Q&A: At a recent Marian lecture given in our parish, it was said that Mary’s role in the Church is more important than Peter’s. It is hard to see how anyone could be more important than Peter and his successors since Matthew 16:18 tells us that the faith of the Vicar of Christ is the rock foundation on which the Church is built. Can you explain: Is Mary role more important than Peter’s?
Father J. Patrick Gaffney, SMM
In the plan of salvation, God wills the ’Yes’ of Mary so that the Incarnation – the Word made Flesh – may take plate. What flows from the redemptive Incarnation? Our salvation, the Church, the sacraments, etc. In other words, there would be no Church over which Peter could be Pope if there were no Incarnation. And in God’s plan, there would be no Incarnation without Mary’s faith-consent. As the ‘Yes’ of the universe to God’s desire to enter our broken humanity, Our Lady is prior to the Petrine office. Her fiat is intrinsically involved with the very source of the Church itself, the Incarnation of the Word. As Pope John Paul teaches in “On the Dignity of Women,” #27, the Immaculate Mother of God “precedes everyone on the path to holiness; in her person the Church has already reached that perfection whereby she exists without spot or wrinkle (cf. Eph 5:S7).”
Greatness is not primarily linked to any office or authority. It is applied to holiness, to our oneness with Christ Mary, the All-Holy Lady is then the foremost disciple of the Lord. It is holiness which makes us great, not office or authority. Mary is not a ministerial priest, she is not one of the twelve, she is not Pope. She is far, far greater.
St. Peter Weeping Before the Virgin Mary: Giovanni Franceso (Guercino) Barbieri: 1465
The painting resides in the Louvre, Paris, France.
