Rev. Canon Francis Ripley - Mary: Mother of the Church (with Supplemental Reading: Favorite Prayers to Our Lady) [Illustrated]

Imprimatur: Michael Ward
Vicar General
Glasgow, Scotland
July 16, 196

Copyright 1969 by F. J. Ripley

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

TAN Books
Charlotte, North Carolina
www.TANBooks.com
2012

FOREWORD

In honor of the Blessed Virgin and for our comfort, We proclaim Mary Most Holy to be the Mother of the Church. We decree also that the whole Christian people should make use of this attractive title to increase the honor of the Mother of God in the prayers that they offer. So said Pope Paul VI to all the Catholic Bishops of the world as he closed the third session of the Second Vatican Council on November 21, 1964.

During that session, the Council approved the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, of which the eighth chapter is devoted to Our Lady. Pope Paul called it the very headstone of the Constitution, a matchless hymn in praise of the Virgin Mother of God. The Councils decision, under the guidance of Marys Spouse, the Holy Spirit, to make the chapter on the Blessed Virgin part of the document on the Church, is immensely important. For too long devotion to Mary had been separated from the main stream of devotion to the Church; some had looked upon it as an extra, almost as a condiment to integral Catholicism. The Council ended all that by taking the tremendous accumulation of devotion to Mary during twenty centuries and putting it exactly where it belongsin the setting of the Church.

The pages which follow contain some of the more important pronouncements of modern Popes about Marys place in Gods plan for our salvation and sanctification. When we read them prayerfully we see how and why they were so providential in preparing the way for the mighty . Not all are of equal importance, of course, but together they form a fair picture of the thought of the Vicars of Christ in the years before the Council. They show what the Council took and placed fairly and squarely in the context of the Churchs definition of herself. They enable us to see why, as he went to Fatima on May 13, 1967, Pope Paul VI wrote to the bishops of the world begging them to arouse their people to an ever more fervid and more fruitful Marian piety so that every member of Christ would make his own the prayer of St. Anselm, Doctor of the Church and Archbishop of Canterbury: O Glorious Lady, grant that through you we may deserve to ascend to Jesus, your Son, who through you deigned to descend among us.

FRANCIS J. RIPLEY.

CONTENTS

OUR LADY, MEDIATRIX OF ALL GRACES

What the Popes have said

MARY IS THE UNIVERSAL MEDIATRIX

1. The zeal and love of the Blessed Virgin Mary have such influence in obtaining Gods help for us that, just as through her, God came down to earth, so through her, man mounts up to heaven. But just as mans iniquity often calls down Gods indignation, Gods Mother is the rainbow of the eternal covenant for mankinds salvation. For, while the prayers of those in heaven have certainly some claim on the watchful eye of God, Marys prayers place their assurance on the right of a mother. For that reason, when she approaches the throne of her Divine Son, she begs as advocate, she prays as handmaid, but she commands as mother. (Pius X: Apostolic Constitution, Tanto studio, February 19, 1905.)

Marys Universal Mediation unanimously proclaimed by tradition

2. Mary is this glorious intermediary The plan of this most loving mercy, realized by God in Mary and confirmed by the testament of Christ, was understood with the utmost joy by the holy Apostles and the earliest believers. It was the belief and teaching of the venerable Fathers of the Church. Christians of every generation received it with one mind. (Leo XIII: Encyclical, Octobri mense , September 22, 1891.)

3. The scene of Jesus birth is complete through Marys presence. The faith of her believers and her childrens love consider her not only Gods mother, but also the mediatrix with God. (Benedict XV: Christmas Allocution, December 24, 1915.)

She is the Mediatrix of Mediators

4. We think God has so disposed matters to remind the faithful that we must never forget Mary even when the miracle seems to be attributed to the intercession or the mediation of one who has been beatified or canonised On the one hand Our Lord shows us that even on this earth, which is entrusted to His blessed Mothers care, He can work miracles through the intercession of one of His servants; on the other hand, He reminds us that even in such cases it is necessary to postulate the intercession of her whom the Holy Father greeted as Mediatrix Mediatorum omnium . (Discourse of the Bishop of Orleans to pilgrims present at the approval of the miracles for the canonisation of Joan of Arc, April 6, 1919.)

5. This grace (i.e. health regained) we attribute to the special intercession of the Virgin of Lisieux, St. Teresa of the Child Jesus. But at the same time we know that every blessing that comes to us from Almighty God comes through Our Ladys hands. (Pius XI: Encyclical, Ingravescentibus malis , September 29, 1937.)

She is Mediatrix between Christ and the Church

6. Set up between Christ and His Church, Mary, ever lovable and full of grace, has always delivered the Christian people from their greatest calamities, ever rescued them from ruin. (Pius IX: Encyclical, Ubi primum , February 2, 1849.)

Mary is Mediatrix to the Mediator

7. Now that the anniversary of manifold and exceedingly great favors obtained by a Christian people through the devotion of the Rosary is at hand, We desire that the same devotion should be offered by the whole Catholic world with the greatest earnestness to the Blessed Virgin, in order that by her intercession her divine Son may be appeased and moved to compassion towards us in the miseries which afflict us. (Leo XIII: Encyclical, Supremi Apostolatus , September 1, 1883.)

8. As the Angelic Doctor teaches: There is no reason why certain others should not be called in a certain way mediators between God and man, that is to say insofar as they cooperate by predisposing and ministering in the union of man with God. Such are the Angels and Saints, the prophets and priests of both Testaments, but especially has the Blessed Virgin a claim to the glory of this title. For no single individual can even be imagined who has ever contributed or ever will contribute so much towards reconciling man with God. To mankind heading for eternal ruin, she offered a Saviour when she received the announcement of the mystery brought to this earth by the Angel, and in giving her consent gave it in the name of the whole human race. She it is from whom Jesus is born; therefore she is truly His Mother and for this reason a worthy and acceptable Mediatrix to the Mediator. (Leo XIII: Encyclical, Fidentem Piumque , September 20, 1896.)

9. 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 bought for us by His death and by His blood By this union in sorrow and suffering, as We have said, which existed between the Mother and the Son, it has been allowed to the august Virgin to be the most powerful Mediatrix and advocate of the whole world with her divine Son. (St. Pius X: Encyclical, Ad diem illum , February 2, 1904.)

10. May the most gracious Mother of God, who gave us Jesus as Redeemer, who reared Him, and at the foot of the Cross offered Him as Victim, who by her mysterious union with Christ and by her matchless grace rightly merits the name Reparatrix, deign to smile upon our wishes and our undertakings, trusting in her intercession with Christ Our Lord, who although He is the only Mediator between God and man, still wished to make His mother the advocate for sinners and the dispenser and Mediatrix of His grace. (Pius XI: Encyclical, Miserentissimus Redemptor , May 8, 1928.)