I shall put before readers three of the highest Church documents to enlighten us on the Truth, declared here by the Holy Father to have been revealed by God: that the work of Redemption was so common to Our Blessed Lady and Her Son that, by necessity, a common or equal glory had to follow. Equal in kind, not in degree.
1. A first explanation is offered us in the next paragraph of the present document, in which the Holy Father states:
“Hence the revered Mother of God, from all eternity joined in a hidden way with Jesus Christ in one and the same Decree of Predestination ... finally obtained ... that She should be preserved free from the corruption of the tomb ...” (No 40).
The quoted words in italics in this text were taken by His Holiness Pope Pius XII from the Bull Ineffabilis Deus in which his predecessor Pope Pius IX had declared and formulated the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception almost a century before, in 1854. They are weighty words, not used lightly by Our Holy Mother the Catholic Church.
We know from the words of St. Paul, quoted previously, that Christ in His human nature was predestined by a Divine Decree, hidden in God from all eternity:
to be a Divine Person, united with the Word, the eternal Son of the Father and
to be the Head of the Church, His Body, and so redeem the human race, to allow both His human and His Mystical Body to take part in that Redemption.
Here two Holy Fathers, almost a century apart, in two documents of the Church carrying supreme authority as they are dealing with two Marian Dogmas, in tracing these two Dogmas to the sources of Revelation have declared with the authority of Christ Himself, that Mary has a share in that Supreme Decree and was not only predestined (a) to be the Mother of God, but also (b) to be His Bride. To be the beginning of that other Body of Christ, His Mystical Body, of which Christ is the Head. And in consenting to both aspects of this same Decree of Predestination, two things happened:
the infinite merits of Christ redeemed the whole world including His Mother, which was the role of the Head alone; and
the same infinite merits were placed at the disposal of His Body the Church for the salvation of ‘the many’ who would in time avail themselves of these graces: the role of the Head and His Mystical Body.
Only in that way could St. Paul write “that he was completing in his own body what was still lacking in the sufferings of Christ”. [Col. 1:24].
Thus the great Sacrifice on Calvary became the Sacrifice of the whole Church, Head and Body. And because the Apostles had fled, Mary stood in, stood proxy, for the whole Church! Understanding the deep significance of the double aspect of this Eternal Decree and complying with it “with all Her heart, with all Her soul, with all Her mind and with all Her strength” [Mk. 12:30]. And again we ask ourselves: How had She known? Not only on Calvary: how had She known right from the start? How come She had understood all along?
2. A second supreme document I had in mind to refer my readers to for further enlightenment on the profound Truth declared here by the Holy Father to have been revealed by God: that the work of the Redemption was so common to Our Lady and Her Divine Son, that by necessity an equal glory had to follow, is the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. I once again hand you over to Fr. W. Most:
“The Vatican Council says in No. 10 that the Mass is the renewal of the New Covenant. Now in the renewal there is, all readily admit, a twofold offering: the offering of Christ the Head, to which is joined the offering of His members which we are. We really do join with Him in the offering of the Mass. So then, if the renewal is twofold, formed of the obedience of Christ to which is added that of His members, then would it not be strange if the original which the renewal repeats, did not have a similar twofold structure? Really if the renewal were two-fold, and the original not, then the renewal would be partly false, it would not repeat fully what it should repeat. Therefore the original must have been twofold: Mary’s offering, Her obedience, must have fused with the obedient offering of Christ. His obedience as we saw was the price of the Redemption. Her obedience, said Vatican II, was joined with His. What else should that mean if not that She shared in paying the very price of the Redemption!” [Vatican II - Marian Council, p. 26-27]
It is precisely this sharing of the very price of the Redemption which is renewed and reflected by every Catholic Mass, for this sharing of the duties of being a Head, and of providing a Body so necessary to the Head, set in motion at the Annunciation, came to the fullest fruition on Calvary where Mary’s obedience was joined with His, just as joined disobedience in the head of the human race and his first body had produced the Fall. Mary really does have power. Her offering is of real value, even if subordinate.
Knowingly and obediently She provided the Mystical Body Her Son needed as Head to comply with the Eternal Decree in the Blessed Trinity: to save the human race as the Head of a Body. And in that She is the beginning, the Mother and the Model of the Church, the other members of that Body He so desperately needs ... And long before St. Paul She had already often prayed: “I can do all things in Him Who strengthens me”, even providing My part in redeeming the world ...
3. Can this be substantiated? Are these just nice theological opinions? Pious effusions squeezed from obscure doctrinal formulations? Or does all this lie so close to the fundamental Truths of our Supernatural existence in Christ and the Mystical Body, that it is the lifeblood of the very Church we profess to love and cherish? The supernatural air we breathe in even unwittingly if nevertheless necessarily? Let me take you to yet a third supreme document of the Church, the tail end of the encyclical letter of His Holiness Pope Pius XII: The Mystical Body of Christ and our union in it with Christ, 1943.
“Venerable Brethren, may the Virgin Mother of God hear the prayers of our paternal heart ... and obtain for all a true love of the Church; She whose sinless soul was filled with the divine Spirit of Jesus Christ above all other created souls, and who ‘in the name of the whole human race’ gave Her consent ‘for a spiritual marriage between the Son of God and human nature.’ [St. Thomas. Summa Theol. I ll, q.30, a.1, c.]. Within Her virginal womb Christ our Lord already bore the exalted title of Head of the Church. In a marvellous birth She brought Him forth as the source of all Supernatural Life, and presented Him newly born as Prophet, King and Priest to those who, from among the Jews and the Gentiles, were the first to come to adore Him ... It was She, the second Eve, who, free from all sin, original or personal, and always most intimately united with Her Son, offered Him on Golgotha to the Eternal Father for all the children of Adam, and Her mother’s rights and Her mother’s love were included in the holocaust. Thus She who, according to the flesh, was the Mother of our Head, through the added title of pain and glory became according to the Spirit, the Mother of all His members .... bearing with courage and confidence the tremendous burden of Her sorrows and desolation. She, truly the Queen of Martyrs, more than all the faithful ‘made up what was still lacking in the sufferings of Christ for His Body the Church’ [Col. 1:24]. And She continues to have for the Mystical Body of Christ, born of the pierced Heart of the Saviour, the same motherly care and ardent love with which She cherished and fed the Infant Jesus in the crib.” [No 110].
This leaves in clarity nothing to be desired. It spells out all we still wished to know for certain. If it is Catholic teaching that Christ already in the womb of His Mother carried the exalted title of Head of a Mystical Body, then that Body must have already been in existence, and could only have come into existence by the consent of His Mother. This shows that Our Lady, already at the time of the Annunciation, had a profound grasp of what St. Paul has revealed had been hidden for all ages in the unsearchable depths of God’s Wisdom: the Divine Decree that Christ was predestined to be the Son of God, and that He would save the world in union with others, i.e. as the Head of His Body the Church, even if the grace of that union, and the grace of participation with it, depended entirely on the fulness of Grace in Him, the Head!
The acceptance of this grace and the inherent and subsequent obedience of full cooperation with it were made, according to Papal teaching here, by Our Blessed Lady in name of the whole human race, presented here under the image of a sacred and unbreakable marriage vow.
If we realise that Mary stood proxy for the whole Church on Calvary after the Apostles had fled, to provide Christ our Head with the Mystical Body He needed for the Redemption of the whole human race, then we know now for certain where the understanding and acceptance of this sacred vow had its beginning in His holy Mother!
What thinking had brought Mary to the threshold of this Mystery so that, when the Revelation of it came to Her at the time of the Annunciation, it found Her willing and prepared to understand and to accept not only that the Son of God wished to be Her Son but also wanted to be Her Head? Christ, materially speaking, could have taken flesh out of any woman, but who but the Blessed Virgin Mary would have possessed the superabundance of love needed to provide Him from Her own existence with a suffering body that He needed under a suffering Head?
This question is on a par with the degree of difficulty He has experienced over the centuries of finding for Himself Christians who so fully understood and loved Him and His saving work, that they were willing and prepared to be victims under a suffering Head and not just anyone sheltering under the name ‘Christian’!
Our Lady is the sealed fountain known only to God. But She is pleased to unfold Her treasures and graces to any of Her children who love and revere Her. One of those rare pearls is a ray of light into the prayerlife of our blessed Mother, light from Heaven on Her meditations on the Old Testament text, by means of which the Holy Spirit of God guided Her to the future revelation of His Divine Decrees ...