In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In order to understand the role of the Blessed Virgin in the work of our salvation, we must look back to the origin of all things. There we see just how considerate God is: in the work of regenerating our nature he employed all that had once contributed to its ruin. It is certain that God could have delivered mankind without becoming a man. Yet it pleased him to redeem us by becoming a man so that the same nature that had been enslaved by the demon could win the victory over him and his overbold companions. Even when the Son of God had resolved to come to earth and to clothe himself in human flesh, he could have made himself a body and a soul without the assistance of his creatures, and thus been spared the shame of belonging to a criminal line. Nevertheless, his incomprehensible Providence disposed otherwise. It pleased him that grace and blessing should find its origin in this accursed race. Our Lord wanted to be the son of Adam so that his blessed birth would forever sanctify the race that had been infected by sin.
Since both man and woman participated in the despoiling of our nature, they would also participate in its restoration. If the corruption of sin had dishonored both sexes, it was necessary that the Redeemer of man should honor them both. That is why Jesus Christ, a man, was born of a woman. And because mankind was cast into eternal damnation by a man and a woman, it was fitting that God should have predestined a new Eve as well as a new Adam, so as to replace the old line that had been condemned with a new line sanctified by grace. We may, therefore, conclude that just as the first Eve was the mother of all those condemned to die, so the new Eve, Mary, is the mother of all the living, that is, the faithful.
Let us compare Eve and Mary. The work of our corruption began with Eve, the work of our regeneration with Mary. An angel of darkness spoke to Eve, an angel of light to Mary. The angel of darkness wished to raise Eve to the false dignity of pretending to be divine, saying to her, “You will be like God.” The angel of light identified Mary’s true dignity as her friendship with God, saying, “The Lord is with you.” The angel of darkness, speaking to Eve, sought to incite her to rebellion: “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?’” The angel of light, speaking to Mary, persuaded her to be obedient: “Do not be afraid, Mary . . . with God, nothing will be impossible.” The word of death was spoken to Eve, the word of life to the Blessed Virgin. Eve believed the serpent, Mary the angel. Thus, as Tertullian said, “a pious faith erased the fault of an audacious credulity, and Mary repaired by her belief in God what Eve had ruined by believing the devil.” Eve, led astray by the demon, was forced to flee the presence of God, while Mary, instructed by the angel, was made worthy to bear God, so that, as the holy martyr Irenaeus said, “the Virgin Mary became the advocate for the virgin Eve.”
It cannot be doubted that Mary was the Eve of the new covenant and consequently the mother of a new people. And Mary will be your mother, if you live in Our Lord Jesus Christ. She will be Eve, that is, in the Hebrew tongue, the living one. Adam gave this name to his wife because she was the mother of all the living. Yet it is not Eve who is the mother of all the living; she is, rather, the mother of those who will die. In fact, the first Eve received her name as a prefigurement of the Blessed Virgin, whose dignity she represents. The Blessed Virgin is the true Eve, the true mother of all the living. Live, then, and Mary will be your mother. But live in and through Jesus, because Mary herself has no life except in and through Jesus.
Hail Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
O God, who through the fruitful virginity of Blessed Mary bestowed on the human race the grace of eternal salvation, grant, we pray, that we may experience the intercession of her, through whom we were found worthy to receive the author of life, our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
