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Mediatrix And Co-redemptrix


Nihil Obstat

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Basically I've heard these terms tossed around just a bit, and I'm a bit confused.
Mediatrix I think I understand. It's what I assumed was true before I knew the name for it. Of course a brief easy to understand overview might still be nice... :)
Co-Redemptrix though, I get messed up on. It always seemed to me that the salvation process was entirely in God's field. Mary, while absolutely amazingly radiantly wonderful, was still a human. Why could a human be involved in the salvation process?

Thanks. :)

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Thy Geekdom Come

Mediatrix and Co-Redemptrix are two very closely tied doctrines. To say that Mary is the co-redeemer is not to say that she is equal in her role to Jesus. We have that idea in English when we think of the prefix "co-." In Latin, "co-" means "with," but does not necessarily imply equality.

Mary is Co-Redemptrix because she is a co-redeemer, which is what we are all called to be, in two ways. In the first way, we are all called to co-redeem ourselves, that is, simply put, to cooperate with God's saving work in our souls. While this is God's work, He can't do it without our cooperation, because that would require Him to force His love on us, and love cannot be forced. CCC 2006-2011 are a good read on this topic because they help explain the idea of merit and grace. In the second way of co-redemption, we are all called to help co-redeem one another by becoming instruments of Jesus Christ in the world, i.e. by evangelizing, doing good, etc. We participate in God's saving work as His coworkers (1 Cor 3:9 even calls us that), but it is still His work in which we participate, and we don't participate because of "how great we are," but because God is merciful and loving enough to invite us to share in His work.

Mary is Mediatrix principally because she gave the "yes" that allowed Christ to come into the world. Because it was through her that Christ came into the world, she is intimately bound up in His saving work (as we are called to be, though we can never match her because she is Immaculate). Just as He came to us through her then, so He does now, and His graces flow through her hands, so to speak, because of her perpetual yes to God's plan.

Check out some of the articles here for any further clarification: [url="http://motherofallpeoples.com"]http://motherofallpeoples.com[/url]. That website is run by one of the world's leading scholars on Marian theology, but he's very down to earth with his explanations.

God bless,

Micah

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