The understanding of integral man as a covenantal being helps to bring into focus the profound spirit of self-abnegation (kenosis) to which God the Son committed Himself in the sacred mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption (It needs to be emphasized here that the Incarnation and Redemption are sacred mysteries, and not merely sacred historical events. As mysteries, they continue to engage and transform humanity throughout all of history). If God originally created man as a covenantal being, then the mystery of the Incarnation would require that God the Son take to Himself a covenantal human nature. In such a nature, the work of redemption is a covenantal mission and ministry. (It should be noted that this covenantal human nature, which God the Son embraced, was in stark contrast to the more aloof and hermetically-sealed type of spirituality embraced by many of the Pharisees) And it is shared in such a way that both Jesus and His beloved disciples participate in the struggles, sufferings, frustrations and glorification involved in the mystery of human redemption from the power of sin.
As scandalous as it may seem to minds clouded by the distorted perspectives of sin, Jesus did not want to be glorified alone, either on the cross or on His heavenly throne. His glorified covenantal humanity is to be an ongoing invitation for all to share in that grace, with which His divine nature invested our frail and fallen human nature. And so, as His Father's Word of loving commitment to unfaithful humanity, Jesus, by the power of the Spirit, perfectly takes to Himself a covenantal human nature by gracing the life of one woman in particular to purely and perfectly participate in a covenantal communion with Himself in every aspect of her life and being. Only in this way could it be effectively shown to the world that salvation was not merely to be a change of our condition as humans, but rather a transformation of our very being - our total humanity in all dimensions of its life and relationships.
And so it is that the Church proclaims the unique and sinless covenantal bond of Mary with her Son as a truth that must be proclaimed and appreciated by all Catholics. The redemptive gift of Jesus was perfectly given to and received by His Mother from the first moment of her existence. Or, to put it more concisely, the Immaculate Conception of Mary does not just entail her total freedom from original sin, it also involves her being given the grace to be perfectly receptive to and filled with God's gracious gift of Himself, commonly referred to as sanctifying grace. This gift was ratified by her act of total consecration to God's will for her, which is reflected in the Annunciation.
It is important to note here that, when the archangel, Gabriel, came to Mary in Nazareth, he did not ask her if she was willing to become the mother of the Messiah, but rather informed her of the way in which God was calling her to live out her consecration of her life for the salvation of her people. Thus, by her fiat, she reaffirmed her perfect consecration to God by freely giving the totality of her being as woman to Him, so as to allow the Spirit to form the humanity of God the Son within her very being.
Mary's fiat was a participation in the kenosis of her Son conforming herself and her life to the will of God. In spite of the likelihood that Joseph would not understand the situation, she chose to focus more deeply on God's covenantal gaze of love, reverence and gratitude toward her. Aware that God was always beholding her in that gaze, she responded by humbly and gratefully asserting, "Be it done to me according to your word". She embraced silence trusting God to work things out with Joseph in His way and in His time.
In deference to those who legitimately point out that Mary and her words are rarely mentioned in the written gospels, it should be noted that the complementary nature of her covenant relationship with Jesus makes this lack of Scriptural emphasis quite understandable. If Jesus is God's Word become flesh, the proper reception of that Word would entail a quiet and vigilant, yet dialogical, receptivity to that Word. Scriptural silence concerning the deeper dimensions of Mary's relationship with the Person, life and ministry of her Son is merely a reflection of the attitude of reverent and receptive recollection needed to properly participate in an authentic covenant relationship with Christ.
It should be noted here that the new covenant humanity actuated in history by the Immaculate Conception of Mary and the Incarnation was not a closed relationship. Just as the first man and woman were commanded to be fruitful and multiply, so the new covenant-humanity of Jesus and Mary, formed by the power of the Holy Spirit, was given the command to totally give of itself (to empty itself) in order to embrace and form all peoples into a renewed covenantal humanity. Just as in the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity there is only one God in three divine Persons, so in the new redeemed humanity, there is to be one Christ, one Church, one new human covenant community committed to an irrevocable obedience to the will of our loving Father, into which many human persons, through the grace of Baptism, invest their lives and very being.
From this covenant perspective, a beautiful dimension of the mystery of the Redemption becomes more evident. Scripture is quite clear in stating the fact that Jesus died for us because God loved us (John 3:16, Rom. 5:10, I Jn 4:19). Jesus' death on the cross did not cause God to love us, since God is beyond the control of the cause-effect dynamic. Thus the Redemption is not an act of appeasing the anger of a wrathful God, but rather the epiphany of the merciful God in the midst of the mercy-less condition that festers in the heart of sinful humanity. This condition of the human heart is the consequence of our free choice to reject a covenantal life with God and with one another. In the mystery of the Redemption, each human person is given the opportunity to break away from the power of sin and, by God's mercy, be restored to the status of membership in His covenant family. In the process, the redeemed are given the strength to break away from the corrupting "covenant" of sin; i.e., the tendency to commit one's self to the perverted fellowship of complicity with the spirits of evil, such as lust, envy, pride, avarice, anger, gluttony and sloth for the sake of some transient pleasure or advantage. The righteousness of God, then, is not fulfilled by compounding the evil of sin with the evil of death and damnation. Rather, God's justice is realized by His overthrowing the oppressive power of those evil spirits, which keep us from recognizing and reverencing the image of God in ourselves, in one another and in the covenantal communion of Christ's Mystical Body, the Church. Thus, the intensity and variety of sufferings which Jesus endured in His saving passion were not an indication of how intense was the Father's wrath toward sinful humanity. Rather, they revealed to us how perduring and intense is God's desire to reconcile us to Himself in spirit and in truth. In spite of the repeated and horrific abuses endured in His passion, Jesus continues to affirm His merciful love for us. He was telling us, by word and example, "No matter how terrible, festering and numerous are your sins and the evil they bring upon others, I want to forgive, heal and renew you in My grace". Our sinful humanity expects that enough abuse will show that there is a limit to God's desire to forgive and heal us. Yet, through the long ordeal of crucifixion, Jesus continues to reaffirm that His love is greater than the cruelty and perversion of our sin. And in rising from the dead, He again continues to reaffirm His call for conversion, reconciliation and healing.
It is important to stress here the unique participation of Mary in the sacrificial death of her Son on Calvary. It must be emphasized that only the Person of the God-Man, Jesus, was capable of effecting our redemption by His kenosis – His emptying Himself in an eternal sacrifice of praise, since of all human beings. Jesus alone is God. But the fact that He is totally and intimately invested, required that His death for our salvation be not an individualistic task, but a covenantal ministry of unconditional and irrevocable obedience to the will of the Father. Thus, His sufferings and death for our salvation are fruitful ministries, in which all the faithful, especially His Blessed Mother, are called to obediently participate. And so it is that we see Mary standing in torment for six long agonizing hours at the foot of the cross (Mk 15:25,33). In profound agony and grief, she witnesses the violation of the body of her Son by pagan soldiers, the leaders of her people sadistically ridiculing her Son as He helplessly endures the excruciating ordeal of crucifixion, the noticeable absence of most of His apostles, and the spiritual turmoil that came upon her Son and His disciples who wondered why God did not intervene to save His Chosen One. Mary was anything but immune from the sufferings endured by her Son that day. With a profound compassion that only a mother could fully appreciate, she was intimately united with her Son in His suffering and death and in His prayer, "Father, forgive them! For they know not what they are doing."
Since this is such an important aspect of the mystery of the Redemption, we should again address the issue of the relative silence of the Holy Scriptures concerning Mary's unique relationship with both her Son and His mission. It should be pointed out that, although the Sacred Scriptures proclaim to us the mystery of God's gracious gift to us in Christ, they do not claim to exhaust that mystery. Rather, they clearly testify that the vast majority of Jesus' life was spent in the obscurity of Nazareth and that all the books in the world could not contain a full accounting of the ministry and mystery of Christ. The truths of the Holy Scriptures are given in a way that requires the believer to be constantly and totally receptive to the transcendent dimensions of Divine Revelation, since spirituality is a divinely guided art of discerning subtleties that are pregnant with new and more profound possibilities.
One seeking impressive arguments or spectacular signs in order to believe would be rejecting the prayer, struggle and suffering required by authentic discernment. For example, the reaction of the Jews in Nazareth to Jesus' preaching strongly indicates that He was not especially noted for extraordinary holiness in His younger days. Thus He was rejected, since He would not indulge their lust for excitement and novelty. Likewise, cynics legitimately point out that one of the central mysteries of our Faith, the Resurrection of Jesus, was not actually witnessed by anyone. The guards saw the empty tomb revealed when the stone in front of it was rolled back during an earthquake. And all that the disciples saw were the empty tomb, the angels announcing the Resurrection and the risen Christ showing them that He was alive. But no one saw the actual event. And so the lack of Scriptural texts addressing a particular article of faith cannot, in itself, be used to deny the validity of that truth.
From the above, we can see that, by understanding of Mary's ministry as Co-Redemptrix in the light of the covenantal nature of integral humanity (reflected in the nuptial "meaning", not just "function", of the human body), we can discover an important corrective for the tendency to image Jesus as a kind of altruistic rugged individualist, Who merely condescended to allow others to share in His ministry. Such a misunderstanding of Jesus has tragically lead many to either an alienated frustration or an arrogant superficiality in their spiritual lives. Although each human is called to participate in the new covenant humanity in a way that reflects his/her unique personal situation, the uniqueness of one's personal participation is never to be seen as a reason to glorify spiritual alienation by saying, "I did it all by myself". The Jesus proclaimed in the Gospel is not one who hoards all the glory He receives. Rather, He continues to give His glory to His Heavenly Father, to graciously bestow His glory on His Blessed Mother and on His bride, the Church, and even to reach out to stubborn sinners with that call to repentance whereby they can come to share in the joys of forgiveness, salvation and eternal life. His living out of the New Covenant with His Blessed Mother points out dramatically that true spirituality does not build up pride, but rather nurtures a more profound and authentic covenant communion of love.
It is also worth noting here that the covenantal nature of man and of the mystery of redemption is also indicated in at least two of the Gospels. In Luke, Mary is portrayed as being betrothed to a descendent of David, Joseph (Lk 1:26-27). Yet she is also described as being a close relative of Elizabeth (Lk 1:36), who was of the daughters of Aaron (Lk 1:5). It would seem then that Mary was also of the daughters of Aaron, a Levite woman. What is intriguing is that, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, the Davidic ancestry of Jesus is traced to Joseph, who is clearly not His biological father, and not to Mary. A clue to this apparent discrepancy can be found in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus (Matt1:1-17). In that genealogy, four women are mentioned, all of whom were not originally Israelites. Rather, with the exception of Tamar’s unorthodox method of fulfilling the levirate custom, they were brought into the genealogy by their covenantal/marital relationship with one of the ancestors of Joseph. As an aside, it is noteworthy that, in the tradition of the Orthodox Church, the discrepancies in the two genealogies is resolved by noting the reality of levirate marriage, whereby a man would generate offspring for the sake of his deceased brother. So it would seem that Mary’s participation in the Davidic line was at least confirmed, if not initiated, through her covenantal betrothal and marriage to Joseph.
In light of this covenantal nature of man and of redemption, we need to re-examine some serious spiritual errors with regard to the nature of the ministries to which we are called by God. Contrary to the literalistic interpretations poetic expressions of one's desire to be totally at the disposal of God's will, Jesus does not "use" believers like inanimate tools to accomplish His plans. Instead, He reverently and graciously invites them into a deepening communion with Himself in His ministry of reaching out to sinful humanity with His saving grace. He calls upon His faithful disciples to manifest in their lives the presence of God's faithful and eternal Love. Such communion and ministry necessarily requires one to participate in the redemptive sufferings of Jesus. But by centering one's attention not on the pain of the cross, but rather on Jesus, with Whom one has the privilege of being crucified, a person is renewed in the Spirit of love, joy, and peace even in the face of the most difficult forms of suffering. Similarly, true believers are not merely spiritual parasites, which draw life from Jesus but do not invest themselves into His life and mission. Rather, they are, through Baptism, actually members of the Body of Christ. Each one participates in a unique way in the sacred mysteries of the life, sufferings, death and resurrection of God the Son, and thus comes to fully participate in that new covenant-humanity, which is the image of the covenantal Triune God.
We could continue by examining how this covenantal nature of integral humanity would shed some intriguing new light on some interesting dilemmas in Sacred Scripture - such as, 1) why does the genealogy of Jesus end with Joseph (who is a father to Jesus not by flesh, but by a marriage covenant with Mary); 2) why were all the women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus not Israelites, but rather integrated into Israel by marriage; 3) why did Jesus' humanity need to be perfected (Heb 5:9) through His suffering and death; 4) how do we understand the divine inspiration of the human authors of the Holy Scriptures, which seem to have gone through a redaction in the covenant community of God’s people); and 5) why is the Church's self-emptying evangelization of all humanity not merely an extraneous charitable work, but a necessary ongoing dynamic for the healthy development of a covenant community of believers?
But for the sake of brevity, we must simply repeat that God's creation of man in His image and likeness was the creation of a kenosis covenant communion of persons freely giving themselves to one another in love, reverence, trust and gratitude in obedience to the will of God.
Sin brought alienation and death into this covenant communion, which is called "man" (Gen 5:2). Grace, which is given to us through repentance and faith by our baptism into covenant communion with Jesus in His saving life, death and resurrection, enables us to break free of the alienation and deception of sin. In this way, we can live in the freedom of God's children, and the grace of God continues to build up the covenant community of redeemed humanity in authentic repentance, reconciliation, faith, hope and love.
I mentioned earlier that the solemn declaration that Mary is Co-Redemptrix would foster, rather than inhibit, further ecumenical dialogue. The reason for this optimism is that the perfection of Jesus' work of redemption is manifested in the consequences of that work. Perfect salvation is not evidenced by a soul still caught up in the power of sin and concupiscence. Thus for us to affirm that Jesus has saved us must also affirm that He has not merely engaged in a sophisticated cover up, whereby our sins are hidden from the Father's scrutiny. Such divine deception or duplicity would be impossible for an all-knowing God. For Jesus to perfectly attain salvation for us would require that this perfection of salvation be manifested in at least one person's life. Otherwise, it would only be a theoretical or imaginary salvation. The person who shows to us how absolute is the salvation Jesus has won for us is His Blessed Mother. Furthermore, if one aspect of this salvation is a complete authentic communion with Jesus (rather than remaining alienated from, though “redeemed” by,Jesus), then Mary must also intimately share in a fellowship of life and ministry with her Son.
He Who perfectly fulfilled the commandment, "Honor your father and your mother", by being obedient to the Father unto death, also honored His mother by blessing her with the highest degree of Divine intimacy a creature could possibly receive. And this intimacy necessarily involved her intimate cooperative participation in the mission of her Son - to glorify the Father by bringing the image and likeness of God to perfection in all aspects of our shared humanity. Those who find it difficult to accept Mary's cooperative participation in the mystery of the Redemption may be able to appreciate it in light of the broader context of the mission given by Christ to evangelize the world. Most Christians accept the fact that evangelization is a necessary ministry of the Church. But they often overlook the fact that the human cooperation of the evangelist, is a necessary aspect of the ministry of making the salvation won by Christ available to individual souls. Yet this truth contradicts the erroneous idea that Jesus "alone" saves us. Jesus is the unique God-Man, the sine qua non of Redemption, but His uniqueness does not alienate Him from us, rather it enables Him to enter into a profoundly holy and sanctifying communion with us in a way that transcends the superficial and corrupt "mess of pottage" offered by those who define community in terms of complicity, rather than of conversion.
To deny the validity of human cooperation in the work of redemption, and thus the validity of the ministry of evangelization, since Jesus "alone" saves souls from sin, would be to deny the very words of Jesus, Who sent His apostles and disciples to proclaim the Gospel and to baptize people of all nations. To endorse the denial of the need for human cooperation in the work of redemption would be to assert that one's proclaiming the Gospel is a "sin" of affirming the need of human cooperation for the mystery of redemption to be effective in a person's life. It is rather obvious that such a perspective of the Church's mission would be seriously flawed, in that it would distort the doctrine of salvation by Jesus alone into a doctrine of salvation by Jesus aloof and alienated from all human cooperation. The denial of the need for human cooperation in the mystery of redemption would even call into question the validity of one's accepting Jesus as Savior and Lord, which require a minimum act of human cooperation, in order for Christ's saving power to be effective in a person's life. And so all that the Church would be affirming in the doctrine of Mary as Co-Redemptrix is that, by the grace of God, Mary cooperates in a pre-eminent way in the mission and ministry of her Son. Her words, "Do whatever He tells you" are the foundation of all authentic Christian spiritual direction. Likewise, such a doctrine would help to remind us that the fruit of a truly Christian spirituality, as exemplified by Our Savior Himself, is not a pharisaical pride in one's accomplishment, but rather a deepening, reverent and grateful communion with Christ in seeking to do the will of our Heavenly Father. In a special way, such a doctrine would help to emphasize that Christians are, by the gracious love and mercy of God, members of the Body of Christ, and not merely parasites sucking life from Christ. In light of such a great salvation given to us by our Lord and already perfectly received by our Blessed Mother, all Christians can rejoice in the fact that God, Who is mighty, is indeed doing great things for us, in us, and through us by the grace given to us through our communion with Jesus, His Son.
As a concluding thought, it should be noted that, in God’s plan of salvation, the Good News and saving mystery of the crucified and risen Christ are ministered to humanity in and through His Church by the grace of the Holy Spirit. But the Person of Jesus has come to the world through Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus it is that we profess that the human nature taken by God the Son in the mystery of the Incarnation is not merely a product from her womb, but the fruit of her womb – since fruit comes from the very substance of another and is not merely something processed through another. Since no one comes to the Father except through the Person of Jesus, and the Father, in His infinite wisdom, has ordained that the Person of Jesus come to the world through Mary (living fully in the covenantal life of sanctifying grace), it is only through a holy union with Mary that we will be able to properly receive and appreciate the gift of the Father offered to us in Jesus. Indeed, it is only through her, with her and in her, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, that God the Father has chosen to graciously bestow the greatest honor and glory on us in the Person of Jesus Christ, her Son and Our Lord. The profound spiritual awareness aroused by this truth will help us to keep Gospel principles from becoming divorced from the Person of Jesus, and thus tarnished by accommodation with social conventions. Likewise, it will enable us to be renewed in a spirit of grateful reverence that will keep sacramental actions from being seen as merely empty rituals that have only subjectively functional value in the midst of our modern culture of superficial and short-sighted pragmatism.
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ADDENDUM I – A core question, which needs to be addressed, is whether, in the mystery of the Incarnation, God the Son took to Himself an integral human nature (as originally created by God, as recorded in Gen 1&2) or a fallen and alienated human nature, plagued by the desecrating power of Original Sin. Is Christ a New Creation (cf. II Cor 5:17, Eph 4:20-24, Col 3:10), or merely a recycling of the old creation contaminated and desecrated by sin? Likewise, in receiving the sacraments, does one merely receive Christ, or become integrated into the humanity of Christ in the mystery and ministries of His Mystical Body?
ADDENDUM II - We often honor Mary as our Mother, Model, Mentor, Mediatrix, and Intercessor. However, it is also worth noting that, in God’s gracious and mysterious plan of salvation, she carries out another ministry, that of Integrator.
After she conceived Jesus in her womb, by the very fact of her being His Mother, she was initiated into an awesome dynamic of integrating creation into the body of Christ. According to the order God established in Creation, a mother is the one through whom creation is integrated into the child developing in her womb. Through her, the nutrition required to have her child develop is purified and integrated into the child’s body. Only in this way can the child develop during the nine months of gestation. Likewise, after childbirth, a mother integrates the nutrition of Creation into her nursing infant, providing not only sustenance, but also antibodies needed to protect her child from disease. As the child continues to develop, his mother and father continue the process of nurturing his body and of integrating their familial, linguistic and cultural heritage into their child’s life. Thus it is that Jesus grew in wisdom, maturity and grace in obedience to the ongoing care and guidance offered through Mary and Joseph.
It should also be noted here that, during the Passion of her Son, Mary had to witness the multidimensional ways, by which humanity was inflicting the spiritual and physical sepsis of its sins into the soul and body of her Son. Due to sin, all humanity could do was inflict or impose the septic wounds of its sins on Him. This bacterial sepsis manifested the spiritual sepsis so viciously and violently inflicted upon His Body by the sins of humanity. But, through the gracious fidelity of the Holy Spirit, Mary was able to open the way for humanity to break out of the quagmire of resentments and recriminations caused by sin. Through her covenantal communion with Jesus and His mission, she was able stand* at the foot of His cross to assist in humbly, sorrowfully, reverently and graciously integrating those wounds into His covenantal body, so that not only the thoughts of many hearts could be revealed (Lk 2:35), but also those horrendous wounds could be transformed into fountains of mercy and redemptive grace for all of humanity.
Mary, then, is the one through whom God willed to initiate and perpetuate the integration of all of Creation into Christ. Likewise, as the Mother of His Mystical Body, the Church, she, as Mediatrix of all graces, continues, through her Immaculate Heart, in the maternal ministry of cleansing and integrating all of Creation and all relationships into the mystery and ministries of that Mystical Body.
This reality is further manifested in the Assumption of Mary into heaven. From the moment of her Immaculate Conception, she lived, body and soul, in total perfect intimate communion with God. Just as someone standing on the North Pole can go no farther north, her perfect personal intimacy with God could not be assumed to a higher state. However, her relationships with the children entrusted to her care by her Son are able to be enhanced and sanctified by the Holy Spirit in ways beyond comprehension.
In the mystery of salvation, God is thus able to wondrously raise natural dynamics to a sanctifying and supernatural level. So it is that, by simple devotions like the Rosary and Total Consecration, we are able to allow Mary to so purify and clarify our perspectives and attitudes as to integrate all we are and all our relationships more completely and perfectly into the mystery of Christ, as so beautifully proclaimed by St. Paul in Gal 4:4-5, Eph 1:7-14 and Col 1:15-23. In this ministry, she is the spiritual mentor of holy Mother Church in her ongoing mission of purifying and integrating all dimensions of humanity into the Mystical Body of Christ.
*Note that, with His feet nailed to the cross, Jesus was standing on the cross, since crucifixion required that the victim go through the agony of regularly pushing himself up with his legs to avoid suffocation.
ADDENDUM III - In light of a covenantal anthropology, it should be noted that, while the Church has traditionally asserted that Mary was a descendent of David, there are Scriptural indications that she was not a "pure blood" descendant of King David, since her kinswoman, Elizabeth, was "from the daughters of Aaron" (Lk 1:5 & 36), and thus of the tribe of Levi. Likewise, a venerable tradition of the Church asserts that her parents, Joakim and Ann, entrusted her at an early age, not to members of the tribe of Judah, but to priests.
Also, note that only priests were to carry the Ark of the Covenant (note David's mistake of transporting the Ark on an ox cart, a mistake for which Uzziah paid with his life [II Sam 6:1-10]). Likewise, it is worth noting that all the other women mentioned by Matthew in his genealogy of Jesus (Matt 1:1-16 ; Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheeba) were integrated into the tribe of Judah through the covenant of marriage. Thus it seems that, in God's plan, Mary had to be fully integrated into the tribe of Judah and the line of David through her chaste covenantal marriage to Joseph. Also, her betrothal to him seems to have been a necessary prerequisite for God's promise to David to come to fruition in the mystery of the Incarnation (Lk 1:26-27). The prioritizing of this integration of Mary into the Davidic line also seems to presage the gracious grafting of the Gentiles into God's Chosen People, not through the ritual of circumcision, but through the sacred covenant of Baptism. In addition, if Mary did have Levitical ancestry, the priesthood of her Son would not be a replacement of the priesthood established by the Father in the Mosaic Law, but rather its glorious and regenerative fruition in the line of Melkezedek.
ADDENDUM IV - In Galatians 4:21-26, a contrast is made between the descendents of the slave woman, Hagar, and those of the free woman, Sarah. It affirms that the son of the slave woman is born into bondage, while the son of the free woman is born into freedom. This is presented as an allegory of contrast between the covenant of the Mosaic Law and the covenant initiated by the sacrifice of Jesus.
But it also has Marialogical implications. Since Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit as the fruit of Mary's womb, He would have been born of a slave woman, had she been in any way tainted by the perverting power of sin. But she was not. By the grace of God, she had been immaculately conceived and preserved from all actual sin. Thus she was, indeed, a free woman, who conceived, carried, and bore for the world the fruition of God's promises in the Person of Jesus, her Son.
ADDENDUM V - In Mark 2:27, Jesus pointed out that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. Unfortunately, since one of the consequences of Original Sin was to distort the premises, perspectives and priorities of humanity, this teaching has often been interpreted so as to conform to an anthropology based on radical alienated individualism, which rejects the Biblical anthropology of the intrinsic covenantal nature of man in favor of merely materialistic symbiotic relationships.
As a result, the appreciation of our need to allow God to form us more conscientiously and perfectly as a covenantal humanity (i.e., the Mystical Body of Christ) on the Sabbath has been eclipsed by many, who prioritize their personal perspectives, priorities and programs over the call of God to us to gather in worship so as to be formed more perfectly as one Body and one Spirit in Christ. The Sabbath has thus come to be viewed by many more in terms of gratification than of sanctification (i.e., a more pure, profound and perfect integration of all into the Mystical Body of Christ, whereby we are privileged to participate more profoundly in the Christ mission of glorifying the Father by cooperating with the Holy Spirit in bringing His image and likeness to perfection in all dimensions of our shared humanity). Without emphasizing the revealed truth that authentic humanity is intrinsically covenantal, attempts at a New Evangelization will tend to be incrementally degraded into new capitulations to secularism, cynicism and Satanism. Likewise, the Gospel call to transformation in Christ will be gradually obfuscated by a synodal processes promoting greater openness to the such ever-evolving evils as transhumanism, transgenderism and religious indifferentism.
ADDENDUM VI - On December 12, 2020, Pope Francis expressed his view that the assertion that Mary is Co-Redemptrix was "foolishness". This assertion would be true, if one were to embrace the paradigm of integral human nature as not intrinsically covenantal, but rather as radically aloof and alienated, and thus capable only of relationships which are parasitic, symbiotic or altruistic. In effect, since man is formed in God's image and likeness, such a rejection of the covenantal nature of man raises questions about the very trinitarian nature of God and seems to be a ratification of the Islamic theology, which proclaims Allah to be intrinsically aloof and altruistic - graciously but arbitrarily giving blessings as He sees fit, but neither desiring nor capable of having intimate relations with humanity or with His Creation.
Ironically, while Pope Francis asserted that Mary is the most perfect disciple of Jesus, he overlooked the fact that the perfect covenantal communion with Jesus, manifestd by Our Blessed Mother, is actually the most perfect form of both docility and discipleship. Such a denial of the basic ontological nature of covenantal communion would degrade such communion to the point of being merely a subjective, putative or psychological construct, which can easily be rearranged or terminated. Such is the rationale for permitting divorce and remarriage. This paradigm, which seems to be embraced by Pope Francis, aside from its Islamic nuances, is also quite compatible with the foundational principles of our secularized materialistic society - absolute subjectivity, invincible ambiguity and codependent whines that demand our showing an "inclusive" codependent compassion for those promoting ideas and practices contrary to the Gospel. Such a paradigm inevitably gives license to treating Jesus more as a mascot for one's agendas and lifestyle choices, rather than as the Master of our lives and our relationships, to Whom we are all accountable.
Sadly, it seems that this anthropological paradigm is strongly guiding the synodal process by subtly guiding the deliberations of many of the Synodal Fathers. And whereas authentic transcendence is discovered through fidelity to the humility and docility of covenantal intimacy, synodality tends to embrace the secularist paradigm of seeking transcendence through various "quantum leaps" achieved through the accumulation of power, prestige and possessions. Thus it is that,, when we proclaim in the Gloria, "You alone are the Holy One, You alone are Lord, You alone are the Most High", we are not asserting the uniqueness of Jesus Christ to be an alienated reality, but rather one living "with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father."
ADDENDUM VII - A Biblical covenantal anthropology would be helpful in resolving a major theological difference between Protestants, who assert that our human nature is totally depraved by Original Sin, and Catholics, who assert that human nature, while intrinsically good, has been seriously degraded by Original Sin - much as the body can be degraded by a diseased condition. The paradigm of salt helps to reconcile this disagreement. Salt is a molecule of two toxic elements, sodium and chlorine. When these two poisons form a molecular bond, however, their toxicity disappears, and they actually become therapeutic. In a similar way, as a sinful soul is drawn through sincere repentance, Baptism and the obedience of faith, into a covenantal relationship with Jesus and His Mystical Body, its sinful toxicity is replaced with a redemptive graciousness. But, whereas the formation or a molecular bond is instantaneous, the covenantal integration into Christ and His Mystical Body is an ongoing process, since each soul is continually being brought into new relationships or new dimensions of old relationships. However, if a soul, through serious, unrepented sin, breaks away from that covenantal communion, its spiritual toxicity returns and starts to metastasize - to the point that the soul often starts to seek "salvation" through rationalizations and resentments, rather than through contrition and life-giving repentance.
ADDENDUM VIII - All Christians honor Jesus as our King, as well as our Savior. It is worth noting, however, that in Song of Songs 3:11, Solomon, the son of David, was crowned by his mother, Bathsheeba, on the day of his wedding. So also, it would seem appropriate that Jesus would also be crowned by His Mother, on His wedding day with His Bride, the Church.
ADDENDUM IX - The dogma of the Assumption of Mary, body and soul, into heaven as both an historical fact and a mystery of the Faith presents a certain conundrum. Since heaven is perfect communion with God, the dogma of her Immaculate Conception declares that she already was perfectly blessed with such intimacy from the first moment of her existence. Much as a person standing on the North Pole can go no farther north, it seem that she could not have more perfect intimacy with God. But her relationships with her spiritual children, by the gracious fidelity of the Holy Spirit, can be and actually are drawn into greater intimacy with God. Thus her Assumption into heaven is not merely something we are to admire and honor, but a mystery, in which we are privileged to participate.
ADDENDUM X - The reality of the covenantal nature of man is indicated by the personhood of the Holy Spirit, Who is the perfect relationship of the Father and the Son. If a relationship can only be a dynamic, but not a person, the personhood of the Holy Spirit must be denied. The interesting observation in Jn 8:39 that there was no Spirit yet, since the covenantal relationship of God and man had not yet been fully re-established through the Paschal Mystery of Christ is worth noting. Thus it seems that not only individual persons, but also consecrated relationships can be both salvific and sanctifying (Jn 17:19).
ADDENDUM XI - Another core question, which needs to be addressed, is whether we receive salvation from Christ or in Christ. Does a person, merely by accepting Jesus as his/her personal Savior and Lord, without submitting in obedience to being incorporated by Baptism into His Mystical Body, receive salvation and eternal life (i.e., does such an act lead to a soul receiving a sort of Salvation Express credit card ["Don't leave this world without it"?])? Or does a person receive salvation by being incorporated/integrated into Christ through Baptism and an ongoing repentance guided by an ongoing, humble and docile obedience of faith?
ADDENDUM XII - Appreciating the covenantal nature of humanity also helps to properly integrate our understanding of the relationship of grace and merit. It is worth noting that there is a need to correct the tendency to view grace in a manner that is quantitative rather than qualitative. Thus it seems a more correct term for God's interaction with us and its fruition in us would be His graciousness. A gift ceases to be a gift when it is hoarded as a possession in alienation from others. Thus, what is normally described in theological and spiritual writings as merit is actually a unique privilege of sharing in the mystery and ministries of God's graciousness flowing through the Mystical Body of Christ. Thus there can be no boasting, but only a more profound and reverent gratitude for the privilege of becoming more deeply incorporated with others into this saving and regenerative dynamic.
1) Was the relationship of Jesus with His mother one whereby He merely used her to come into our world in a manner devoid of any sacred and sanctifying covenantal communion
(analogous to the Islamic theology, whereby Allah, avoiding any intimacy whatsoever, merely aloofly uses his slaves to do his will - or even the Playboy "use them and lose them" attitude toward women)?
2) Were the statements in Phil 2:7 that God the Son a) came in human likeness and b) was found human in appearance erroneous, or merely an assertion that He had actually assumed anew an integral covenantal human nature, which only had the appearance of a fallen human nature, and into which, through the gracious fidelity of the Holy Spirit, He is to reconcile fallen humanity by integrating repentant sinners into His Mystical Body?
3) Was the statement of Jesus,made after He drew His disciples into Eucharistic communion with Himself (recorded in John 15:15), "I no longer call you slaves, but friends," applicable only to them, but not to the one called "the Perfect Disciple" by the Church?
4) If integral human nature is not intrinsically covenantal, how can God the Father (not merely putatively, but ontologically) ascribe to us the merits the Death and Resurrection of Jesus without deceiving Himslf?
5) If Jesus alone, in transcendent eternal alienated aloofness from sinners, saves souls, why does He want or need His Bride, the Church to bring to fruition the mystery of Redemption?
6) In view of the facts that a) God is perfect Love, and b) the most perfect form of love is sacred intimacy, is it possible to be drawn into sacred communion with Him for all eternity without allowing ourselves to be graciously drawn into such intimacy with Him? (If not, is the Islamic concept of heaven as merely a paradise of perpetual gratification the correct one for guiding one's spiritual life?)
Then again, the rejection of the intrinsic covenantal nature of humanity, tangibly expressed through the mystery and ministry of Mary as Co-Redemptrix, opens the way for "progressive" prelates to promote a broader acceptance of kenosis theology and its assertion that the "the Spirit" is guiding the Church to "empty herself" of her doctrinal dogmatism and moral rigorism, so as to be drawn into a New World Order, wherein the Church will gradually transition into a sacramentally-enhanced version of the Unitarian Universalist Church.
Fr. Thomas R. Collins
Hot Springs VA
frtrac1@hotmail.com
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