In the midst of a terrible world war that locked most of Europe in death and destruction, Pope Benedict XV sought to end the conflict of World War I by beginning a novena to Our Lady, Queen of Peace on May 5, 1917.  On the ninth day, Our Lady herself responded by visiting three peasant children in Fatima, Portugal on May 13.  This would be the first of six consecutive apparitions, each occurring on the13^th day of the month each, in which Our Lady preached a message of penance and peace.  The most famous of these apparitions occurred on October 13, 1917 when 75,000 witnesses saw the sun dance across the sky and Our Lady identified herself as Our Lady of the Rosary to the visionaries.  But it is the third apparition that contains the heart of the message of Fatima.  This is where Our Lady revealed the so-called “three secrets of Fatima,” the second of which predicted war, famine, and great persecution of the Church.  These dire circumstances could be prevented provided that two conditions were fulfilled, namely consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation.  Specifically she told the children, “[T]o prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.”  As the Church celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, it is a fitting time to reflect on these two conditions Our Lady set forth.

As most of us know, public revelation closed with the death of St. John the Apostle which means that “…no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet even if Revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries” (CCC 66).  This is the mission of the Church as Mother and Teacher; to aid us in grasping its full significance.  One of the tools she has at her disposal is what is commonly referred to as private revelation (e.g. the apparitions at Fatima).

Private revelation has the purpose of not revealing new doctrine but guiding humanity in its efforts to incorporate more fully the truths of the Gospel already contained in public Revelation.  This distinction is conveyed by Pope St. John XXIII during an address at Lourdes in which he said that private revelation is“…not proposing new doctrines but to guide us in our conduct.”  In general the Church deems that the messages of some apparitions as worthy of belief.  Therefore we are not strictly bound by them as we are other matters of faith.  But because the Church has declared their messages to be truly of God we are bound to them by reason, the way we are to all truths sufficiently proven.  In other words, even though we are not bound by faith to the messages of Fatima, we ought to take seriously its message because the Church has approved its message.  This is especially true when a cult arises around an apparition with the naming of a universal feast day like today—how we worship, reveals what we believe, “Lex Orandi, lex credendi.”

What makes the message of Fatima so remarkable is that Our Lady called for action by the Holy Father and he complied.  While it is debatable as to which Holy Father actually fulfilled the requirements of the Consecration of Russia fully , the fact that a private revelation caused the Pope (or even several Popes) to respond is incredible.  When he renewed the consecration in 1984, Pope St. John Paul II went a step further and consecrated the whole world to the Immaculate Heart.  Given that private revelation cannot add to public Revelation, this act must then be in accord with something already found in divine Revelation, especially considering that the Holy Father took the demand so seriously.

It seems that a great many people, Catholics included, recoil at the idea of consecration to Our Lady.  After all, no one can consecrate himself and only God can consecrate (i.e. make someone holy).  However, the common usage in the Church is that it means making a sacred commitment.  To say we are consecrating ourselves is to say that we are entering into this partnership in a solemn way.

But still, why would we be consecrated to Our Lady?  Shouldn’t this just be something we enter into with Jesus?  The short answer is that we consecrate ourselves to Our Lady precisely because we have already given ourselves to Jesus.  Those who love Him, keep His commandments.  Specifically, we are keeping His commandment to entrust ourselves to His Mother.

To see this more clearly, we turn once again to Pope St. John Paul II, this time by quoting from his encyclical on Mary, the Mother of the Redeemer:

“Of the essence of motherhood is the fact that it concerns the person. Motherhood always establishes a unique and unrepeatable relationship between two people: between mother and child and between child and mother. Even when the same woman is the mother of many children, her personal relationship with each one of them is of the very essence of motherhood…It can be said that motherhood ‘in the order of grace’ preserves the analogy with what ‘in the order of nature’ characterizes the union between mother and child. In the light of this fact it becomes easier to understand why in Christ’s testament on Golgotha his Mother’s new motherhood is expressed in the singular, in reference to one man: ‘Behold your son.’  It can also be said that these same words fully show the reason for the Marian dimension of the life of Christ’s disciples. This is true not only of John, who at that hour stood at the foot of the Cross together with his Master’s Mother, but it is also true of every disciple of Christ, of every Christian. The Redeemer entrusts his mother to the disciple, and at the same time he gives her to him as his mother. Mary’s motherhood, which becomes man’s inheritance, is a gift: a gift which Christ himself makes personally to every individual. The Redeemer entrusts Mary to John because he entrusts John to Mary…And all of this can be included in the word ‘entrusting.’ Such entrusting is the response to a person’s love, and in particular to the love of a mother” (Redemptoris Mater, 45).

I include this rather long quote not just because it proves that Marian Consecration is divinely instituted at the foot of the Cross, but also because of this great Marian Pope’s emphasis on the word “entrusts.”  This sets up a special kind of relationship that is entirely personal.  Like all personal relationships, it requires a personal response, namely, “taking her into his own home.”

What about the second request, namely, the Communion of Reparation?  One of the Fatima visionaries, Lucia, became a member of the Sisters of St. Dorothy.  One day, she was taking out the trash and there was a little child in the garden.  She asked him if he knew the Ave Maria and he said he did.  She then invited the child to pray it so she could hear it and he refused.  So she told Him to go to the church in town and ask the Heavenly Mother for the Child Jesus.  He later returned and she asked Him if he did what she said.  He replied, “And have you spread through the world what the heavenly Mother requested of you?”  She quickly realized that the child was Jesus Himself and He explained to her that the Communion of Reparation was specifically needed due to the five kinds of offenses and blasphemies against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  Specifically they are: blasphemies against her Immaculate Conception, against her perpetual virginity, against the divine and spiritual maternity of Mary, blasphemies involving the rejection and dishonoring of her images, and the neglect of implanting in the hearts of children a knowledge and love of this Immaculate Mother.

Not surprisingly like any good Son, Jesus Himself is offended when His Mother is offended.  So Mary promised to asked Jesus to forgive those who “had the misfortune of offending her” if those devoted to her would practice the devotion of Five First Saturdays (one for each of the offenses Jesus mentioned).  This devotion consists in doing the following on five consecutive first Saturdays:

1. Confess and receive Holy Communion. Confession can be made within 8 days prior to or 8 days after the First Saturday.
2. Recite the Rosary.
3. “Keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on a mystery of the Rosary.” In other words, mental prayer on one of the mysteries.
4. Do all this with the intention of making reparation for the offenses against the Immaculate Heart.

In this month of Mary, shouldn’t we all consider consecration to Our Mother and committing to showing her great love by compassion to her Immaculate Heart?

Each year the Church sets aside the month of May as a time to honor Mary.  This pious practice began in the 13^th Century, but has been especially promoted by the Popes of our age (beginning in1830 with Our Lady’s gift of the Miraculous Medal to St. Catherine Laboure).  In his 1965 encyclical, Pope Paul VI said that May ought to be a time of “moving tribute of faith and love which Catholics in every part of the world [pay] to the Queen of Heaven.  During this month Christians, both in church and in the privacy of the home, offer up to Mary from their hearts an especially fervent and loving homage of prayer and veneration. In this month, too, the benefits of God’s mercy come down to us from her throne in greater abundance” (Month of May, 1).  To many both in the Church and out, Marian devotion remains a great mystery, if not an absolute blasphemy.  If we are to receive “the benefits of God’s mercy come down to us from her throne in greater abundance” available to us during this month, then it is necessary for us to understand the Scriptural roots of Marian devotion.

Different forms of Marian devotion have been present in the Church since the beginning.  But one form in particular was found early on that serves as a foundation for all true Marian devotion that follows.  It is the idea that Mary is the New Eve.

In order to enable a firmer grasp on the idea of Mary as the New Eve, it is helpful to discuss an important principle for understanding salvation history—typology.  Typology is a method for interpreting divine revelation based on the principle that God providentially shapes the course of human events and fills those events with prophetic significance.  In essence, God uses persons and events in salvation history (called types) to foreshadow greater persons and events that are to come (called archetypes).  Reading the Salvation history using a typological lens can greatly enhance our understanding of God’s saving actions.  The goal of typology is not merely to draw parallels, but also to enable us to understand the archetypes more fully by always remembering the movement is always from lesser (type) to greater (archetype).  If we say something about the type is true then what we say about the archetype is always greater.  As an aside, this does not mean that the archetype is like the type is every conceivable way (Moses may be a type of Christ, but Christ did not murder someone).  Relevant to our discussion we can say that in calling Mary the New Eve what we really mean is that Eve is a type of Mary.

To see where this idea comes from, we can draw on a number of biblical passages.  The best place to start is “in the beginning” right after man fell.  “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” (Gn 3:15).  This well-known passage, known as the Protoevangelium, contains God’s promise that He will ransom mankind.  But if we read it the passage carefully we see that God is not merely promising a Redeemer.  Instead He is promising a new Adam (Christ) and a new Eve (Mary).  Both the “woman” and “her seed” are linked together in crushing the serpent.

This is where typology becomes important.  God made the First Covenant with Adam and gave him Eve as a “helper” in fulfilling this covenant.  Even if Eve’s role is secondary in the First Covenant, she still plays an essential role in it.  St. Paul himself uses typology to identify Christ as the New Adam (see 1 Cor 15:45, Romans 5:12-21).   To refer to Christ as the New Adam without Him having a New Eve makes St. Paul’s analogy senseless.  In Christ, the New Adam, God makes the new and definitive covenant and Mary is to be His “helper.”   Everything that Eve was (in the good sense), Mary was and more.  If it was not good for Adam to be alone in fulfilling his mission then even more so would it not be good for Christ to be alone in fulfilling His.  If Eve is the “flesh of my flesh” of Adam then the New Eve too would be of the same immaculate flesh of the New Adam.  And most strikingly, if Eve was the “mother of all the living” then Mary must be that and more.  To see that “more” we need to look at the Gospel of John.

Although never explicitly said, St. John sought to highlight the Adam/Eve and Christ/Mary connection.  If you read his gospel, there is an obvious connection with Genesis.  He moves from “in the beginning” (day 1), to the next day ( Jn. 1:29—day 2), to the next day (Jn. 1:35—day 3)and finally to the third day (day 6—Jn. 2:1) where a wedding is mentioned.  The parallel is obvious for anyone who is familiar with the Creation account because a wedding occurred on the sixth day there as well.  In John’s account of the New Creation we see that there is a wedding in which the bride and groom are not mentioned but “the mother of Jesus” and Jesus are.  When asked to provide wine, Our Lord refers to His Mother as Woman.  With the parallel to Genesis we realize that in calling her Woman, Jesus is calling her the New Eve.  He is reminding her that once His mission as the New Adam begins with His first public miracle, her mission as the New Eve will begin as well.  She reveals the purpose of her mission—telling everyone to “do whatever He tells you” (Jn. 2:5).

It is no literary accident that the last pre-Resurrection “whatever He tells you” is the command to “Behold your mother” (Jn. 19:27).  We know the divine commandment is not merely for John because Jesus once again invokes the name “Woman” to connect her to Eve, the mother of all the living.  This New Eve would serve as the mother of all the living, that is those who are alive in Christ as Beloved Disciples.

John shows us what it means for the individual believer to do this—“take her into his home” (Jn. 19:27).  What this means for the individual believer may be different, but it certainly starts by showing her the proper reverence.  Treating her as if she is somehow in competition with your affection for Jesus or as irrelevant certainly is not included in this.  The fact that Jesus entrusts Mary and the Beloved Disciple to each other means that there must be a personal relationship of some sort.  Later in the month I will discuss what this relationship should look like, but for the time being we need to spend time reflecting on Mary as the New Eve.  Everything that the Church believes about Mary flows from this most important doctrine.

One of the most contested doctrines of the Catholic Church is Mary’s perpetual virginity.  Not only do many non-Catholic Christians not believe it, but a fair share of Catholics as well.  As the Church celebrates Our Lady’s yes to God, it is good to visit this doctrine because knowledge of Our Lady only serves to further “illumine our faith in Christ” (CCC 487).

In a hyper-sexed culture, it is easy to miss just what is meant when the Catechism says that the Church “confesses Mary’s real and perpetual virginity” (CCC 499).  We tend to think that it simply means that she never had sex.  While that is certainly true, this makes virginity a wholly negative thing and robs it of its richness.  We call Our Lady, “Virgin of Virgins” because her virginity is not just that she didn’t have sex, but something that defines her spirit of total purity.  This purity of course includes bodily integrity and purity but also touched her soul as well.  She had the virtue of virginity which means she was magnificent in her chastity by leaving herself free to be given completely to God.  Because she also had a virginity of heart (i.e. the Immaculate Conception) led to the fruit of her womb being the very Son of God.  So closely are these aspects of virginity related that Msgr. Scheeben in his book Mariology says that we may speak of Mary’s purity of both body and soul enabling her to have a bridal motherhood of Christ because she is able to share one flesh with her Son who is a divine Person.

Given this understanding of virginity, why is it necessary that Mary be perpetually a virgin?  To be clear, when the Church invokes Mary as “Ever-Virgin” she is saying that Mary was a virgin at the Annunciation, remained a virgin at the Nativity, and was a virgin at the Assumption.  First we will look at each of these three periods and show how divine revelation agrees with this.

When St. Gabriel visits Our Lady to announce the Good News, she responds by asking, “How can this be, since I know not man?” (Lk 1:34).  There is no other way to interpret this question from a married woman except that she did not have carnal knowledge of her husband and had taken a vow of virginity.  This particular aspect is what most people think is meant by the profession of the Creed that Jesus was “Born of the Virgin Mary.”  But there is a deeper and more important meaning to that particular profession that relates to the actual birth of Our Lord.

The Catechism makes it a point to say that “Mary’s real and perpetual virginity (consists) even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man” (CCC 499, emphasis added).  Why does it point this out?  First it is meant to oppose the rationalist’s denial of the miraculous.  While Christ’s conception was miraculous, it remained hidden.  His birth too was miraculous and we know at least one other person (St. Joseph) witnessed this.  In order for Mary’s virginal bodily integrity to be maintained, Our Lord could not have passed through the birth canal.  Instead He must have been born in a miraculous manner.  Recalling that one of the curses that Eve was given after the Fall was that child-birth would be painful and that Our Lady did not have Original Sin and thus was not subject to this curse and suffered no birth pains, then we can see how it must be so that Our Lord’s birth was through the usual means.

Further in the Catechism paragraph I already quoted (CCC 499) it says that “Christ’s birth ‘did not diminish his mother’s virginal integrity but sanctified it.’”  This points out a very important principle.  Everything that God touches is made (or remains) whole and holy.  This shows the attempt to lower Mary necessarily diminishes God as well.

The second reason that supports the virgin birth is found in Isaiah’s prophecy in which he says, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Imman’u-el.” (Is 7:14).  Notice how it is the virgin who both conceives and gives birth.  This is why Matthew uses this as a proof-text supporting his Messianic claims about Jesus (c.f. Mt. 1:22-23).  The Jews were expecting a virginal conception and birth.

What about the maintenance of her virginity even after the birth of Our Lord?  There are many well written arguments showing how the claims that Jesus had brothers and sisters is easily explained by the broad use of the Greek word for brother (adelphos)  and the fact that Jesus turned His mother’s care over to someone who was not His brother as part of His last testament.  I will not rehash those here.  Instead the focus should be more “offensive” in nature by appealing to Sacred Scripture.  First, as was mentioned above, it is clear that Mary had the intention to remain a virgin.  There is no reason to think that she somehow changed her mind after the birth of Our Lord.  She had given herself totally to God, He had received that gift and made it fruitful and so that would have only strengthened her resolve.

The Fathers of the Church have always interpreted Ezekiel 44:3, “This gate shall be shut.  It shall not be opened and no man shall pass through it because the Lord God of Israel has entered by it” as referring to Our Lady as well.

Given this, why is it that I said the perpetual virginity of Mary must be so?  First, the Son came so that He could reveal the Trinity.  In revealing Himself as the only-begotten Son of the Father, He too must have been the only Begotten Son in time.  The second reason is even more compelling.  All generations call Mary blessed because she testifies “to the great things God has done for her.”  Perhaps the greatest thing done to her is bringing about the Incarnation while maintaining her virginity.  If that virginal integrity was lost, then she no longer testifies to this great thing.  Even in heaven Our Lady shows forth her splendor-filled virginity.  Let us praise God and seek the powerful intercession of His Mother—we fly to you, O Virgin of Virgins, Our Mother.