Vigils Reading – Memorial of BVM

MARY, THE MOTHER OF THE LORD

By Fr Karl Rahner7

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All that the faith says about the realization of redemption, about salvation

and grace and the fullness of grace, is realized in Mary. This human person

whom we call Mary is as it were the very point in the whole history of our

redemption at which the saving grace of the living God descends from him into

this history, and from which it is diffused over the whole of humankind. For her

Son, whom she accepted in the strength of her heart, whom she conceived in

faith and love, is the Redeemer of the world. And since, as Scripture testifies,

the consent she gave in faith and obedience belongs not only to her private life-

story, but to the public history of redemption, it must correspond, in harmony

of person and function, to the purpose for which it was given; in short it must

be perfect.

It follows too that Mary is one of us. We honor her, praise her, love and

revere her unique dignity. But if, in view of the mystery of her son, we ask, where

does Mary stand? We must reply, she belongs entirely with us. She must receive

God’s mercy just as we must, for she lives and typifies to perfection what we

ourselves are to be in Christ’s sight. We too are to become what she is. She comes

before God with us – like us and as one of our company – in the innumerable

host of humanity. In our midst, within the history of humankind as a whole, as

a part of it, she accomplishes her own life-story, which takes on a unique

importance for our salvation, and which, once lived through with this

significance, endures eternally in God’s sight.

Precisely because Mary, in this position as intermediary, is entirely one of

us, and only occupies that position because she belongs with us, as a mere

creature, to the one human family, is she so near and dear to us. That is why we

love her. And have an almost too merely human trust in her. And feel her

intercession, protection and love to be so near and human, although, or rather

because this dear and familiar humanity has been taken up, unimpaired and

transfigured, into the eternal life of God himself.

7 Mary, the Mother of the Lord, Herder & Herder NY 1963, pp.38-40.15