#coredemptrix

Hail Mary, Full of Grace. The Lord is with Thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mother, Mother of God. Pray for us sinners, now at the hour of our death. Amen.

- Pope Benedict XV, Apostolic Letter Inter sodalicia, March 22,  1918. (x)

St. Paul wrote: “Sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned ... Adam prefigured the One to come. The gift [of the Redemption] itself considerably outweighed the fall. If it is certain that through one man’s fall so many died, it is even more certain that divine grace, coming through the one man, Jesus Christ, came to so many as an abundant free gift. The results of the gift also outweigh the results of one man’s sin” (Rom. 5:5-12; 15-16). Given the fact that the truth of the contrast between the old Adam and the new Adam, Jesus Christ, was elucidated by St. Paul, it is natural to conclude that the Apostle was aware of a similar contrast between the old Eve and the new eve, Mary, the Mother of God. Indeed, sin entered the world as a result of choices based on the free wills of both the old Eve and the old Adam. So God arranged for the grace of Salvation to come into the world through the choices based on the free wills of the new Eve and the new Adam. No human’s wisdom can grasp the depth of Mary’s self-abandoning love of God, which caused her to show deep obedience to the Heavenly father as His handmaid, from the moment of the Annunciation to the moment of the Redemption by her son Jesus on the Cross. Her first public action as such a unique co-operator of the Redeemer which is recorded by the Scripture was her presentation of Baby Jesus to God in the temple, on the 40th day of the Redeemer’s birth, “according to the law of Moses” (Lk 2:22). Then, she offered Jesus to God by exercising her parental rights over her divine son. Then, the upright old prophet Simeon, foretold the mystery of her mission as the Co-Redemptrix to her: “You see this child, He is destined for the fall and for the rising of many in Israel, destined to be a sign that is rejected. And a sword will pierce your own soul, too” (Lk 2:34-35). How many tears the Holy Mother Mary shed when she witnessed Jesus suffering on the Cross! The intensity of her sufferings is beyond any human being’s ability to imagine. Her sufferings at the foot of the Cross were, in a mystical sense, the pains of childbearing, which she offered to become the mother of the Christians destined to be saved in accordance with the plan of God. Be it a natural human mother or our Heavenly Mother, the definition of a mother is the same: she is the one who suffered the pangs of childbirth in giving birth to a person. This definition applies to Mary perfectly, because her sufferings in giving full consent to the immolation of Jesus were the mystical pangs of childbearing for us Christians. First she conceived Jesus, the head of the Mystical Body, in her chaste womb, and then through the process of her Co-Redemption on Calvary, she began to give birth to the members of the Mystical Body of Christ. This profound mystery of Mary’s motherhood for Christians was prophetically indicated in the Scripture. “God told the Woman: I will multiply your pains of childbearing. You shall give birth to your children in pain”(Gen 3:16). These divine words do not primarily concern the pangs of childbirth of ordinary women. In this verse, that immediately follows the announcement of the Redeemer, God was prophesying the Holy Mother Mary’s sufferings at the foot of the Cross. And in the same way the Apocalypse says: “Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a Woman, adorned with the sun, standing on the moon, and with twelve stars on her head for a crown. She was pregnant, and in labour, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth” (Apoc. 12:1-2). The Bible says: “Near the Cross of Jesus stood His Mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala”(Jn 19:25). This means that the two other women, also named Mary, were standing, while weeping at the sight of the crucified Jesus. But the tears of the women of Jerusalem (cf. Lk 23:27) and of the two other Marys were shed out of mere sympathy for Jesus’ sufferings, so there is no profound meaning in their tears. In sharp contrast, the tears of the Blessed Virgin were the tears which resulted from her spiritual pains when she gave full consent to the Sacrifice of her divine Son Jesus and offered Him up to the Heavenly Father as the mother of the Redeemer of mankind. The tears of the Holy Mother Mary were the tears of Co-Redemption. “As truly as she suffered and almost died with her suffering Son, so truly did she renounce her maternal right over that Son for the sake of our salvation, and immolate Him, as far as with her lay, to placate God’s justice. Hence it may justly be said that with Christ she redeemed the human race” (Pope Benedict XV).

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- Roberto de Mattei, An Easter That Will Go Down in History

Madonna and Child Barnaba da Modena 14th Century A. D.

In this episode of The Heart of Fiat Crucified Love, Dr. Mary Elizabeth Kloska talks about her newest published book, which is also her doctoral thesis. This book, which is entitled "Crucified Love," is about how Jesus used the instruments of littleness, spousal love and Fiat to endure the Cross, thus living His role as the New Adam as Priest, Victim and Altar. After explaining how Christ endured the Passion, Dr. Mary explains how Our Lady perfectly joined Him in His work of Redemption as the New Eve -imitating His littleness, passionate love and fiat surrender -in order to endure the Cross with Him as Co-Redemptrix. Lastly, Dr. Kloska shows how the saints imitated Jesus and Mary through living littleness (humility and self-emptying) and spousal love in order to surrender to living the Cross with Christ in concrete ways. She describes both their experiences of mystical marriage and consummated crucified love that manifested itself in the stigmata, illness and martyrdom. Through offering such sufferings, the saints could be co-redeemers with Christ as well.