{"id":310,"date":"2007-11-26T15:58:50","date_gmt":"2007-11-26T15:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/on-mary.html"},"modified":"2007-11-26T15:58:50","modified_gmt":"2007-11-26T15:58:50","slug":"on-mary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/on-mary.html","title":{"rendered":"On Mary"},"content":{"rendered":"

This will be worth reading all week, from First Things:<\/a><\/p>\n

The project known as Evangelicals and Catholics Together is now in its thirteenth year\u2014following its initial statement, \u201cThe Christian Mission in the Third Millennium<\/a><\/u>,\u201d with much-discussed statements on salvation<\/a><\/u>, Scripture<\/a><\/u>, and the Communion of Saints<\/a><\/u>. <\/em>
\nThe group is currently engaged in studying what can be said together about the Blessed Virgin Mary, and a number of participants were asked to prepare preliminary papers. With the permission of the authors, we will be posting five of these papers over the next five days\u2014papers by Edward T. Oakes, J.I. Packer, T.M. Moore, Matthew Levering, and Cornelius Plantinga<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Today, Fr. Oakes:<\/p>\n

In other words, Mary is the perfect example of sola gratia<\/em> at work: Everything<\/em> she later did and was given came from this first<\/em> grace of predestination, won for her purely and entirely by the merits of Christ, not her own; and even those \u201cmerits\u201d she \u201cearned\u201d came from the graces given her aboriginally, in view of her predestined status as the chosen Mother of the Savior. As Pius IX clearly asserts, by a venerable exegetical tradition dating from patristic times, she was predestined to be sinless when God spoke thus to the Serpent in the Garden of Eden after our first parents\u2019 first sin: \u201cI will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your dead, and you shall bruise his heel\u201d (Genesis 3:15).
\nBy placing the promise of Mary\u2019s sinlessness in the Garden, Pius definitively altered the usual perspective on what predestination means. Unlike both Protestant and Catholic views of predestination in the Augustinian tradition (which tends to see predestination in terms of the fate of the individual soul at the end of time), recent Catholic mariological thought picks up on Pius IX\u2019s salvation-historical perspective by interpreting Mary\u2019s predestined status to be the mother of the Lord as part of God\u2019s wider intentions for the world<\/em>. For example, in his essay \u201cThe Sign of the Woman,\u201d located in his book Mary: The Church at the Source <\/a><\/em><\/u> (coauthored with Hans Urs von Balthasar), Cardinal Ratzinger speaks this way:<\/p>\n

The Fathers saw God\u2019s words of punishment to the serpent after the Fall as a first promise of the Redeemer\u2014an allusion to the Descendent [Seed, Offspring] that bruises the serpent\u2019s head. There has never been a moment in history without a gospel.<\/em> At the very moment of the Fall, the promise also begins. The Fathers also attached importance to the fact that Christology and Mariology are inseparably interwoven already from this primordial beginning.<\/em> The first promise of Christ, which stands in a chiaroscuro<\/em> and which only the light to come finally deciphers, is a promise to and through the woman. (emphases added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In other words, Mary is wholly enclosed within the biblical narrative of God\u2019s dispensation to his people, an insight deftly caught by Dante when he places on the lips of St. Bernard of Clairvaux this address to Mary: \u201cVirgin Mother, daughter of your Son\u201d (Paradiso<\/a><\/u><\/em>), a coinage that forms a nice chiasmus to another of her titles, \u201cMother of God.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(I highly recommend the Ratzinger\/von Balthasar book. It’s a collection of essays and talks. It was very helpful to me in the writing of my little book on Mary, coming in the spring from Word Among Us press.)<\/a>
\n(Yesterday, as we were driving somewhere, Michael was searching through his satellite radio channels and, probably to annoy me, settled on a Gaither Family Christmas Sing Fest or something. Once the horrible jazzy-type woman was done crooning, a gospel quartet started up something that was impossible to argue with: “Mary was the first to carry the Gospel.” Sing it!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This will be worth reading all week, from First Things: The project known as Evangelicals and Catholics Together is now in its thirteenth year\u2014following its initial statement, \u201cThe Christian Mission in the Third Millennium,\u201d with much-discussed statements on salvation, Scripture, and the Communion of Saints. The group is currently engaged in studying what can be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nOn Mary - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/on-mary.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On Mary - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This will be worth reading all week, from First Things: The project known as Evangelicals and Catholics Together is now in its thirteenth year\u2014following its initial statement, \u201cThe Christian Mission in the Third Millennium,\u201d with much-discussed statements on salvation, Scripture, and the Communion of Saints. The group is currently engaged in studying what can be…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/on-mary.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-11-26T15:58:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=firstthings-20&l=ur2&o=1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"On Mary - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/on-mary.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"On Mary - Via Media","og_description":"This will be worth reading all week, from First Things: The project known as Evangelicals and Catholics Together is now in its thirteenth year\u2014following its initial statement, \u201cThe Christian Mission in the Third Millennium,\u201d with much-discussed statements on salvation, Scripture, and the Communion of Saints. The group is currently engaged in studying what can be…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/on-mary.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2007-11-26T15:58:50+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=firstthings-20&l=ur2&o=1"}],"author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/on-mary.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/on-mary.html","name":"On Mary - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/on-mary.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/on-mary.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=firstthings-20&l=ur2&o=1","datePublished":"2007-11-26T15:58:50+00:00","dateModified":"2007-11-26T15:58:50+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/on-mary.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/on-mary.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/on-mary.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=firstthings-20&l=ur2&o=1","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=firstthings-20&l=ur2&o=1"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/on-mary.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"On Mary"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}