Chapter 22: The Mystical Body of Christ

1. Introduction
   • The First Level of Our Understanding of the Church
     • We have seen that the Kingdom of Heaven exists on earth as a religious society through which the gifts of Truth and Life are made available to us (311-1).
     • As important and glorious as that is, there is still another level of understanding to be added to what we already know about the Kingdom (311-1).
2. Cells of a Living Body
   • To Receive the Gifts, We Must Receive Him
     • This deeper level is bound up with the meaning of Our Lord’s words ‘I am with you’” (311-2).
       • “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20).
     • Consider the following passage from the Last Supper:
       • “Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me’” (Jn 14:6).
     • Notice that Jesus was describing, not His work, but Himself: “I am.”
     • We would expect Him to have said, I have the Truth, in which case we would ask Him to fill our minds with it, since truth is the mind’s first need (312-1).
       • Recall the principal operations of spirit: to know and to love. To know what? To know the Truth.
     • However, because He said “I am the Truth,” we must ask Him to fill our minds with Himself (!), not to enlighten our minds, but to be the light of our minds (312-1).
     • Similarly, because He said “I am the Life,” we must ask Him to live in us (312-1).
       • Note that the gifts are not distinct from the Giver! Hence, we possess the gifts only to the extent that we possess the Giver (312-1).
         • Christianity is the only religion in which the followers must have a personal relationship with its founder (Bishop Sheen).
     • It should now be clear that the Church from which we receive the gifts (of Truth and Life) is the Church from which we receive Him. The two come as a single package. (312-1)
     • Hence, “The union with Him, which is ours as members of the Church, is now seen as intimate as that of truth with the mind and love with the will” (312-1).
   • A Double In-Living
     • The key to understanding the concept of our need to have Jesus live in us and fill our minds with Himself is found in the double in-living He revealed (312-2).
       • Note: In this chapter, Sheed typically refers to this principle of the supernatural life as “in-living,” but he also refers to it, at least implicitly, as “indwelling” (316-1, 2). In chapter 30, he prefers the word “indwelling.” In Fr. Dubay’s book, “God Dwells Within Us,” this principle is referred to as “interindwelling” (“God Dwells Within Us, 66). It is referred to in these notes as “double in-living” to emphasize the two-way nature of the supernatural life. In the chapter 30 notes, the principle will be referred to as “indwelling” or “interindwelling.”
     • We should note two things about this double in-living
       • First, since Christ is the life, we cannot have life unless He lives in us” (312-2).
         • This is a recurrent theme in Jesus’ discourse at the Last Supper:
           • “I do not pray for these [i.e., the Apostles] only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one . . . even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (Jn 17:20-21,23).
         • Saint Paul states this truth in his letter to the Galatians (312-3):
           • “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).
       • Second, not only is Christ to live in us, we are to live in Him. Thus, He says at the Last Supper (313-1):
         • “Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (Jn 14:19-20).
     • “[Jesus] makes this [principle of] double in-living even more explicit in the parable of the vine and the branches” (313-1).
       • “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:4-5).
         • In the context of this passage, the reference to being “apart from me” speaks of a real separation of persons in whom the double in-living should be a reality, but is not.
   • The Church Is a Living Body, an Organism
     • The principle of double in-living “brings us to the very heart of the truth about His Church [for it] is only in a living body that the verb ‘to live in” can be used both ways” (313-2).
     • Jesus indicated this in the parable of the Vine and the Branches. St. Paul expresses the idea more fully by comparing the Church to the body of a living man (313-2).
       • “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. . . . The body does not consist of one member but of many. . . . As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. . . . You are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Cor 12:12-13, 14, 20, 27)
     • Sheed writes: “I can say of the cells of my body that I live in them, because it is by my life that they live; but equally I can say that they live in me, because though it is from me that their life comes, it actually does make them alive” (313-2).
       • “I live in them, because it is by my life that they live.”
         • A man lives in his cells by communicating his life to them.
         • It is the man’s soul that communicates that life, for the soul is the life principle of the body.
       • “They live in me, because though it is from me that their life comes, it actually does make them alive.”
         • It is only in (i.e., as part of) the man’s body that life can be communicated to it. If separated from the man’s body, the cell dies.
         • Hence, a cell must remain united to him so as to receive the life his soul communicates.
     • “If we are to live in Christ and He is to live in us, then there must be some such relationship between us and Him as that between a person and the cells of his body. It is in this sense that the Church is the Body of Christ” (313-2).
     • Applying the analogy of a man and the cells of his body to Christ and the members of His society, the Church, Christ lives in us as communicator of the supernatural life; we live in Him as long as we are sacramentally united to Him so as to receive the communication of His life.
       • “The [Holy] Spirit indwells and does many things in man to render him sacred. This is uncreated grace. . . . It is by sanctifying grace that we are united to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. . . . [who] communicate themselves to men, impress themselves ‘into’ us. It is created grace [i.e., sanctifying grace] that renders us capable of receiving this communication, but it is the communication that causes the created grace” (Dubay, “God Dwells within Us,” p. 112, 114-115).
   • The Life-Secret and the Life Stream
     • Because of the principle of double in-living, the Church is not merely an organization; rather, it is “an organism, a living body with its own life-secret and its own life-stream. . . . [Jesus (see the clarification below)] is the life-secret and the life-stream flows from Him to every [living] cell in the body” (313-2).
       • Note that Sheed is somewhat ambiguous as to what the “life-secret” is. In 313-2 he identifies it with Christ, as shown above. However, in 109-2 he speaks of the three persons of the Trinity “utter[ing] their life-secret to one another totally.” In this statement, he seems to be indicating a distinction between the divine persons and the life-secret. In 327-2, he identifies the “life-secret” with the theological virtue of charity.
         • “[We can choose serious sin] to the destruction of the love [i.e., the theological virtue of charity] which is the life-secret” (327-2).
       • It seems to me that the latter of these three options provides the best understanding of what Sheed means by the “life-secret.” Accordingly, these notes identify the life-secret with the virtue of charity.
     • The life-stream is sanctifying grace, the principal component of which is charity, the life-secret; hence, sanctifying grace, which flows to us from the Holy Spirit through the sacraments, is a stream of charity and its attendant virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit.
       • “The gifts of the Holy Ghost are connected together in charity: so that whoever has charity has all the gifts of the Holy Ghost, none of which can one possess without charity” (Summa I of II, q. 68, a. 5).
       • “Charity is the mother and the root of all the virtues” (Summa I of II, q. 62, a. 4).
       • Note that the virtue of charity, received in seed form at the time of Baptism, is not something entirely separate from the eternal love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for one another, for “God is love [i.e., charity]” (1 Jn 4:8,16); charity is His nature. In order to “become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pt 1:4), we must participate in divine charity.
     • Sheed refers to the virtue of charity as the life-secret because it works secretly, that is, out of sight, in the Mystical Body and in us.
       • Just as in our physical bodies, life-giving “blood flows silently to every part of the body . . . so [also in the Mystical Body] sanctifying grace . . . flows through a multiplicity of channels. . . . Hence, “as in the individual soul, so in the Mystical Body, the Kingdom of God is like a leaven working secretly” (329-2).
         • “He told them another parable. ‘The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened’” (Mt 13:33).
         • “And he said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed upon the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how (i.e., secretly). The earth produces of itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear” (Mk 4:26-28).
     • It follows that the supernatural life we possess (sanctifying grace and in particular the theological virtue of charity) is His life in us.
       • This is analogous to a man giving life to his cells.
     • Because the supernatural life that we possess cannot be possessed apart from Him, we live, supernaturally, only if we are incorporated into Him (n.b., Sheed doesn’t refer to this as “incorporation” until 316-4).
       • This is analogous to the man’s cells receiving life from that man as long as they remain united to the man.
         • “Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew [into the Mystical Body], he cannot see the kingdom of God” (Jn 3:3).
       • We are incorporated into Adam through a natural birth (i.e., conception); similarly, we are incorporated into Christ through a supernatural birth.
         • “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5).
         • “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? . . . Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you” (1 Cor 6:15-19).
     • “This, then, is the reality of the Church, men bound together into one by the one life-stream flowing from the Head, which is Christ” (313-3).
       • Thus, St. Paul says: “We, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Rom 12:5).
       • “[The Father] has put all things under his [Jesus’] feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph 1:22-23).
       • “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:27-28).
3. The Fullness of Redemption
   • A New Language for Redemption and Reconciliation
     • St. Paul’s letters are filled with this doctrine, perhaps because of the unique experience he had while on the way to Damascus to arrest some Christian-Jews (314-2).
       • “Now as he journeyed he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him. And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting’” (Acts 9:3-6).
       • Jesus had ascended into heaven seven years earlier (see Carroll, HOC I, p. 398). Clearly Paul was not persecuting Him in a direct and literal sense. But he was persecuting Jesus, nevertheless, because he was persecuting the Mystical Body of Christ.
       • Of course, the same is true for us. Whenever we treat another person improperly, we are persecuting Jesus.
         • “And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me’” (Mt 25:40).
     • “Everything that we have learnt about the Church must be retranslated into this new language of organic union with Christ” (314-3).
     • Baptism is no longer merely entry into the Church; rather, it means being incorporated into Christ (314-3).
       • “[Christ] also determined that through Baptism those who should believe would be incorporated in the Body of the Church” (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, 27)
       • Note: Pius XII identifies the Body of the Church with the Mystical Body: “The doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church, was first taught us by the Redeemer Himself” (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, 1, also see 13)
       • “Validly baptized Protestants even though they do not know it are really members of the Catholic Church” (Fr. William Most).
         • http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/most/getwork.cfm?worknum=41
     • Thus, by our natural birth we are incorporated into the human body consisting of all mankind; by our supernatural birth, baptism, we are incorporated into Christ as members of His Mystical Body. As members of His Mystical Body we share alike in the satisfaction He offered for sin, and the supernatural union with God that He merited [for us]” (314-3).
       • Note that this incorporation into Christ is an incorporation into His Mystical Body, not His natural body (see 334-1).
       • Note that every cell of your body plays a part in all that you do. Similarly, as members of His Mystical Body, we take part in all He does, past, present and future.
         • This is possible because He is an eternal being. He exists outside of time, but He can operate in time, for all time.
     • Redemption and reconciliation were won for the race on Calvary; it is actualized in us as individuals in baptism whereby we are justified, as St. Paul tells us in his letters to the Colossians and Romans (314-4):
       • “You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. You, who were dead in [your sins]” (Col 2:12-13).
       • “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin” (Rom 6:3-7).
     • Because we are incorporated into Him, all of our morally good actions are united in Him (314-4):
       • “Christ unites us with his Passover: all his members must strive to resemble him, ‘until Christ be formed’ in them. ‘For this reason we . . . are taken up into the mysteries of his life, . . . associated with his sufferings as the body with its head, suffering with him, that with him we may be glorified’” (CCC 793).
       • “By the grace of [the Anointing of the Sick] the sick person receives the strength and the gift of uniting himself more closely to Christ’s Passion: in a certain way he is consecrated to bear fruit by configuration to the Savior’s redemptive Passion. Suffering, a consequence of original sin, acquires a new meaning; it becomes a participation in the saving work of Jesus” (CCC 1521).
   • Redemption and Reconciliation Actualized in Members of the Mystical Body
     • Our incorporation with Christ is so real that St. Thomas writes: “His sufferings avail for us as if we had suffered them ourselves” (Summa III, q. 69, a. 2, ad 1).
     • This teaching naturally follows from Galatians 2:19:
       • “With Christ I hang upon the cross” (Gal 2:19 Knox)
       • “I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal 2:20).
     • “Thus, the satisfaction He made is ours because we are in Him. The supernatural union with God [i.e., reconciliation], which is the purpose and crown of redemption, is likewise ours because we are in Him” (315-2).
     • Having seen what is meant by the third part of Jn 14:6 (“I am the life”), we are in a position to understand the first part: “I am the way” (315-2).
     • He says He is the way, not only because He opened the way for us (redemption) and points out the way to us (His teaching), but because the way is entirely concerned with incorporation into Christ (315-2).
     • “What we must do is enter into Him and abide in Him” (315-2).
       • If we abide in Him, we are united “organically with His sacred humanity” [i.e., we are the cells of the Mystical Body of Christ], which means we are united to His Person, which is to say that we are united to the Triune God (315-2).
       • Salvation is attained when we have a permanent union with the Triune God; our incorporation into Christ is the way to that permanent union. That is, it is the way to salvation.
     • Thus organically incorporated into Him, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, we are united to the Triune God, and the reconciliation won for the human race is thereby actualized in individual persons by way of our life in Him. This is the “formula of restoration He has uttered at the Last Supper” (315-2).
       • ‘I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you’ (Jn 14:20).
     • It follows that, as members of the mystical body, we have a role in Jesus’ act of Redemption, for our temporal sacrifices (acts of virtue) are united to His eternal sacrifice, and in this we participate in our own Redemption (315-2, 323-3, 324-1).
   • Excursus: What Must We Do to Abide in Him?
     • The key to the double in-living is found in the commandments and the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist
       • “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (Jn 15:10).
       • One of these commandments was given at the Last Supper: “When he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me’” (1 Cor 11:24-25).
       • “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (Jn 6:56).
     • The double in-living is something beyond natural life. It consists of the possession of the supernatural life that He speaks of in the Bread of Life discourse.
       • “Truly, truly, I say to you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you” (Jn 6:53).
     • The people to whom He was speaking clearly possessed natural life. Hence, He must be referring to another kind of life which is of a higher order, that is, supernatural life.
       • From John 6:53 (first stated in v. 51 and then repeated in vv. 54, 56, 57, 58), we can see that this double in-living, which is first received in Baptism, is sustained in us through the Holy Eucharist:
   • The Holy Spirit and the Mystical Body
     • Just as Redemption has a restatement with respect to the Mystical Body, so does the work of the Holy Spirit (315-3)
     • We have already seen (see 282ff) that the Holy Spirit was sent to the Church as a whole (rather than merely to individuals) for the same work of sanctification and illumination that He did for the human nature of Christ (316-1).
       • From chapter 17 notes:
         • As man, Jesus needed sanctifying grace, just as we do. He could not see God directly (i.e., in the Beatific Vision) by His unaided human powers alone (246-4).
         • As God, He possessed all things: as man, He needed the indwelling of the Holy Spirit for the elevation of His human nature to the things of God, and for the special mission He was to carry out (247-1).
     • We are now in a position to see more deeply into this this sending: “The Holy Spirit comes to us because we are inbuilt into Christ, in whom [the Holy Spirit] is. The life which is Christ’s – and ours because His – is the operation of the Holy Spirit in His human nature” (316-1).
     • Thus, we may speak of life in the Mystical Body as either Christ living in us or as the Holy Spirit living in us. Paul uses both phrases in his letter to the Romans:
       • “But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead [i.e., they cannot escape separation from the soul] because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you” (Rom 8:9-11).
     • Because the Holy Spirit dwells within and operates within the sacred humanity of Jesus, we cannot be incorporated in Christ without sharing in the same indwelling and operation; the two, incorporation and indwelling, are concomitant (316-2).
       • “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? . . . Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you” (1 Cor 6:15-19).
     • The Church has found various ways of expressing this twofold presence (of Christ and the Holy Spirit), such as (316-3):
       • Christ is the source of the presence; the Holy Spirit the operative principle.
       • Christ is the Head of the Mystical Body; the Holy Spirit is its Soul.
4. Relation to Christ and to One Another
   • Membership in the Nuclear Family
     • Consider our “double birth.” By our natural birth, we are born into a family; by our supernatural birth (regeneration via Baptism) we are born into a Body, which is a supernatural family (316-4).
     • In the best case, “the unity of the members of a [nuclear] family is only a shadow of the organic unity of the [cells] of a body – to be brothers of one another (in the natural order) is as nothing compared to being members of one another (in the supernatural order) (317-1).
   • Membership in the Human Family
     • The human family (i.e., the human race) we have been born into is not a family in the best sense; it is widely scattered and has largely forgotten that it is a family (317-1).
       • Adam communicated his life to his children, and they in turn to their children through countless generations. Thus we owe our life to him and he lives in us in this sense, but only in this (rather distant) sense (317-1).
       • Adam can do nothing more for us. “If our life weakens . . . we cannot turn to him for renewal” (317-1).
   • Membership in the Mystical Body
     • On the other hand, as members of the Mystical Body of Christ “we are in immediate and continuing contact with . . . Christ” (317-1).
     • “The flow of His life though His members never ceases but is always there for our growth and renewal” (317-1).
       • Note that this is true for all except those who put up an obstruction to the flow by way of mortal sin. Such individuals are like “dead cells” in the body, and are, thus, unable to receive the flow of the life-stream (see 313-2, 327-2).
     • Therefore, our relationship to Christ in the Mystical Body is closer than any biological relationship we could ever have with another human being, for our relationship to Him “is that of cells in a body to the person whose body it is” (317-2).
       • It is even closer than the relationship of children to their biological parents (317-2).
       • By membership in the Mystical Body, we are related more closely to Our Lord than His own mother was related to Him by their biological relationship (317-2).
         • “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do [i.e., keep, obey] it” (Lk 8:21).
       • “Needless to say, Our Lady is also a member of the Mystical Body, living more totally and intensely by His life than we shall ever live” (317-2).
       • Nevertheless, her relationship to Him as mother is less than her relationship to Him as a member of the Mystical Body (317-2)
       • Likewise, we are more closely related to the members of the human family by the life of grace than any natural relationship (317-2).
       • Thus, we are more closely related to each member of the Church than those same members are to their biological parents (318-1).
         • “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Cor 12:27).
       • “If we were ever to let ourselves look squarely at [our relationships to one another through the life of grace] and really try to live by it, its immediate effect would be a remaking of ourselves so thorough that nature shrinks from it; and the ultimate effect would be to renew the face of the earth” (318-1).
   • The Mystical Body Relives His Life
     • “Guided by the same Holy Spirit, through the same world, under pressure from the same Devil, one would expect the Mystical Body to relive the life of Christ, produce actions like His, [and] stir the reactions that He stirred” (318-2).
     • Regarding the reactions: there is not an accusation directed toward Christ that has not been directed toward the Church (318-2):
       • She is most bitterly hated, not for the human faults that can be found in her, but for those things that are most clearly the operation of Christ (318-2). (Examples from paragraph 318-2)
         • The Church’s insistence on the primacy of the spiritual is twisted into the accusation that she is setting up a kingdom so as to dominate the kingdoms of men.
         • She is hated for her teaching that the human body is subordinate to the spirit and that it is capable of sanctification.
         • She is hated for her teaching that divine truth and divine law are absolute and irreformable.
         • She is hated for her assertion that she teaches infallibly.
         • She is hated for her claim to judge the world.
         • She is hated for her claim to be unique, and for being, in fact, unique.
     • Regarding the actions: The world’s reactions are a small thing compared to the Church’s actions which parallel the life of Christ (319-1). (Examples from paragraph 318-2)
       • His public ministry continues in the work of the Church’s hierarchy and the Church’s missionaries.
       • His hidden life is continued in the work of contemplative orders of men and women.
       • His fasting and feasting is mirrored in the Church’s liturgical seasons as well as in its daily life throughout each week.
       • His sudden miraculous interventions are continued in the holiest members of the Church. Many of these miracles are documented in files compiled as part of the canonization process for saints.
       • “It is hardly too much to say that if we had no Gospels we could reconstruct the whole picture of Christ from studying the daily life of the Church” (319-1).
5. Our Lady and the Com-Passion
   • Jesus Apparent Silence
     • We can get a better understanding of the Church, as well as our own lives, in the truth that we have a share in the redemptive suffering of Christ (319-2).
     • This truth is best studied in the life of Jesus’ mother, because she is the one perfect member of the Mystical Body of Christ. “Every element in the life of the [Mystical] Body will be seen at its [greatest intensity] in her” (319-2).
     • The Church has always had a sense of the enormous love Jesus had for His mother, though we find little direct evidence for it in Scripture (319-3)
     • There is not a single word expressing His tenderness for her in the Gospels (319-3).
     • However, the fact of this silence is insignificant when we consider that the Gospels are the briefest possible record of a life that was fuller, by far, than any other life ever lived (320-2).
     • Consider an outline of the Gospel record (the following items are from 320-2):
       • There is a brief description of His infancy, followed by nearly twelve years of silence.
       • There is a single passage describing an incident when He was twelve years old, followed by eighteen years of silence.
       • His three years of public ministry are found in a mere twenty-three short chapters of Matthew’s Gospel, and in fewer chapters in the other Gospels.
         • Division of Matthew’s Gospel:
           • Infancy – 2 chapters covering events of His first year
           • Public ministry – 23 chapters covering three years
           • Passion and Death – 2 chapters covering 24 hours of His life
           • Resurrection and events prior to the Ascension – 1 chapter covering 40 days.
     • “The main concern of the evangelists is with the three years of the public ministry, and even here everything is so compressed that nothing can be argued from the absence of anything from the record” (320-2).
     • Further, it would take a more than the mere silence of the Gospels to persuade anyone that the perfect Son did not love His mother with a perfect love (320-2).
       • “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you” (Ex 20:12).
   • Jesus Apparent Remoteness
     • In addition to the silence mentioned above, Sheed says there is also a certain “remoteness” in passages that involve Jesus and His mother (320-3).
     • The remoteness he is speaking of is found in three passages: (1) the finding of Jesus in the Temple (Lk 2:49), (2) the wedding feast in Cana (Jn 2:4), (3) the Crucifixion (Jn 19:26).
     • Consider the finding of Jesus in the Temple:
       • Upon finding Him after a three-day search, His mother says to Him:
         • “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously” (Lk 2:48). He responds: “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Lk 2:49).
       • Sheed writes: “Here is remoteness to the point of bleakness. No word of regret or sympathy.” These words are puzzling to us, and so they were to Joseph and Mary. Luke tells us their reaction (320-3):
         • “They did not understand the saying which he spoke to them” (Lk 2:50, 321-1).
     • Consider the wedding feast in Cana:
       • His mother expresses concern about an impending embarrassment for the couple that was just married and their parents as well:
         • “When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘O woman, what have you to do with me?’” (Jn 2:4).
       • In this response, Jesus appears to be drawing a line of separation between the two of them, as if they are on two divergent paths having nothing in common.
     • Consider the scene at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion:
       • Though Mary was standing at the foot of the cross during the time of Jesus’ crucifixion (Jn 19:26), He says nothing to her until His life is drawing to a close:
         • “When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’” (Jn 19:26-27)
       • Again, Jesus refers to His mother using the remote-sounding address of “woman.”
         • Note, however, that the evangelist makes it clear that he was loved by Jesus, calling himself “the disciple whom he loved.”
   • Jesus’ Silence, Remoteness and the Absence of an Expression of Love
     • In addition to this apparent silence and remoteness, it should be noted that there are four occasions in Scripture where Jesus and His mother could have spoken to one another, but in none of these do we have an expression of His love for His mother.
     • Taken together, this silence, remoteness, and the absence of Jesus’ expression of love for His mother gives us a puzzling picture of the relationship He had with her.
     • This puzzling picture has caused many Christians to conclude that she was of no value to Him with respect to His mission, and perhaps even an obstacle to His mission. As a result they have come to hold her in disregard, if not outright hostility and even contempt.
       • Timothy George, an Evangelical who has a leaning toward some aspects of Catholic teaching on the Virgin Mary, cites another Evangelical’s expression of the generally negative Evangelical attitude toward the Virgin Mary: “There are hints in the gospels of a Mary who, as David Steinmetz put it, ‘does not understand what God’s purposes are, who intervenes when she ought to keep silent, who interferes and tries to thwart the purpose of God, who pleads the ties of filial affection when she should learn faith.’”
         • https://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/02/evangelicals-and-the-mother-of-god
       • Mark Shea, a former Evangelical who is now a Catholic, writes: “Catholic devotion to Mary continues to give the overwhelming majority of Evangelicals what is commonly known as ‘the willies’” (Mark Shea, “Mary Mother of the Son,” I, 45).
     • Sheed writes that the Church’s doctrine of the com-passion of Mary provides a marvelous explanation of this puzzling picture (320-3).
       • Sheed doesn’t explain what he means by this until later, but the point he is working toward is that His mother “denied herself . . . some of the intimacies and consolations that normally flow from the natural relation of mother and son,” and this self-imposed denial of hers accounts for the aforementioned awkward instances of silence and remoteness (325-1).
     • Back at the time of the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, when He was forty days old, Simeon prophesies that a sword would pierce her heart:
       • “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed” (Lk 2:34-35).
     • Twelve years later, as the “strange episode” where Jesus was found in the Temple come to a close, with the Holy Family returning to Nazareth, notice what Luke says of His mother:
       • “And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart” (Lk 2:51).
     • “The words of her Son [‘Why did you search for me . . .’], [that were] kept in her heart and pondered, may have been part of the turning of the sword” prophesied by Simeon (321-1).
       • Note that theologians have seen her “complaint” to be a foreshadowing of His anguished cry from the Cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Ps 22:1, 321-2).
6. An Alternate View of Our Lady’s Com-Passion
   • Pedagogy of Elevation
     • There is a genuine need to account for the “puzzling picture” of Jesus’ relationship to His mother, but there is a question as to whether approach presented by Sheed (and Bishop Sheen as well) actually solves the “puzzle.”
     • Jesus’ apparent “remoteness” toward His mother has many parallels in the Gospels where He is speaking in a similar manner to other people. Examples follow below, and there are some additional examples in the notes for chapter 17:
       • To Nicodemus: “Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can this be?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this?’” (Jn 3:9-10)
       • To the disciples: “And he awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?’” (Mk 4:39-40)
       • To the Canaanite woman: “But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ And he answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs’” (Mt 15:25-26)
       • To Peter: “And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter, and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men’ (Mk 8:32-33)
       • To a man and the crowd: “‘And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.’ Jesus answered, ‘O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here’” (Lk 9:40-41).
       • To the Pharisees: “‘Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you claim to be?’ Jesus answered, ‘If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing; it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is your God. But you have not known him; I know him. If I said, I do not know him, I should be a liar like you; but I do know him and I keep his word’” Jn 8:53-55).
       • To an individual in the crowd: “One of the multitude said to him, ‘Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me.’ But he said to him, ‘Man, who made me a judge or divider over you?’” (Lk 12:13-14).
       • To a man: “And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone’” (Mk 10:17-18).
     • These instances of “remoteness,” along with the many others that can be found in the Gospels, are a distinct and consistent pattern of Jesus’ interpersonal engagement with His interlocutors. It could very well be that the key to understanding this pattern of engagement is found in His dialog with the Canaanite woman:
       • “Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, ‘Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered him, ‘Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs’ (Mk 7:26-28). Then Jesus answered her, ‘O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.’ And her daughter was healed instantly” (Mt 15:28).
     • Clearly, in this case, Jesus’ apparent remoteness is actually a device by which He draws out the Canaanite woman’s faith, and makes it known to the Jews who were in His presence and who had wanted Him to send her away (Mt 15:23).
     • Thus, His “apparent refusal exalts the woman’s faith” (St. John Paul II, “Theotokos”, 175), teaches her something about the goodness and power of God, and teaches the Jews in His presence that, while salvation is from the Jews (Jn 4:22), it is not for the Jews exclusively.
     • Consequently, we see in this passage what could be called, a “pedagogy of elevation.” What appears as remoteness is actually a challenge to draw something out of the persons challenged so as to raise their faith to a higher level, for their own benefit, and perhaps for the benefit of others.
     • Let us take a moment to revisit the three passages mentioned above, in which we observed an apparent remoteness in the dialogs between Jesus and His mother, and let us interpret them from the perspective of the pedagogy of elevation.
   • The Finding of Jesus in the Temple
     • Considering the first of the “remoteness” passages, the finding of Jesus in the Temple, we know that the angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary that her son would be the “Son of the Most High.”
       • “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High” (Lk 1:31-32).
     • The phrase, “Son of the Most High,” could be understood to mean either a prophet sent by God, or the second person of the Blessed Trinity.
       • Regarding the former, the “gods” referred to in Psalm 82:6 are human judges through whom the justice of God is to be administered to His people.
         • “I say, ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you’” (Ps 82:6).
       • Regarding the latter, the concept of a human being who was also God was unthinkable at the time of the Annunciation, for the Blessed Trinity had not yet been revealed:
         • “This was why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God” (Jn 5:18; also see Jn 10:32-33).
       • It follows that the Virgin would naturally assume the phrase “Son of the Most High” meant that her child would be a prophet.
       • It should be noted here that it was a “matter of set policy” in the public ministry of Jesus that He would not explicitly reveal His full identity during the time of His public ministry. The reason being that it was necessary for them to know Him first as man before they came to know Him as God, so as to correct the defects in their understanding of God.
         • The suspense He created with this policy was felt by His friends and enemies alike (see 78-3).
         • There is no reason to believe this policy did not apply to His mother. One would expect that she too had to come to know Him as God only after first knowing Him as man.
       • By the time He was twelve, a suitable period of time had passed, so Jesus challenges her with the words “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Lk 2:49), and, in doing so, “[He] invites [Mary and Joseph] to go beyond appearances and unfolds before them new horizons for His future” (St. John Paul II, “Theotokos,” 166).
       • The woman who “kept all these things in her heart” (Lk 2:51) could now revisit the words of the angel Gabriel knowing that her son has just spoken of God as His father.
       • Consequently, what appears on the surface as an instance of “remoteness” is now recognized as a trigger intended to expand her understanding of the nature of her son, so as to open the door to her eventual realization of His divinity.
   • The Wedding Feast at Cana
     • Considering the second of the “remoteness” passages, the wedding feast at Cana, Jesus says to His mother: “What is that to you and to me?”
       • Note three things about this short dialog:
         • First, a literal translation of Jesus’ first sentence is “What is that to you and to me?” In Scripture, this typically expresses tension between the two parties, but not always (see 2 Chron 35:21, 2 Kgs 3:13). His mother’s quick reaction to His reply indicates there is no tension between the objectives of Jesus and His mother (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament, 164).
         • Second, He not only says “What is that to you and to me,” but continues, saying, “My hour has not yet come” (Jn 2:4). Thus, He shows that the context for His first sentence is the “hour” of His Passion.
         • Third, “There is no ancient example of a son addressing his mother this way [i.e., as ‘woman’]” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament, 164), which implies that something extraordinary is taking place here.
       • If we observe the many links between the first two chapters of the Gospel of John and the first three chapters of Genesis, it becomes apparent that there is a connection between the account of the fall of man in Genesis, and the wedding feast in Cana. Some of the links between these two books are listed below:
         • These are the only two books of the Bible that begin with the words, “In the beginning,” Genesis and the Gospel of John.
         • Both books begin with a sequence of seven days.
         • In the early chapters of both books, there is a story of a man and a woman (Adam and Eve, Jesus and Mary).
         • The woman in Genesis is explicitly named “woman” by Adam (Gen 2:23). The Virgin Mary is explicitly called “Woman” by Jesus.
           • The woman in Genesis only takes on the name Eve after being expelled from the Garden (Gen 3:20).
         • A link by way of contrast between the account of the fall of man and the wedding feast at Cana resides in the chronological order in which the main characters are introduced, and this contrast implies a reversal of sorts.
           • In the Garden of Eden, the man is introduced first, and then the woman, who had come forth from the side of the man (Gen 2:7, Gen 2:22).
           • At Cana, the woman is introduced first, and then the man, who had come forth from the side of the woman (Jn 2:1, Lk 2:7).
         • Regarding the aforementioned reversal, the woman in Genesis invites Adam to commit the first sin, which brought about the fall of man; the woman at Cana invites Jesus to work His first sign, which ushered in man’s restoration to grace.
       • Seeing these links between the Gospel of John and the book of Genesis, we notice a clear link between the two men (Adam and Christ) and the two women (Eve and the Virgin Mary), where the latter of each pair is the antithesis of the former.
         • “Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come” (Rom 5:14).
       • Interpreting this passage from the perspective of the pedagogy of elevation, we see that “Jesus intended to put Mary’s cooperation on the level of salvation which, by involving her faith and hope, required her to go beyond her natural role of mother” (St John Paul II, “Theotokos,” 174).
       • The Virgin Mary’s response to Jesus invitation comes immediately: “His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you’” (Jn 2:5).
       • Consequently, we have in this dialog an instance where the apparent “remoteness” of Jesus is yet another trigger by which He opens the door to His mother’s unique share in His Passion, thus elevating their relationship in a public setting, in the presence of the Apostles, from the merely biological level, to the level of her unique participation in His salvific act.
       • There are two things that should be noted here:
         • First, her participation in Jesus’ salvific act is unique because she is the only human person who, due to her sinlessness, offered no opposition to the divine plan of Redemption.
           • “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” (Lk 1:42).
         • Second, in Luke’s Gospel we have the implication that the Incarnation could not take place without the Virgin Mary’s consent (Lk 1:38). In a similar manner, John’s Gospel indicates that Jesus’ public ministry (hence, the Passion) likewise, could not begin without her free consent to participate in His Passion, for the moment of her consent is the moment that He becomes a public figure. His Passion, in a remote sense, begins immediately, for the very next thing that John records is the episode where Jesus drives the money-changers out of the Temple and prophesies His death and resurrection (Jn 2:13-22).
   • The Crucifixion of the Lord
     • Considering the third of the “remoteness” passages, the Crucifixion of the Lord, Jesus says to His mother “‘Woman, behold, your son! ’Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’” (Jn 19:26-27).
       • After Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, Adam named her “Eve, because she was the mother of all the living” (Gen 3:20).
         • It should be noted that this title applies in the natural order only. In the order of grace, she had become the “mother of all the dead”
           • “You he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked” (Eph 2:1-2).
       • Jesus connected His mother, the Virgin Mary, to the virgin Eve at the wedding feast in Cana, by calling her Woman, the original name given to Eve.
         • “Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man’” (Gen 2:23).
       • From the cross, Jesus reiterates that association in calling her Woman again:
         • “The two scenes [i.e. Cana and Calvary] are thus linked together. Cana had been an anticipation of the definitive marriage feast – of the new wine that the Lord wanted to bestow” (Benedict XVI, “Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week”, 221).
       • In addition to reiterating the association between Eve and the Virgin Mary, He now expands the meaning of “Woman” by calling on her to be John’s mother, in the order of grace.
         • We must note here that John’s biological mother was also at the foot of the cross, as can be seen by examining Mt 27:55-56, Mk 15:40, and Jn 19:25.
         • Mark names three women who were at the crucifixion of Jesus: “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome, who, when he was in Galilee, followed him, and ministered to him.”
         • Matthew, whose Gospel contains much of Mark’s Gospel nearly word for word, also lists three women at the crucifixion: “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.” Matthew also mentions that these women assisted Jesus in Galilee; hence, we would expect that he is listing the same three women that Mark listed.
         • In addition to the Virgin Mary, John lists three other women at the crucifixion: “His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” The fact that the women Matthew and Mark listed as being at the crucifixion were notable as followers of Jesus when He was in Galilee, gives us a strong reason to think that John is listing the same three notable women.
         • It follows that the three notable women are (a) Mary Magdalene, (b) Mary the mother of James and Joseph (also referred to as the “other Mary,” and (c) Salome, who is the mother of the sons of Zebedee (James and John), and Jesus’ mother’s sister. Thus, John’s mother is at the foot of the cross at the time of the crucifixion when Jesus presents the “Woman” at the foot of the cross as the “mother” of John. Therefore, the “motherhood” he refers to can only be a “spiritual” motherhood, as it applies to John.
         • Related to this, Paul writes: “Those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren” (Rom 8:29). John is clearly to be counted among those many brethren, but he is only one, and there are many. The Virgin Mary is the mother of the first-born, Jesus, and she is the mother of the one who is apparently the “second-born” among many brethren. The Virgin Mary is obviously at the heart of this parallel between Jesus and John, with both of them being her sons, thus, her motherhood extends to both, though in two different ways. The strong implication is that she is necessarily the mother of the third-born, the fourth-born, and so on. In other words, she is the spiritual mother of all these “many brethren” of Jesus.
       • Consequently, in this third instance of apparent “remoteness,” Jesus expands the motherhood of the Virgin and essentially bestows upon her, in its true sense, the title “Mother of All the Living” in the order of grace.
         • “John is not just an individual disciple; he is portrayed by the evangelist as an icon of every disciple whom Jesus loves. In this sense, Mary is given to all beloved disciples of Christ, just as every disciple is given to the maternal care of Mary” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament, 198).
       • John builds on this image of the Virgin Mary’s spiritual motherhood in the Book of Revelation:
         • “And a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery [i.e., the birth of the Mystical Body, which occurred with the Passion of the Lord]” (Rev 12:1-2; Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament, 507; Brant Pietre, “Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary, 145).
         • “Identified by her motherhood, the woman ‘was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for her delivery’ (12:2). This note refers to the Mother of Jesus at the cross” (John Paul II, “Theotokos,” 95).
       • At the time of that delivery (i.e., the one that took place on Calvary), the sword prophesied by Simeon pierced her heart:
         • “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed” (Lk 2:34-35).
       • As a result of the birth of the Mystical Body, which is obviously a birth in a spiritual sense, she would, thereby, give birth to many offspring, again in a spiritual sense:
         • “The dragon [i.e., the Devil] was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring [i.e., her spiritual children], on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus” (Rev 12:17).
   • An Alternate View: Conclusion
     • Sheed’s presentation of the doctrine of Our Lady’s com-passion raises two questions that are almost as puzzling as the puzzle he is trying to resolve:
       • First, would not an expressed attitude of “remoteness” on the part of Jesus be a source of scandal, in regard to the third commandment’s obligation to “honor your father and your mother?
       • Second, Sheed writes, “Like all of us, she had to deny herself in order to follow Christ (Lk 9:23). What else had she that she could deny herself?” (325-1).
         • Since the Virgin Mary took on all of the effects of original sin that were not moral in nature, she could suffer everything that we could suffer, be that suffering physical, psychological or spiritual. Such sufferings require self-denial commensurate with the degree of suffering, if they are borne with patient endurance. Why, then, would we think that she would have a shortage of opportunities for self-denial?
     • The pedagogy of elevation eliminates the aforementioned questions regarding Sheed’s presentation of the doctrine of Our Lady’s com-passion. In addition, this alternate approach to the “puzzling dialogs” between Jesus and His mother provides a satisfying and attractive resolution to the puzzle. It also provides a basis for explaining why it was necessary for man (the Virgin Mary uniquely, and the rest of us commonly) to participate in the redemptive act.
7. Human Participation in the Redemptive Act
   • The Unique Mother and Son Likeness
     • In the natural order, we imagine that Jesus had a striking likeness to His Mother, since He did not have a biological father. If any child ever looked like his mother, it was this one!
     • In the supernatural order, Our Lady’s supreme glory is in her likeness to her Son (321-3).
     • This likeness is explicitly mentioned in three Scripture references that uniquely link her to her Son:
       • Sinlessness: He was sinless, necessarily because He is God. She was sinless, by the grace of her Immaculate Conception and the abundance of sanctifying grace that was given to her: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28).
         • Her sinless state was the lived expression of a prophesied enmity toward Satan: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15).
         • Note that the prophecy speaks of a supernatural enmity, an enmity that is superior in nature to that which Adam and Eve possessed. In addition, there is a correspondence between the enmity of the woman and that of her offspring. Knowing that the offspring is the son of God, who necessarily has an absolute enmity between Himself and the Devil, it follows that the enmity between the woman and the Devil, is on a similar level, with the primary difference being the source of enmity. The offspring possesses it by nature, whereas the woman possesses it by grace.
       • Blessedness: The blessedness of her soul was on a par with the blessedness of His soul as declared by Elizabeth under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:
         • “Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!’” (Lk 1:41-42).
       • Extraordinary Sorrows: Their shared sorrows are prophesied by Simeon:
         • “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed” (Lk 2:34-35).
         • “Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog!” (Ps 22:20).
       • Note that Scripture does not speak of any other person who is similarly linked to Jesus. There are parallels in the titles of Christ and Peter (foundation/rock, key-bearer, shepherd), which we discussed in chapter 20 (288-2), but these titles belong to an office rather than a person.
     • These Scripture verses that uniquely point to the likeness between Jesus and His mother lead us to a parallelism between the two of them regarding His sinlessness and suffering and her sinlessness and suffering: He was sinless and the Man of Sorrows; she was sinless and the Mother of Sorrows (321-3).
       • From the moment of His birth her life, as recorded in the Gospels, is “shot through with grief” (321-3):
         • Simeon’s prophecy
         • The flight into Egypt to save her son from murder
         • Knowledge of the other mother’s sons who were murdered by Herod
         • The three-day separation when He was twelve (noted above)
         • His Passion and Death on the cross
     • All of this points to the fact that her suffering at the time of Jesus’ Passion and Death was not merely a reaction to His suffering.. Rather, it was her own unique suffering, her own passion, as was prophesied by Simeon (322-1).
   • Man’s Contribution to the Redemptive Act
     • In His Passion, Jesus accomplished everything that man could not do; there could be nothing lacking in what He did for the human race through His sufferings, for He is the divine Son of God. “The thing that was [accomplished] was the Redemption of the race” (322-1, 272-3, 273-2).
       • Recall the principle that governs God’s dealings with us: He does for man what man cannot do for himself and He leaves the rest for man to do (see 292-2).
       • “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (Col 1:24).
     • Obviously, nothing could be lacking in what the divine Son of God did for the Church through His sufferings. The only thing that could be lacking is something that could not be done by God, that is, something that man needs to do for himself (322-3).
     • There are two elements to the part that was left for man to do, one involving the human race as a whole, and the other involving each individual human person. Recalling that God, by His own design, cannot force man’s will, let us consider these two elements:
       • First, Adam determined the moral direction of the human race when he chose self over God. This direction could only be changed by someone with a higher moral authority than Adam.
       • Second, every human person needs to choose his own moral direction.
     • Regarding the first of these two elements, “[the passion of the Virgin Mary] was part of the design of the Redemption that while the Divine Person suffered the Passion that redeemed us, a human person should suffer a passion parallel with His” (322-1).
     • But, it could not be just any human person; rather, it had to be a human person who had the moral authority to give full consent to mankind’s redemption. Let us recall what was stated earlier regarding the three correspondences between the Virgin Mary and her son:
       • Regarding sinlessness, Gen 3:15 speaks of a supernatural enmity that will exist between the Woman and the Devil.
       • Regarding blessedness, Elizabeth declares: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” (Lk 1:41-42).
       • Regarding her extraordinary sorrows, Simeon prophesied to her that “a sword will pierce through your own soul also” (Lk 2:34-35).
     • Considering these unique and extraordinary correspondences between the Virgin Mary and her son, we see that she alone could be the human person who could suffer a passion that paralleled the passion of Jesus, because she alone had the moral authority needed for a human person to consent to the redemption of the human race.
       • Recall that Jesus is not a human person (see 241-1).
     • Her passion was the lived-out consent to the redemption of mankind, just as her motherhood was the lived-out consent to her role in the Incarnation. Her consent to her “parallel passion” was given at the wedding feast in Cana.
     • “The Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and faithfully persevered in her union with her Son unto the cross, where she stood, in keeping with the divine plan, grieving exceedingly with her only begotten Son, uniting herself with a maternal heart with His sacrifice, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of this Victim which she herself had brought forth” (Lumen Gentium, VIII, 58).
   • Regarding the second of the two elements in what man had to do for himself, consider that in the act of Redemption, there were two aspects: the human nature in which the act was done and the divine Person by whom the act was done (323-2).
     • Because it was an act in human nature, it could rightly be offered for the sin of man (323-2, 296-3).
     • Because it was the act of a Divine Person, it had an infinite value (323-2, 296-3).
   • Hence, in Christ, human nature gave its uttermost in the expiation of man’s sin (323-2).
   • Now, if the expiation of man’s sin is accomplished only in the human nature of Christ, then human nature as a whole has not given its uttermost, for the rest of mankind is left as merely a spectator of its own redemption, contributing nothing of its own (323-3).
   • But such was not the case, for it was God’s design that the love of individual men and women should not be denied a place in the expiation of their sins (323-3).
   • Accordingly, “redeemed humanity should suffer in union with Christ, and in union with Christ these sufferings should be co-redemptive” (323-3):
     • “When St. Paul says that in a body the head cannot say to the foot, ‘I have no need of you,’ he may be speaking in all strictness of the [Mystical] Body and [Christ] the Head” (323-3).
   • There is, then, a co-redemptive action that is necessarily united with the redemptive action of Christ. Of this co-redemptive action, every man plays a part “insofar as he unites his sufferings with Christ’s” (324-1).
     • “We are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:16-17).
   • Thus, “human nature is privileged to repeat [by way of participatiaon] in the persons of men what it has completed in the person of Christ” (324-1).
8. Our Lady’s Unique Participation in the Redemptive Act
   • Note that our participation in Jesus’ redemptive act is limited by our personal sins; however, Our Lady, who was sinless, could offer the entirety of her sufferings for the sins of mankind, as did her Son, because she had no sins of her own that needed expiation (324-1).
   • Our Lady suffered like any other mother who sees her child suffer, yet she could suffer more than any other mother because of her unique moral perfection and because her child was infinitely more worthy of love than any other child (324-1).
     • “The Immaculate Conception and the fullness of grace did not withdraw Mary from pain, but rather made her all the more sensitive to suffer from contact with sin, the greatest of evils” (Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Mother of the Savior, 45).
   • “But for the completion of suffering, she must have sufferings of her own, and at their highest these must be in the soul. Her son chose for her and she chose for herself the suffering that would lead to the uttermost increase of her sanctification, and give her the most to contribute to the spiritual needs of all of us” (324-1).
     • Sheed does not explain what he means when he says “for the completion of suffering, she must have sufferings of her own.” He seems to be assuming that it is common knowledge that the sufferings of the Virgin Mary were unique among the suffering of human persons in terms of degree.
     • We can easily accept that as being the case, but he should have demonstrated that to be the case, for that is the normal way of theology. This appears to be a case of “begging the question” (a logical fallacy in which the conclusion of a syllogism is assumed in the premises of the syllogism). That doesn’t mean the conclusion is invalid; it just means that nothing has been proved in the syllogism.
   • Her Divine Son loved her supernaturally (i.e., with the will of His divine nature), far more than He loved any other person, whether angel or man, because she responded fully to the grace she received, and the grace she received was vaster than that received by any other finite person (324-1).
   • Her Divine Son also loved her naturally (i.e., with the will of His human nature), and this second sort of love was a wonderful thing in itself, but it was still second (324-1).
   • “It does seem at least possible that for the increase of supernatural love, she denied herself . . . some of the intimacies and consolations that normally flow from the natural relation of mother and son (324-2).
     • “Jesus desires to associate with His redeeming sacrifice those who were to be its first beneficiaries. This is achieved supremely in the case of His mother, who was associated more intimately than any other person in the mystery of His redemptive suffering” (CCC 618).
   • She would have seen clearly that the “external accompaniments of natural love are not in themselves of the essence of [love]; and that self-denial in their regard would lead not only to a growth of that which matters most, supernatural love, but thereby to a growth of [her] natural love too” (325-1).
     • Bishop Sheen says something similar: “He [i.e., Jesus] begins detaching Himself from His mother, seemingly alienating His affections with growing unconcern – only to reveal at the very end that what He was doing was introducing her through sorrow to a new and deeper dimension of love” (Sheen, “The World’s First Love,” 128).
   • “Like all of us, she had to deny herself in order to follow Christ (Lk 9:23). What else had she that she could deny herself?” (325-1).
     • It is not at all clear why Sheed follows this line of reasoning. The Virgin Mary took on all of the effects of original sin that were not moral in nature. Consequently, she could suffer everything that we could suffer, be that suffering physical, psychological or spiritual.
     • Hence, it would seem as though she would have had, not fewer, but more opportunities to suffer because, in her exalted state of holiness, she would understand the sufferings of her son more acutely than any other human person.
     • Further, she excelled in all the virtues. Now, charity is the root of all virtue, and the nature of charity, in this life, is self-giving, which always requires suffering. Because she excelled in all the virtues beyond the measure of any other human person, she necessarily suffered more than any other human person.
9. Co-Redeemer: The Representative Human Person
   • Though we all have a share in the co-redemptive suffering of the Mystical Body, by uniting our sufferings with those of our Head, Our Lady offered her sufferings perfectly, whereas we offer ours with greater and lesser degrees of imperfection (325-2).
   • Hence, her sufferings count not simply as the sufferings of one of us, nor as the sufferings of the best of us, but as the sufferings of the representative human person because she ranks first among us (recall that Jesus was not a human person) (325-2).
   • “We shall not see her clearly if we do not grasp this representative function of hers” (325-2).
   • In her response to the angel Gabriel, when she was asked her to be the mother of the Redeemer, she was uttering the consent of the entire human race (325-2):
     • “Be it done to me according to thy word” (Lk 1:38).
     • “In the Annunciation the Virgin’s consent was besought in lieu of that of the entire human nature [i.e., human race]” (Summa III, q. 30, a. 1).
     • Note that this consent of hers was explicit with respect to the Incarnation, but only implicit with respect to the Redemption.
   • Having been assumed body and soul into heaven, she is the only “complete” (i.e., with body and soul) human person standing before the throne of God, until the Day of Judgment (325-2).
   • “So here God allowed that the suffering of the Divine Person should be accompanied by a wholly human suffering, as earnest of the suffering of redeemed humanity that was to be spread through the ages” (325-2).
   • As Christ represents humanity in the Redemptive Act, she represents humanity in the co-redemptive act”
     • His suffering was essential; the value of hers is derived from His (326-1).
     • His was the Passion; hers was the com-passion (326-1).
     • He is the Redeemer; she is the Co-Redemptrix (326-1).
10. The Mystical Body
    • An Unusual Difficulty
      • The doctrine of the Mystical Body is a difficult doctrine, not that it is difficult to grasp, as is the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, but that it is difficult to grasp that the Church really means it (326-2).
      • “It is the hardest thing in the world to comprehend that we are what this doctrine says we are. We feel that we are not upon the scale for such magnificence” (326-2).
      • We must become humbly reconciled to our magnificence as Christians and not be deluded by our meagerness as men (326-2).
      • “Learn, O Christian, thy dignity” (St. Leo the Great, d. 461, Sermon 21, 3; 326-2).