THE CO-REDEMPTION AND UNIVERSAL MEDIATION OF THE MOST HOLY MARY BY HIS EXCELLENCY MGR DE CASTRO MAYER

https://abbe-pivert.com/marie-est-coredemptrice-verite-divinement-revelee-et-infailliblement-enseignee-par-eglise/
English translation by deepl.com

Foreword

Bishop de Castro Mayer, a friend of Archbishop Lefebvre, was with him co-consecrator of the four bishops in 1988.

In 1978, then bishop of Campos in Brazil, he wrote a magnificent “pastoral letter” to the clergy of his diocese, in which he demonstrated that the title of Mary Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix and Dispenser of all graces was a truth of faith taught by the ordinary universal magisterium of the Church and therefore divinely revealed and infallibly taught by the Holy Church.

The vast majority of bishops consulted in preparation for the Second Vatican Council wanted this truth to be confirmed by the extraordinary magisterium.

Unfortunately, the opposite is happening today, since on November 4, 2025, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared that it was not possible to present Mary as Co-Redemptrix.

This statement is “at least close to heresy,” if not outright “heretical.”

Translation by us of the text published in the Si Si No No Bulletin.   

PART ONE

Mary Most Holy is the Mother of God. This sweet dogma is explicitly contained in the Holy Gospels and was defined at the Council of Ephesus on June 22, 431, against the deviations of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, to the great exultation of the faithful, who paid triumphant homage to the Council Fathers, accompanying them with torches and joyful acclamations on their return from the Council to their seats.

Mary Most Holy is Mother of God because, through her virginal flesh, she collaborated with the divine Holy Spirit in the formation of the human nature of the Son of God, which led St. Augustine to the beautiful and bold expression “Caro Christi, caro Mariae,” “the flesh of Christ is the flesh of Mary”(1).

Thus, the Word of God came into the world through Mary. He was born of Mary, he is the true Son of Mary, and since the Word is God (2), Mary Most Holy is truly the Mother of God. St. Luke, in the part of his Gospel devoted to the Lord's childhood, recounts the message of God transmitted to the most holy Virgin by the archangel St. Gabriel. This message unequivocally affirms Mary's divine motherhood. The archangel said to Mary: "Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, whom you will name Jesus. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God“ (3). The expression ”will be called" means: he will have a proper name, indicative of his nature, for such is the value of names given by God in Holy Scripture (4).

Mary's participation in the work of Redemption

The fact that Mary Most Holy was chosen as the Mother of God, and that she truly is so, because she is the Mother of the Son of God made man, has an undeniable consequence in the economy of grace, in the plan of the Redemption of the human race. St. Augustine rightly observes that God could have become man without being born of a woman, without the cooperation of the Virgin Mary. This would have been very easy for His almighty majesty. Just as He could have been born of a woman without the cooperation of a man, He could have done without Mary's collaboration (5). That is why, if He wanted to be born of Mary, it was because Mary was part of the divine plan that determined the Incarnation of the Son of God.

Indeed, the Most High does nothing without reason. Being an infinitely wise agent, he does not act rashly. It is up to us, if we want to participate in divine plans, to accept the irrefutable postulate of his mercy, when he decided that The Incarnation of the Word would take place through the human body formed in the most pure womb of the most holy Mary. And since Jesus became incarnate, as we profess in the Creed, “for us men and for our salvation”(6), we cannot exclude the collaboration of the most holy Mary in the work by which divine goodness redeemed the human race.

Ecclesiastical Tradition

Moreover, the thesis linking Mary's motherhood to the plan for the restoration of the human race predates St. Augustine. The Doctor of Grace is only one link, albeit a precious one, in the chain formed by ecclesiastical tradition dating back to the apostolic Church.

Indeed, from the earliest centuries, the Church Fathers associated the most holy Mary with her divine Son in the mission of restoring the human race.

In his Epistle to the Romans, Saint Paul declares that, just as through the disobedience of one man all became sinners, so through the obedience of one all are justified(7). The Church Fathers, as if to complete the Apostle's thought, insert into the antithesis between Adam and Jesus Christ the opposition between Eve and Mary. In the second century, ecclesiastical annals report the testimony of Saint Justin Martyr (+.165), according to whom Mary's obedience canceled out Eve's disobedience: “Eve, the saint affirms, virgin and spotless, by agreeing to the serpent's words, gave birth to disobedience and death; but Mary, by consenting to the Angel's words, gave birth to the One who defeated the serpent and his acolytes, angels and men”(8). More explicitly, St. Irenaeus (+.202), bishop of Lyon, attests in the same 2nd century: "Just as Eve, a virgin, through her disobedience, became the cause of death for herself and for the whole human race, so Mary, through her obedience, became the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race. Thus, the chain of Eve's disobedience was broken by Mary's obedience. Just as the human race was chained to death by the work of a virgin, it was saved by the work of the Virgin Mary.“(9) In Africa, Tertullian developed the same idea between the end of the 2nd century and the beginning of the 3rd century: “Eve believed the serpent, Mary believed Gabriel; the fault committed by the unbelief of one was erased by the faith of the other.” As we move forward in history, ecclesiastical teaching continues to repeat the same conception of the economy of grace, which makes Mary the restorer of the misfortune caused by Eve(11).

The contrast between Eve, the cause of our ruin, and Mary, the cause of our life, is the usual means used by Tradition to emphasize to the faithful the mission reserved for the Most Holy Virgin Mary in the work of the Redemption of mankind.

Divine revelation

There is no doubt, dear Sons, that this doctrine comes from the Apostles.

Indeed, through Saint Irenaeus, we arrive at Saint John the Evangelist, since the bishop of Lyon was a disciple of Saint Polycarp, who himself had listened to the beloved disciple. On the other hand, the way in which these holy Fathers of the early centuries express themselves is that of people who are transmitting a truth that is part of Christian doctrine, that is, the revealed doctrine entrusted by Jesus Christ to his apostles. In other words, by establishing the antithesis between Eve and Mary, these holy Fathers do not intend to propose a thought of their own. They simply expound Catholic truth. That is why this teaching is universal. Saint Justin was originally from Palestine and lived in Rome; Tertullian was African; Saint Irenaeus came from the East to settle in France. The continuators of this tradition also came from different regions of Christendom: St. Ephrem was from Syria, St. Cyril from Jerusalem, etc.

There is therefore no doubt: the participation of the most holy Mary in the work of Redemption, as the repairer of the evil caused by Eve, is a revealed doctrine.

Thus, in the Middle Ages, it appeared in sacred liturgy, establishing a profession of faith for the Church itself. Moreover, even in the latest breviaries, we can read, in the hymn of praise of the common office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the verses attributed to Venantius Fortunatus (+.600), in which it is professed: “What Eve, the unfortunate one, took away from us, you give us back through the holy offspring” (12).

The principal and necessary Mediator

Do not worry, my dear sons, if the passage from the Epistle to the Romans that we have quoted says nothing about Mary. Indeed, the texts of Holy Scripture must always be understood in harmony with the other data of Revelation, since they are part of a coherent whole, which is the truth entrusted by Jesus Christ to his apostles: "Go therefore and teach all nations, teaching them everything I have commanded you" (13). By taking them in isolation and giving them an exclusive meaning that they do not always possess, we risk misunderstanding them and shipwrecking our faith, as St. Peter said, referring explicitly to the writings of St. Paul (14). Thus, the fact that certain texts emphasize one truth of the faith does not exclude other texts that are also revealed. In the Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle instills in the minds of the faithful a fundamental point of the economy of grace, namely that only the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was able to satisfy worthily, by its infinite value, while fully respecting the justice, majesty, and holiness of God, offended by the sins of men. Consequently, since Providence decided to demand perfect reparation for sin, no created being, angel or man, could restore friendship between Heaven and earth. In this sense, Jesus Christ is the only Mediator, as the Apostle affirms in his first letter to Timothy: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (15), a mediation from which the Virgin Mother herself benefits, as Pius IX proclaimed when he defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (16).

This is not the only aspect of Redemption.

Now, the graces merited by Jesus Christ to truly sanctify men must reach souls, inform them, driving out sin and making them pleasing to God, capable of performing supernatural acts worthy of eternal life. And this application of grace to souls, merited by Jesus Christ, does not happen without Mary's intervention.

Just as the Apostle's statement is absolutely certain—that through the obedience of one, all are justified, just as through the disobedience of one, the human race was lost—it is equally true that through a woman, Mary, we have received grace and life, just as it is through a woman, Eve, that we have received sin and death. Eve, that we received sin and death. Behold, Jesus Christ and Mary are both the cause of our salvation: Jesus Christ because he accomplishes the satisfaction that appeases divine wrath and merits grace for the whole world; Mary because she receives this grace, the fruit of Jesus Christ's satisfaction, and applies it individually to men. And since without this application, man cannot in reality be saved, Mary is also the cause of the salvation of the human race. As St. Bernard says(17), Mary is the channel, the aqueduct through which the torrents of grace that flow from the most holy wounds of Jesus Christ reach us. It is therefore It is normal that outside this channel, men cannot quench their thirst with the living water that springs forth for eternal life.

Mediatrix necessary by the will of God

Such is, my beloved sons, the harmony between the dogma contained in the Apostle's statement that there is only one Mediator between God and men, and the truth handed down by Tradition, which designates the most holy Mary as the secondary Mediatrix necessary, by God's will, in the application of the merits of Jesus Christ, since, according to the designs of the Most High, her intercession obtains for men the graces of salvation.

This universal mediation of the most holy Mary finds its foundation, as we have seen, in the cooperation which, according to the mysterious good pleasure of divine munificence, belongs to her in the work of Redemption accomplished by her only Son, a cooperation which has conferred on her spiritual motherhood towards all men.

Implicit in several passages of the Holy Gospels—among the few in which the Virgin Mother appears—Tradition highlights two in particular that help explain the mystery of the Motherhood of Grace, the gentle radiance of the most lovable person of Mary.

As could not be otherwise, the presence of the Virgin Mary at the foot of the cross on Mount Calvary attracts the attention of the Holy Fathers. Here, suffering the most acute pains that a mother can endure, Mary stands by, with perfect composure, witnessing the cruel and atrocious death of her beloved only Son. Here, in ineffable mercy, she unites herself to the expiatory sacrifice of the Son of God, and her pains and martyrdom bring us to the life of grace.

“In the passion of her only Son,” writes Rupert of Deutz, a theologian of the early 12th century (+.1129), “the Blessed Virgin brought about the salvation of us all, so that she is, by right, the Mother of us all.”(18) Rupert's interpretation is not isolated. There is in fact a sequence sung in the Middle Ages on the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, in which it is affirmed that, by cooperating with her Son beneath the saving cross, Mary became our Mother.(19) And the liturgy, as you know, my dear children, is one of the means used by the Church to profess the Catholic faith.

The Church has not lacked recognized teachers to emphasize the same conviction that Mary, because of the pain she endured in her soul alongside her Son on Calvary, became the Mother of the members of the Mystical Body of Christ. Here is what St. Albert the Great (+.1280) says: at the moment of the Passion, Simeon's prophecy was fulfilled “for a sword pierced her soul and she became the Mother of all humanity”(20). St. Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence (+.1459), maintains that “Mary also gave birth to us in the greatest pains, suffering with her Son” at the foot of the cross(21). The popes embrace this doctrine with greater authority. Leo XIII teaches that “the most holy Virgin, because she is the mother of Jesus Christ, is also the mother of all Christians, whom she gave birth to amid the atrocious sufferings of the Redeemer on Calvary”(22).

Saint Pius X affirms that "because of the communion of pains and sufferings between the Mother and the Son, it was granted to this holy Virgin to be ‘at the side of her only Son, the most powerful Mediatrix and Conciliatrix of the whole world’. The last words are taken from the bull Ineffabilis Deus of Pius IX.(23)

The Apostle John represents all the faithful

As a consequence of this motherhood, which cost the Virgin pains far more excruciating than those commonly associated with childbirth, Jesus Christ, from the height of the cross, promulgated her maternal mission, entrusting to her all humanity and each individual in the person of St. John, his beloved disciple. Although an exegesis overly concerned with the literal meaning neglects the spiritual meaning of this passage from the fourth Gospel, in which the Lord entrusts his beloved disciple to Mary, there is no doubt that Tradition has seen in it the confirmation of Mary's unique mission in the work of Redemption, as Mother of all men in the order of grace.

Indeed, as early as the third century, Origen emphasized the mystical meaning of the words addressed by Jesus Christ to his mother from the cross: “Behold your son” (24). “For,” says the Doctor of Alexandria, “the perfect believer no longer lives for himself, but it is Christ who lives in him: and it is precisely because Christ lives in him that Mary is told: Behold your son, Christ” (25). In other words, those who are reborn to the life of grace become another Christ and, as such, sons of the most holy Mary. Origen's interpretation became commonplace over time. Rupert continues the passage we have quoted: "That is why what was said then about the beloved disciple could apply to anyone else who was present, for she is the Mother of all“ (26). In another stanza of the sequence for the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, which we have already quoted, this interpretation of St. John's passage is conveyed: ”The Mother is given to the disciple in a great mystery; by the name of John, we mean all the faithful" (27). It would take too long to list all the theologians, exegetes, and ascetic doctors who follow the interpretation conveyed in the liturgy by the sequence cited. (28)

It will suffice, my dear sons, to quote the authoritative words of Leo XIII in his commentary on the passage to which we have referred: “In the person of John, in accordance with the constant teaching of the Church, Christ designated all men, and in the first place those who would believe in Him”(29). Principally, says Leo XIII, because, as Pius XI emphasizes, “having welcomed into her Mother's heart all men entrusted to her at Calvary, she loves and protects those who are unaware of having been redeemed by Jesus Christ just as much as those who happily enjoy the fruits of Redemption.”(30)

Mary, our “spiritual Mother”

At Golgotha, Mary gave birth to us into the life of grace.

Jesus, however, did not wait until the end of his mortal life to make Mary our Mother. Father Braun, O.P., rightly says in his commentary on the passage from St. John that we are analyzing: “The gift of all men made to Mary on Calvary must be considered as an official consecration in anticipation of the future, of a fact that already exists.”(31)

Indeed, the revelation of the spiritual motherhood of the most holy Mary is contained in the doctrine of recapitulation, so dear to the Fathers of the Church, especially in the East.(32) According to this doctrine, Adam, in a certain sense, has within himself the whole human race, since all men derive their origin from him. They were all “in embryo” in Adam. The fact that Adam is the father of the entire human race meant that he brought all men into the misfortune of his sin.(33) In the same way, Jesus Christ, the new Adam,(34) contains within himself all men who, receiving sanctifying grace from him, are his descendants in the supernatural order of eternal life. St. Irenaeus summarizes this as follows: “Just as we all died in the bodily Adam, so we are all given life in the spiritual Adam”(35).

The Holy Fathers, as a natural complement to the object of Revelation, which presents Jesus Christ as the head of humanity, who contains within himself the seed of all men, develop the doctrine of the universal motherhood of Mary Most Holy towards all the faithful. As Jesus is the new Adam, Mary is the new Eve, the new Mother of all men, although now in the supernatural order.

Saint Pius X

The best explanation of this most sweet mystery is found in the encyclical with which Saint Pius X prepared the faithful for a worthy commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the bull Ineffabilis Deus, which defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Let us read, dear sons, for our edification, the very sweet words of the last canonized pope: “Is not Mary the Mother of Christ?” asks the Pontiff. And he concludes: “She is therefore also our Mother.” And he develops his argument: "Everyone must indeed have the firm conviction that Jesus, the Incarnate Word, is also the Savior of the human race. Now, as God-Man, he received a physical body like other men; as Redeemer of our race, he had a “spiritual” or, as they say, ‘mystical’ body, constituted by the society of those who believe in Christ" (36). And St. Pius X quotes, in support of his doctrine, the words of St. Paul: “Although we are many, we form one body in Christ.”(37) And he continues: "The Virgin did not conceive the eternal Son of God solely so that he might become man by taking human nature from her, but also so that he might become, through the nature he received from her, the Savior of the world. That is why the Angel said to the shepherds: ‘Today the Savior is born to you, who is Christ the Lord’"(38).

“In the same womb, therefore, of the most chaste Mother, Christ took flesh for himself and added to it the ‘spiritual body’ formed of all those ‘who would believe in him’. We can thus say that Mary, in carrying the Savior in her womb, also carried all those whose lives were contained in the life of the Savior.”

“All of us, therefore, who are united to Christ and who, as the Apostle says, ‘are members of his body, of his flesh, of his bones’ (39), have come forth from Mary's womb as one body united to the Head.”

“That is why, in a spiritual and mystical sense, we are called children of Mary, and she is our mother to all of us. ‘Mother according to the spirit, but true mother of the members of Christ that we are’ (40)” (41).

Saint Pius X therefore emphasizes, my dear sons, as you have seen, that Mary Most Holy is not the Mother of the Son of God who will be the Redeemer of the world. She is, directly, the Mother of the Redeemer. She collaborated with the divine Holy Spirit in the formation of the The Redeemer himself. He who, for nine months, remained in her most pure womb and was formed as a Man under her vital influence, was the Son of God as Redeemer.

Now, my dear sons, as we have already emphasized, Jesus Christ redeems us through our incorporation into his Person. Through the grace he has merited for us, we unite ourselves to him, forming with him one mystical Body. Grace is like the life-giving blood that flows from Jesus and penetrates our soul, giving us supernatural life and uniting us to him who is the Head of the organism of which we are members. It is through our incorporation into Jesus Christ that we are saved. Thus, St. Pius X legitimately concludes that at the moment Mary becomes the Mother of God, she also becomes the Mother of men, as he succinctly expressed in the statement of his thesis: “Is Mary not the Mother of Christ? – She is therefore also our Mother.”

We deduce from this, as a very sweet practical consequence, that it is under the maternal influence of the most holy Mary that men are reborn to the life of grace. What a joy to think that we are truly the children of Mary! She, as Mother of God, has also begotten us to eternal life! “My soul magnifies the Lord” (42).

Indispensable channel of God's graces

My beloved sons,

The spiritual motherhood of the most holy Mary, as we have said, is the foundation of her universal mediation.

Human beings are indeed saved—as we have just seen—because they are incorporated, in the words of St. Paul(43), into our Lord Jesus Christ through sanctifying grace, which makes them children of God precisely because it incorporates them into the only Son of the eternal Father.

The logical conclusion of all this reasoning is that only those who take refuge in the womb where this mystical Body of Christ is formed are saved. In other words, our incorporation into Jesus Christ, in the unity of his mystical Body, cannot be accomplished without the intervention of the most holy Mary.

Moreover, the comparison drawn from the human organism strongly emphasizes this truth. Indeed, it is impossible to imagine a woman giving birth only to the head of her child. She will necessarily give birth to the entire body of her child.

child, to the head and to the members. How then could we think that Mary, Mother of the Redeemer, gave birth only to the Head of the Mystical Body, when the Redeemer is constituted by Christ in his entirety, head and members, Jesus Christ and the men united to him by grace? (44).

Contemplating his only Son, the eternal Father is moved with pity for the world, for his loving gaze reaches all men who, in the unity of the Incarnate Word, constitute his Mystical Body.

We understand, my beloved sons, why the conception that Mary Most Holy is the indispensable channel through which graces descend from the Head to the members of the Mystical Body has been contained in the Catholic profession of faith since the early centuries. This truth is contained in the antithesis between Eve, mother of sinners, and Mary, mother of the living in Christ. Just as the collaboration of Eve, the root from which all humanity derives, is the condition for men to be born with original sin, so too is Mary's intervention indispensable for birth into the order of grace.

Teachings of the saints

However, there are also direct statements that it is only through Mary that men receive God's grace. For example, St. Ephrem (+.373), the center of the Holy Spirit and the melodious singer of the Virgin, addresses the Mother of God in these terms: “Through you, O only Immaculate One, all honor and holiness have flowed, flow, and will flow, from the first Adam to the end of time, to the apostles, the prophets, the righteous, and the humble of heart” (45).

St. Ephrem immediately considers the origin of the Savior, born of Mary. His words, however, can only be understood through the association of the Most Holy Virgin with the work of her only Son, which makes her the mediator of all graces for all kinds of people, beginning with the righteous of the Old Testament.

Saint Germain, Patriarch of Constantinople (d. 733), is more incisive: "No one except through you, O most holy one, attains salvation. No one except through you, O Immaculate One, is freed from evil. No one except through you, O most chaste one, obtains indulgence. No one except through you, O most honorable one, mercifully receives the gift of grace ."(46).

In the Middle Ages, Marian devotion persisted and even intensified, as did the certainty that eternal life is given to us by Mary. Saint Anselm (+.1109), Archbishop of Canterbury, expressed it this way: "Without you, there is neither mercy nor goodness, for you are the Mother of virtue and of all good things" (47). And St. Bernard (+.1153), the most gentle Doctor of the Virgin, has a peremptory phrase that the popes will frequently use to characterize the mission of the most holy Mary in the economy of grace: “Let us therefore venerate Mary with every fiber of our heart, with every feeling and desire of our soul, for such is the will of Him who has arranged that everything should come to us through Mary”(48).

Among the great theologians of the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas, in his commentary on the Angelic Salutation, compares the redundancy of Mary's grace upon men to that of Jesus Christ himself. This comparison, as can be seen, implies the affirmation of the universality of the mediation of the most holy Mary in the distribution of graces. St. Bonaventure, for his part, makes this peremptory statement: “No one can enter Heaven without passing through Mary, who is the gate” (49).

And Dante (+.1321), summarizing the profession of faith of the Christian people, sang in his magnificent Divine Comedy: “Virgin Mother, you are so great and powerful that whoever desires grace and does not turn to you wants his desire to fly without wings” (50).

Docuмents of the Papal Magisterium

Nor, my dear sons, are there any shortage of docuмents of the Papal Magisterium that guarantee the faith rooted in the hearts of the Christian people.

Benedict XIV (1740–1758), in his famous apostolic letter Gloriose Dominae, proclaims the Blessed Virgin Mary as the river through which all graces and gifts flow to the hearts of miserable mortals. Pius VII (1800–1823) declared Mary “Our Most Lovable Mother” and “Dispenser of all graces.”(52) Pius IX (1846–1878), echoing the words of St. Bernard, attested that it is God's desire that “we receive everything through Mary.”(53) Leo XIII (1878–1903) instilled this truth in his numerous encyclicals on the Rosary in October. For example, in Octobri mense, he repeated St. Bernard's famous phrase that “nothing is communicated to us, if God wills it, except through Mary”(54). St. Pius X (1904–1914), in the magnificent encyclical Ad diem illum, which we have already analyzed, calls Mary “the dispenser of all the treasures that Jesus has merited for us by his cruel death.” Benedict XV (1914–1922), in his apostolic letter to the Association of the Good Death, affirms that: "The graces we receive from the treasure of Redemption are distributed, so to speak, through the hands of this sorrowful Virgin" (56). Pius XI (1922–1939) taught that the only Mediator between God and men wanted to associate his Mother as advocate of sinners and administrator and Mediator of grace (57). Pius XII (1939–1958) on numerous occasions gave the faithful an example of unshakeable trust in the protection of the Virgin Mother.

In his encyclical on the Mystical Body(58), he emphasized the role that Mary plays in the economy of grace. He did the same in his encyclical on the sacred liturgy(59), where he quoted St. Bernard's phrase that God “wanted us to have everything through Mary.”

Feast of Mary Mediatrix of All Graces

Finally, so that the confirmation of the lex orandi, the law of prayer (according to the adage, “Let the law of prayer establish the law of faith”), is not lacking, the sacred liturgy takes pleasure in attributing to Mary Most Holy passages from Isaiah, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes (60), which literally apply to uncreated Wisdom, to the Word of God, thus ratifying the conviction of the faithful that Mary is closely united to the Son of God so as to constitute with him the link between divine mercy and the needs of men.

It is not only in the catechetical part of the Holy Mass that the sacred liturgy instills the intimate union between Mary Most Holy and her divine Son in the mystery of our Redemption. This truth is also affirmed in other passages of the Masses dedicated to the Virgin Mary, as well as in the corresponding offices.

Thus, in the prayer after Communion at the Mass commemorating the presentation of the miraculous medal to Saint Catherine Labouré(61), it is said: “Almighty God, who willed that we should receive everything through the Immaculate Mother of your Son, grant us etc.” In the seventh lesson of the Office of Our Lady Help of Christians, it is said that God “has placed in Mary the fullness of all good, so that we know that it is from her that all that is in us of hope, grace, and salvation comes” (62).

This official profession of faith by the Holy Church in her public worship was ostensibly ratified by Benedict XV's approval in 1921 of the Mass and Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces (63). In the invitatory of this office, we find the following exhortation: "Come, let us adore Christ the Redeemer, who desired give us all good things through Mary.“ In the Matins hymn we sing: ”All the good things that the Redeemer has merited for us, his Mother Mary distributes" (64). And in the Mass prayer, may all the favors asked of the Lord be obtained through Mary (65).

To be continued

Notes:

(1) Bossuet echoed St. Augustine in the second sermon on Friday of the first week of Easter: “His flesh [that of Christ] is your flesh, O Mary, his blood is your blood,” quoted in J. B. TERRIEN, Mother of God, Mother of Men, Part II, Book V, Chapter 1.
(2)    See Jn 1:1.
(3)    Lk 1:30-35.
(4)    See Gn 17:5; 32:28; Mt 16:18.
(5) Cf. SAINT AUGUSTINE, Sermon 51, chap. 2, n. 3, quoted in H. LENNERZ, De Bea-ta Virgine, Univ. Greg., 1935.
(6) Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, recited in the first part of Mass.
(7) Cf. Rom. 5:19.
(8) SAINT JUSTIN, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, quoted in J. B. TERRIEN, op. cit., part II, book I, chap. 1.
(9) SAINT IRENAEUS, Adversus haereses, book III, chap. 22, quoted in J. B. TERRIEN, op. cit., part II, book I, chap. 1.
(10) TERTULLIAN, De carne Christi, quoted in H. LENNERZ, op. cit.
(11) Thus St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Jerome, St. Ephrem, St. Augustine, and others, as can be seen in J. B. TERRIEN, op. cit., part II, book I, chap. 1.
(12) “Quod Aeva tristis obstulit / Tu reddis almo germine.”
(13) Mt. 28:19-20.
(14) "In all the letters [of St. Paul], there are certain points that are difficult to understand, which the ignorant and unstable distort—as they also do with the other Scriptures—to their own destruction " (2 Peter 3:16).
(15) 1 Timothy 2:5.
(16) Pius IX, Bull Ineffabilis Deus, December 8, 1854:
"The doctrine which holds that the most holy Virgin Mary, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God, and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and must therefore be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful " (Marie Très Sainte, Pontifical Teachings edited by the monks of Solesmes, Italian translation, 2nd updated edition, Edizioni Paoline, Rome 1964, p. 74). The emphasis is ours.
(17) Abbot of Clairvaux, a true Marian doctor, wrote particularly well on the Virgin Mary as mediatrix of heavenly graces. The expression is taken from sermon for the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known as L’Aqueduc, in SAN BER-NARDO DI CHIARAVALLE, gli scritti mariani, Edizioni Centro Volontari della Sofferenza, Rome 1980, pp. 261-283. Although St. Bernard proposed the phrase “God wanted us to have everything through Mary,” used by recent popes to express their conviction that Mary is the Mediatrix of all graces, this thought dates back to the second century, since it is already explicit in this sentence of St. Irenaeus: “God wants her to be the source of all gifts.”
“Vult Deus ipsam omnium donorum esse principium” (Contra Valentinum, can. 33, quoted in CHARLES BOYER, Syopsis praelectionum de B. Maria Virgine, Pont. Univ. Greg., Rome 1946, p. 52).
(18) Quoted in P. M.-J. LAGRANGE O. P.,
Évangile selon Saint Jean, Librairie Victor Lecoffre, Paris 1925, p. 494.
(19)    “Gratias tibi, Domina, / quae Mater es fatta nostra, / sub Cruce sa-lutifera / Filio cooperans,” quoted in J. B. TERRIEN, op. cit., part II, book IV, chap. 1.
(20) SAINT ALBERT THE GREAT, Mariale,
q. 29, quoted in G. ALASTRUEY, Tratado de la Virgen Santísima, part II, chap. IV.
(21)    SANT'ANTONINO, Summa, part IV, title 15,
chapter II, quoted in G. ALASTRUEY, op. cit., ibidem.
(22)    LEON XIII, Encyclical Quamquam pluries, August 15, 1889, in Maria SS., cit., p. 106.
(23) SAINT PIERRE X, Encyclical Ad diem il-lum laetissimum, February 2, 1904, in Maria SS., cit., p. 180.
(24) Jn 19:26.
(25) ORIGEN, in Io. Praefatio, n. 6, quoted in C. BOYER, op. cit., pp. 52-53.
(26)    Quoted in P. M.-J. LAGRANGE O.
P.,
op. cit., ibidem.
(27)    "Datur mater discipulo / cuм maximo mysterio / Joannis sub vocabulo / Quivis ve
nit fidelis," quoted in J. B. TERRIEN, op. cit., part II, book IV, chap. 1.
(28)    Cf. J. B. TERRIEN, op. cit., part II, book IV, chapters 1-2 et seq.
(29)    LEON XIII, Encyclical Adiutricem populi christiani, September 5, 1895, in Maria SS., cit., p. 13.
(30)    PIUS XI, Encyclical Rerum Ecclesiae, February 28, 1926, in Maria SS., cit., pp. 221-222.
(31)    In La sainte Bible, Letourey and Ané, Paris 1946.
(32)    Cf. EMILE MERSCH, Le corps mystique, vol. I, Desclée, Paris 1936.
(33)    Cf. Rom. 5:12.
(34)    Cf. 1 Cor. 15:45.
(35) SAINT IRENAEUS, Adversus haereses, book V, I, 1-3,
quoted in E. MERSCH, op. cit., p. 332, note.
(36)    SAINT PIERRE X, Encyclical Ad diem il-lum laetissimum, February 2, 1904, in Ma-ria SS., cit., pp. 177-17
(37)    Rom. 12:5.
(38)    Lk. 2:11. (39)    Eph. 5:30.
(40)    SAINT AUGUSTINE, De sancta virginitate, c. 6. (41)    SAINT PIERRE X, Encyclical Ad diem il-lum
laetissimum, February 2, 1904, in Ma-ria SS., cit., pp. 178-179.
(42)    Lk. 1:46.
(43)    Cf. Rom. 11:17.
(44)    This subject is presented by SAINT LOUIS MARIE GRIGNON DE MONFORT, Treatise on True Devotion to Mary, Italian translation, 35th ed., Centro Mariano Monfortano, Rome 1976, p. 35.
(45) SAINT EPHREM, Sermon in Praise of the Most Holy Virgin, quoted in C. BOYER, op. cit., p. 53.
(46) SAINT GERMAIN, Hom. in S. Mariae Zonam, n. 5: quoted in J. ALASTRUEEEY, op. cit., part III, chap. III, art. 1, q. 1, thesis 3 B; and in J. B. TERRIEN, op. cit., part II, book V, chap. 2.
(47) SANT’ANSELMO, Oratio 31, quoted in J. B. TERRIEN, op. cit., part II, book VII, chap. 4.
(48) SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, gli scritti mariani, cit., p. 268.
(49) Quoted in C. BOYER, op. cit., p. 54.
(50) DANTE ALIGHIERI, La Divina Commedia. Paradiso, canto XXXIII, vv. 115.
In the 15th century, Saint Antoninus of Florence took up Dante's idea and wrote in his Summa Theologica, part VI, title 15, chapter 22, paragraph 9: “Qui petit sine ipsa duce, sine aliis tentat volare,” “He who asks without having her as his guide attempts to fly without wings.”
In modern times, Pius XII, in a letter to Cardinal Maglione, recommending that the Secretary of State pray for peace, took up the same image from Dante to emphasize the effectiveness of the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary: " The Blessed Virgin is indeed so powerful with God and her only Son that, as Alighieri sings, ‘he who wants to obtain graces and does not have recourse to her wants his desire to fly without wings’ (PIUS XII, Letter Superiore anno, 15-4-1940, in Maria SS., cit., pp. 262-263) .
(51) Cf. BENEDICT XIV, Apostolic Letter Gloriosae Dominae Dei Genetricis Mariae, September 27, 1748, in Maria SS., cit., p. 17.
(52) PIUS VII, Apostolic Constitution Quod divino afflata spiritu, January 24, 1806, in Maria SS., cit., p. 33.
(53) PIUS IX, Encyclical Ubi primum, February 2, 1849, in Maria SS., cit., p. 48.
(54) Leo XIII, Encyclical Octobri mense, September 22, 1891, in Maria SS., cit., p. 107.
(55) SAINT PIERRE X, Encyclical Ad diem il-lum laetissimum, February 2, 1904, in Ma-ria SS., cit., p.180.
(56) BENEDICT XV, Letter Inter so-dalicia, to the Association of the Good Death, dated May 22, 1918, in Maria SS., cit.,
p. 205.
(57) Cf. PIUS XI, Encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor, May 8, 1928, in Maria SS., cit., p. 223.
(58) PIUS XII, Encyclical Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943, in Maria SS., cit., pp. 276-277.
(59) IDEM, Encyclical Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947, in Maria SS., cit., p. 311.
(60)    Is. 55:1-3 and 5, on the feast of Our Lady Mediatrix; Prov. 8:22-24 and 32-35, on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary and the Immaculate Conception; Eccl. 24:5-7, 9-11 and 30:31 on the feast of Mary Queen; Eccl. 24:23-31, on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe; Eccl. 24:14-16, on the feast of Mary Help of Christians.
(61) Mass granted for certain places on November 27.
(62) Transcribed by J. B. TERRIEN, op. cit., part II, book V, chap. 2.
(63) Decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, dated January 21, 1921, in AAS 1921, p. 345. The concession was first made for Belgium. It was then extended to other countries, including Brazil, which included it in its calendar on October 1.
(64) “Cuncta, quae nobis meruit Redemptor / Dona partitur Genitrix Maria.”
(65) “Lord Jesus Christ, our Mediator with the eternal Father, you who have established as Mediator with you the most holy Virgin, your Mother and also our Mother, grant that all who approach you to ask for favors may rejoice in obtaining them through her intercession. You who reign, etc.”