Article

LIGHT ON OUR BLESSED LADY:

CHAPTER EIGHT OF LUMEN GENTIUM

by Eamon R. Carroll, O. Carm.

As early as 1970, in his presidential address to the Mariological Society of America Fr. Alban Maguire, OFM, said: "The five years since Lumen gentium seem like a century and the memory of what took place may become a little blurred." It is now over thirty years and what was a blur may now seem almost opaque. A fresh look is called for: a retrospective consideration of the conciliar understanding of the Blessed Virgin.

The immediate aftermath of the Council saw a dramatic fall off in interest in Mary, painfully evident in the abandonment of traditional devotional practices, and the near silence about her from the pulpit. Although other Councils had been followed by troubled periods, even alert observers thought that this Council would be somehow spared what E.E.Y. Hales described as the "devil's work." He shared the optimistic view that the coming Council would escape that trauma. The postconciliar explosion manifested itself in many ways: inopportunely expanded and enlarged convents, monasteries and seminaries suddenly not even half-filled or closed, the sexual revolution affecting family life, the shockingly sudden disappearance of forms of Marian piety which were characteristic of Catholic prayer life.

In hindsight it is not so astonishing that the unrest which was seething beneath the surface seized the occasion to manifest itself in exactly that aspect of Catholic life and piety which was so prominent as to be the accepted mark of a Catholic in American society - devotion to the saints, especially St. Mary. The transition was all the more striking in comparison to the exuberance of the preceding period, from the twenties into the fifties. A century of continual Roman interest and support had run from the definition of the Immaculate Conception (1854, Pius IX), through eleven rosary letters of Leo XIII, under St. Pius X (the enthusiastic encyclical of 1904), the appeals of Benedict XV to the "Queen of Peace," Pius XI (commemoration of the Ephesus anniversary in 1931), and the placing of the "maternity of Mary" in the calendar for October 11 (the Second Vatican Council would open on that auspicious date), peaking in Pius XII with the definition of the Assumption (1950) as the world revived after World War II, and also the Marian Year of 1954, finally the Lourdes anniversary,1958, during which Pius XII died.

It would be a mistake to blame the media for creating the postconciliar Marian freeze. Given the importance of our Lady to Catholics, and ecumenical interest in so prominent a feature of Catholic life it is understandable that the press followed closely conciliar debates on the mystery of Mary, and equally expected that the postconciliar fallout would be reported extensively. Histories of the Council, commentaries on the documents, and especially the synodal acta round out our understanding of how the Council put together the concluding chapter 8 of Lumen gentium (here abbreviated as LG): "The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, in the Mystery of Christ and the Church," a programmatic title reflecting both the development and content of the lengthy chapter. Alone among the LG chapters the eighth chapter has five separately titled segments. The personal notes of people involved in the Council are gradually being published as well, e.g., from Belgian archives, by G. Philips, whose contributions were so great, as already shown in his two-volume commentary on LG, and other writings about the Council, in general and specifically about LG and chapter eight.

The conciliar treatment of Mary had a fascinating pre-history. Originally it was to occur within the planned document on the Church, but by the opening of the Council in October, 1962, it had become a separate document: "The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and Mother of Men." When the first session ended on December 8, the Fathers had not yet issued any document. Some proposed publishing the one on Mary, coincident with the feast of the Immaculate Conception, but the suggestion was turned down. By the second session, 1963, the unchanged document bore a new title, "Mary, Mother of the Church." The question arose whether to retain a separate schema or to incorporate it into the dogmatic constitution on the Church. The issue was vigorously debated, with strong opinions on both sides, closely followed by the media. Each side offered theological arguments, along with questions of opportuneness. Given the place devotion to Mary holds in the Church's life, an emotional factor was also present in the discussion.

One argument for inclusion in the Church on the document was that such close relationship to the central mystery of the Church would be ecumenically helpful. The invited observers from various Christian Churches were following developments closely. We know from their reports as well as from Catholic experts (as G. Philips) that their opinions were both solicited and heeded. In the debate Cardinal Koenig argued for insertion, Cardinal Santos for a separate schema. As Philips reported, "Both speakers maintained a remarkably high level of thought, but the general mood was anything but dispassionate."

The impasse was resolved by the vote of Oct. 29, 1963. Last minute efforts to affect the outcome included propaganda which sometimes took unpleasant forms (so Philips). The vote itself was astonishingly close: 1114 for insertion, 1074 for separate schema, a slim difference of just forty. Philips has noted that "much patience had to be exercised in order to reach the desired unanimity," for the Council could not proceed on a political pattern, with a victorious majority vis-a-vis a reluctant, even disgruntled, minority. A year later, again according to Philips, "contrary to all expectations the controversy was happily solved," and LG with its final Marian chapter overwhelmingly voted in.

The axiom that "a text without context is a pretext" applies to evaluating LG chapter eight. When it was published the fear was expressed that the single chapter would be circulated apart from the entire constitution on the Church. Particularly important is the preceding chapter seven. An original product of the Council it was called for by John XXIII to fill an eschatological gap in the theological picture of the Church. Like chapter eight, its lengthy title is programmatic: "The Eschatological Nature of the Pilgrim Church and Her Union with the Heavenly Church," sometimes shortened to "The Pilgrim Church," but the creedal "Communion of saints" may be an even better abbreviation.

The important pastoral and ecumenically sensitive matter of the veneration of the saints is part of the riches of this chapter (nos. 48-51). Appealing to the "full consciousness of the communion of the whole Mystical Body of Jesus Christ," the chapter traces the constant belief of the Church that the martyrs and apostles are "closely united with us in Christ ... she [the Church] has always venerated them, together with the Blessed Virgin Mary and the holy angels, with a special love, and has asked piously for the help of their intercession ..." Chapter eight builds on chapter seven, singling out Saint Mary as the eminent example of the saints, for she stands out in the liturgy and other prayer forms among all those from whom "we seek ... example in their way of life, fellowship in their communion, and the help of their intercession."

Chapter seven had an "easier passage" than the Marian chapter, e.g., the recommendation of beseeching the intercession of the saints is offered calmly without an extended apologia that such confidence is not at the expense of Christ the one Mediator. It is simply said: "let the faithful be taught that our communion with those in heaven, provided that it be understood in the full light of faith in no way diminishes the worship of adoration given to God the Father, through Christ, in the Spirit; on the contrary, it greatly enriches it" (no. 51).

Regarding the holy Virgin as a member of the communion of saints offers great possibilities both pastorally and ecumenically. The liturgy mentions her always in first place among the saints at daily Mass; she heads the litany of saints. She is associated as mother of the Savior, the King of Kings, in the adoration of the lamb, the eschatological fulfillment to which the bride of Christ, the Church, aspires. Significantly, recent ecumenical conversations, national and international, have turned to Mary's role in the communion of saints as a possible meeting point.

The first conciliar document was on the sacred liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium, Dec. 4, l963. In its 5th chapter (the liturgical year) there is a paragraph the importance of which can hardly be exaggerated. The lengthy eighth chapter of LG, with all its richness, does not surpass the succinct statement of no. l03 of the liturgy constitution. Chapter eight of LG is at pains to distinguish Mary's mediatorial role from the all-sufficient saving work of her Son, the "one mediator ... who gave himself a ransom for all." The liturgy constitution had already found another way of describing the Blessed Virgin's mediatorial activity, in words of great clarity and compass: "In celebrating the annual cycle of Christ's mysteries, holy Church honors with special love the Blessed Mary, Mother of God, who is joined by an inseparable bond to the saving work of her Son. In Mary the Church holds up and admires the most excellent fruit of the redemption, and joyfully contemplates as in a faultless model, that which the Church herself wholly desires and aspires to be."

It is difficult to imagine the role of Mary and the response of the Church as better described. The "saving work" of the Son of Mary comprises his earthly life, culminating in his passion and death, crowned by the resurrection and ascension and taking his seat at the Father's right hand, now continuing in his everlasting intercession for us. The Council affirmed Mary's association in her Son's total "saving work," in both earthly and heavenly stages. LG would develop this doctrine, but did not need to alter or attempt to improve on the statement of the Sacrosanctum concilium, no. 103.

Sometimes things said "in passing" convey deep meaning; an example touching the perpetual virginity of Mary is found in chapter six of LG (on religious). Under evangelical counsels mention is made of "that manner of virginal and humble life which Christ the Lord elected for himself, and which his Virgin Mother also chose."

In Catholic liturgy, as Geoffrey Wainwright has noted, what may seem just a random reference to the Blessed Virgin, no more than a simple commemoration, can convey much more. For the Church at prayer, the Mother of God is "Virgin." He comments similarly on the "hierarchy of truths": if one stone is removed the whole edifice may collapse.

The decree on ecumenism, Unitatis redintegratio ("The reestablishment of unity") was promulgated the same day as LG, November 21, 1964; the documents shed light on each other, and Mary. The "hierarchy of truths" (no. 11) is significantly illustrated in paragraph no, 20, on differences between Catholics and other Christians: "views ... considerably different from the doctrine of the Catholic Church, even concerning Christ, God's Word made flesh, and the work of redemption, and thus (et proinde) concerning the mystery and ministry of the Church and the role of Mary in the work of salvation."

Mediatrix of Grace?

There is a current effort, at least here in the United States, to persuade the Holy See to promulgate a definition of Mary as "mediatrix of grace." It is not likely to happen, not because of doubts about the doctrine, but because the Council Fathers chose, not quite to eliminate the word "mediatrix," which does occur along with three similar words, but to teach the same truth in other words, above all in the liturgy constitution (no. l03), as we have seen. LG, no. 62, reads: "The Blessed Virgin is invoked by the Church under the titles of Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix and Mediatrix."

Short of access to a Greek/Latin thesaurus the ordinary reader is poorly served by the words joined to "-trix." "Advocate" conveys the Blessed Virgin's intercession, and is familiar from the "Hail Holy Queen," said at the end of Mass in bygone days. But "Auxiliatrix" and "Adjutrix" are transliterations that suffer from the same over indebtedness to Latin as "Mediatrix." Some translators suggest "helper" or simply "help" for "Auxiliatrix" -one thinks of "Help of Christians," the title John XXIII used in opening the Council on October 11, l962. For "Adjutrix" "Benefactress" has been proposed.

The Council commonly referred to Mary as "spiritual mother," sometimes with warmth, e.g., no. 62: "by her maternal charity she cares for the brethren of her Son, who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties, until they are led into their blessed home." Also "mother to us in the order of grace" (no. 61), and at the end of no. 67 that we be "moved to a filial love towards our mother and to the imitation of her virtues."

The central section of chapter eight is "Mary and the Church," (nos. 60-65), rightly regarded as the peculiar focus of the Council with respect to our Lady. The liturgy constitution had already illuminated the Mary-Church bond: Mary is the faultless model of the Church's own aspirations. She is the one most excellently redeemed, now in the joyful fulfillment of union with the Risen Redeemer, her Son. Both the Incarnation and the Redemption concern her intimately. Mother of the Word-made-flesh, radically redeemed in anticipation of her Son's saving work, Mary of Nazareth is part of the public history of salvation.

In spite of high hopes that the Council's advocacy would promote extensive consideration of Mary's role in ecclesiology as well as Christology, the past few decades have left in the lurch conciliar as well as scriptural, patristic and liturgical leads in this important direction. Both before and after the Council, Cardinal deLubac (and a few others) described the parallelism between Mary and the Church as "one of the major characteristics of Catholic thought," holding the "mystical analogy" between Mary and the Church to be no less clearly perceived in our day than at the time of Ambrose and Augustine. Recall the concluding chapter of deLubac's great work, The Splendor of the Church, and his 1966 address at University of Notre Dame, "Lumen gentium and the Fathers."

The New Eve

The "new Eve" tradition belongs to the patristic roots of the Mary-Church analogy. From the standpoints of both ecclesiology and Mariology it deserves extensive study, as has been recommended by Jaroslav Pelikan and the late Johannes Quasten of CUA. This task is the more urgent because some feminist authors construe the Marian "new Eve" title as a putdown of all other women, as if exalting Mary inevitably stigmatizes all other daughters and sisters of the first Eve as evil.

There is a blithe disregard of patrology in ignoring the fact that authors as early as St. Irenaeus invoke the "new Eve" comparison not simply to exalt the obedient and faithful Mary as "bringer of Life," as "advocate of the first Eve," but also to counter the gnostic denigration of womanly dignity. A strange reductionism is at play here, as if reducing Mary somehow builds respect for other women. Chapter eight of LG employs the "new Eve" concept for Mary in dependence on the Fathers; Irenaeus, Epiphanius, Augustine, Jerome, John Damascene are among those footnoted, no. 56.

It is noteworthy that Cardinal Newman's reply to Dr. Pusey's book against the definition of the Immaculate Conception (with its paradoxical title of Eirenicon!) defended the doctrine by appealing to patristic evidence of Mary as "new Eve," as "the great rudimental teaching of antiquity."

The Blessed Virgin is mentioned in ten of the sixteen conciliar documents. A certain development can be traced from the first document, Sacrosanctum conciliam on the liturgy, 1963, through Unitatis redintegratio and LG (1964), into seven of the ten documents promulgated at the final session (1965). Among these final ones, Mary is invoked as "queen of apostles" in the decrees on the ministry and life of priests and on the missions. The decree on religious life takes from St. Ambrose the advice that Mary's life is a rule of life for all. The decree on the apostolate of the laity proposes Mary as model of spiritual and apostolic life, along the lines of the "Suenens amendment," no. 65 of LG: "The Virgin Mary in her own life lived an example of that maternal love by which all should be fittingly animated who cooperate in the apostolic mission of the Church on behalf of the rebirth of men." In this regard, there springs to mind the Marian apostolic emphasis in the great lay movement of the Legion of Mary.

Chapter eight of LG has many footnotes: to magisterial documents (councils and papal statements, though comparatively few from recent popes), patristic and medieval writings (with emphasis on pre-Reformation Eastern authors). These notes add greatly to understanding the chapter. It is a regrettable that these footnotes are difficult of access, as current English versions do not normally fill out and translate them. Thomas Halton did so in The Church (Glazier, Wilmington, DE, 1985) and so did "Marian Studies" (l986).

It is a usually overlooked aspect of the protocol for chapter eight (as for the council documents in general) that references preceded by "cf" are to be distinguished from references without the prefatory "cf."' The distinction is particularly important in biblical citations and allusions. For example, when LG no. 55 speaks of the virginal conception the references to Isaiah and Micah both have "cf," whereas the reference to St. Matthew does not. In effect the Council is advising attentive readers that the two Old Testament allusions do have a bearing on the Church's achieved understanding of the conception of Jesus from his Virgin Mother, but that it is beyond question that St. Matthew is testifying to the mystery. Further, in response to criticisms (from some Catholics as well as Protestants) that the biblical citations are non-contextual, poor exegesis; in chapter eight, as throughout the corpus of Vatican II documents, the Council itself notes that such references are to be read as the Church has interpreted them - so state the constitutions on the liturgy and on revelation.

There are undeniable lacunae in chapter eight. The Council deliberately refrained from taking up many matters about Mary, specifically stating that it did not wish to decide questions not yet fully clarified by theologians. It declined as well to offer "a complete doctrine on Mary." No doubt more might have been said on the exemplarity as well as the intercession of Mary in terms of contemporary circumstances, e.g. women's rights, liberation of the oppressed, the technological world, war and peace, along the lines of the pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes. Pope Paul VI was to do this in Marialis cultus (1974), and to explore the aspect of popular religiosity in Evangelii nuntiandi (December 8, 1975).

The Council restored the title "people of God" to describe the Church, but did not develop the equally ancient and profoundly biblical, patristic and liturgical truth of the Church as "bride of Christ." In chapter 8 "bride" is sidestepped in the Mary-Church analogy. In handling the sensitive issue of Mary as "Mediatrix," the Council Fathers muted the actual word, as we have seen, and left out altogether such cognates as "Dispensatrix" and "Co-redemptrix." Ecumenical concern helps to explain their attitude, but the hurt many Catholics felt might have been less had the explanation of Mary's role been more in the mode of the liturgy constitution and chapter seven of LG.

Since Cardinal Mercier in the early twenties there had been an ever-increasing interest in Mary as Mediatrix of Grace; many studies had been done on that theme and "Our Lady, Mediatrix of All Graces" was a feast widely kept on May 31st. Prior to the Council, three hundred Fathers had asked for the definition of Mary's mediation of grace.

The Marian chapter of LG opened (no. 55) with an appeal to three sources: Scripture (Gal 4:4), conciliar creed (with footnotes to Nicea-Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon and the important, much-neglected Second Constantinople), and liturgy. This last was taken from the Roman canon (equivalently in the present first eucharistic prayer): joined to Christ the head and in communion with all his saints, the faithful must in the first place (imprimis) reverence the memory "of the glorious ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of our God and Lord Jesus Christ."' This may be held as at least an oblique instance of the ancient axiom, "Lex orandi, lex credendi."

It is again with the Mother of Jesus in communion with all the saints that chapter eight ends, concluding thereby the entire dogmatic constitution on the Church: "the entire body of the faithful pours forth urgent supplications to the Mother of God and of men that she, who aided the beginnings of the Church by her prayers, may now, exalted as she is, above all the angels and saints, intercede before her Son in the fellowship of all the saints, until all families of people, whether they be honored with the title of Christian or whether they still do not know the Savior, may be happily gathered together in peace and harmony into the one People of God, for the glory of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity" (no. 69).

In November, 1961, Cardinal Frings gave a lecture at Genoa, preparing for the coming Council. "Our Lady ... is a sign announcing the Church, that holy people made one through the common worship of the liturgy. On the basis of such considerations it may well be the task of the coming decades to integrate the Marian movement into the liturgical [movement] and to subordinate the former to the great theological motives of the latter. The Marian approach would be able to give the liturgically minded something of its heart-felt warmth, of its fervor and feeling, of its readiness for penance and atonement, whereas it would receive from the liturgical movement something of the latter's sacred sobriety and lucid clarity."

The Council attempted to set forth such goals, which were taken up by Paul VI who guided the Council to its conclusion, and then by John Paul II, who has said "Chapter eight of LG is in a certain sense a magna charta of the Mariology of our era" (May 2, 1979), and who based his encyclical Redemptoris mater on that magna charta. The goals outlined by Cardinal Frings have been partially achieved in the decades since the Council but much remains to be done.

Rev. Eamon R. Carroll, O. Carm., S.T.D., is Professor emeritus at Loyola University of Chicago and on the faculty of the International Marian Research Institute, the Marian Library, University of Dayton, Ohio.