The Mediatrix of Divine Grace
I suppose before I decided to become a Catholic, I subscribed to the view - common among many Anglicans and Catholics too - that there really isn’t that much difference between the different Christian denominations. I basically viewed Catholicism as Anglicanism with a few bolt-on extras, such as the Pope and Mary.
Although this is a common enough Anglican view, it isn’t the view of the more evangelical Christian denominations. They see clearly the truth about Catholicism - it’s an entirely different religion.
Let examine for instance the difference between the Protestant and Catholic views of Mary the mother of Jesus. For most Protestants Mary is a relatively minor New Testament figure. She only really surfaces in the Protestant consciousness at Christmas and lapses back into obscurity for the rest of the year. She is of little more significance than, say, the figure of Zacchaeus and probably has less sermons preached about her.
When I first came as an Inquirer to the Catholic Church I still had very much the view that Mary was an extra, whom I could take or leave as I pleased. It’s only now, after nearly a year, that I am coming to realise that Mary, far from being an extra, is right at the very centre of Catholicism.
Can you imagine any Protestant or even most people who call themselves Anglo-Catholic writing in these terms about her?
The recourse we have to Mary in prayer follows upon the office she continuously fills by the side of the throne of God as Mediatrix of Divine grace; being by worthiness and by merit most acceptable to Him, and, therefore, surpassing in power all the angels and saints in Heaven…..
Thus is confirmed that law of merciful meditation of which We have spoken, and which St. Bernardine of Siena thus expresses: “Every grace granted to man has three degrees in order; for by God it is communicated to Christ, from Christ it passes to the Virgin, and from the Virgin it descends to us.”
Pope Leo XIII Encyclical Iucunda Semper Expectatione (1894) On the Rosary
I’ll write more in the next few days about what this realisation has actually meant to me.
- Alma Redemptoris Mater, quae pervia caeli
- Porta manes, et stella maris, succurre cadenti,
- Surgere qui curat, populo: tu quae genuisti,
- Natura mirante, tuum sanctum Genitorem
- Virgo prius ac posterius, Gabrielis ab ore
- Sumens illud Ave, peccatorum miserere.
Si Fractus Fortis
in Catholicism, Mary, Prayer, Worship
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By reading your article on divine grace I got to know about the importance of Saints in Christianity and as a Christian I love our Saint Pope Benedict and I will pray for him and thanks for sharing this story.
Thanks for your comment. It was only when I came into the Catholic Church that I found out what was meant by "the communion of the saints" which is one of the articles in the Apostles' Creed. In Anglicanism, although everyone recites the Creed regularly, most people have a vague idea that the communion of the saints means that we should talk to each other after church!