Refuge of Sinners

Refuge of Sinners

At the moment when she became the Mother of God, Mary received a special mission. She became the pacifier, the Mediatrix between man and God. In the words of Pius XII, ”She is our advocate. Placed as she is between God and the sinner, Mary is ever busy invoking the clemency of the Judge in order to move Him to pity, and she is ever trying to overcome the obstinacy of the sinner” (July 21, 1947).

A mediator or mediatrix is a person who unites, who brings together two separated persons or peoples. Everyday in the newspapers we read of someone being appointed by the government as a mediator. That person is charged with calming a dispute between two people or groups of people. His job is to bring about a reconciliation.

Getting closer to every day life, how often have we seen a mother act as a mediatrix between a father and son. She knows how to calm the father’s anger while overcoming the son’s obstinate pride.

Mary is Our Advocate

Man and God are separated not only by the difference of their natures. They have been separated since the time of Adam by the war man has waged against God through sin. Who will bring them together?  Above all who will reconcile man and God?

Of course it is true that Jesus, the Son off Man, is placed as Mediator between God and Man. St. John tells us that He is our Advocate with the Father. He is constantly interceding for sinners. He shows His wounds to the Father and relying on the Father’s love for Him, He begs mercy for us.

But we must never forget that Christ, in becoming man, making Himself our Mediator, has not ceased to be God. Because our sins have offended each of the three Divine Persons, we have offended our Mediator. So we need some charitable person, someone who has never offended Him by the slightest sin, to mediate between Him and us and to calm His just anger.

Mary is the Person Most Capable of Inclining God, to be Merciful and Clement Toward Us

Who is this person? St. Bernard replies, ”It is Mary. She is the person most capable of inclining God, her Son, to be merciful and clement toward us. God has even appointed her to fulfil this charitable role of Mediatrix between Himself and men. He has given her the power, so to speak, of holy violence whereby she can withhold His hand when He is ready to punish His children.  Jesus seems to take pleasure in seeing her oppose His anger toward us and He lets Himself be calmed more quickly by Mary than by any other intercessor, including an angel”.

Some people feel that there is much exaggeration in all this. Let them recall that Holy Scripture tells us how God allowed Himself to be, as it were, over-come by the holy violence of the prayer of Moses. After forty days on Mount Sinai, Moses was about to descend when God showed him the Israelites down below who had turned from the true God to worship a golden calf to which they were offering incense.

God said to Moses, ”How long will this people detract me. How long will they not believe me for all the signs I have wrought before them? I will strike them therefore with pestilence and will consume them: but I will make thee a ruler over a great nation and a mightier one than this.” Moses begged forgiveness for his people but God repeated, ’Let me alone that my wrath may be kindled against them and that I may destroy them.” But Moses refused to stop wearying God with his prayers and finally obtained divine forgiveness for his people.

Mary’s Prayer is Most Powerful

From these revealed facts, St. Louis De Montfort concludes, ”If Moses, by the force of his prayer, stayed the anger of God against the Israelites in a manner so powerful that the most high and infinitely merciful God being unable to resist him, told him to let Him alone that He might be angry with and punish this rebellious people, what must we not, with much greater reason, think of the prayer of the humble Mary, that worthy Mother of God, which is more powerful with His Majesty than the prayers and intercessions of all the angels and saints both in heaven and on earth”? (T.D. No. 27).

Mary never ceases to appease God’s just wrath, to stay the eternal punishment of His justice which we deserve. Her prayers never cease for sinners who have offended her Divine Son, their Mediator. She is the divinely appointed Mediatrix which we need before Christ, our Mediator.

To lift the lagging courage of sinners, St. Bernard exhorts us in these words, ”My dear children, the divine Mary is the ladder of poor sinners. It is by her that we can hope to climb to heaven. If I pray, I am certain that she will hear we, and if she prays for me, I am certain that she will be heard because of the dignity of her person. What have I to fear except not to have enough devotion, not enough confidence, not enough recourse to her? As God has not wished to give the Saviour of the world except by her, He wills also that no mortal shall have salvation but by her, and that we receive no grace from heaven which does not pass through her hands”.

Let Your Reverence for Her be Truly Alive

Now that we understand more fully the role of Mary, our all-powerful refuge, our Mediatrix let us follow the advice of Pius XII.  ”Let your reverence for her be a thing truly alive. Never fear to exalt her too much – she will shine forth in eternity as the masterpiece off God, most marvelous of creatures, mirror most resplendent of the divine perfections. It was so as to become the Mother of God that she received all the gifts of nature and grace. That is why devotion to the Virgin, at least when correctly grasped, far from taking away from the glory of God, leads us rather back to the Author of all good who has willed her to be so great and pure.”

God is very patient with the ignorant. With those who have knowledge of His divine plan He expects cooperation. Let us begin then today to deepen our devotion to Mary, our Mediatrix. Let it be, ”a thing truly alive,” which permeates our daily life. As it does so we will be able to bring the knowledge of Mary, the refuge of sinners, to others so that a sinful world may find its way back to peace, to happiness, to God.