As we celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord, we always hear the account of the visit of the Magi to Jesus after His birth in Bethlehem.  Guided by the star, they sought to see the “newborn King of the Jews.” (Mt. 2:2) As they set out, they prepared for this encounter, bringing with them “gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh” (Mt 2:11) which they presented to Him when they finally reached their destination.

In a homily on this feast day, the Church Father St. Peter Chrysologus reflected on this scene, emphasizing how these gifts were an expression of the belief in what they encounter:

Today the Magi gaze in deep wonder at what they see: heaven on earth, earth in heaven, man in God, God in man, one whom the whole universe cannot contain now enclosed in a tiny body. As they look, they believe and do not question, as their symbolic gifts bear witness: incense for God, gold for a king, myrrh for one who is to die. (Sermo 160: PL 52, 620-622)

These three gifts invite us to reflect on what we bring to the Lord each time we encounter Him, as they are an expression of what we believe of Him.  The gift of gold acknowledges that Christ is a king.  He is our King, and yet there are no doubt areas of our lives where we have yet to let Him rule in us.  What aspect of our lives are we still clinging to, unwilling to let Him be in control?  As we begin this year, let us present to Him our lives, giving Him freedom to reign in us in a way like never before, a reign that takes nothing from us, but gives us the gift of peace, joy, and freedom. 

The gift of incense acknowledges that Christ is God.  As such, He is worthy of our adoration and prayerful worship.  As we begin this year, we can consider the place that prayer and worship to God have in our lives.  Are we giving Him our very best when we come to Mass, the place of worship par excellence? Do we prioritize going to Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation?  Are we mindful of how we prepare for Mass?  Are we intentional about trying to be as attentive as possible, with that full, active, conscious participation the Church asks?  Perhaps we are not where we desire to be with our worship of Him, and that is okay.  Let us ask Him for the grace to love Him more with a love that overflows into a more fruitful expression of our praise, especially at Mass.

The gift of myrrh acknowledges that Christ, while being fully God, is also fully man.  As such, He will one day die.  The myrrh is used for preparing a body after death.  As we begin this year, we might want to consider those places where we are dead or dying and in need of the new life that Jesus offers us.  I have in mind here our relationship with the Sacrament of Penance, or Confession.  When we go to confession, we present to the Lord those places in our lives which cause us pain, guilt, and shame.  We would rather not bring them to Him, but they cannot be healed and brought back to life unless we bring them to Him, whose death alone can destroy sin, and whose Resurrection promises us new life not just after we have confessed, but also for eternal life.  Perhaps this year we can make a more firm commitment to frequent the Sacrament of Penance and so experience the more abundant life that comes from experiencing His healing mercy.

As we begin this new year, let us seek to imitate the Magi in our adoration of this newborn King and offer Him the gifts of our obedience, our worship, and our desire to live anew in the life of grace He offers to us.

When a gift is given, the full and proper response of gratitude is not always automatic or quick. Depending on the quality and type of gift, it can take some time to truly appreciate the magnitude of the generosity and love that were involved in the offering. St. Thomas Aquinas even reflects on this truth when he writes about gratitude in his Summa Theologiae (this section is in II.II.106.4). To truly give thanks, one often needs to take some time after the gift is given in order to reflect and recognize just how meaningful the gift was. This time taken allows the gratitude to be full.

This weekend, we celebrate the appearance (epiphany) of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, to the magi, or the men commonly known as “the three kings.” They offer him gifts of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh. These gifts are kingly and meaningful, and it was only after a great deal of reflection that the Christian community saw the true significance of the gifts. Practically, they may have been a huge support to Mary and Joseph as they escaped to Egypt. 

More symbolically, however, these gifts are seen as prophetic signs revealing who Jesus truly is. He appeared as an ordinary baby boy, and yet he was the Messiah and the God of Israel, the second Person of the Trinity. The Gold, therefore, signified his kingship and royalty. The Frankincense symbolizes his Divinity and his Priesthood. Finally, the Myrrh signified his future death. The darkness of that “hour” at the end of his earthly life overshadows even his beginning as an infant. 

Our understanding of a gift matures upon deeper reflection.

This weekend at Cathedral, we celebrate our Epiphany party. It is an annual chance for parishioners to come together, enjoy fellowship, and celebrate the gift of Christmas. At this point we’ve had some time to relax after the festivities, and we can look back over the past year and give thanks together. 

I look back over this past year with a good deal of happiness. In particular, I am grateful for my assignment here at the Cathedral. In the context of the Epiphany party and this reflection on gratitude, I want to express my own deep thanksgiving to God and to all of you at this parish for the gift of my time here. 

I arrived here right before July 1, 2024, after my ordination as a priest. It’s kind of hard for me to believe but it has been a year and a half now that I’ve been both a priest and a priest at the Cathedral. I’d say that’s a good amount of time for my sense of the gift of this place and God’s goodness to me here to begin to mature and deepen. I certainly am not finished, and after I leave here someday, I’ll be able to look back and truly (or at least as much as I can in this life) realize just how great a gift God gave me in sending me here. 

Truly, I can say I love the people, the priestly fraternity, the prayer, the Masses, the hospital visits, time in the office, time at SHG, weddings, funerals, and so many other gifts that God has blessed me with that I don’t have room to list here. This first assignment has been a true gift from God and is exactly where God knew I needed to be. I pray I have served you well in this time and that God continues to grow and shape me through my time here to serve well all those he will send me to in the future. I could say much more, but I hope that as you enjoy the party this weekend, or if you celebrate the Epiphany elsewhere, you look at your life with the Cathedral family with gratitude. It is a gift from God. May he bless you today and every day!

As the Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph within the celebration of the Christmas Octave, we find ourselves coming to the conclusion of the Jubilee Year of Hope.  It has certainly been an eventful year in the Church as we watched our beloved Holy Father, Pope Francis, pass away on Easter Monday.  In the midst of our sorrow, though, we began to hope, looking forward to how the Lord would provide for His Church with a successor.  To take St. Paul’s words on hope slightly out of context, our hope as Americans was not disappointed as we witnessed the election of one of our own to be the new pope, Pope Leo XIV.

Leading up to that surprise, the standard belief was that no American would likely ever be elected to be the pope.  But our belief was proved wrong, and as I have reflected on that, it offers us an invitation to examine other beliefs that we might have about what we think might be impossible, or at least highly unlikely.  We may believe things about ourselves, about others, about the Church, about our country, and about our world that we are convinced will always be true.  But perhaps an experience like the election of an American pope will give us pause and challenge us to re-evaluate our beliefs.

When Mary was visited by the Archangel Gabriel at the Annunciation, as an additional verification that what he said about her becoming the Mother of God was indeed possible, he shared with her that her cousin, Elizabeth, in her old age had conceived a son, and that it was already “the sixth month for her who was called barren.” (Luke 1:36) Then the angel proclaimed these powerful words: “For with God, nothing will be impossible.” (Luke 1:37)

This is not meant to be read that anything we want to happen will happen.  Rather, this line serves as a reminder that when we factor God into any problem, question, or concern that we face in life, no matter how unbelievable, how desperate, or how impossible the situation may seem, with God, nothing will be impossible.  No suffering will be impossible to bear when it is born with God.  Not fear can paralyze us when we face it with God.  No desire for conversion, personally, or in another, is wasted when it is expressed with God.  

When we live with hope, we believe that nothing we face in life will be impossible when we lean into it with God.  As Pope Benedict wrote early on in Spe salvi, his encyclical on Christian hope: “The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.” (SS 2)

Coming to the end of this Jubilee Year of Hope, we are confronted with some important questions: Are we ready to embrace this hope and so live differently?  Are we ready to hope in the promise that nothing will be impossible with God?  With faith, it is indeed possible for us to live this new life of hope, because hope Himself has been born for us.

Today’s Gospel for Mass on the feast of the Holy Family quotes the prophet Hosea: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” Because this weekend is the celebration of the Holy Family and not a reflection on Matthew’s use of Old Testament quotations, that line probably won’t get much air time in the homilies. Because of that, I want to reflect on it here, and really, the whole of Hosea 11, the chapter that line comes from. 

During the several silent retreats that I went on as a part of my seminary formation, Hosea 11 was an often-used scripture passage assigned to me by my spiritual directors. In it, the prophet speaks in the person of God – or God speaks through the mouth and pen of the prophet – about the “person” of Israel, the whole people. “Israel” becomes the name of the whole people seen as a single person growing up from childhood to adulthood – a common way of speaking about the people of Israel throughout the scriptures. We even see this more maturely formulated in St. Paul’s consideration of the Body of Christ, the Church, though the unity of the Body of Christ is even more profound than the unity of the people of Israel. 

Still, the Lord speaks of his mercy toward the people of Israel in this passage. He has called his child, Israel, out of Egypt, and they saw his wonders. They knew his might, but they still turned away from him, repeatedly. This caused God’s wrath to flare up, but in his love for Israel, he did not destroy them. Instead, he continued to draw them to himself, to heal them. We see in this passage one of those places even in the Old Testament that the merciful and Fatherly love of God is displayed in full force. 

This passage is well-worth reading in the season of Christmas as well. We read in the letter of St. Paul to the Romans 5:8, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We could take it back a step and recognize that while we were still sinners, the Word chose to become flesh for us in order to die for us. Since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, God has continued to call his people back to himself, calling the patriarchs, Moses, the Kings, and the Prophets. He made covenants with them and people did draw near him. Without fail, though, his people continued, time and again, to turn away from him.

He did not abandon his people. Out of Egypt he called his son, and he only continues to do so. Back in Hosea 11, the Lord cries out in anguish over his rebellious child, “How could I give you up, O Ephraim!” (another name for Israel). The Lord continues after several more statements of that sort, “My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; … I will not come in wrath.” Truly, centuries later, God did not come in wrath. He did not abandon his people or give them up. He did not execute his fierce anger by destroying them. Instead, he gave vent to that anger by entering our human condition and destroying the cause of our downfall, sin, and its consequence, death. 

Praise be Jesus Christ for the redemption wrought through his incarnation. What a work of grace! What a work of the beauty of the heart of God! What a powerful testament to the grandeur of God’s mercy! Jesus entered the “Egypt” of the human condition to bring us all out of that place of slavery. May we never stray from his loving heart. He draws us by that love. Jesus, draw me to the Father. Amen.

The final two paragraphs of Pope Benedict’s encyclical on Christian Hope, Spe salvi, fittingly turn our attention to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Star of Hope.  He references an early hymn which greets Mary, the Mother of God as “Star of the Sea”: Ave maris stella. (SS 49) This is a beautiful title for Mary as we consider the topic of Christian hope.  The Holy Father writes:

Human life is a journey. Towards what destination? How do we find the way? Life is like a voyage on the sea of history, often dark and stormy, a voyage in which we watch for the stars that indicate the route. The true stars of our life are the people who have lived good lives. They are lights of hope. Certainly, Jesus Christ is the true light, the sun that has risen above all the shadows of history. But to reach him we also need lights close by—people who shine with his light and so guide us along our way. Who more than Mary could be a star of hope for us? With her “yes” she opened the door of our world to God himself; she became the living Ark of the Covenant, in whom God took flesh, became one of us, and pitched his tent among us (cf. Jn 1:14). (ibid.)

As I read these words, I recall a particularly important point in my life in which Mary indeed served as a star of hope for me.  Perhaps I have shared previously that I was not always an intentional disciple of Christ.  Sometime during my college years, I had drifted from practicing my Catholic faith.  I was not angry with God, nor was I upset with the Church.  I just took my focus off of Him and followed my own pursuits.  As I was in the early years of my career, I began noticing a restlessness in my heart, a feeling of emptiness and hopelessness.  Something was missing in my life, which in reality, that something was actually a someone.  I recall vividly going to bed early on New Year’s Eve in 2004 with a heaviness of heart.  The next morning, the first of 2005, still feeling burdened, I looked next to my bed and saw a Rosary sitting there.  Prompted no doubt by the Holy Spirit and the intercession of Mary, I decided to reacquaint myself with how to pray the Rosary, and then I did.  Though there was nothing mystical or spectacular that happened, what had seemed so dark in my heart now seemed to not be so overwhelming.  It is as though there was a dim light the promised hope.  

I continued to pray the Rosary each day and that light of hope continued to grow and I began to be intentional about getting to know Jesus on a personal level.  As I look back on that time, I know that Mary played such an important role in leading me back to her Son.  Even though I have read this paragraph from Pope Benedict before now, this image of Mary as a “Star of Hope” resonates deeply now, and my heart is renewed with gratitude for Mary’s assistance in guiding me through the shadows into the bright light of Christ’s love for me.  Regardless of how confusing, difficult, or dark the journey may be for me, I know that I can always turn to Mary who always reflects the light of hope which invites me to trust in her Son.

The final paragraph of Spe salvi is a beautiful prayer to Mary, and it is well worth your read.  In the interest of space, I offer the final line as a prayerful plea to her to continue to show herself our Mother and our Star of Hope:

Thus you remain in the midst of the disciples as their Mother, as the Mother of hope. Holy Mary, Mother of God, our Mother, teach us to believe, to hope, to love with you. Show us the way to his Kingdom! Star of the Sea, shine upon us and guide us on our way! (SS 50)

Details, details… When reading the scriptures, it can be easy to gloss over little details that seem to be insignificant or repetitive. Very often, we need a great saint or insightful person to shake us out of whatever stupor we are in when reading the sacred words so that the full meaning can flow from the fountain of life that is the divine Word. One example of this happening to me comes in that most well known of passages: the Annunciation from the Gospel of Luke. 

In the first chapter of Luke, we hear of the Archangel Gabriel visiting the virgin named Mary to ask for her consent to be the mother of God. Mary humbly asks, “How can this be, since I do not know man?” (Lk 1:34). Luke records this as the response: “The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God’” (Lk 1:35). Simple enough. Still, whenever I read this passage, I tend to conflate the two actions of God here into one phrase, seeing them as simply parallel lines: The Holy Spirit will overshadow you. 

There is nothing wrong with reading this verse the way I just described. It is possible to interpret them as a Jewish way of speaking in parallel, repetitive phrases to emphasize a point. We see that all the time in the Psalms, and in like manner, Luke could simply be highlighting the power of the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. In my case, I did not even consider another way of reading them until I came across a commentary passage in the writings of St. Bonaventure. 

St. Bonaventure clearly sees this verse as describing two actions of God: One action: the Holy Spirit coming upon Mary; and a second, simultaneous action: the power of the Most High overshadowing her. Near the beginning of his short work, The Tree of Life, St. Bonaventure explains, “When she gave her consent to him, the Holy Spirit came upon her like a divine fire inflaming her soul and sanctifying her flesh in perfect purity. But the power of the Most High overshadowed her (Luke 1:35) so that she could endure such fire.” In this fascinating description, St. Bonaventure sees God as both descending upon Mary to incarnate the Son of God in her womb, and at the same time, powerfully accustoming her to receive the Divine presence of God in perfect peace, enduring the fire of God’s life and love. 

As an addition here too, I cannot help but be reminded of the invocation to the Holy Spirit in the prayer to the Holy Trinity by St. Elizabeth of the Trinity. St. Elizabeth calls out to the Holy Spirit, recognizing that His desire for each of us is to become little “Christs” in the world, Christians in name and in truth. She prays, “O Consuming Fire, Spirit of Love, overshadow me so that the Word may be, as it were, incarnate again in my soul. May I be for him a new humanity in which he can renew all his mystery.” Though only the Blessed Virgin Mary was privileged to bear Jesus bodily in her womb and to be his mother in the flesh, every Christian is called to bear Jesus to the world by being a member of his body and living His life, death, and resurrection in the world in our own lives. He chooses to come to the world in us and through us, and he joins us to his body by the power of the Holy Spirit, ordinarily working through the sacraments. 

The Holy Spirit once came upon Mary and the power of the Most High overshadowed her. May that same Holy Spirit come upon our Church to fill us with the fire of his life and his love. May he draw us ever more deeply into the mystery of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son. May we rejoice at the birth of our King, and may he be born ever anew in our hearts and in our lives. Come, Lord Jesus! Come, Holy Spirit! Lead us to the Father!

Over the past several weeks, I have had a more-frequent-than-normal exposure to death.  Just before Thanksgiving, within a span of six days, we had three funerals here at the Cathedral.  We also unexpectedly lost two of our diocesan priests, Father Joe Ring who was 66 years old, and Father Daren Zehnle, who was just 47 years old.  Both of these priests were in active assignments, so their loss is all the more difficult.  I am also aware of members of our parish who have lost loved ones unexpectedly in the past month.  Finally, over the past week, I had the privilege of offering the Last Rites to two individuals who were coming to the end of their earthly journey.

Throughout all of these experience with death, reflecting on how they affect me personally, and how others are affected by those deaths, there is a line from the funeral liturgy that keeps coming back to me.  It comes from one of the options for the Preface in the Mass for the Dead.  The line goes like this: “Indeed for your faithful, Lord, life is changed not ended.” (Preface I for the Dead) As human beings, made in the image and likeness of God, we know that an essential aspect of our humanity is that we exist in relation to others.  First and foremost, we exist in our relationship with God, who is a communion of persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Blessed Trinity.  We also exist in communion with the many relationships with others here on earth – our family, our friends, and indeed all of humanity.  Therefore, when we express that in death “life is changed, not ended”, we can most certainly apply that to these relationships.  When we or a loved one dies, our relationships may be changed, but they are not ended.  

The Holy Father reflects on this in the next paragraph of Spe salvi as he continues his treatment of Purgatory, addressing how those relationships, changed but not ended, continue to be united especially through our prayer for them:

The belief that love can reach into the afterlife, that reciprocal giving and receiving is possible, in which our affection for one another continues beyond the limits of death—this has been a fundamental conviction of Christianity throughout the ages and it remains a source of comfort today…we should recall that no man is an island, entire of itself. Our lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve. And conversely, my life spills over into that of others: for better and for worse. So my prayer for another is not something extraneous to that person, something external, not even after death. (SS 48)

As the pope notes, this belief of the connection that remains after death is a source of great comfort to us as we struggle with their physical absence in our lives.  If this bond is not broken with death, we can be filled with hope and joy about the promise of what eternal life in Heaven will look like as all of those relationships that began in this life,  first with God, and then with others, will be brought to a fulfillment that surpasses anything we ever experienced on this earth.  In that regard, we find new peace in the words of St. Paul about our Christian hope in what awaits us, namely that “hope does not disappoint.” (Rom 5:5) While we still struggle here with that separation and may naturally feel sadness, disappointment, uncertainty, etc., let us be reassured in our faith which believes that in death, life is changed, not ended, and that the Lord continues to keep us united to Him and one another through the gift of His grace and love, present most especially in the Eucharist, where we meet Him and our loved ones each time we come to Mass.

Later this week, we will come to the seventeenth day of December. This day is one that catches my attention as it comes year by year. First of all, it is the traditional feast day of the Prophet Daniel – that great saint whose name I share. It’s not a feast we celebrate on our calendar, but it is nonetheless his feast day. Second, this day is the beginning of the final part of Advent accentuated in the prayer of the Church by the “O Antiphons” sung at Evening Prayer in the Divine Office. Between these two meanings behind December 17 there is a thematic connection which sheds light on the hope of the people of Israel and the joy of the coming of the Messiah. 

In this latter part of Advent, the Church turns her focus very intentionally from the second coming of Christ at the end of time to his first humble coming in the flesh. The Church enters, through her liturgy and prayers, into the expectant hope of the people of Israel. They desired more than anything that their redeemer would come to set them free. The “O Antiphons” strike to the heart of this longing with Old Testament imagery taken from the great prophets.

“Come!” is the great cry from the heart of God’s people. Come and set us free! Come and give us light! Come! O Wisdom of God, O leader of the House of Israel, O Root of Jesse’s stem, O Key of David, O Radiant Dawn, O King of all nations, O Emmanuel, Come! Each of these messianic titles we can read clearly as fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He is God’s Wisdom, Emmanuel – God with us, the radiant dawn, King of the nations, springing forth from Jesse’s family tree. 

We want to grow in our desire for his coming to birth in this world. It is good for our souls to enter that depth of longing and thirsting for the coming redemption. Jesus came and his coming can seem so ordinary to us now. In reality, however, it was necessary and it was redemption. We go back, then, in our imagination and in our prayer and rest with the people of Israel in their hope and yearning. The longed-for Messiah is coming, and the Church cries out with Israel, “Come!”

Though there were many prophecies concerning this messiah throughout the Old Testament, some even as far back as in Genesis, the longing of the Israelites and the more precise prophecies come out in the writings of the prophets. Each great prophet gives us varying “facets,” you could say, of the messiah. For example, our understanding of Jesus as the good shepherd is built not only on Jesus’ words in the Gospels but on the writings of Ezekiel; much of our understanding of the work of Jesus’ atonement through suffering is built not only on Jesus’ suffering recorded in the Gospels but on the writings of Isaiah about the suffering servant. 

The Prophet Daniel too gives us a unique angle on this Messiah in a way that prepares the way near the end of Advent. The angel Gabriel appeared not only to Mary but to Daniel also (Daniel 8:16). Daniel sees a vision of this messiah being a “son of man” but also being given power and dominion and an everlasting kingdom (Daniel 7:14). This future leader will be a King over a Kingdom that will overshadow and overpower all other kingdoms on earth, and he will be like a rock not hewn by human hands (Daniel 2:44-45).

Gabriel announces the coming of the new King. He is coming, and with Israel, we can desire his coming. Come, O King of Kings, rule over us and keep us in the peace of God’s Kingdom. Amen.

As Pope Benedict continues his treatment of this sometimes confusing and difficult topic of Purgatory, he offers a consoling and hopeful explanation of what this purifying fire of Christ might be like.  He writes:

Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. (SS 47)

Perhaps our first thought of what encountering the gaze of Christ at our judgment might be like is something frightening to us.  We might think of a disappointed, disapproving gaze, similar to what we may experience from others in our lives when they are not pleased with something we have done.  Let us recall, however, that when admitted to Purgatory, we have died in the state of friendship with the Lord.  We are not His enemies.  Rather, who we encounter is the God who is love.  Therefore, His gaze, thought it may be penetrating and perhaps painful, is a gaze of love and a gaze of mercy.  Of this gaze, the pope continues:

His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God. (ibid.)

An image from the Gospel comes to mind as I reflect on the effect of the gaze of Christ.  It comes in the context of the Passion after Jesus had been arrested.  Jesus had told Peter that before the cock crowed the following morning, he will have denied Him three times.  Though Peter insisted that he would remain faithful, when faced with the prospect of suffering persecution for his association with Jesus, he indeed denied the Lord three times.  In Luke’s Gospel, the moment after this third denial is described in this way: “Just as he was saying this, the cock crowed, and the Lord turned and looked at Peter; and Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, ‘Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.’ He went out and began to weep bitterly.” (Lk 22:60b-62)

The look of Jesus on Peter was not a look of condemnation or ridicule, but a look of mercy, a look of love, which penetrated Peter’s heart, melting away the falsehood of his own strength, his thinking he would remain faithful to the Lord in the face of trial.  The gaze of Jesus helps to burn that pride away so that Peter can begin again from a place of humility and trust in the Lord, giving him the strength to continue following the Lord.  It was a painful experience for Peter, but it was transformative, and one that would prepare him to love Christ more.

When we go to confession, we would do well to pause and consider the love with which Jesus looks upon us, purifying our hearts with His gaze and words of mercy, giving us the strength we need to begin again and follow Him with greater humility and trust in His grace.

I was recently asked about the Vatican’s November 4 publication about Mary, the Mother of God. This document, called Mater Populi Fidelis, was published from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. I was asked, “Did this change the Church’s teaching about Mary? Can we still ask for her intercession in the same way?”

The short answer to those questions is “No, this did not change Church teaching,” and “Yes, you can still ask for her intercession like before.” Instead of changing a teaching, the document made a clarification about two proposed titles for the Blessed Mother: Co-redemptrix, and Mediatrix of all graces. The rest of this article will be a fuller (but still brief) explanation of what this document said. 

This document comes as a response to a (decades-long) request from theologians that these two titles would be approved as dogma by the Church. This approval would look much like the dogmatic proclamations of the title “Mary, Mother of God” at the Council of Ephesus in 431 or the title “Immaculate Conception” in 1854. The two titles in question, then, had been proposed as additional titles to be given this dogmatic affirmation – they have been used by saints and theologians historically and have found some use among more contemporary theologians. 

The primary difficulty with both terms – Co-redemptrix and Mediatrix – is the difficulty in precisely defining what they truly mean. In a very indirect sense, both are true. Mary cooperates in salvation history by giving the “Yes,” that brings about the birth of Christ. From Jesus comes redemption and all grace. In this sense, Mary is both a cooperator in God’s redemptive work and one through whom God’s greatest blessings have come into the world. 

In a more direct sense, however, both titles take on a meaning that is not true. Only Jesus Christ is the redeemer of the world. Mary certainly cooperated in God’s work, but Jesus redeemed us, not Mary. Because of this ambiguity, this title is forbidden from being used. The document states, “…it is always inappropriate to use the title ‘Co-redemptrix’ to define Mary’s cooperation. This title risks obscuring Christ’s unique salvific mediation…” (22). 

While the title “Mediatrix” is not forbidden from being used, it is more strictly defined. Again, Christ himself is shown to be the one unique “mediator” between God and man. This term, however, the document calls “inclusive,” meaning that Jesus does draw others into the work of mediation in a way he does not draw them into his work of redemption. The document quotes Pope St. John Paul II in his own Marian document Redemptoris Mater, when he writes that Mary “puts herself ‘in the middle,’ that is to say, she acts as a mediatrix not as an outsider, but in her position as mother. She knows that, as such, she can point out to her Son the needs of mankind.” Therefore, while she can be said to be a “mediatrix” (Latin for mediator), she cannot be said to be mediatrix of all graces. God can give grace apart from her, and he chooses to give some (and many) graces through her intercession.

Although the document, Mater Populi Fidelis, refuses to accept these two terms as dogma, it does offer a beautiful reflection on the motherhood of Mary. This motherhood embraces Mary’s cooperation in the redemptive work of Christ and reveals to us how exactly she acts as a mediator of Grace from the Trinity to us. Through her faith, she becomes the mother of the redeemer and our mother. It is in a motherly way that she acts as a mediator – taking away nothing from the priestly mediation of her son. We may go to her with confidence as our mother and trust in her unfailing intercession.

Mary, mother of the Church, pray for us!