inundado por um mistério de luz que é Deus e N´Ele vi e ouvi -A ponta da lança como chama que se desprende, toca o eixo da terra, – Ela estremece: montanhas, cidades, vilas e aldeias com os seus moradores são sepultados. - O mar, os rios e as nuvens saem dos seus limites, transbordam, inundam e arrastam consigo num redemoinho, moradias e gente em número que não se pode contar , é a purificação do mundo pelo pecado em que se mergulha. - O ódio, a ambição provocam a guerra destruidora! - Depois senti no palpitar acelerado do coração e no meu espírito o eco duma voz suave que dizia: – No tempo, uma só Fé, um só Batismo, uma só Igreja, Santa, Católica, Apostólica: - Na eternidade, o Céu! 
It has been written, and rightly so, that “if there is an aspect of the mystery of Mary especially fitting to the life and work of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, it is certainly the coredemptive aspect of the person and mission of the Immaculate in God’s salvific plan of love” (1).
The mystery of Mary Coredemptrix is present in the life and writings of St. Pio of Pietrelcina at the highest levels of mystical experience which he lived out in body and soul, and of the theologia cordis transmitted by him to his spiritual children in the language of that wisdom transcending by far a language limited to the solely notional and conceptual (2).
St. Pio of Pietrelcina in the first place lived the mystery of Marian Coredemption in his exceptional mystical experience of the Passion of Christ Crucified, of which he bore the living and bleeding stigmata in his body for fifty entire years, from 1918 to 1968. He became an “imprinted reproduction of the wounds of the Lord,” according to the happy expression of Pope Paul VI (3). In this exceptional mystical experience he co-immolated himself with Christ, assimilating himself in a most extensive and profound manner to the Mother Coredemptrix who immolates herself with the Son on the Cross in order to bring to pass the universal Redemption (4). It has been written that, “Padre Pio penetrated the sorrows of Mary and participated in them, mirrored them, relived them; as his soul had been a partaker in the sorrows of the Passion, so too he had the gift of participating in the sorrows of Mary” (5).
Into this area of mystical experience, however, the inexperienced are not allowed to enter nor are they in a position to speak of it. St. Bonaventure, the “Seraphic Doctor,” teaches expressly that, with regard to the mystical, “those who are not experts and who do not wish to become experienced, must absolutely keep silent” (6).
What is more within the range of our intelligence, then, is the coredemptive aspect of St. Pio of Pietrelcina’s active ministry. He exercised the ministry of the confessional for more than fifty years, administering the Sacrament of Reconciliation to such a vast family of penitents that Pope Paul VI called it, in yet another happy expression, a “worldwide clientele” (7). But to administer the Sacrament of forgiveness and of reconciliation between mankind and God means to operate on the same wavelength, so to speak, as Marian Coredemption. In fact, Mary Most Holy, being united with the Redeemer—”under Him and with Him,” as Vatican II teaches (LG 56)—reconciled humanity with God through the sacrificial offering consummated on Calvary; and after Calvary she continues unceasingly to reconcile man to God with her Mediation and Distribution of all the graces of Redemption. Consequently, she is proclaimed the Mother of universal reconciliation.
The spiritual director of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, Fr. Benedict of San Marco, once told St. Pio in a letter of spiritual direction that his particular vocation was a “vocation to coredeem” by means of the daily trials, battles, sufferings, and toils coming from the exercise of his ministry. And in reference particularly to his work as a confessor, it has been accurately observed that “in the ministry of reconciliation, Padre Pio prolonged or, in a certain sense, actualized the fruitfulness of grace of Marian Coredemption which ‘restores the supernatural life in souls’ (LG 61). In fact, the divine grace acquired by the Redeemer and the Coredemptrix in the ‘effecting‘ of the Redemption is here distributed and applied to every soul in need by means of the sacramental absolution given by Padre Pio to his penitents” (8).
To understand St. Pio’s “vocation to coredeem” better, one must also consult his writings, of primary value where he speaks of the Coredemptrix in the salvific mystery. And one recognizes immediately that his discourse is not theoretical or notional, but reflects instead the most profound and moving characteristics of the theologia cordis, of theology lived at the level of ascetical and mystical experience , one which gives a knowledge of the mystery characteristically sapiential and experiential, as St. Bonaventure explains (9).
The pages in which St. Pio speaks of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s sorrows are exceedingly numerous (10). In these pages the figure of Our Lady of Sorrows is present in her immense coredemptive suffering, and she is seen walking along the way to Calvary “immediately behind Jesus… burdened with her own cross” (11). A cross for Jesus, a cross for Mary. It is of value here to recall the insight of Arnold of Chartres who speaks of a double altar on Calvary: “one in the Heart of Mary, the other in the Body of Christ. Christ sacrificed His flesh, Mary her soul” (12). And St. Pio recommends to all “to keep always right behind this Blessed Mother, to walk always close to her, since there is no other road which leads to life, except the one trod by our Mother” (13).
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)
The words “dear Coredemptrix” express most exactly soteriological value of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s maternal mission in the tones of a pure theologia cordis. She coredeemed humanity by offering the divine Victim, her Son Jesus, in the bloody immolation of the Cross, and co-immolating herself with Him in order to “restore supernatural life to souls” (LG 61), became in this way our “Mother in the order of grace” (LG 1.c.) (18). She “gave birth to us in sorrows,” affirms St. Pio. She is, therefore, the Mother Coredemptrix. She desires to raise her children and, what is more, to make them grow even unto the stature of Christ. She is, therefore, the Mother Mediatrix and Dispensatrix of all graces (19), always “associated with Jesus in applying the fruits of the Redemption to souls,” as Fr. Melchior da Pobladura writes (20). The Coredemptrix reacquired the grace lost. The Mediatrix distributes the grace reacquired. There is an operative continuity between the Coredemption and Distribution of saving grace. And, according to the teaching of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, we should be eternally grateful to “our dear Coredemptrix” and to our “Mediatrix and Dispensatrix of all graces.”
Fr. Stefano Maria Manelli, F.I., is Founder of the Franciscans of the Immaculate. He is internationally known for his distinguished preaching and biblical, Mariological scholarship. His Biblical Mariology has recently appeared in English under the title: All Generations Shall Call Me Blessed.
Notes
(1) N. Castello, S.M. Manelli, La “dolce Signora” di Padre Pio, Cinisello Balsamo, IT 1999, p.119.
(2) On this theme cf. the more far ranging and elaborate study: S.M. Manelli, Maria SS.ma Corredentrice nella vita e negli scritti di Padre Pio da Pietrelcina, in AA.VV., Maria Corredentrice, Frigento, IT 1999, vol. II, pp.277-294; see also: N. Castello, S.M. Manelli, La “dolce Signora” di Padre Pio, edition cited, pp.119-128.
(3) Paolo VI, Discorso, Feb. 20, 1971.
(4) It has been written, with good reason, that in the life and writings of St. Pio “the transparent, close and indissoluble union of Mary Coredemptrix and Mediatrix of all graces with Jesus the one Mediator between God and men is (found) everywhere” Melchiorre da Pobladura, Alla scuola spirituale di Padre Pio da Pietrelcina, San Giovanni Rotondo, IT 1978, p.93.
(5) A. Negrisolo, N. Castello, S.M. Manelli, Padre Pio nella sua interiorità, Rome, IT 1997, p. 58. Of considerable importance and interest would be a comparative study of the mystical experience and coredemptive thought of St. Pio and St. Veronica Giuliani (cf. Sr. Maria Francesca Perillo, Il mistero di Maria Corredentrice in santa Veronica Giuliani, in AA.VV., Maria Corredentrice, Frigento, IT 1999, vol. II, pp.169-217).
(6) St. Bonaventure, Apologia Pauperum, c.9, n.27; VII, 303.
(7) Discorso, Feb. 20, 1971.
(8) N. Castello, S.M. Manelli, work cited, pp.127-128. It should also be noted that St. Pio frequently recalled Our Lady of Sorrows to his penitents in giving them the sacramental penance of reciting seven Hail Mary’s to Our Lady of Sorrows, “and sometimes he could not succeed in finishing the word Addolorata (Our Lady of Sorrows) without an outburst of tears!” (ibid. p. 123).
(9) Cf. St. Bonaventure, Questio disputata de perfectione evangelica, Q.1, conclusion.
(10) Cf., for example, the first volume of the Epistolario, San Giovanni Rotondo, IT 1992, pp.213, 345, 384, 601, 639, 993 (here cited as: Ep.).
(11) Ep. I, p.597.
(12) Arnold of Chartres, De septem verbis Domini in cruce, 3, PL 189, 1694. This is a text quoted by Pope John Paul II in a catechesis on the Marian Coredemption on Oct. 25, 1995.
(13) Ep. I, p.602.
(14) So he writes, for example, in a letter: “Oh God, what torture I feel… Would that I could at least have the satisfaction of pouring out this interior martyrdom with tears. The sorrow is immense and has overwhelmed me.” (ibid. 993).
(15) Ibid.
(16) Ep. III, p. 190.
(17) Ibid., p.384.
(18) The following is well stated: “As to the words ‘dear Coredemptrix’ it is important to verify how for Padre Pio of Pietrelcina the term Coredemptrix serves also to efficaciously explain the truth of the compassion and transfixion of Mary Most Holy in the universal work of Redemption. Here mystical theology, too, supports the usage of the term Coredemptrix, already common in Mariology and in the Church for centuries, used even by the Sovereign Pontiffs, and particularly by Pope John Paul II” (N. Castello, S.M. Manelli, work cited, pp.126-127).
(19) St. Pio himself wrote these expressions on a little memorial image for his fiftieth anniversary as a priest, calling Our Lady precisely the “most sweet Mother (mamma) of priests, Mediatrix and Dispensatrix of all graces” (reported by Ferdinando da Riese, P. Pio da Pietrelcina crocifisso senza croce, Foggia, IT 1991, p.428).
(20) Melchiorre da Pobladura, op. cit., p.96.
St. Francis Xavier Cabrini († 1917) Foundress, and ardent missionary among the immigrants, has left a patrimony of pure and profound faith both by her example and her teachings. In an anthology on the words of Mother Cabrini treated by the wise theologian Giuseppe De Luca, (1) we find a harvest of simple but essential doctrine, animated by a “theological faith,” writes Miotto, “lived ad intra in that most intimate dynamic of the love of the Holy Spirit, manifested and radiated ad extra in the dynamic of that labor of love translated into works of charity, into the active apostolate, into that unwearied missionary passion even to the end.” (2)
Within the patrimony of her teaching there is contained the precious pearl of doctrine on Marian Coredemption. In God’s salvific design, in fact, St. Francis Xavier Cabrini points out the centrality of Mary’s presence who, given to us by Christ, “is the Mediatrix between God and men, our most amiable Mother,” (3) and with a very pertinent biblical reference, she defines Blessed Mary as the “New Eve, true Mother of the living,” (4) as the one “chosen by God to be Coredemptrix of the human race.” (5) From Eve to Mary, from the sinful mother to the Mother Coredemptrix: these passages are explicit and enlightening. Mary’s salvific mission is rooted in Genesis 3:15, the most celebrated biblical prophecy that presents the Mother and Son indissolubly united in the work of Redemption.
To this biblical reference, furthermore, Mother Cabrini wisely unites the reference to the Pontifical teaching which gives it the security and guarantee of infallible truth. In her times Pope St. Pius X was her principal Master in the Faith, and to him she expressly appeals when she explains the mystery of the Marian Coredemption, writing that “if the glory of giving life to our Redeemer pertained to her, then also, as our Holy Father said so well, the office of guarding and preparing the Sacred Victim of the human race for sacrifice pertained to her as well. Mary was not only the Mother of Jesus in the joys of Bethlehem, but even more so on Calvary,… and there she merited to become our most worthy Coredemptrix.” (6)
This too is a splendid page of doctrine and faith, exemplary by its simplicity of diction and by its essential theological content. Mother Cabrini, with her strong and profound sensus fidei, sees Mary’s salvific mission as Coredemptrix as being most strictly united with that of her divine Son. She sees the divine Mother as entirely consecrated, for the whole span of her life, to her Son’s redemptive work for the salvation of the human race, she herself preparing “the Sacred Victim” to be offered on Calvary in a co-immolation so interior and personal, so real and matter of fact, as to merit her becoming “the most worthy Coredemptrix.”
In these affirmations of Mother Cabrini the truth of the Marian Coredemption is presented clearly and firmly in its substance, bound to its biblical roots, nourished by the Church’s Magisterium, espoused to the serenity and security of faith which does not encounter any obstacles in believing and transmitting a doctrine that makes up a part of the Church’s grand, perennial patrimony of Faith. In St. Francis Xavier Cabrini’s teaching it is obvious that she did not have the need to defend the truth of the Marian Coredemption. Quite the contrary. There was nothing to defend. She writes and speaks of this most precious truth of our Faith with the maternal concern of recommending to the Mother Coredemptrix the entire work of the apostolate and of evangelization which she and her daughters were engaged in throughout the world.
Miotto, in fact, writes that for Mother Cabrini our Blessed Lady:
is the Mother Coredemptrix, united and inseparable from her Redeemer Son in her cooperation with the accomplishment and completion of the universal plan for salvation, always “serving towards the mystery of Redemption under Him and with Him,” as Vatican II summarizes it (L.G. 56). This is the substance of the most genuine Marian soteriology, all in the key of the Coredemption, which we find in the holy Mother Cabrini’s intrepid and ardent life of faith, having sailed forth without rest across the oceans from one continent to another. (7)
Endnotes
(1) G. DE LUCA, Parole sparse della Beata Cabrini, Rome, IT, 1938.
(2) S.M. MIOTTO, La voce dei Santi e la “Corredentrice,” in Maria Corredentrice, Frigento, IT, 2000, vol. III, p. 203. It is interesting to point out the rich biblical-symbolic intonation of Cabrini’s thought (cf. ibid. p. 204, nt. 40).
(3) Parole sparse della Beata Cabrini, edition cited, p. 164.
(4) Ibid. p. 169.
(5) Ibid. 1.c.
(6) Ibid. p. 170. Pope St. Pius X wrote the following text: “Not only is praise due to the most holy Mother of God for having formed ‘the material of the flesh of the only Son of God who had to be born with human members’, and not only for having as such prepared a victim for the salvation of men, but she also had the task of guarding and nourishing the Victim, and of placing Him on the altar on the day established” (AAS 36, 1903-1904, 453).
(7) Work cited, pp. 205-206.
(2) S.M. MIOTTO, La voce dei Santi e la “Corredentrice,” in Maria Corredentrice, Frigento, IT, 2000, vol. III, p. 203. It is interesting to point out the rich biblical-symbolic intonation of Cabrini’s thought (cf. ibid. p. 204, nt. 40).
(3) Parole sparse della Beata Cabrini, edition cited, p. 164.
(4) Ibid. p. 169.
(5) Ibid. 1.c.
(6) Ibid. p. 170. Pope St. Pius X wrote the following text: “Not only is praise due to the most holy Mother of God for having formed ‘the material of the flesh of the only Son of God who had to be born with human members’, and not only for having as such prepared a victim for the salvation of men, but she also had the task of guarding and nourishing the Victim, and of placing Him on the altar on the day established” (AAS 36, 1903-1904, 453).
(7) Work cited, pp. 205-206.
Fr. Stefano Manelli, F.I., is Founder of the Franciscans of the Immaculate. He is internationally known for his distinguished preaching and biblical, Mariological scholarship. His biblical Mariology has recently appeared in English under the title: All Generations Shall Call Me Blessed.
Pope Paul VI placed St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe “among the great Saints and enlightened spirits who have understood, venerated and sung the mystery of Mary,” (1) and Pope John Paul II placed in relief the prophetic vision and great value of St. Maximilian’s life and Mariology for the Church today. (2) Consequently, St. Maximilian’s Mariological doctrine has already been the subject of studies at the highest level of systematic research and scholarship. (3) With regards to his doctrine on Marian Coredemption, there is a detailed study by L. Iammorrone. (4)
St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe († 1941)
The coredemptive thought of St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe is of great value for several reasons. He was our contemporary, and more importantly, was a great mystic and Marian theologian, besides being such an extraordinary apostle and missionary of the Immaculate as to be called the “Fool of the Immaculate,” (5) and to be defined by the Ven. Fr. Gabriel Allegra, his contemporary, as an “Apostle of the end times,” (6) recalling the thought of St. Louis Mary Grignon de Montfort. (7)
It has been written, and rightly so, that “if there is an aspect of the mystery of Mary especially fitting to the life and work of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, it is certainly the coredemptive aspect of the person and mission of the Immaculate in God’s salvific plan of love” (1).
The mystery of Mary Coredemptrix is present in the life and writings of St. Pio of Pietrelcina at the highest levels of mystical experience which he lived out in body and soul, and of the theologia cordis transmitted by him to his spiritual children in the language of that wisdom transcending by far a language limited to the solely notional and conceptual (2).
St. Pio of Pietrelcina in the first place lived the mystery of Marian Coredemption in his exceptional mystical experience of the Passion of Christ Crucified, of which he bore the living and bleeding stigmata in his body for fifty entire years, from 1918 to 1968. He became an “imprinted reproduction of the wounds of the Lord,” according to the happy expression of Pope Paul VI (3). In this exceptional mystical experience he co-immolated himself with Christ, assimilating himself in a most extensive and profound manner to the Mother Coredemptrix who immolates herself with the Son on the Cross in order to bring to pass the universal Redemption (4). It has been written that, “Padre Pio penetrated the sorrows of Mary and participated in them, mirrored them, relived them; as his soul had been a partaker in the sorrows of the Passion, so too he had the gift of participating in the sorrows of Mary” (5).
St. Luke is the true artist of the Virgin Mary. We should be grateful to him because he has sketched for us the sober, lovely features of our Lady, recounting for us those important episodes that illumine the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation. As a diligent and faithful historian, he carefully researched the events and stories reported in his Gospel, thus guaranteeing that what we read truly occurred and is solidly documented. (1)
But what were the sources of the information contained in the first two chapters of the Gospel of St. Luke? The one certain response is this: only Mary most holy was the protagonist and depository of the events narrated in the “infancy Gospel.” She was the “eyewitness,” says Laurentin. (2) Only she, then, is the source; only she is the matrix of the narratives reported in the first two chapters of St. Luke and of St. Matthew: “Mary was the only witness of the Annunciation,” writes Testa, “the principal protagonist of the other events.” (3)
Comprehensive theological analysis of the relationship between the “Fatima-event” and the mystery of Redemption-Coredemption is a most valuable research endeavor. It is an undertaking capable of generating understanding of all the “Fatima” happenings in light of the great, divine plan of the history of salvation, rooted in the mysteries of the Incarnation of the Word and of universal redemption.
What we can say straight away, though, is that the Redemption and the Coredemption—which constitute the greatest divine work, after Creation—run together like the two rails of one railway track, uniting the Redeemer and the Coredemptrix to one another, according to God’s plan, with a “close and indissoluble tie,” as Lumen Gentium (LG) n. 53 says. It is a concept of unity and indissolubility that draws upon the phrase “uno eodemque decreto—with one and the same decree” in Pope Pius IX’s Bull Ineffabilis Deus, for the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, eternally predestined together with the Incarnate Word of God.
Regarding the concepts of redemption and coredemption and the dogmatic content of the same, we refer our hearers to the very many specialized theological treatises that deal with such (1). In this paper, we limit ourselves to offering the most succinct résumé of those fundamental points necessary to better establish the relation of redemption and coredemption to the contents of the message of the Immaculate Heart of Mary at Fatima.
The following article is an excerpt from the recently published Marian anthology, Mariology: A Guide for Priests, Deacons, Seminarians, and Consecrated Persons, Seat of Wisdom Books, A Division of Queenship, 2008. Fifteen international Mariology experts contributed to the text. The book features a foreword by Archbishop Raymond L. Burke and has 17 chapters divided into four parts: 1. Mary in Scripture and the Early Church; 2. Marian Dogma; 3. Marian Doctrine; and 4. Marian Liturgy and Devotion. The book is now available from Queenship Publications. To obtain a copy, visit queenship.org. Visit books.google.com and search on "Mariology: A Guide" to view the book in its entirety, or simply click here.
Asst. Ed.
Asst. Ed.
If Holy Scripture, from an inter-testamental perspective, is the birthplace of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the history of salvation, one must also add that the Old Testament was this unique creature’s first land of birth in the world.
But most accurately, the origins of the Blessed Virgin Mary are transcendent, from eternity, in the "one and the same decree" of the Incarnation of the Word, universal Savior and Redeemer (1), about whom numerous pages of Old Testament revelation speak. For us this revelation constitutes the original source of the creative and saving plan of God.
To know the homeland of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is in fact enough to know the Mariological texts of the Old Testament, reading them "as they are read in the Church" (2), according to the norms of biblical-theological exegesis, i.e., "in the light of Christ and of the Church" (3), to find in them what is called "Mariology in its roots." Such Mariology in the New Testament and "in the Tradition originating with the apostles and developing in the Church under the assistance of the Holy Spirit" (Dei Verbum 8) has come to full maturity in its historical-theological realization (4).
I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed: he shall crush your head. (1)
The historical datum of this fundamental text of Genesis opens our eyes to that stupendous drama whose conclusion is the promised salvation. At the dawn of human history, our first parents, Adam and Eve, were living happily in the earthly paradise. The woman, Eve, unfortunately was seduced by the cunning of the serpent. She fell into sin and induced the man, Adam, to fall with her.
It was a tragic moment in that history. Its entire future had been compromised. In its first ancestors, the human race was forever lost, unless a Redeemer capable of restoring man to friendship with God was found. But precisely then, at the onset of the gloomy darkness of sin, there shone a ray of future hope. God intervened to tell how a “woman,” with her “seed,” would do battle against the serpent and crush its head. This text of Genesis has rightly been called the “Protoevangelium,” i.e., the first and most important prophetic announcement heralding the good news of salvation for mankind. […]
It has rightly been written that “Pontifical doctrinal authority with the halo of sanctity constitutes the maximum guarantee, even charismatic, of the pure truth animated by the summit of charity.” (1) With St. Pius X we actually find ourselves at the school of a great Pope and Saint who taught and sustained the truth of Marian Coredemption, if not in a solemn form, still with the ordinary Magisterium which must, in any case, be accepted with “religious respect of will and of intelligence,” according to the teaching of Vatican II (L.G. 25). In this mode Pope St. Pius X confirms the common and constant doctrine, but in a coherent and fixed way, thus creating a first-class vehicle for the title of Coredemptrix into the official vocabulary of the Holy See. (2)
In his encyclical letter Ad diem illum, written to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the dogmatic proclamation of the Immaculate Conception, Pope St. Pius X presents the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation as strictly, indissolubly bound to the Blessed Virgin Mary’s maternal and coredemptive mission, to her who, the Pope affirms, would have “the task of guarding and nourishing the Victim, and of placing Him on the altar. From this is derived that communion of life and of sorrows between Mother and Son, sorrows to which, for both of Them in equal manner, can be applied the words of the Prophet: ‘My life is consumed in sorrow, my years are passed in groaning’ (Ps 30:1).” (3) […]
The Eucharist is the Bread of the Mother of God, our Mother. It is Bread made by Mary from the flour of her immaculate flesh, kneaded with her virginal milk. St. Augustine wrote, “Jesus took His Flesh from the flesh of Mary.”
“You Are My Son”
We know, too, that in the Eucharist, together with the Divinity, are the entire Body and Blood of Jesus taken from the body and blood of the Blessed Virgin. Therefore, at every Holy Communion we receive, it would be quite correct, and a very beautiful thing, to take notice of our holy Mother’s sweet and mysterious presence, inseparably and totally united with Jesus in the Host. Jesus is ever her adored Son. He is Flesh of her flesh and Blood of her blood. If Adam could call Eve when she had been formed from his rib, “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23), cannot the holy Virgin Mary even more rightly call Jesus “Flesh of my flesh and Blood of my blood”? Taken from the “intact Virgin” as St. Thomas Aquinas says, the Flesh of Jesus is of the maternal flesh of Mary, the Blood of Jesus is of the maternal blood of Mary. Therefore, it will never be possible to separate Jesus from Mary. […]
St. Francis Xavier Cabrini († 1917) Foundress, and ardent missionary among the immigrants, has left a patrimony of pure and profound faith both by her example and her teachings. In an anthology on the words of Mother Cabrini treated by the wise theologian Giuseppe De Luca, (1) we find a harvest of simple but essential doctrine, animated by a “theological faith,” writes Miotto, “lived ad intra in that most intimate dynamic of the love of the Holy Spirit, manifested and radiated ad extra in the dynamic of that labor of love translated into works of charity, into the active apostolate, into that unwearied missionary passion even to the end.” (2)
Within the patrimony of her teaching there is contained the precious pearl of doctrine on Marian Coredemption. In God’s salvific design, in fact, St. Francis Xavier Cabrini points out the centrality of Mary’s presence who, given to us by Christ, “is the Mediatrix between God and men, our most amiable Mother,” (3) and with a very pertinent biblical reference, she defines Blessed Mary as the “New Eve, true Mother of the living,” (4) as the one “chosen by God to be Coredemptrix of the human race.” (5) From Eve to Mary, from the sinful mother to the Mother Coredemptrix: these passages are explicit and enlightening. Mary’s salvific mission is rooted in Genesis 3:15, the most celebrated biblical prophecy that presents the Mother and Son indissolubly united in the work of Redemption. […]