12:2). Jesus then proclaims: “Woman, behold your son!” (Jn 19:26). At the Cross, her calling as the Immaculate Conception was further revealed…she was now the new Eve. Jesus could now say to all disciples: “Behold your Mother!” (Jn 19:27).
And again:
Ratzinger wrote that the immediate effect of this shift, known as the victory of ecclesiocentric Mariology, “was the collapse of Mariology altogether” (Mary: The Church at the Source, p.24). Paul VI tried to prevent such misunderstandings by officially bestowing the title “Mother of the Church” upon Mary with the promulgation of Lumen Gentium. This title was supposed to “express the fact that Mariology goes beyond the framework of ecclesiology and at the same time is correlative to it” (cf. Ratzinger, p.29). In other words, it was supposed to affirm her real motherhood without being a source for false exaggerations that make her parallel to Christ.
more?evidence?of how deeply Marian our Holy Father is.
Ave Maria!
