Statement of Theologians on Mary Co-Redemptrix, 2017.

Started by Xavier, October 01, 2019, 11:59:41 PM

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TheReturnofLive

Eh, I apologize for posting. I'll leave it up, because maybe people will agree with me or they can rebut my position, but I shouldn't have entered into this conversation. Sorry about that.
"The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but irrigate deserts." - C.S. Lewis

Xavier

So, Live, you say, "Most Holy Theotokos, save us", yet think Co-Redemptrix goes too far. Would you like to comment on the praises of St. John Damascene, which are as follows, ""they would leave nothing undone for the glory of God and the honour of God's Mother. Then Adam and Eve, our first parents, opened their lips to exclaim, "Thou blessed daughter of ours, who hast removed the penalty of our disobedience! Thou, inheriting from us a mortal body, hast won us immortality. Thou, taking thy being from us, hast given us back the being in grace. Thou hast conquered pain and loosened the bondage of death. Thou hast restored us to our former state. We had shut the door of paradise; thou didst find entrance to the tree of life. Through us sorrow came out of good; through thee good from sorrow. How canst thou who art all fair taste of death ? Thou art the gate of life and the ladder to heaven. Death is [184] become the passage to immortality. O thou e truly blessed one! who that is not the Word could have borne what thou hast borne?"*

Yes, Non Nobis. And Liturgical Tradition most certainly supports Our Lady's Sorrows and Dolours as Queen of Martyrs in giving us birth at the foot of the Cross. That was when, St. John Damascene says, She suffered Her true birth pangs for our sake, not needing to do it. The Catholic Church dedicates the whole of the Month of September to Our Lady's Sorrows, and some say Liturgical Tradition is lacking? Hardly. Sept. 15th in particular is dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, the Queen with the Pierced Immaculate and Sorrowful Heart. Liturgical Tradition also commemorates Mary as Mediatrix of All Graces, in a special feast authorized by Pope Benedict XV on May 31st. We look at the Stabat Mater Dolorosa, and Catholic Devotion to the Sorrowful Mother in General, and we have no doubt about Tradition. http://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/BVM/SMDolorosa.html Tradition clearly and firmly teaches us that Mary is Queen of Martyrs.

Fr. G-L's proofs: "During the entire course of her earthly life, the Blessed Virgin cooperated in the sacrifice of her Son. First of all, the free consent that she gave on Annunciation day was necessary for the accomplishment of the mystery of the Incarnation, as if, says St. Thomas, [10] God had waited for the consent of humanity through the voice of Mary. By this free fiat, she cooperated in the sacrifice of the Cross, since she gave us its Priest and Victim. She cooperated in it also by offering her Son in the Temple, as a most pure host, at the moment when the aged Simeon saw by prophetic light that this Child was the "salvation ... prepared before the face of all peoples: a light to the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel." [11] More enlightened than Simeon, Mary offered her Son, and began to suffer deeply with Him when she heard the holy old man tell her that He would be a sign which would be contradicted and that a sword would pierce her soul. Mary cooperated in the sacrifice of Christ, especially at the foot of the Cross, uniting herself to Him, more closely than can be expressed, by satisfaction or reparation, and by merit. Some Saints, in particular the stigmatics, have been exceptionally united to the sufferings and merits of our Savior: for example, St. Francis of Assisi and St. Catherine of Siena, and yet their share in His suffering cannot be compared with Mary's. How did Mary offer her Son? As He offered Himself ... The Blessed Virgin's charity incomparably surpassed that of the greatest Saints. She thus cooperated in the sacrifice of the cross by way of satisfaction or reparation, by offering to God for us, with great sorrow and most ardent love, the life of her most dear Son, whom she rightly adored and who was dearer to her than her very life ... http://www.catholictradition.org/Christ/mediatrix.htm

Quote from: KreuzritterNote that he appeals to a Late Medieval theologian for this.

LOL. In what world are you living? St. Vincent of Lerins is not Late Medieval by any means. Did you even read the link? Maybe you thought it was St. Vincent Ferrer. It wasn't. It was St. Vincent of Lerins, as you'd have seen if you clicked it, and it's now dogmatic.

QuoteWhy do you shy away from pointing to liturgical tradition, the Fathers, or dare I say, the Bible?

I note you failed to address both St. Irenaeus and St. John Damascene, both early Eastern Fathers. You also just ignored the passages St. Alphonsus cites from St. Ildephonsus and St. Basil of Seleucia, as if you knew everything better than him. Tell me honestly, have you ever read anything from any of these last two Saints before yourself? It's a great grace for us Catholic Christians to have Doctors so learned and holy that they distill the purest treasures found in the Saints of old and present it to us in an easy and understandable way.

Yet you want to attack St. Alphonsus. Also, you're clearly not paying attention at all, if you think there is no Scriptural grounds for Mary's Martyrdom. If you read the Prophets properly, just as you will see the Man of Sorrows foretold there, you will see also the Co-Redeeming Sorrowful Virgin Daughter of Sion, Who is none other than Mother Mary.

St. Alphonsus' proofs: Second point. Ah, Mary was not only Queen of martyrs because her martyrdom, was longer than that of all others, but also because it was the greatest of all martyrdoms. Who, however, can measure its greatness? Jeremias seems unable to find any one with whom be can compare this Mother of Sorrows, when he considers her great sufferings at the death of her Son. "To what shall I compare thee or to what shall I liken thee, O daughter of Jerusalem "... for great as the sea is thy destruction: who shall heal thee?" [This is Lam 2:13 - Xavier]Wherefore Cardinal Hugo, in a commentary on these words, says, "O Blessed Virgin, as the sea in bitterness exceeds all other bitterness, so does thy grief exceed all other grief. Hence Saint Anselm asserts, that "had not God by a special miracle preserved the life of Mary in each moment of her life, her grief was such that it would have caused her death. Saint Bernardine of Siena goes so far as to say, "that the grief of Mary was so great that, were it divided amongst all men, it would suffice to cause their immediate death. But let us consider the reasons for which Mary's martyrdom was greater than that of all martyrs. In the first place, we must remember that the martyrs endured their torments, which were the effect of fire and other material agencies, in their bodies; Mary suffered hers in her soul, as Saint Simeon foretold: "And Thy own soul a sword shall pierce." [Luk 2:35] As if the holy old man had said: "O most sacred Virgin, the bodies of other martyrs will be torn with iron, but thou wilt be transfixed, and martyred in thy soul by the Passion of thine own Son." Now, as the soul is more noble than the body, so much greater were Mary's sufferings than those of all the martyrs, as Jesus Christ Himself said to Saint Catherine of Siena: "Between the sufferings of the soul and those of the body there is no comparisons." Whence the holy Abbot Arnold of Chartres says, "that whoever had been present on Mount Calvary, to witness the great sacrifice of the Immaculate Lamb, would there have beheld two great altars, the one in the body of Jesus, the other in the heart of Mary; for, on that mount, at the same time that the Son sacrificed His body by death, Mary sacrificed her soul by compassion."

Catholics have forgotten the simple childlike behaviour of accepting gladly and believing wholeheartedly teaching attested by so many Saints. From the CT link, the beautiful icons and images that have borne witness to this Truth in every age,
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

TheReturnofLive

#17
Quote from: Xavier on October 10, 2019, 03:30:51 AM
So, Live, you say, "Most Holy Theotokos, save us", yet think Co-Redemptrix goes too far. Would you like to comment on the praises of St. John Damascene, which are as follows, ""they would leave nothing undone for the glory of God and the honour of God's Mother. Then Adam and Eve, our first parents, opened their lips to exclaim, "Thou blessed daughter of ours, who hast removed the penalty of our disobedience! Thou, inheriting from us a mortal body, hast won us immortality. Thou, taking thy being from us, hast given us back the being in grace. Thou hast conquered pain and loosened the bondage of death. Thou hast restored us to our former state. We had shut the door of paradise; thou didst find entrance to the tree of life. Through us sorrow came out of good; through thee good from sorrow. How canst thou who art all fair taste of death ? Thou art the gate of life and the ladder to heaven. Death is [184] become the passage to immortality. O thou e truly blessed one! who that is not the Word could have borne what thou hast borne?"

Again, none of these things which you have quoted say that the Virgin Mary's sufferings at the Cross were part of the redemptive act of Christ's Death and Resurrection, or that her own sufferings were joined directly to Christ's suffering at the Cross. The Theotokos is the cause of our Salvation - truly, without her, we would not have been saved - but she is the cause because she gave birth to the One Who redeemed us. No Theotokos = no Christ.
"The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but irrigate deserts." - C.S. Lewis

TheReturnofLive

Also, the Council of Trent goes against what you say, Xavier.

"The holy Synod enjoins on all bishops, and others who sustain the office and charge of teaching, that, agreeably to the usage of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, received from the primitive times of the Christian religion, and agreeably to the consent of the holy Fathers, and to the decrees of sacred Councils, they especially instruct the faithful diligently concerning the intercession and invocation of saints; the honour (paid) to relics; and the legitimate use of images: teaching them, that the saints, who reign together with Christ, offer up their own prayers to God for men; that it is good and useful suppliantly to invoke them, and to have recourse to their prayers, aid, (and) help for obtaining benefits from God, through His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is our alone Redeemer and Saviour."

Second Degree of Session 25 of Trent.
"The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but irrigate deserts." - C.S. Lewis

Kreuzritter

Quote from: KreuzritterNote that he appeals to a Late Medieval theologian for this.

LOL. In what world are you living? St. Vincent of Lerins is not Late Medieval by any means. Did you even read the link? Maybe you thought it was St. Vincent Ferrer. It wasn't. It was St. Vincent of Lerins, as you'd have seen if you clicked it, and it's now dogmatic.[/quote]

No, I took it for granted that what you said was honest and accurate. Now I see it isn't so, and this

[54.] But some one will say, perhaps, Shall there, then, be no progress in Christ's Church? Certainly; all possible progress. For what being is there, so envious of men, so full of hatred to God, who would seek to forbid it? Yet on condition that it be real progress, not alteration of the faith. For progress requires that the subject be enlarged n itself, alteration, that it be transformed into something else. The intelligence, then, the knowledge, the wisdom, as well of individuals as of all, as well of one man as of the whole Church, ought, in the course of ages and centuries, to increase and make much and vigorous progress; but yet only in its own kind; that is to say, in the same doctrine, in the same sense, and in the same meaning.

in the context of the text has nothing whatever to do with the "development of doctrine" and "consensus of the theologians" that was my point.



QuoteI note you failed to address both St. Irenaeus and St. John Damascene, both early Eastern Fathers.

As TheReturnOfLive already pointed out, they say absolutely nothing about "Mary Coredemptrix" and its underlying idea, so why would I address your quotations? That you present them in support of this lunacy is facile and idicative of extreme tendentiousness and cognitive dissonance.


You also just ignored the passages St. Alphonsus cites from St. Ildephonsus and St. Basil of Seleucia, as if you knew everything better than him. Tell me honestly, have you ever read anything from any of these last two Saints before yourself? It's a great grace for us Catholic Christians to have Doctors so learned and holy that they distill the purest treasures found in the Saints of old and present it to us in an easy and understandable way.

QuoteYet you want to attack St. Alphonsus. Also, you're clearly not paying attention at all, if you think there is no Scriptural grounds for Mary's Martyrdom. If you read the Prophets properly, just as you will see the Man of Sorrows foretold there, you will see also the Co-Redeeming Sorrowful Virgin Daughter of Sion, Who is none other than Mother Mary.

Co-redeeming? Nope. Note the method again. Point to something, read into it an anachronistic meanign thta is plainly not even present, and weasel in a word like "co-redeeming".


QuoteSt. Alphonsus' proofs: Second point. Ah, Mary was not only Queen of martyrs because her martyrdom, was longer than that of all others, but also because it was the greatest of all martyrdoms. Who, however, can measure its greatness? Jeremias seems unable to find any one with whom be can compare this Mother of Sorrows, when he considers her great sufferings at the death of her Son. "To what shall I compare thee or to what shall I liken thee, O daughter of Jerusalem "... for great as the sea is thy destruction: who shall heal thee?" [This is Lam 2:13 - Xavier]Wherefore Cardinal Hugo, in a commentary on these words, says, "O Blessed Virgin, as the sea in bitterness exceeds all other bitterness, so does thy grief exceed all other grief. Hence Saint Anselm asserts, that "had not God by a special miracle preserved the life of Mary in each moment of her life, her grief was such that it would have caused her death. Saint Bernardine of Siena goes so far as to say, "that the grief of Mary was so great that, were it divided amongst all men, it would suffice to cause their immediate death. But let us consider the reasons for which Mary's martyrdom was greater than that of all martyrs. In the first place, we must remember that the martyrs endured their torments, which were the effect of fire and other material agencies, in their bodies; Mary suffered hers in her soul, as Saint Simeon foretold: "And Thy own soul a sword shall pierce." [Luk 2:35] As if the holy old man had said: "O most sacred Virgin, the bodies of other martyrs will be torn with iron, but thou wilt be transfixed, and martyred in thy soul by the Passion of thine own Son." Now, as the soul is more noble than the body, so much greater were Mary's sufferings than those of all the martyrs, as Jesus Christ Himself said to Saint Catherine of Siena: "Between the sufferings of the soul and those of the body there is no comparisons." Whence the holy Abbot Arnold of Chartres says, "that whoever had been present on Mount Calvary, to witness the great sacrifice of the Immaculate Lamb, would there have beheld two great altars, the one in the body of Jesus, the other in the heart of Mary; for, on that mount, at the same time that the Son sacrificed His body by death, Mary sacrificed her soul by compassion."

I don't see any prooof of anyhtign there, except of the existence of innovations and leaps of logic.

Quote
Catholics have forgotten the simple childlike behaviour of accepting gladly and believing wholeheartedly teaching attested by so many Saints. From the CT link, the beautiful icons and images that have borne witness to this Truth in every age,

That's not an icon. Further, the Immaculate Heart symbolism says nothign about your blasphemous and idolatrous designation of Mary as a "co-redeemer".

Gardener

We see in this argument's detractors the same false premise which St. Thomas Aquinas used to deny the Immaculate Conception: the action being completed without and, in some sense, in spite of Christ.

It is in fact Christ's Redemptive reality which allows the cooperation of Mary in the Redemption to begin with; because her cooperation was perfect, flowing from her Immaculate Conception and resultant cooperation in the Incarnation, that Mary can be called Co-Redemptrix, just as many early Saints called her a Mediatrix.

If our salvation hinged on her cooperation (which it did), then so did our redemption (which precedes salvation). Therefore, her cooperation, which is not equal to the work with which she cooperate[s/d], is still with Christ. Just as it is on every soul to co-work with Christ in their own salvation.

Just as Eve's fault preceded Adam's fault, and yet Adam ultimately is the cause of the Fall of Man (though Eve cooperated with it), so too does Mary's perfection precede Christ's Incarnation in time. But it was in fact the foreknowledge of the Incarnation, indeed the Predestination of the Incarnation, which preceded the Immaculate Conception in order. And so, while it is ultimately Christ's Redemption and Salvation of Man which is first in order, the Redemption and Salvation of man is first known in and with Mary through Christ, for an action which was to take place, took place, and in a mysterious manner takes place. As such, Mary's cooperation in the Redemption is preeminent.

Just as the Immaculate Conception doesn't eschew the necessity of Christ (as Aquinas incorrectly argued and thus contextually correctly denied the Immaculate Conception), but flows from Christ, so too does the Co-Redeeming reality not eschew the Redemption Christ provides, but in fact flows from it. Ergo, when following the flow of this Living Water, one arrives necessarily at Mary before they arrive at the Source: Christ.



"If anyone does not wish to have Mary Immaculate for his Mother, he will not have Christ for his Brother." - St. Maximilian Kolbe

Xavier

#21
The Blessed Mother's Heart being pierced by the Sword of Sorrows is straight from revelation, pretenses to the contrary notwithstanding.

Pope Leo XIII explains it like this, ""For when she presented herself to God as a handmaid for the role of Mother, or when she totally dedicated herself with her Son in the temple, from each of these facts she was already then a sharer in the laborious expiation for the human race. Hence we cannot doubt that she greatly grieved in soul in the most harsh anguishes and torments of her Son. Further, that divine sacrifice had to be completed with her present and looking on, for which she had generously nourished the victim from herself. Finally this is more tearfully observed in the same mysteries: There stood by the Cross of Jesus, Mary His Mother... of her own accord she offered her Son to the divine justice, dying with Him in her heart, transfixed with the sword of sorrow."

And Pope Benedict XV, "With her suffering and dying Son she suffered and almost died, so did she surrender her mother's rights over her Son for the salvation of human beings, and to appease the justice of God, so far as pertained to her, she immolated her Son, so that it can be rightly said, that together with Christ she has redeemed the human race". There are at least 15 other Papal testimonies here: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/most/getchap.cfm?WorkNum=5&ChapNum=13

All of them teach the doctrine (1) Mary is Queen of Martyrs, Our Lady of Sorrows (2) She co-operated uniquely in our Redemption.

Some of the very greatest Saints of recent time, like Franciscan Friars St. Maximillian Kolbe and St. Padre Pio, whose works bear witness of them that they loved Christ and Him Crucified, God and neighbor, Our Lady and the Church, testify to Mary Co-Redemptrix.

"When St. Pio wants to describe the sufferings of Our Lady of Sorrows, he finds a very valid point of reference in his very own suffering, be it moral or physical, a suffering so terrible as to dry up every tear and to petrify him in sorrow (14). For this reason in contemplating Our Lady's sorrows he can expand his soul and say: "Yes, now I understand, oh Jesus, why in admiring You Your Mother did not weep beneath the Cross" (15), because "by the excess of sorrow, she remained petrified before her crucified Son" (16); and on another page of sublime contemplation touching his own measureless sorrows and those of Our Lady, he exclaims movingly: "Now I seem to be penetrating what was the martyrdom of our most beloved Mother (...). Oh, if all people would but penetrate this martyrdom! Who could succeed in suffering with this, yes, our dear Coredemptrix? Who would refuse her the good title of Queen of Martyrs?" (17) https://www.piercedhearts.org/hearts_jesus_mary/heart_mary/padre_pio_mother_coredemptrix_manelli.html

Mary is Co-Redemptrix because She is Queen of Martyrs.
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

Kreuzritter

Quote from: TheReturnofLive on October 09, 2019, 07:49:26 PM
May God forgive me if I offend you unjustly, but this fallacious apologetic structure you have employed to support your position is not convincing at all, except to the choir who presumes the position employed to be true. All the time in Catholic apologia I see this similar (to each other) logically fallacious, false equivocation and / or question begging structure that Catholics use, and it really only harms the case of Catholicism claiming to be the One True Church.

This. Frankly, it's childlike in its form. Embrarassing, even.

QuoteNotice how none of the quotes are used to directly establish the doctrine of "Co-Redemptrix" whatsoever in its actual definition; instead, the quotes here are quoted with the unproven assumption that "New Eve" and other such titles means "Co-Redemptrix," and the poster here quotes "New Eve", and then says "Welp, that's it! We've found Co-Redemptrix in the Early Church!"

Yes. As if anyone, even a Protestant, would deny that through Mary and her consensual act our redemption was won. But this has nothing wahtsoever to do with Mary herself being, in part, our redemption or winning it through her suffering! Mary's suffering could not suffice to redeem even herself, let alone man! It could add nothing to Christ's infinite, and infinitely sufficient, vicarious atonement.




Quote
Quote
Kreuzritter where does it say that the only Catholic tradition is liturgical or that Catholic tradition stopped with the Fathers and the Bible?

If by stopped you mean "new revealed dogma" then you are speaking heresy, because the Faith was once delivered to the Saints (Jude 1:3), or the "Deposit of Faith", and Public Revelation was closed with the death of Saint John the Apostle. See Catechism of the Catholic Church.

It's tautological that "Tradition", that is Apostolic tradition, was completed with the Apostles. Everything added to that is not revelatory and is accidental to the practice of the religion.

Quote
I also don't get what you mean "stopped" with the Fathers. Church Fathers as defined by Rome haven't stopped.

And the liturgy ought to be a source of revealed dogma; Lex Orandi, Lex Crecendi. What you pray is what you believe.

And here's the problem: claiming that something is "tradition" when there is no conceivable track record back to the earliest Christians. It should at least be found in the ancient liturgy or mentioned by the earliest writers, and there certainly shouldn't be a gap of more than a thousand years between Christ and its first known historical appearance. That really strains credulity, and once one has admitted the plain fact that Vatican II and the contemporary Roman church have altered "the Faith" and introduced novelties, the door for questioning such "traditions" is flung wide open.

The "common opinion of the theologians" demanding our assent or beign in some wise infallible is one of the most self-serving and perhaps most ridiculous assertion ever made by Roman Catholics, and it really shows up Pius IX for beign an alleged rock of the ancient Faith.

Kreuzritter

Quote from: Xavier on October 10, 2019, 06:00:25 AM
The Blessed Mother's Heart being pierced by the Sword of Sorrows is straight from revelation, pretenses to the contrary notwithstanding.

Witness the jump from sword piercing heart to "co-redemptrix". You are absurd.

QuotePope Leo XIII explains it like this, ""For when she presented herself to God as a handmaid for the role of Mother, or when she totally dedicated herself with her Son in the temple, from each of these facts she was already then a sharer in the laborious expiation for the human race. Hence we cannot doubt that she greatly grieved in soul in the most harsh anguishes and torments of her Son. Further, that divine sacrifice had to be completed with her present and looking on, for which she had generously nourished the victim from herself. Finally this is more tearfully observed in the same mysteries: There stood by the Cross of Jesus, Mary His Mother... of her own accord she offered her Son to the divine justice, dying with Him in her heart, transfixed with the sword of sorrow."

That's a nice 19th century opinion.

QuoteAnd Pope Benedict XV, "With her suffering and dying Son she suffered and almost died, so did she surrender her mother's rights over her Son for the salvation of human beings, and to appease the justice of God, so far as pertained to her, she immolated her Son, so that it can be rightly said, that together with Christ she has redeemed the human race". There are at least 15 other Papal testimonies here: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/most/getchap.cfm?WorkNum=5&ChapNum=13

Yes, and every single one of them dating to the 19th century and younger.

Xavier

QuoteWitness the jump from sword piercing heart to "co-redemptrix".

Are you a child who loves your Mother and grieves over Her Sorrows, or one who minimizes them and thinks of them as pretty much nothing at all? The Popes explain what the Prophets taught, the Sorrows of the Virgin Daughter of Sion are a vast sea that exceed all other sorrows save Christ's. You also fail to understand the extraordinary degree of satisfaction an Immaculate Creature, Who loved God so perfectly and wholeheartedly as Mary did, would make by Her loving acceptance of sorrows and suffering. In other words, you fail to understand that co-redemption is a necessary part of Catholic Christian life, a duty to which we all are called, and a dignity which Mary alone among Creatures, fulfilled to the highest degree possible, which is why we venerate Her with hyperdulia, and as the greatest Saint.

QuoteThat's a nice 19th century opinion.

"You are Peter, and on this Rock I will build My Church. And the gates of hell will not prevail. But for 19 centuries only. After that I will leave" #Things Jesus never said.

"Explicit references to Marian co-redemption as Mary's unique participation with and under Jesus Christ in redeeming or "buying back" humanity from the slavery of Satan and sin is present throughout Christian Tradition. For example, the 7th century Church writer, Modestus of Jerusalem, states that through Mary, we "are redeemed from the tyranny of the devil." [5] St. John Damascene (8th century) greets her: "Hail thou, through whom we are redeemed from the curse." [6] St. Bernard of Clairvaux (12th century) preaches that "through her, man was redeemed." [7] The great Franciscan Doctor, St. Bonaventure (13th century), aptly summarizes Christian Tradition in this teaching: "That woman (namely Eve), drove us out of Paradise and sold us; but this one (Mary) brought us back again and bought us." [8]" http://www.religionandtheology.org/MaryAsCo-Redemptrix.html

Mary Co-Redemptrix is already announced in the Proto-Evangelium, thousands and thousands of years ago, when God promised Satan the Woman and Her Seed would crush his head: "We can now see the meaning of Genesis 3:15: She shall crush thy head. Mary redeems all men and the Church from the power of Satan. This Redemption begins with Christ the Redeemer and His Cross and passes through Mary to the Church." https://catholicism.org/mary-co-redemptrix.html
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

TheReturnofLive

#25
Quote from: Gardener on October 10, 2019, 05:59:46 AM
We see in this argument's detractors the same false premise which St. Thomas Aquinas used to deny the Immaculate Conception: the action being completed without and, in some sense, in spite of Christ.

It is in fact Christ's Redemptive reality which allows the cooperation of Mary in the Redemption to begin with; because her cooperation was perfect, flowing from her Immaculate Conception and resultant cooperation in the Incarnation, that Mary can be called Co-Redemptrix, just as many early Saints called her a Mediatrix.

If our salvation hinged on her cooperation (which it did), then so did our redemption (which precedes salvation). Therefore, her cooperation, which is not equal to the work with which she cooperate[s/d], is still with Christ. Just as it is on every soul to co-work with Christ in their own salvation.

Just as Eve's fault preceded Adam's fault, and yet Adam ultimately is the cause of the Fall of Man (though Eve cooperated with it), so too does Mary's perfection precede Christ's Incarnation in time. But it was in fact the foreknowledge of the Incarnation, indeed the Predestination of the Incarnation, which preceded the Immaculate Conception in order. And so, while it is ultimately Christ's Redemption and Salvation of Man which is first in order, the Redemption and Salvation of man is first known in and with Mary through Christ, for an action which was to take place, took place, and in a mysterious manner takes place. As such, Mary's cooperation in the Redemption is preeminent.

Just as the Immaculate Conception doesn't eschew the necessity of Christ (as Aquinas incorrectly argued and thus contextually correctly denied the Immaculate Conception), but flows from Christ, so too does the Co-Redeeming reality not eschew the Redemption Christ provides, but in fact flows from it. Ergo, when following the flow of this Living Water, one arrives necessarily at Mary before they arrive at the Source: Christ.

I don't think anybody here disagrees with you, assuming I have read you correctly, in that our Salvation was contingent on the Theotokos's conception, it was contingent on her fiat, etc. However, this doesn't actually answer what the doctrine of Co-Redemptrix proposes.

If one means that we would not have Salvation without her existing or her role in the Gospel or her co-operation with the Holy Spirit - sure. Rejecting her veneration is also anathema as per the 7th Ecumenical Council, and in that sense, salvation is necessary with Mary.

However, that's not, as far as I know, what the Co-Redemptrix doctrine merely proposes. This doctrine proposes as well that her suffering at the cross was a direct part ("subordinate") of the redeeming act itself, and therefore, the redemptive work was not just Christ's suffering, death, and Resurrection, but also involved the Virgin Mary's suffering and co-operation. Therefore, she "co-redeemed" us with Christ.

From an apparition from "the Marian Movement of Priests" (Which, as we all know are Divine sources of dogma and can never be fake; thank God for Medjugorje revealing to us that all religions are actually one, but we are divided on Earth among ourselves! And that people transform into black devils with horns and tails when they go to Hell!)

"I am for you the perfect model of your co-operation in the redemptive work accomplished by my Son. In fact, as Mother of Jesus, I have become intimately associated with Him in his work of redemption.

My presence beneath the Cross tells you how my Son has willed to unite the Mother completely to all his great sufferings, at the time of his passion and his death for you.

If the Cross was his scaffold, the pain of my Immaculate Heart was like the altar on which my Son offered to the Father the Sacrifice of the new and eternal Covenant."


"At every moment of this offering, Jesus willed to have his Mother with Him that she, too, might suffer and offer. In this, I became co-operator with Him in his work of redemption, truly Co-redemptrix, and I am, above all, the Mother of Jesus, the Priest."

https://mmp-usa.net/our-mother-co-redemptrix-mediatrix-advocate/
"The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but irrigate deserts." - C.S. Lewis

Xavier

[1] "From the nature of His work the Redeemer ought to have associated His Mother with His work. For this reason We invoke her under the title of Coredemptrix. She gave us the Savior, she accompanied Him in the work of Redemption as far as the Cross itself, sharing with Him the sorrows of the agony and of the death in which Jesus consummated the Redemption of mankind. [22]

[2] 5. On 23 March 1934, the Lenten commemoration of Our Lady of Sorrows, Pius XI received two groups of Spanish pilgrims, one of which was composed of members of Marian Congregations of Catalonia. L'Osservatore Romano did not publish the text of the Pope's address, but rather reported his principal remarks to these groups. Noting with pleasure the Marian banners carried by these pilgrims, he commented that they had come to Rome to celebrate with the Vicar of Christ

not only the nineteenth centenary of the divine Redemption, but also the nineteenth centenary of Mary, the centenary of her Coredemption, of her universal maternity. [23]

He continued, addressing himself especially to the young people, saying that they must:

follow the way of thinking and the desire of Mary most holy, who is our Mother and our Coredemptrix: they, too, must make a great effort to be coredeemers and apostles, according to the spirit of Catholic Action, which is precisely the cooperation of the laity in the hierarchical apostolate of the Church. [24]

6. Finally Pope Pius XI referred to Our Lady as Coredemptrix on 28 April 1935 in a Radio Message for the closing of the Holy Year at Lourdes:

Mother most faithful and most merciful, who as Coredemptrix and partaker of thy dear Son's sorrows didst assist Him as He offered the sacrifice of our Redemption on the altar of the Cross ... preserve in us and increase each day, we beseech thee, the precious fruits of our Redemption and thy compassion. [25]

Because of this usage of the term Coredemptrix in magisterial documents and addresses by the Supreme Pontiff Canon René Laurentin wrote thus in 1951 about its employment:

Used or protected by two popes, even in the most humble exercise of their supreme magisterium, the term henceforth requires our respect. It would be gravely temerarious, at the very least, to attack its legitimacy. [26]...

Birgitta [St. Bridget] looked to Mary as her model and support in the various moments of her life. She spoke energetically about the divine privilege of Mary's Immaculate Conception. She contemplated her astonishing mission as Mother of the Saviour. She invoked her as the Immaculate Conception, Our Lady of Sorrows, and Coredemptrix, exalting Mary's singular role in the history of salvation and the life of the Christian people. [60]"

From: https://www.piercedhearts.org/hearts_jesus_mary/heart_mary/mystery_coredemptrix_papal_magisterium.htm
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

TheReturnofLive

#27
Xavier, how do you feel about the fact that Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, the Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, explicitly rejected the title of "Co-Redemptrix" as being too ambiguous, departing from the terminology of the Fathers, and never used it during his pontificate?

Cardinal Ratzinger:

"'Co-redemptrix departs to too great an extent from the language of Scripture and of the Fathers and therefore gives rise to misunderstandings.

What is true here? Well, it is true that Christ does not remain outside us or to one side of us, but builds a profound and new community with us. Everything that is his becomes ours, and everything that is ours he has taken upon himself, so that it became his: this great exchange is the actual content of redemption, the removal of limitations from our self and its extension into community with God. Because Mary is the prototype of the Church as such and is, so to say, the Church in person, this being "with" is realized in her in exemplary fashion. But this "with" must not lead us to forget the "first" of Christ: Everything comes from him, as the Letter to the Ephesians and the Letter to the Colossians, in particular, tell us; Mary, too, is everything that she is through him.

The word "Co-redemptrix" would obscure this origin. A correct intention is being expressed in the wrong way. For matters of faith, continuity of terminology with the language of Scripture and that of the Fathers is itself an essential element; it is improper simply to manipulate language."

https://udayton.edu/imri/mary/p/pope-benedict-xvi-and-mary.php
"The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but irrigate deserts." - C.S. Lewis

Maximilian

Quote from: TheReturnofLive on October 10, 2019, 06:21:12 PM

For matters of faith, continuity of terminology with the language of Scripture and that of the Fathers is itself an essential element; it is improper simply to manipulate language."

Yes. There is a "1984" quality to the manipulation of Catholic language. You see it on the one side with the twisting of terminology by the conciliar crowd, but you see it as well on the other side. Whenever that "War is peace, freedom is slavery" language pops up from the neo-Catholic types, it makes my stomach feel queasy.

Kreuzritter

Quote from: Xavier on October 10, 2019, 06:41:42 AM
QuoteWitness the jump from sword piercing heart to "co-redemptrix".

Are you a child who loves your Mother and grieves over Her Sorrows, or one who minimizes them and thinks of them as pretty much nothing at all?

Straw man.

QuoteThe Popes explain what the Prophets taught, the Sorrows of the Virgin Daughter of Sion are a vast sea that exceed all other sorrows save Christ's.

True or not, it doesn't demonstrate your contention.

QuoteYou also fail to understand the extraordinary degree of satisfaction an Immaculate Creature, Who loved God so perfectly and wholeheartedly as Mary did, would make by Her loving acceptance of sorrows and suffering.

Firstly, I totally reject the Anselm's satisfaction theory of atonement, which is another Medieval theological innovation that has its basis in juridical thought and the Roman legal tradition. So this is nonsensical to begin with.

Mary could not even save herself, but you would have her co-redeem others by a finite contribution to an infinite act, which is yet another absurdity: what is already infinite does not become more by adding anything to it. Take away Mary's sufferings and the atonement remains; add them and the atonement stays what it is.

QuoteIn other words, you fail to understand that co-redemption is a necessary part of Catholic Christian life, a duty to which we all are called, and a dignity which Mary alone among Creatures, fulfilled to the highest degree possible, which is why we venerate Her with hyperdulia, and as the greatest Saint.

Blah, blah. A "necessary part" which no Catholic believed for over a thousand years, so that among her numerous titles, not one referred to her as "co-redemptrix".

Quote
QuoteThat's a nice 19th century opinion.

"You are Peter, and on this Rock I will build My Church. And the gates of hell will not prevail. But for 19 centuries only. After that I will leave" #Things Jesus never said.

"Popes are infallible and exercise universal jurisdiction." #Things Jesus never said

Quote"Explicit references to Marian co-redemption as Mary's unique participation with and under Jesus Christ in redeeming or "buying back" humanity from the slavery of Satan and sin is present throughout Christian Tradition. For example, the 7th century Church writer, Modestus of Jerusalem, states that through Mary, we "are redeemed from the tyranny of the devil."

Another lie. There is no explicit reference there to Mary, or Mary's sufferings, "buying back" anything. The statement is perfectly understandable in the context of Mary as Theotokos. I do find amusing however that you invoke quotations in the context of patristic Ransom Theory to support an idea based in Anselm

Quote[5] St. John Damascene (8th century) greets her: "Hail thou, through whom we are redeemed from the curse."

Again, nothing.

Quote[6] St. Bernard of Clairvaux (12th century) preaches that "through her, man was redeemed." [7] The great Franciscan Doctor, St. Bonaventure (13th century), aptly summarizes Christian Tradition in this teaching: "That woman (namely Eve), drove us out of Paradise and sold us; but this one (Mary) brought us back again and bought us." [8]" http://www.religionandtheology.org/MaryAsCo-Redemptrix.html

I don't care what they said.

QuoteMary Co-Redemptrix is already announced in the Proto-Evangelium, thousands and thousands of years ago, when God promised Satan the Woman and Her Seed would crush his head: "We can now see the meaning of Genesis 3:15: She shall crush thy head. Mary redeems all men and the Church from the power of Satan.

Lulz.

QuoteThis Redemption begins with Christ the Redeemer and His Cross and passes through Mary to the Church." https://catholicism.org/mary-co-redemptrix.html

The only human who stands between Jesus and his Church is Jesus. The Church is HIS body.