Monica Miller must have had this essay in her desk drawer ready to go, just waiting for this moment to arrive. She begins right out of the gate reminding the pope, an Augustinian, that none other than St. Augustine had said
Two parents have generated us for death; two parents have generated us for life.
The observation is as true as the comparison is false. Adam and Eve were husband and wife. Mary and the Holy Ghost were not.
Yes, St. Augustine's mother was also named Monica.
Later in her essay our Monica reminds the pope that Mary instigated her son's mission at the Wedding at Cana, dontchaknow.
She is the New Eve, the true and effective helpmate of the New Adam.
Apart from how this is creepy connubial Christ talk, our Monica apparently sees herself in a similar light, trying to move her son the pope along in the right direction.
But kinda more like the old Eve than St. Monica, to be perfectly frank, our Monica finds her "hath God said" opening:
The [pope's] Note doesn’t say that the Co-redemptrix title for Mary is
heretical but, rather, “inappropriate” and is discouraging its use for
the reasons indicated. It is important to note that the document
certainly acknowledges that Mary is “the first and foremost collaborator
in the work of Redemption and grace.”
Doesn't say?
This is absolutely comic.
But wait! There's more:
My purpose here is to clarify and highlight that while,
thus far, the Vatican has rejected the Marian title “Co-redemptrix,”
nonetheless, Mary was and is God’s chief co-worker in the salvific
mission of her Son.
Thus far?
Monica is nothing if not hopeful about the future for Mary, Co-Redemptrix. And subversive:
And while the Church, for now, will not honor Mary formally under the
title of Co-redemptrix, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the faithful
cannot, in our private devotions, honor her in this way.
For now?
You see what I mean.
But our Monica rightly has every reason to be hopeful, because she understands the logic of her position, a logic which was born when the early followers of Jesus decided that their crucified master wasn't dead but was a resurrected god.
Once you introduce that first novelty, however, you have to explain where this god came from, hence the virgin birth idea, which is totally absent from Mark's Gospel, and under attack in John's. From there the novelties just multiplied.
It took a long time for that logic to do its work to elevate Jesus' mother, although our Monica highlights it already acting upon the imaginations of early Christian luminaries like Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus, and others.
We did not get, formally, the Immaculate Conception of Mary until 1854, and the Assumption of Mary until 1950. These are modern age developments! Papal infallibility dates to 1870, Daily Reception of Holy Communion to 1905.
Mary The Co-Redeemer in 2052 anyone?
The Reformation tried, not entirely successfully, to rescue the church from this line of thinking through its rediscovery of Paul, whose thinking was nowhere Marian but Christ-centered.
The first Adam, completely counter trend, was the only man not born of woman until the last Adam. Of course Paul was not thinking this through when he said that Jesus was "born of a woman" in Galatians 4:4.
Well how did Jesus escape original sin then?
We are not told, only that as Paul's theology developed Paul plainly said that Jesus "knew no sin" (II Corinthians 5:21), and was made of different stuff:
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
-- Romans 5:14
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. ...
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. ...
The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
-- I Corinthians 15: 22, 45, 47.
The answer of Matthew 1:18, 20 and Luke 1:35 is that that different stuff was "of the Holy Ghost". And that pretty much explains how the fourth and fifth centuries came to be spent, not on Marian concerns, but Christological.
The Marianists major in the minors.
%20by%20Alexandre%20Cabanel.png)
_basilica_inferiore_di_assisi_(1310-1329).jpg)
