Monday, October 02, 2006
The last several sections of Lumen Gentium treat, as the chapter headings suggests, "THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, MOTHER OF GOD IN THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST AND THE CHURCH." Sections 52 through 69 serve as a document to itself. It has its own introduction (52-54) and that's where we'll start today: Wishing in His supreme goodness and wisdom to effect the redemption of the world, "when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, ..that we might receive the adoption of (daughters and) sons".(Gal. 4, 4-5.) "He for us ..., and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary."(Credo in Missa Romana: Symbolum Constantinopolitanum: Mansi 3, 566. Cfr. Conc. Ephesinum, ib. 4, 1130 (necnon ib. 2, 665 et 4, 1071); Conc. Chalcedonense, ib. 7, 111-116; Cow. Constantinopolitanum II, ib. 9, 375-396.) This divine mystery of salvation is revealed to us and continued in the Church, which the Lord established as His body. Joined to Christ the Head and in the unity of fellowship with all His saints, the faithful must in the first place reverence the memory "of the glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of our God and Lord Jesus Christ".(Canon Missae Romanae.)
Mary is placed at the head of the litany of saints we honor in liturgy. The reverence Christians bear toward her is very ancient, not confined to the Roman Church, and is solidly grounded in Scripture and tradition.
Any thoughts leading off this topic?
