MARY, OUR MOTHER

Meditation 82

MARY, UNIVERSAL MEDIATRIX
OF ALL GRACES

1. In What Mediation Consists.
A mediator is a link between two extremes, as dawn is a mean between light and darkness. A mediator partakes of, and represents, both parties and embraces both as his own. According to St. Robert Bellarmin a mediator is judge and umpire who administers justice between both contending parties. A mediator ia a harbinger of peace since he lays down the conditions to which the opposing parties should submit so that lost friendship may be restored. A mediator is a royal favorite who imposes his influence with the monarch in order to obtain pardon and favor for those who have offended His Majesty. He is, lastly, a martyr of charity who lays down his life in just reparation for the person offended. Now apply these principles to Our Lord Jesus Christ and you will see how full of truth are the words of St. Paul: There is only one God and only one Mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ. Our Lord, in virtue of His threefold character of Messiah or Envoy of the Father, of Eternal Priest and of Redeemer of the world, is assuredly the real Mediator, the Angel of peace who appeases the wrath of God against man, since Jesus by laying down His life gives abundant satisfaction for all the sins of mankind. But after Christ, together with Christ, and through Christ, on account of the union that She had as His own Mother (certainly not considered in Herself but on account of the share She had in the work of our redemption) Mary is the real Co-Redemptrix of men, the perfect Mediatrix between God and ourselves.

Since She is Mother of God and our Mother She consequently joins these two extremes and, as Mother of Mercy, She always gives Her verdict and sentence in favor of sinners. She is the Queen of Peace and therefore She obtains peace for those children who rebelled against God and were by sin in a state of war against their Creator. She is the praying Omnipotence and therefore, as St. Bernardine of Sienna says: "All things are subject to Mary, even, so to say, God Himself, since a word from Mary is enough for God to grant what She desires."

Finally, She is the Martyr of Charity and the Queen of Martyrs, a title She obtained together with Her Son, when She immolated Herself at the foot of the Cross, offering to the Eternal Father the Divine Victim and thereby constituting but one sacrifice by a perfect association with it.

[Excerpted from 'MARIAN MEDITATIONS' Book by Rev. Dr. Ildefonso R. Villar, Salesian Philippine Province, Nihil Obstat; Imprimatur]