Vous êtes sur la page 1sur 3

The Faith in Mary Most Holy

Theology teaches that the virtue of faith is a supernatural gift, infused by God in our
intelligence, by which we firmly believe in what he has revealed.

Since our Lord Jesus Christ enjoyed the beatific vision, he had the clear vision of God, and
therefore he did not need faith. Hence it can be safely said that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the
highest and most sublime model of faith that existed or will ever exist.

Her intelligence, animated by this virtue, penetrated the message that the angel gave her at the
Annunciation, when he revealed the mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption.

On the one hand, faith is certain, as God is the Author of revelation and God cannot deceive us.
Faith is also a source of light, since it allows us to reach truths to which we would not arrive at
by any other means. And yet, and at the same time faith is obscure, precisely because it deals
with that which is not seen. That is why we speak of the chiaroscuro of faith.

And yet, despite the darkness inherent to faith, Mary's faith was always strong, sure and ready
to believe all that God revealed to her. In order to be the Mother of God she had been preserved
from original sin and made "full of grace" (Lk 1:28) from the very moment of her conception.
Hence it follows that she also possessed the virtue of faith in the highest degree that has been
infused into a soul in this world, surpassing anything we can imagine or comprehend.

When the Archangel Gabriel was presented to her at the Annunciation, she did not hesitate for a
single moment; she believed immediately, and her cousin Elizabeth praised her: "Blessed are
you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled" (Lk 1:45).

Afterwards, in Bethlehem, at the sight of her Son born in a humble stable, she firmly believed
that he was the Creator of the universe. Seeing the Babys weakness, and whom she had to feed,
clean and care for, she did not cease to believe in His infinite power. When the Child began
babbling the first words - which she taught him - she did not hesitate to see in him the
Uncreated Wisdom, the Eternal Word of God. Later on she had to protect him from King
Herod, she fled to Egypt, taking in her arms him whom she believed to be the King of creation.

When the Child was brought to the temple to be circumcised, Simeon said to Mary: "Behold,
this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be
contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce)" (Lk 2: 34-35). Thus, the shadow of the
cross of her Son was projected not only on Christ but also on Mary, for the rest of her life. Mary
was associated with the redemptive work of Jesus, to which she adhered with all her heart
always in the darkness of faith.

1
Pope John Paul II comments on this meeting with Simeon: "At the very beginning of his life,
the Son of Mary, and his Mother with him, will experience in themselves the truth of those
other words of Simeon: a sign that is spoken against (Lk. 2:34). Simeon's words seem like a
second Annunciation to Mary, for they tell her of the actual historical situation in which the Son
is to accomplish his mission, namely, in misunderstanding and sorrow. While this
announcement on the one hand confirms her faith in the accomplishment of the divine promises
of salvation, on the other hand it also reveals to her that she will have to live her obedience of
faith in suffering, at the side of the suffering Savior, and that her motherhood will be mysterious
and sorrowful" (Encyclical Redemptoris Mater, n. 16).

Another passage reveals the darkness in which both Mary and Joseph remained: The Child
remains in the temple, among the doctors of the Law, while Mary and Joseph sought him. When
they found him He says to them: "How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must
be about my father's business?" (Lk 2:49). And the evangelist Luke points out that they
"understood not the word that he spoke unto them" (Lk 2:50).

The fact that the Virgin Mary was faced with the mysteries of the Incarnation and the
Redemption, and as if enveloped in them in a special way, does not mean that they were
understandable to her. It is the chiaroscuro of faith: "Mary was the first in the pilgrimage of
faith - says Blessed John Paul II she was the most enlightened, but at the same time the most
submitted to the test in accepting the mystery. It was for her to accept the divine plan, adored
and meditated in the silence of her heart. In fact, Luke adds: his mother kept all these words in
her heart (Lk 2:51)" (General Audience 04-VII-90).

She was assigned with the task of bringing up Jesus, day after day, for thirty long years, in the
silence and hidden life of Nazareth. All along, she was certain that her Son, the one she taught,
and she sent to fetch water or wood, was God himself. But all this she knew only by faith.

In the daily contact with her Son, as he grew older, the Mother strove to penetrate His mystery.
At Nazareth Mary prayed and struggled to understand the providential plan of Jesus' mission.
"All these things" are but the events of which she had been, both protagonist and spectator,
since the announcement of the Angel; but above all these things refer to the daily life of the
Child. Each day of intimacy with him constitutes an invitation to know him better, to discover
more deeply the meaning of His presence and the mystery of His person.

"One might think it was easy for Mary to believe," notes John Paul II, "since she lived in daily
contact with Jesus. But it must be remembered, in this respect, that the singular aspects of the
personality of her Son were usually hidden. Although His way of acting was exemplary, he
lived a life much like that of so many of His contemporaries" (General Audience 29-I-97).

2
At last, Mary was at the foot of the cross, when the Apostles had abandoned the Lord. There she
stood, professing her faith in the Crucified One to be the Son of God. When all have lost faith in
Jesus, she alone confesses him to be God, defeated in appearance, but the real and effective
conqueror of the devil, of sin, and even, three days later, of death itself. Mary's act of faith on
Calvary was the greatest act ever made in this world, in the deepest darkness, at the hour of the
power of darkness (cf. Lk 22:53).

It is said of Abraham, our father in faith: "By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered Isaac:
and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, (To whom it was said:
In Isaac shalt thy seed be called:) Accounting that God is able to raise up even from the dead"
(Hb 11:17-19). These words apply even more legitimately to Mary Most Holy, who, like
Abraham, was put to the test, and like him, offered up his only son; but, unlike Abraham, she
received acceptance of his offering from God, who "spared not even his own Son, but delivered
him up for us all" (Rm 8:32).

When her Son died, Mary now had in her heart faith in the redemption of the world through
him, as from her earliest childhood she had believed in the Messiah who was to come and save
us. She alone kept it in her heart, for she was the only one who carried within her the mystery of
the Incarnation of Jesus. To all other men, including the Apostles, the life and work of Jesus
seemed to be a great failure. As a child Jesus had rested in her bosom, now from Good Friday to
the morning of Easter Sunday, He had again wanted to shut himself up in Mary, sheltering in
her all the mystical body, the Church. Mary's faith was like the lamp that marks the presence of
Jesus in the tabernacle. She believed for us. She, alone, retained the faith of the whole nascent
Church.

The words of Elizabeth, "Blessed is the one who has believed", go back to the beginning of the
creation, says John Paul II, "and as a sharing in the sacrifice of Christ -the new Adam- it
becomes in a certain sense the counterpoise to the disobedience and disbelief embodied in the
sin of our first parents. Thus teach the Fathers of the Church and especially St. Irenaeus, quoted
by the Constitution Lumen Gentium: The knot of Eve's disobedience was untied by Mary's
obedience; what the virgin Eve bound through her unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosened by her
faith. In the light of this comparison with Eve, the Fathers of the Church -as the Council also
says- call Mary the mother of the living and often speak of death through Eve, life through
Mary. In the expression Blessed is she who believed, we can therefore rightly find a kind of
key which unlocks for us the innermost reality of Mary, whom the angel hailed as full of
grace." (Redemptoris Mater, 19).

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi