The Voice of Thy Salutation

 Mediatrix of Grace

And when the ark of the Lord came into the city of David,
Michol the daughter of Saul, looking out through a window,
saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord.
2 Samuel 6, 16

And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come
to me? For behold as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in
my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Luke 1, 43-44

Grace originates from God the Father and is produced for us by the merits of God the Son through his passion, death, and resurrection. The distribution of divine grace is appropriated to God the Holy Spirit. By her divine motherhood and mystical union with the Holy Spirit as His chaste spouse, the Blessed Virgin Mary has acquired a universal maternal role in dispensing all actual graces in collaboration with the third Person of the Holy Trinity. Since it was through Mary’s salutary cooperation with divine grace in faith and love that the living Font of all grace came into the world by the power of the Holy Spirit, her Son willed to continue coming to us through his most Blessed Mother’s mediation (Jn 2:2-8), and he continues to reach out to us through her until the end of this age (Jn 19:26-27).

Vatican 2 Council explains:

This maternity of Mary in the order of grace began with the consent that she gave in faith at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross and lasts until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this salvific duty, but by her constant intercession continued to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. Through her maternal charity, she cares for the brethren of her Son, who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and cultics, until they are led into the happiness of their true home. Therefore, the Blessed Virgin is invoked by the Church under the titles of Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix, and Mediatrix. This, however, is to be so understood that it neither takes away from nor adds anything to the dignity and efficaciousness of Christ the one Mediator. – Lumen Gentium, 62

Before we see how the Virgin Mary is designated Mediatrix of Grace, it’s a good idea to clear up any misunderstanding concerning Christ’s majestic stateliness of being the “one mediator between God and man.” Protestants who object to this Catholic Marian doctrine do so because they think it “takes away from or adds to the dignity and efficacy of Christ the one Mediator.” To support their objection, they usually quote in isolation 1 Timothy 2:5: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.”

However, St. Paul doesn’t mean to say that Jesus is our “one and only” mediator in the entire economy of salvation. If this were his intention, he would have chosen the Greek word monos (μόνος) instead of heis (εἷς). Using heis, the apostle means there is “one and the same mediator between God and mankind.” Jesus is exclusively the one mediator for both the Jews and the Gentiles in “uniqueness” but in “a sameness of function” (commonality or universality), which the word heis denotes. This is what Paul means, considering what he writes in the four preceding verses: “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for all people… This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and come to know the truth” (1 Tim 2:1-4). By no means are baptized Christians totally passive in the divine work of salvation.

If then, we were to ask Paul, the father of the theology of human mediation, how it is that the Blessed Virgin Mary is a mediator (mediatrix), he would reply by saying that she intercedes for us in the name of her divine Son by making petitions and prayerful intercessions in Heaven. And he would indeed underscore the fact that she isn’t our Mediatrix of Grace by having given herself as “a ransom for all people” through the outpouring of her blood (1 Tim 2:6). For the apostle, Mary would be a factual mediator, not unlike himself and Abraham, who intercedes for us by participating in the principal mediation of her divine Son (covenantal Mediator) in and through his merits, as all baptized Christians can do as adopted sons and daughters of God; only the mother of our Lord holds a pre-eminent place in the order of grace because of her moral participation in the hypostatic order of Christ’s incarnation and his work of redemption.

Hence, Vatican 2 has made it clear that Christ is the one mediator as such by divine nature. He alone has merited the initial grace of justification and forgiveness by being God and man in his work of redemption (Eph 2:8-9). And He alone has produced all the actual graces (faith, hope, charity, etc.) we can now receive and minister by his passion and death. What he alone has merited for us is the ability to merit an increase of grace and charity for ourselves and others for our growth in sanctification and justification. God hears the prayers of the righteous (Jas 5:17). Christ alone has made this possible for us by his unique mediation, in and through which we become adopted children of God who partake of his divine nature and are a kingdom of priests to serve our God (1 Pet 2:5; 2 Pet 1:4). Indeed, God has prepared us to do good works in His grace given the merits of Christ, and these good works include corporal and spiritual works of mercy, such as offering our prayers for others and making personal sacrifices for the salvation of souls (Eph 2:10).

Moreover, there is only one mediator, Christ, whose sacrificial work is necessary if mankind is to be redeemed and reconciled to God. Without Christ, there can be no salvation in the Divine plan. Although God has willed that the Blessed Virgin Mary should participate in His plan of salvation, her involvement and contribution aren’t necessary since she cannot merit grace for anyone, including herself, in strict justice, but only by right of friendship, if this is what God wills. What Mary can merit by her prayerful mediation is sufficient insofar as how God has ordered her moral participation in and through her Son’s merits, without which the reward of eternal life couldn’t be produced at all, not by the Virgin Mary or any saint.

Christ’s mediation is more than sufficient and necessary for the forgiveness of sins and our initial justification. Still, God has obligated himself to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary’s merits in His love and mercy. But she can only merit an increase in sanctification and charity needed to attain salvation, a gift and a reward that Christ alone has produced for mankind. Our Lord and Savior does not depend on anyone in what he alone has merited for mankind (justification and forgiveness). However, he desires that all the members of his mystical body participate with him in his mediation or dispensation of grace now that he alone has merited grace for them. To be sure, we read in 1 Pet 4:10: “As every man hath received grace, ministering the same one to another: as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”

The Protestant doctrine of sola Christo (Christ alone) was originally Catholic, but it has been grossly exaggerated in Protestantism. What follows is that all baptized Christians are merely passive spectators in God’s plan of salvation and dispensation of grace. We can do nothing to be personally and instrumentally saved or reckoned as just. However, the Blessed Virgin Mary was no coerced on-looker when she declared: “Let it be done to me, according to thy word” (Lk 1:38). By her Fiat or free consent, she brought the living Font of all grace into the world so that “all might be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). God honored her free will pending the Incarnation.

Meanwhile, the universal Magisterium of the Catholic Church reminds us that Mary is only a human creature. Suppose God has chosen her to be our Mediatrix. In that case, it is strictly because she freely consented to be the mother of our Lord and Saviour and to intimately associate herself with him in his redemptive work. But what she has and can merit for us is in cooperation with her Son and participation in his merits, not in coordination with them. Thus, we must never forget that Mary’s association with her Son in his saving work receives its raison d’être in the free decision of the Father. Mary (nor any saint) must not be counted together with her divine Son in his unique mediation, which alone is necessary for our redemption and without which her factual mediation for an increase in sanctification or justification would be non-existent. Mary’s whole ability to do anything in God’s plan comes entirely from her Son, the principle of all human merit in his sacred humanity, and the divine source of all saving grace.

Finally, we should note that the term Mediatrix of Grace refers to all actual or signal graces necessary for effecting our increase in sanctification and attaining eternal life with God (2 Cor 2:15; 4:16; Col 3:10, etc.). These include the actual graces of faith, hope, charity, repentance, chastity, and final perseverance, without which we cannot reap the fruits of Christ’s saving work. On an individual basis, the baptized are in the process of “being saved” and “renewed” daily. The justification of the person isn’t a one-time and completed event. So, Catholics petition Mary for these helping graces when, for example, they recite the Rosary. These signal graces, of course, do not include the initial grace of justification and forgiveness for our sanctification, which Christ alone has merited and produced by his death and resurrection.

There is Mary, the Mediatrix and Dispensatrix of grace. These titles signify that, by God’s special ordinance, all the graces merited by Christ for our salvation are conferred and distributed foremost through the factual mediation of his mother. These are the actual graces that Christ pours out to us through the Holy Spirit for an increase in our sanctification or justification by Mary’s moral influence with her divine Son. Mary’s association with her divine Son is moral in nature. Our Blessed Lady cooperates with him through her maternal prayerful intercession by applying saving grace to all people in spiritual need according to God’s will. Mary cooperated in the same way when she, in charity and the state of grace, freely consented to be the mother of our Lord for the redemption of mankind in the shadow of the Cross on Calvary (Lk 2:34-35).

Sacramental grace is communicated by the valid and fruitful reception of any of the seven sacraments. A distinctive sacramental grace is imparted by each sacrament following its respective purpose in the supernatural life of the soul. The actual graces given upon the reception of the sacraments efficaciously sanctify the soul, making it just. The faithful, however, do not receive graces that are physically channeled through supernaturally transformed properties naturally intrinsic to Mary, as they are conferred, for instance, by applying the sacramental water of baptism or the oil of chrismation. On the contrary, the graces that they receive through her mediation are a share of those graces that she herself has received from the Holy Spirit without making any physical contact with her.

The Virgin Mary’s cooperation in objective redemption points to what Catholic theologians call “subjective redemption.” Unless we freely cooperate with the graces God mercifully wills to give us for our sanctification, we have no hope of being saved, for sanctification is supernatural life with God. The Holy Spirit operates through Mary, our intermediary and chief steward of grace, as He operates through the Seven Sacraments in the conferral of actual graces and sanctifying grace. Unlike Mary, the sacraments are physical instruments that communicate grace instead of a moral influence for its conferral.

Sanctifying grace is the supernatural state of being by the efficacious infusion of God’s grace, which permeates the soul. Sanctifying grace is a quality of the soul created by the activity of the Holy Spirit through His efficacious actual graces. If, then, one should happen to receive an actual grace by touching the hem of Mary’s mantle, that grace would be contained in this sacramental garment as a supernatural healing property of it and not in Mary herself. However, she would undoubtedly be endowed with that same grace that affects her soul's supernatural quality through the working of the Holy Spirit. In the same way, many people were cured of their illnesses and liberated from demonic oppression or possession simply by touching the handkerchiefs that were used by Paul to wipe sweat from his body and the aprons he wore (Acts 19:12).

When we place our faith in the powerful intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the other hand, we are essentially placing our faith in her divine Son, who has granted his mother the maternal prerogative of morally channeling the dispensation of his grace, so that we may continue to abide in his love by faithfully observing all his commandments (Jn 15:9-10). Christ’s redemptive work in our souls continues from the time we are baptized and through our pilgrimage of faith as we grow in spiritual perfection to attain our salvation by bearing fruit and persevering in grace to the end (Col 1:11-12; 3:9-10). The grace of final perseverance is one of the many actual graces we can receive through the intercessory prayers of our loving Blessed Mother by her supernatural merits if only we humbly implore her intercession as her Son desires (Prov 15:29).

​“Under your mercy we take refuge, O Mother of God,
Do not reject our supplications in necessity,
but deliver us from danger.”
– Sub Tuum Praesidium (c. A.D. 250)

And the ark of the Lord abode in the house of Obededom
the Gethite three months: and the Lord blessed Obededom,
and all his household.
2 Samuel 6, 11

And Mary abode with her about three months;
and she returned to her own house.
Luke 1, 56

John’s coming into the world to prepare mankind for the coming of the Messiah was foretold by a prophet who spoke of him as “A voice of one calling in the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God” (Isa 40:3). And another: “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty” (Mal 3:1). If John had been sanctified and justified by being made holy in his mother’s womb, making him more than a prophet, it would have happened in anticipation of his ministry to administer or mediate the grace of justification and forgiveness through the sacrament. John baptized his followers in the Jordan River, which signifies the drowning of their old life in the flesh and their emergence out of the water of purification into a new life in the spirit through the foreseen merits of Christ.

The sanctifying grace that the infant John received in his mother’s womb originated from the Divine infant in Mary’s holy womb. But it was by the mediation of the mother that he was cleansed of original sin. The powerful influence that the mother of our Lord wielded resided in the voice of her salutation. Through Mary’s mediation, the infant John entered communion with Jesus. In Heaven, the sweet sound of Mary’s prayers for her children never escapes the attention of her divine Son. With that same dynamic influence only a mother can possess over her son, the Blessed Mother petitions on behalf of all her children. David leaped and danced with joy in the presence of the Ark of the Old Covenant, as John the Baptist had in his mother’s womb in the presence of the Ark of the New Covenant, which, in the personification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, mediated God’s physical presence and grace on earth.

We meet our Lord Jesus Christ in his blessed mother, Mary, as the ancient Hebrews met God when YHWH physically manifested Himself in the glory cloud (Shekinah) that descended on (“overshadowed”) the sanctuary and enveloped the Ark to be with them. Mary was overshadowed similarly by the Holy Spirit so that she would conceive the Son of God, and he would physically dwell among his people (Exodus 25:8; 40:34-35; Lk 1:35; Jn 1:14).

Gary G. Michuta (Making Sense of Mary, Grotto Press) cites Zechariah 2:10 to connect the verse with John 1:14. In the prophecy, God says, “I am coming to dwell among you.” The author informs us that the Greek word for “dwell” is kataskenoso, whose root word for “tent” or “tabernacle” is skene, viz., the portable tent or tabernacle that housed the Ark of the Covenant before Solomon built the Temple. In the Gospel of John (1:14), the Greek word for “dwelt” is eskenosen, derived from the same root word skene. So, the evangelist literally says, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” This occurred when Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and conceived our Lord. God’s incarnated presence filled the temple of her body and the sanctuary of her womb, in which He personally dwelled and filled her with His glory as He had the Ark of the Covenant. Since Jesus comes to us through his blessed mother, Mary, we can come to him only through her. As the living Ark of the New Covenant, our Blessed Mother mediates the graces we need to tear down the walls or barriers in our souls that separate and keep us from God and the life of grace.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Through Mary’s mediation, Jesus came to re-create the world and depose the Prince of darkness. The walls of Satan’s dominion in the world came crashing down through the mediation of our Lord’s mother, by whom our Lord physically manifested Himself and made His presence felt. The Virgin Mary carried in her pure womb the One who claimed, “The water that I will give him, shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting” (Jn 4:14). Jesus was alluding to the supernatural life we receive through Baptism, the sanctifying grace, and charity that raises us from spiritual death unto eternal life. This supernatural life of grace merited for us by the Son was made possible through the merciful and charitable mediation of our Blessed Mother, who brought the living Font of all saving grace into the world by the sacred tabernacle of her womb. The sound of Mary’s Fiat ascended to God’s heavenly throne sweeter than the fragrance of a burnt sacrificial offering: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done to me according to thy word” (Lk 1:38).

God instructed Moses to construct the Ark to mediate the divine theophany and God’s providential grace for His people, the two primary credibilities: God who is and God who saves. To inaugurate His New and everlasting covenant a millennium later, God sent the angel Gabriel to a virgin who was espoused to a man named Joseph, and the virgin’s name was Mary (Lk 1:27). It was she who was blessed above all women by being drawn into the mystery of the hypostatic order of Christ’s incarnation and his redemptive work (Lk 1:42). God willed Mary’s mediation, that we must go to the Son through His mother. All should be accomplished by her intercession from the time she joyously gave her salutary consent to be the mother of the Lord to the time she sorrowfully stood beneath the Cross on Calvary to make temporal satisfaction to God for the sins of humanity – and beyond this climactic event in salvation history until the end of this age. During this period (the new exodus anticipated by the Jews), she hasn’t laid her saving office aside as our Queen Mother (Gebirah) and Advocatrix.

Indeed, God decreed by His consequent will that “all good should come to us through the hands of Mary.” God gave us this Mediatrix by “His most merciful Providence” (Pope Leo Xlll, Encyclical, Jucunda sempre). Our Lord and Saviour constituted her “Mother of Mercy, Queen, and a most loving advocate, Mediatrix of His graces, Dispenser of His treasures” (Pope Pius Xll, Radio Message to Fatima). ‘When Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah, the king stood up to meet her, bowed to her, and sat down on his throne. He had a throne brought for the king’s mother, and she sat down at his right hand. “I have one small request to make of you,” she said. “Do not refuse me.” The king replied, “Make it, my mother; I will not refuse you”’ (1 Kings 2:19-20).

Mary received her office of Queen Mother and Advocatrix from God. By being the royal mother of the King, she is intricately linked to Christ’s saving mysteries and the restoration of the Davidic kingdom as foretold by the prophets (Lk 1:31-33). As our maternal advocate, Mary offers our petitions to her Son for the graces we need to inherit the kingdom. By this title, we are not so much her subjects as we are her children, her being the mother of our Head and Body of which we are the members. Through her life, the Blessed Virgin Mary relates to us as a genuine mother should. Mary is not just a metaphor. “She (personally) teaches us all the virtues; she gives us her Son, and with Him, all the help that we need, for God has willed that we should have everything through Mary” ( Pope Pius Xll, Encyclical, Mediator Dei).

Our Lady of Guadalupe

God said to the serpent: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and between her seed and thy seed; she will crush your head, as you lie in wait for her heel” (Gen 3:15). In the wake of the fall, of Adam and Eve, God foretold that He would designate Mary to be the universal Mediatrix to help repair and undo the fall of mankind in union with her Son. This was right after He chastised the serpent for having caused the fall by deceiving the virgin Eve of her innocence. The Virgin Mary was chosen “before all ages, prepared for Himself by the Most High” to be the “Reparatrix of the first parents, the giver of life to posterity” (Pope Pius lX, Apostolic Constitution, Ineffabilis Deus). At the beginning of creation, at the time of the fall which God foresaw but permitted for the sake of a greater good, “Mary was set up as the pledge of restoration of peace (with God) and salvation” (Pope Leo Xlll Encyclical, Augustissimae).

Mary is the Immaculate Mother of the Church who is at total enmity with the serpent by being without sin and standing ever-just before God as our pre-eminent patroness. In a universal capacity, our Blessed Mother serves to help repair the fall of mankind by giving her children a filial spirit through the graces they receive through her maternal intercession. Mother Mary desires that we cease to offend God and be reconciled to Him. She is there to teach us her docility as a servant of God. Mary calls us to supplicate her for the graces to humble ourselves before God and abide in His love. She truly is our heavenly mother, for through her maternal patronage, we receive the divine life if, in a childlike spirit, we truly wish to turn towards God through her and be one with her divine offspring as from her regenerating womb at enmity with the serpent and its offspring: wicked and sinful humanity.

The late Catholic Theologian Father Garrigou-Lagrange (Mother of the Savior: Tan) tells us that true devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary is a sign of being predestined to glory. So, now that we Christians have been predestined to grace, being adopted sons and daughters of God by partaking of the divine life, we have a far greater chance of attaining our salvation and realizing our hope if we take recourse to the Immaculate Heart of our Blessed Mother for the actual graces we need to persevere in faith. This is because her divine Son has ordered it this way. In Heaven, Mary prays for all God’s created children, but she is more attentive to the spiritual needs of those regenerated in Christ and who humbly implore her intercession. For his mother’s sake more than ours, Jesus confers his graces on us from conversion through repentance to final perseverance (the principle of predilection).

The prophet Elijah prayed fervently so that it might not rain, and so it did not rain for three years and six months. Then, when he prayed that God would provide rain for the fruit harvest, his prayer was answered. This was because God heard the prayers of the righteous who aligned their will with His. If God could work great wonders such as these in response to the prayers of a prophet, what more marvelous wonders must He perform in response to the prayers of His own mother? All Christians are exhorted to pray for the conversion of sinners so that they might be healed and saved by the grace of God (Jas 5:13-19).

In the order of grace, the Blessed Virgin Mary leads the way. By joining our prayers to God with hers and asking her to put in a good word for us, we can be confident that our Lord will shower down an abundance of grace on us from Heaven. This is because our Blessed Mother is holy with absolute perfection as we continue to strive towards that heavenly perfection that she has been graced with in our pilgrimage of faith on earth. Mary has singularly attained her salvation: the redemption and glorification of her body in anticipation of ours, and she has received her eternal reward for her labor in Christ’s vineyard. At the same time, there is no guarantee that we will attain ours.  So, we must implore our Blessed Mother for her moral assistance since she has an immeasurably far more significant influence on her Son than we can ever hope to have in our fallen human state.

Christ has designated his blessed mother, Mary, as Our Lady of Perpetual Help. And so, by this title, the pilgrim Church implores her powerful maternal intercession in Heaven.  The Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mediatrix in the dispensation of grace – our Dispensatrix. She undertook the discharge of her maternal duties when the Church was born at Pentecost. She nurtured the infant Church in Jerusalem “by her holy example, authoritative counsel, sweet consolation, and fruitful prayers.” She was, in truth, “the Mother of the Church and the Queen of Apostles” (Pope Leo Xlll, Encyclical, Ubri primum).

Jesus entrusted the Church to his mother Mary’s tender care and the whole human race in the disciple John from the Cross (Jn 19:26-27). Mary received the redefinition of her motherhood while uniting her sorrow with the suffering of her beloved Son. She prayed more fervently for sinful humanity while she was smitten with great sorrow, and a sword pierced her heart, all because of the perfect love she had for her Son, who was unjustly “wounded for our transgressions.” Thus, God accepted her prayers as they were joined with her Son’s self-sacrifice for the expiation of our sins. Only by suffering for the world's sins and dying to self together with Him could Mary become the mother of us all and reign with her Son, the King of Kings, as our Queen Mother (2 Tim 2:11).

The sword that pierced our Great Lady’s heart or soul undid the vain and selfish pleasures Eve sought for herself while she presumed she could be like God apart from Him and before Him. By her sorrow, Mary repaired what Eve had wrought to God’s satisfaction. Jesus would not undo what Adam had wrought in his pride unless his mother stood at the foot of the Cross and united her interior suffering with his suffering by the Father’s will. “From this community of will and suffering between Christ and Mary, she merited to become most worthily the Reparatrix of the lost world and Dispensatrix of all the gifts that our Saviour purchased for us by His death and blood…By this union of sorrow and suffering which existed between the Mother and the Son, it has been allowed through the august Virgin to be the most powerful Mediatrix and advocate of the whole world with her divine Son” (Pope Pius X, Encyclical, Ad Diem illum).

Hence, the Blessed Virgin Mary is the “help of Christians” and the “refuge of mankind.” She is “triumphant in all battles” with the serpent as she fights against it with her children in their spiritual warfare. Given this cosmic battle between light and darkness, in which we are involved as descendants of Adam and Eve, we should humbly prostrate ourselves before the heavenly throne of our Queen Mother as her loyal suppliants, “confident that we shall obtain mercy and grace, the needed assistance and protection, during the calamities of these days…through the goodness of [her] motherly heart” (Pope Pius Xll, Radio Message).

The Blessed Virgin Mary is intimately associated with our Lord Jesus forever with infinite power and majesty, in virtue of her royal dignity as a daughter of King David and the mother of Christ the King in the New Dispensation of all the saving graces which flow from the redemption gained for us by her royal Son. This is all possible because “she gave us Jesus, Himself, the source of grace.” Mary has been the mediatrix and dispensatrix of all graces since the Annunciation. Predestined to be the mother of our Lord, “she has been appointed the mediatrix of all the graces which look towards sanctification” in and through the merits of her divine Son (Pope Pius Xll, Apostolic Constitution, Sedes sepientiae).

Our Lady of Lourdes

All baptized Christians in communion with the Vicar of Christ, whether alive or dead, are members of the mystical Body of Christ, which comprises both the heavenly and the pilgrim church on earth. We read in sacred Scripture that all members of Christ’s body are bound together by mutual love (Jn 13:34-35; Rom 12:10, 13:8; Gal 5:13; Eph 4:2, 16:1, etc.). The Head has composed his body so that all its members “may have the same care for one another” (1 Cor 12:25-27). Death doesn’t drive a wedge between the love that unites all the saints with each other in Christ’s mystical Body (Rom 8:38-39). Christians remain “in him” as living members of his body even after death (Eph 2:5-7). Thus, the saints who have passed from this world stay united with those still living on earth.

By being connected members of Christ’s Mystical Body, the saints in Heaven can express their love and concern for the pilgrim saints on earth as best they can, that is, through prayer, which presupposes an awareness of the needs of these other beings and a communicative link with them. Meanwhile, they don’t rely on the physical sense of hearing or any form of natural mental awareness, existing in God’s eternal presence beside real-time. The saints in Heaven have a direct vision of Christ and the Beatific Vision of God, which enables them to intuit what the Lord knows and, in this capacity, be like him in his glorified state and shared humanity (1 Jn 3:2). The saints in Heaven can intuit all that God knows about the saints or other beings on earth who are of concern, except what God knows about Himself. God reveals His knowledge to them so they can express their love for others on earth in the best way possible. The saints in Heaven must know what concerns the spiritual welfare of the saints on earth if they are to show concern for them. After all, we are all members of one mystical Body in Christ the Head and comprise the family of God as His adopted children.

Our Lady of Fatima

We read in the Apocalypse that the prayers of the saints (in heaven and on earth) are presented to God by the angels and human saints in heaven. This reveals that all the saints intercede on our behalf before God. It also shows that our prayers on earth are united with their prayers in heaven (Rev 5:8). Further, the martyred saints in Heaven are shown to be crying out to God to avenge their blood “on those who dwell on the earth” (Rev 6:9-11; cf. Ps 35:1; 59:1-17; 139:19; Jer 11:20; 15:15; 18:19; Zech 1:12-13). This vision indicates that the saints in Heaven are aware of what is happening to the pilgrim Church on earth in the wake of persecution. The saints pray for their loved ones and all the other pilgrim members of the Body. What affects one member affects the other. These prayers for God’s judgment on the persecutors resemble the imprecatory prayers of the Jews in the Old Testament. Similarly, God hears and answers the intercessory prayers of the saints in Heaven for those brothers and sisters in Christ who are being treated unjustly on earth, primarily because of their profession of faith (Rev 8:1-5).

In the order of grace, therefore, the Blessed Virgin Mary’s intercession is maternally based on her care for Christ, who alone is both the Head and the Body. Since we who belong to her Son are members of his body, we too are her sons and daughters (Rev 12:5, 17). In Heaven, our Blessed Mother has assumed the royal office of Queen Mother, whose throne is situated in the heavenly court on the right of the throne of our Lord and King in the royal line of David (Lk 1:31-33; Mk 10:40). Being our Queen Mother or “Great Lady” (Gebirah), the Blessed Virgin Mary serves as our Mediatrix and Advocatrix. She prayerfully intercedes for us by presenting our petitions to her Son. Like the other saints in Heaven, our Blessed Mother cares for us, but with a maternal love that immeasurably surpasses all the other saints combined in their concern for our spiritual well-being. Thus, she constantly prays for us with the most perfect and solicitous maternal love, being aware of our individual spiritual needs.

Therefore, the pilgrim saints on earth have a greater chance of growing and persevering in grace and attaining their salvation if they petition their Queen Mother daily in true filial devotion. Our Lord and King Jesus Christ knows all our needs even before we present our petitions, either directly to him (but not without the other member’s awareness in his Body) or indirectly, by asking his Blessed Queen Mother and our Mother, the pre-eminent member of Christ’s Body, to put in a good word for us while we pray. This is because our Lord Jesus desires that we, stewards of grace, pray for one another in mutual, filial love as members of God’s family (Eph 3:1-13, 4:7; 1 Pet 4:10).

Of all such stewards Peter and Paul speak of, the Blessed Virgin Mary is immeasurably the most influential member of God’s heavenly kingdom because of her supreme office in her Son’s royal court. Her Son, the King, will not refuse her. By seeking God’s grace through Mary, the pilgrim saints on earth will receive it. By petitioning the King through his Blessed Queen Mother, they will indeed receive her loving maternal patronage, which pleases God, who for her sake more than anyone else’s, who lacks her spiritual perfection, shall dispense His grace wherever it is wanting in a human soul.

May he send you help from the sanctuary,
and give you support from Zion.
Psalm 20, 2

Early Sacred Tradition

“The Word will become flesh, and the Son of God the son of man –
the Pure One opening purely
that pure womb, which generates men unto God.”
– St. Irenaeus (A.D. 180-189)

“O Lady, cease not to watch over us; preserve and guard us under the wings
of your compassion and mercy, for, after God, we have no hope but in you!”
– St. Ephraem of Syria (c. A.D. 361)

“God has ordained that she (Mary) should assist us in everything.”
– St, Basil the Great (A.D. 379)

“It was through a man and woman that flesh was cast from Paradise;
it was through a virgin that flesh was linked to God…
Eve is called the mother of the human race, but Mary Mother of salvation.”
– St. Ambrose of Milan (A.D. 397)

Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Pray for us!

Salve Regina

Blessed Are You Who Believed

 MOTHER OF THE CHURCH

Already you knew my soul;
my body held no secret from you
when I was being fashioned in secret
and molded in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw all my actions;
they were all of them written in your book;
every one of my days was decreed
before one of them came into being.
Psalm 139, 14-16

“Blessed are you who believed
that what was spoken to you by the Lord
would be fulfilled.”
Luke 1, 45

Since apostolic time, Christians have believed that, as an essential part of His plan of redemption, God preordained from all eternity to create the Blessed Virgin Mary and work with her for the salvation of humankind. The Judeo-Christians of the nascent Church in Palestine were aware of the vital significance of Mary’s role in the economy of salvation. So the faithful felt devoted to the mother of their Lord in a lively spirit of gratitude and praise reminiscent of the dedication lavished upon Judith by Uzziah and God’s chosen people for having faithfully helped deliver the Israelites in the besieged city of Bethulia from oppression and the prospect of enslavement at the hands of their Assyrian enemy.

Elizabeth’s praise of her kinswoman Mary echoes the admiration the Israelites had for their heroine who slew the Assyrian general Holofernes: “Blessed (eulogemene) are you daughter, by the Highest God, above all women of the earth; and blessed (eulogemenos) be the Lord God, the creator of heaven and earth, who guided your blow at the head of the chief of our enemies. Your deeds of hope will never be forgotten by those who tell of the might of God” (Jdt. 13, 18-19; Lk 1:42). All Hebrew generations have called Judith blessed together with the Lord (eulogeo) for her heroic exploits, just as all Christian generations have called the Virgin Mary blessed for her valiant deed of faith in God’s grace in the economy of salvation (Lk 1:48).

Thus, St. Luke acknowledges a Marian tradition that naturally sprouted as an offshoot of the Judaic heritage in the infant Christian Ecclesia. In the voice of Elizabeth, Mary is praised for having believed in the angel's words and consenting to be the mother of the divine Messiah. Now, all the nations on earth have found blessing because of Mary’s meritorious act of faith working through love in a spirit worthy of Abraham, the father of faith (Gen 22:16-18).

God predestined Mary to be the mother of the Redeemer, knowing that she would freely observe His will and please Him by consenting to conceive and bear His only Begotten Son (Lk 1:38). Only by the faith of a humble and charitable young lady should the divine Word become incarnate in mutual consent and loving communion to free the world from the slavery of sin and impending death through his sacrifice on the Cross. Having pronounced her Fiat, Mary crushed the head of the serpent with her heel as fatally as Judith had valiantly cut off the head of Holofernes with her sword in collaboration with God for the salvation of the world (Gen 3:15).

Indeed, God saw all Mary would do in life even before He fashioned her soul and sanctified it with His grace. Foreseeing all her actions, each written in the Book of Life, culminating on Calvary at the foot of the Cross, God decreed that Mary should come into being to collaborate with Him in redeeming fallen man. It was by His grace that God worked through Mary “both to will and to work” together with Him “for His good pleasure” (Phil 2:13), for “God desires that everyone be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4).

Since Mary’s body held no secret from God while she was being molded in the depths of her mother’s womb, God could appear to Abraham and tell him to sacrifice his only son upon the altar in the land of Moriah. God saw His handmaid offering up her own body – the fruit of her womb – as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to Him (this being her “true spiritual worship”) in the Temple and on Golgotha while He was even speaking to Abraham (Rom 12:1-2). Abraham’s offering up of Isaac in faithful obedience to the will of God prefigures Christ’s offering of himself on Calvary, but not without his mother’s maternal sacrifice as an essential component. Our Lord’s Cross stood atop the same mountain on which Abraham had built his altar. Yet God would send no angel to Our Lady of Sorrows to deliver her only beloved Son from the altar of the holocaust.

Unless Mary freely declared, “Be it done to me according to your word” in faith and charity, she would have had no fruit to provide from her maternal womb as a burnt sin offering for humanity most pleasing and acceptable to God. But every one of Mary’s days was decreed before even one of them came into being. God saw how valiant a woman she would be just by having created her. If Abraham were willing to consecrate his only beloved Son to God and offer him back as a pleasing sacrificial offering in faith, it was only because Mary would give her assent to the will of God in faith, despite all the obscurity. Jesus would take the place of Isaac and offer himself to atone for the sins of the world since his mother was first willing to die to her maternal self and offer the fruit of her womb back to God for humankind’s redemption.

Everything that began in salvation history with Abraham and Isaac and reached its completion with Mary and Jesus rested on that climactic moment when the angel Gabriel appeared to the young maiden in the month of Nisan (March). All creation must have breathed in anxious suspense at that pivotal moment. Since Mary believed what was spoken to her by the Lord through His messenger and obeyed God, the promise made to Abraham could be fulfilled: that he become the father of many nations, which should include the Gentiles. This blessing Abraham received from God for having believed and obeyed Him was validated by the Divine oath God swore given Mary’s obedient act of faith in charity and grace. ​

Because of her salutary consent to be the mother of the Messiah, even Isaiah could infallibly prophesy the virgin birth (7:14) since every one of Mary’s days was decreed by God, meaning all that He infallibly knew of Mary, His handiwork, shall be. What God infallibly knows will be cannot be otherwise. Indeed, even the creation of Adam and Eve rested on Mary’s Fiat, given their fall from grace to the detriment of humanity. An even greater good than the original paradise that was lost was the purpose of the creation of humankind. This could only happen through Christ's incarnation, death, and resurrection. But there could be no incarnation without Mary, the promised free woman, whom God put at enmity with the serpent as His collaborator.

Hence, God knew that Mary would freely and meritoriously consent in a spirit of joy before she would even declare her Fiat. That is why He sent the angel Gabriel to her, having first prepared His faithful handmaid with a fullness of grace (Lk 1:28). Mary’s Son was to be the Father’s suffering servant who would restore the lost house of Israel (Jacob) and bring back the faithful remnant to Himself (Isa 53). And her Son was to be made “a light for the Gentiles” that God’s “salvation may reach to the ends of the earth” (Isa 49:6), but by being conceived and born of the faithful and humble Virgin (Isa 7:14).

If Elizabeth had understood all this by the sanctifying light of faith, it’s no wonder that she joyfully praised Mary for having believed what was spoken to her by the Lord. Not even her husband Zechariah could have celebrated God’s oath to Abraham or echoed the Messianic prophet’s words unless Mary had first become the mother of their Lord by her free salutary consent in the purity of her “faith working through love” (Lk 1:68-79; Gal 5:5-6). How deeply reverential and grateful Elizabeth was towards her kinswoman when she asked: “Whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk 1:43).

“Sing, O barren, You who have not borne!
Break forth into singing, and cry aloud,
You who have not labored with child!
For more are the children of the desolate
Than the children of the married woman,” says the LORD.
Enlarge the place of thy tent,
and stretch out the skins of thy tabernacles,
spare not: lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes,
for thou shalt pass on to the right land, and to the left:
and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and shall inhabit
the desolate cities.
Isaiah 54, 1-3

The primary signification of Isaiah’s prophecy concerns Israel in the metaphor of Mother Zion. The secondary fulfillment is reached in Mary, the mother of our Lord and Saviour, and the anti-type of Mother Zion (the virgin bride of YAHWEH), whose children are liberated from captivity and regenerated unto God. It is from the Cross that Jesus redefines Mary’s motherhood in the biblical sense as she stands beneath it in great sorrow because of man’s slavery to sin: ‘Woman, behold thy son. After that, he saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own.’ (Jn 19, 26-27). Jesus’ words to his mother, Mary, and the Disciple entrust her with a new and more prominent family, which should include the Gentiles. Because of Mary’s faith in charity and grace beneath the cross, her sorrow shall be replaced with boundless joy; she must now make room “in her tent” after her ‘cords have been lengthened’ and her ‘stakes strengthened’ for the entire body of believers, who the beloved Disciple corporately represents as the Church.

​The Divine Maternity is the result of the Incarnation, but this gift God has granted Mary carries further blessings for her because of her faith. The Divine Maternity itself is not the highest expression of her being blessed (makaria/ μακαρία) or “happy,” in the words of Elizabeth. When Jesus says, “Blessed (makaria) are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8), the highest expression of their being blessed isn’t being pure of heart, but rather seeing God which results from being pure of heart. They are not simply blessed for being pure of heart. So, to see how Mary is blessed, rather than by only being the mother of Jesus, because of her faith, we must look to the prophet Isaiah.

In the figure of Mother Zion, Mary is further blessed for becoming the mother of all nations rather than blessed for simply being the natural mother of Jesus, and all because of her persevering faith in the face of darkness that brought her to the foot of the Cross. Just as Abraham becomes the father of many nations because of his persevering faith, Mary becomes the mother of all nations because of her faith. Abraham isn’t blessed simply because God has given him a son by Sarah as promised. Being the father of Isaac isn’t the fullest expression of Abraham’s blessed state, nor is Mary’s divine motherhood. On Mount Moriah, God redefines Abraham’s fatherhood, and on that same mount, also known as Golgotha, God Incarnate redefines Mary’s motherhood from the Cross.

In the Gospel of Luke 11:27-28, we read that a woman in the crowd following Jesus raised her voice and said to him: “Blessed (makaria) is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!” This woman thought Mary was blessed for being the mother of such a great prophet and teacher. She had no idea that Jesus was God incarnate. Because of her ignorance, she failed to see how Mary was truly blessed and the higher expression of her blessedness. Thus, Jesus corrected her in allusion to his mother by saying: “Blessed (makaria) rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” The Greek word for “rather” is menoun (mενοῦν) which means “more” or “truly.”

What our Lord implicitly told the woman, then, was that his mother wasn’t simply blessed for having borne and nursed him but more so for having borne him because of her faith; she was more blessed for her faith in the word of God than she was for being his biological mother since he came into the world to redeem it by her obedient act of faith in charity and grace. And for being a woman of faith, Mary was not only the natural mother of Jesus but, more importantly, the spiritual mother of all the living. In allusion to Mary’s redefined motherhood, Jesus called her “Woman” from the wood of the Cross, just as Adam had called his wife before they both fell from grace (Gen 3:12-13). If only the woman in the crowd knew what kind of fruit Mary had brought to mankind from her blessed womb, she whom the serpent couldn’t beguile.

Thus, Jesus must have alluded to the Annunciation when he spoke his words. The woman in the crowd couldn’t have imagined that Mary’s motherhood involved the appearance of an angel and her salutary consent to be the mother of someone more significant than a prophet or any rabbi, one who was, in fact, the Son of God foretold by the prophets and who came into the world to save mankind from sin and death by suffering and dying on the cross. This woman should know that our Lord’s mother was not simply blessed for being the mother of Jesus, but more because she had crushed the head of the serpent with her heel by her act of faith in collaboration with God to undo Eve’s transgression and become her advocate or vindicator. And this meant that she, too, would have to suffer much sorrow and die to her maternal self in union with her Son for the redemption of humanity.

“But the Lord Christ, the fruit of the Virgin, did not pronounce the breasts of women
blessed, nor selected them to give nourishment; but when the kind and loving Father had
rained down the Word, Himself became spiritual nourishment to the good. O mystic
marvel! The universal Father is one, and one the universal Word; and the Holy Spirit is one
and the same everywhere, and one is the only virgin mother. I love to call her the Church.
This mother, when alone, had not milk, because alone she was not a woman. But she is once
virgin and mother, pure as a virgin, loving as a mother. And calling her children to her, she
nurses them with holy milk, viz., with the Word for childhood.”
St. Clement of Alexandria
Paedagogos, I:6
(A.D.202)

The early Church Father, St. Clement of Alexandria, perceived the glorious splendor of the Church reflected in the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God. In the Paedagogos (Instructor), we see that he writes, “It is his joy to call her by her name of the Church.” Mary’s spiritual motherhood of all the members of Christ’s body is the prototype of the motherhood of the Church. The Church is a mother in that she nourishes all the reborn with God’s grace through the sacraments and the word of God belonging to the deposit of faith. As Mother of the Church, our Blessed Lady is the caretaker of her children’s souls; she nourishes her offspring with her Son’s grace that efficaciously sanctifies or justifies them before God, having carried the One living Word in her womb and bringing him forth into the world to “to preach to the meek, to heal the contrite of heart, and to preach a release to the captives, and deliverance to them that are shut up” (Isa 61:1; Lk 4:18). The sacraments of the Church are physical instruments of divine grace, whereas the Virgin Mary is the moral channel of her divine Son’s grace by her prayerful intercession, which initially includes her Fiat. All saving grace, including the grace conferred through the sacraments, proceeds first and foremost from the Son through our Blessed Mother and unblemished spouse of the Holy Spirit in and through Christ. ​

This prerogative has been bestowed on her by God in honor of her Divine Maternity and perseverance in faith for the redemption of humanity. She who merited to bring the Font of all grace into the world should rightly be the divinely constituted chief steward of her Son’s grace. “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Pet 4:10; cf. Jn 2:2-11). The Divine Maternity is the greatest gift any person may ever receive from God in the order of grace. Being the greatest gift that any woman or person could ever receive from God in this life, divine motherhood carries the most extraordinary prerogatives for any servant of the Lord. God’s handmaid and spouse of the Holy Spirit is more than a servant; she is the Queen Mother and Advocatrix of our Lord and King in his Davidic heavenly kingdom and mystical body. Blessed indeed is the Virgin Mary for having believed!

Further, the Bishop of Alexandria says, "This mother, when alone, had no milk because alone she was not the woman.” In other words, Mary could not provide us with spiritual nourishment unless she were the mother of our Lord and brother (Rom 8:29). The woman in St. Luke’s gospel who pronounced the breasts of Mary to be blessed was mildly rebuked by Jesus for having said that. Jesus did not merely regard his mother to be blessed for having nursed him when he was an infant. Instead, she was more blessed for being called to provide milk that ordinary mothers do not have for their children: “the word for childhood” who in the flesh is the Son of the Virgin Mary, “pure as a virgin and loving as a mother” because of the purity of her faith working through love.

Our Blessed Lady tangibly represents in her person the “unblemished bride of Christ,” which is the Church, sanctified by the presence of the Holy Spirit who ensures the purity of her faith as the guarantor of the divine truth (Eph 5:25-27; 1 Tim 3:15). The woman in the crowd pronounced Mary’s breasts to be blessed, but Jesus implicitly went further by presenting his holy mother to himself as “glorious” because there was no “stain or wrinkle” in her soul. The Holy Spirit was ever-present in Mary’s life, preserving her from being tainted by personal sins and ensuring her perfect sanctity.

Hence, because of her meritorious act of faith at the Annunciation, Mary was further blessed by being more of a mother in her likeness to the Church whose holy milk would be something of a nourishing spiritual substance: “the Word for childhood.” From Mary’s womb comes the Divine Word incarnate, and from the Church’s womb comes forth the written and unwritten word of God: sacred Scripture and sacred Tradition. Our Blessed Lady is no ordinary mother who has milk to give to her offspring by physical nature, for she is a mother of a spiritual kind. In and through Mary, the Church has been conceived and begotten by her participation in the hypostatic order of Christ’s incarnation and his redemptive work. Christ is conceived in the womb of the Church and brought forth into the world by the faithful preaching of the Gospel in the sacred liturgy and administration of the sacraments (Mt 28:19).

And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared
another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon… and the dragon stood before the
woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she
brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught
up unto God, and to his throne.
Revelation 12, 2-5

Mary “is once a virgin and mother” who nourishes her offspring with spiritual milk in the form of God’s Word and His grace so that they can grow in conformity to the image of her divine Son. The Church is a virgin in the purity of her faith no less than she is, so the Bride of Christ can nourish humanity with the truth of God’s word and His redeeming grace. Only Mary can provide what Eve had lost for her children: communion with God and a life of grace. And because of Mary, the Church can, too. In this sense, then, our Blessed Mother is a living symbol of the Church and the ideal model for all her members who serve Christ and bear witness to him in their lives so that others may enter into communion with God through the womb of the Church as His adopted children, regenerated unto Him in the Holy Spirit through the merits of our Blessed Mother’s divine Son. ​

God has ordained that Jesus should redeem the world and regenerate mankind in association with his mother and our spiritual mother. Alone, Mary is not a “Woman” who has milk to provide for our spiritual sustenance. Her universal maternal role depends on her divine Son being the new Adam and Head of humanity – “our life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:45). The Virgin Mary isn’t only the mother of Christ’s mystical Body, but also the Mother of the redeemed world, being the new Eve and helpmate of her Son, the new Adam. Jesus declared: “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to me” (Jn 12:32). Our Lord kept his promise by rising from the dead after his crucifixion and death, which his sorrowful mother was drawn into to help restore mankind to God’s grace. Thus, he draws all people to himself through the maternal patronage of his Blessed Mother whom he has given to the world from the Cross as her reborn offspring in the life of grace by her sorrowful anguish beneath the Cross (Jn 19:26-27; cf. Rev 12: 2-5).

The early Church Father, St. Irenaeus (180-190 A.D.), bears witness to this divine truth that the Church has grasped by the sanctifying light of faith: “The Word will become flesh, and the Son of God the son of man—the Pure One opening purely that pure womb, which generates men unto God” (Against Heresies, 4, 33, 12). St. Ambrose of Milan concurs two centuries later, only in different terms, while preserving the substance of the content passed on by way of Apostolic Tradition: “It was through a man and a woman that flesh was cast from Paradise; it was through a virgin that flesh was linked to God…. Eve is called the mother of humanity, but Mary Mother of salvation” (Epistle. 63, 33). St. Augustine elaborates more by identifying the mystery of the Church with the mystery of the Blessed Virgin Mary: “Mary’s Son, spouse of the Church! He has made His Church like His mother; He has given her to us as a mother and kept her to Himself as a virgin (pure in faith). The Church, like Mary, is a virgin ever spotless and a mother ever fruitful (bearing sons and daughters of God). What He bestowed on Mary in the flesh, He has bestowed on the Church in the spirit: Mary gave birth to the One, and the Church gives birth to the many, who through the One become one” (Sermo 195, 2).

​Mary’s Fiat is evocative of Judith’s prayer to God (Chapter 9) that He should intervene and save the Israelites from impending death and enslavement at the hands of the Assyrian forces that are besieging the city of Bethulia. YAHWEH hears and answers her prayer because she has placed her faith in His providence. God’s response, however, requires that Judith collaborates with Him to save the Israelites from imminent destruction and captivity in a foreign land. The name Judith means “Jewish lady” or “woman,” which is fitting given our theme since she is one of the several matriarchs of the Hebrew people who prefigures Mary in anticipation of the coming Messiah and her intimate association with him in the work of deliverance from evil and eternal death. ​

Jesus calls his mother Mary “Woman” at the wedding feast in Cana, where he begins his public ministry in the shadow of the Cross (Jn 2:1-11), and on Calvary from the Cross, beneath which her dual maternity is forever established (Jn 19:26-27). On both pivotal occasions, his blessed mother acts as his collaborator in the redemption (co-Redemptrix), just as Judith acted centuries before to save the Israelites from imminent destruction and death. Judith culminates in the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is, more importantly, the maternal guardian of our souls in our spiritual battle against Satan and the dark principalities and powers that rule in this world (Rev 12:17). St. Paul warns us that our battle isn’t against “flesh and blood” or our fellow man (Eph 6:12).

Our very own Judith or “Great Lady” and Queen Mother (Gebirah) appeals on behalf of all exiled and enslaved humanity “born in guilt and conceived in sin” (Ps 51:7). By having first consented to be the mother of the Divine Messiah, who shall “preach the good news to the poor and set captives free” (Isa 61:1; Lk 4:18), Mary has become our spiritual mother in the order of grace in our spiritual battle against Satan and his dark legions which besiege our souls. She is Our Lady of Perpetual Help who mediates her Son’s graces to us with which we can armor ourselves against the enemy. Since Mary was a woman of faith and thus had found favor with God (Lk 1:30), He validated her consent by overshadowing her through the creative power of the Holy Spirit.

Our Blessed Lady’s prayer was answered, expressed by her simple Fiat, in that it contained all she had prayerfully desired up to the Annunciation on our behalf. And so, blessed are we, besieged by the dragon and its offspring, because she believed and has come to us as our patroness. We, too, can leap for joy in the womb of the Holy Mother Church because of the sweet sound of our heavenly Mother’s prayers, which never escapes from the ears of her divine Son.

The Blessed Virgin Mary – Daughter of Zion – has been raised as a spiritual fortress and a place of refuge for sinners in their spiritual combat with Satan and his legions of fallen angels. She primarily protects those who implore her help and prayerful intercession so they may abide by his saving grace with her Son in his love and goodness. Our Blessed Mother is a spiritual and moral haven for all who wander in the spiritual wilderness of this world and wish to stay on the right path while having to face the ferocious onslaught of the dark “principalities and powers” that rule in this desolate world, seeking to “devour” human souls like a “prowling lion” (1 Pet 5:8-9). Let us hope and pray that our Blessed Mother Mary will come to our aid, as we implore her maternal intercession so that we won’t wander off the straight path that leads us back to Eden or promised land during our exodus from captivity, worked in and through the liberating merits of Christ her Son and our Lord.

“And if the God-bearing flesh was not ordained
to be assumed of the lump of Adam,
what need was there of the Holy Virgin?”
St. Basil
To the Sozopolitans, Epistle 261
(A.D. 377)

Shall not Zion say:
This man and that man is born in her,
and the Highest himself hath founded her?
Psalm 87, 5

Salve Regina