FINDING MARY IN THE SCRIPTURES – Part II

FINDING MARY IN THE SCRIPTURES

ANY CONSIDERATION OF THE role of our Blessed Lady in the Scriptures . . .

. . . should surely begin with the beautiful summary given in the Constitution on the Church of the Second Vatican Council in November of 1964:

THE CHURCH’S OFFICIAL POSITION . . .

“The Sacred Writings of the Old and New Testaments, as well as venerable tradition, show the role of the Mother of the Savior in the plan of salvation in an ever clearer light and call our attention to it. The books of the Old Testament describe the history of salvation, by which the coming of Christ into the world was slowly prepared. The earliest documents, as they are read in the Church and are understood in the light of a further and full revelation, bring the figure of a woman, Mother of the Redeemer, into a gradually clearer light.

. . . ON THE ROLE OF OUR LADY

Considered in this light, she is already prophetically foreshadowed in the promise of victory over the serpent which was given to our first parents after their fall into sin. Likewise, she is the virgin who shall conceive and bear a son, whose name shall be called Emmanuel. She stands out among the poor and humble of the Lord, who confidently hope for and receive salvation from him. After a long period of waiting the times are fulfilled in her, the exalted Daughter of Sion and the new plan of salvation is established, when the Son of God has taken human nature from her, that he might in the mysteries of his flesh free man from sin.”

Most of us don’t care for long quotations, and we tend to gloss over them, glance at them quickly so as to get on with whatever we are reading. With this one, however, it is important to read it slowly and carefully! It gives us the Church’s official position on the role of Our Lady in the Scriptures. And if we are to understand and appreciate the place of our Blessed Lady in the Bible, it would be worth our while to ponder the meaning of this particular passage from the Second Vatican Council.

MEDITATE ON THE MEANING OF THE PASSAGE

To begin with, notice the emphasis that the Council puts on the idea of gradual development of God’s plan for the redemption of the human race. Too many people feel discouragement when reading the Bible. Why? Because they fail to appreciate the fact that God reveals His plan over the course of the centuries, and not all at once.

The Council brings this out by using such expressions as: “in an ever clearer light, the world was slowly prepared,” “in the light of a further and full revelation,” “into a gradually clearer light,” “prophetically foreshadowed,” and “after a long period of waiting.” The point is to read and understand the Scriptures as a gradual revelation of God’s plan.

OUR LADY’S ROLE IS NOT CLEAR FROM THE VERY BEGINNING OF THE BIBLE

OUR BLESSED LADY’S ROLE IN the Scriptures, like that of Christ Himself, . . .

. . . is not perfectly clear from the very beginning of the first book of the Bible. God chose to prepare the human race, step by step, for the coming of the Redeemer. The history of salvation and the story of the Messiah evolves little by little. It’s revealing to us fully doesn’t occur until the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Now that this revelation is complete, it is up to us to go back to the beginning and see how it developed.

THE HISTORY OF SALVATION REVEALED

The first hint that we have (the precise term is “foreshadowing”) of our Blessed Lady’s union with the Messiah in the work of Redemption comes in the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis. It is here that we find the story of the fall of Adam and Eve and God’s promise of a Redeemer.

GENESIS SHEDS LIGHT ON OUR LADY’S ROLE

We are all familiar with the story of our first parents. God had created Adam, the man, and Eve, the woman, put them in a place called the Garden of Eden, and endowed them with gifts of intellect and will, of grace and privilege. He subjected them to a test of their loyalty to Him, leaving them free to accept an eternity of happiness or to reject it.

Subsequently, Adam and Eve failed the test. They refused what God offered them and were consequently subject to the results of that refusal: a loss of the paradise that God had offered them. They lost the special gifts of grace that God had given them.   Their minds experience darkness, so that they found it more difficult to see the good. And their wills experience weakness, so that it was now more difficult for them to choose the good and the virtuous.  We know their sin as Original Sin. And we, their descendants, suffer from the effects of it.

GOD GAVE HUMANS ANOTHER CHANCE AT ETERNAL HAPPINESS

Obviously, the human race, through Adam and Eve, had rejected the eternity of happiness that God had in store for them. God, however, chose to give the human race another chance. In addressing the serpent after the fall, He said: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. He shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for his heel.”

LET’S LEAVE TO THE SCRIPTURE scholars the question of whether the original reading is: “She shall crush thy head,” or “He shall crush thy head.”

Or whether it should be: “his heel,” or “her heel.” The important point is that we have here a hint – a foreshadowing – of some kind of redemption to come, a redemption that in some way will involve a woman.

This is the first of the Biblical foreshadowing of Our Lady. As the Council put it: ” . . . she is already prophetically foreshadowed in the promise of victory over the serpent which was given to our first parents after their fall into sin.”

We will note more of these foreshadowings of Our Lady as we progress through the Scriptures. The picture of the Mother of the Redeemer will, as the Council says, come” . . .  into a gradually clearer light. ”

(The series continues)