Mediatrix

History

Early history

Mediatrix is an ancient title. The title was also used in the 5th century by Basil of Seleucia. By the 8th century, the title Mediatrix found common use and Andrew of Crete and John of Damascus used it.

These early notions place Mary's mediation on a higher level than that of other forms of the intercession of saints. Her position as the mother of Jesus Christ the redeemer and source of grace makes her preeminent among others who might be called mediators.

Later Middle Ages

The use of the Mediatrix title continued to grow in the Middle Ages, and Bernard of Clairvaux (12th century), Bonaventure, and Bernardino of Siena (15th century) frequently used it.

In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas noted that only Jesus Christ can be the perfect mediator between God and humankind. However, this does not hinder that others may be called mediators, in some respect, between God and man, because they assist and prepare union between God and man.

The same notion was stated in the 16th century by the Council of Trent, which declared "that the saints, who reign together with Christ, offer up their own prayers to God for men; that it is good and useful suppliantly to invoke them, and to have recourse to their prayers, aid, (and) help for obtaining benefits from God, through His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is our alone Redeemer and Saviour; but that they think impiously, who deny that the saints, who enjoy eternal happiness in heaven, are to be invocated; or who assert either that they do not pray for men; or, that the invocation of them to pray for each of us even in particular, is idolatry; or, that it is repugnant to the word of God; and is opposed to the honour of the one mediator of God and men, Christ Jesus; or, that it is foolish to supplicate, vocally, or mentally, those who reign in heaven".

17th–18th centuries

Reliance on the intercession of Mary grew and reached its height in the writings of Louis de Montfort and Alphonsus Liguori in the 18th century.

Louis de Montfort's approach (which later influenced Pope John Paul II) emphasized that Mary is the natural path to approaching Jesus because of her special relationship with him. This reliance on the intercession of Mary is based on the general Montfortean formula: "…to do all our actions by Mary, with Mary, in Mary and for Mary so that we may do them all the more perfectly by Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus and for Jesus…"

In his book Treatise on Prayer, Alphonsus Liguori reviewed the writings of Thomas Aquinas and Bernard of Clairvaux on the intercession of saints and Mary's role as Mediatrix and strongly supported the title.

19th–21st centuries

Several popes have used the title Mediatrix. Leo XIII used it in 1896 and Pius X in 1904. This continued in the 20th century with Benedict XV and Pius XI. although he urged reliance on the intercession of Mary.

Pope John Paul II used the title Mediatrix a number of times and in his encyclical Redemptoris Mater quoted a prayer in the Collectio Missarum de Beata Maria Virgine and noted that Mary's mediation is by intercession with the Son:

The maternal role of Mary towards people in no way obscures or diminishes the unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power": it is mediation in Christ. …Mary's mediation is intimately linked with her motherhood… through this fullness of grace and supernatural life she was especially predisposed to cooperation with Christ, the one Mediator of human salvation. And such cooperation is precisely this mediation subordinated to the mediation of Christ."}}

In September 2012, during the Feast of the Nativity of Mary, claimant visionnaire Emma de Guzman stated that the Virgin Mary revealed her maternal role as "Mediatrix before the Mediator," a special Marian title associated by many Filipino Catholics in reference to Our Lady Mediatrix of All Graces.

Theological issues

Among Catholic theologians, it is undisputed that Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and the human race, especially in the salvific role of redemption as exhibited by the crucifixion on Mount Calvary. Accordingly, the word "mediator" in the strict sense fits Jesus alone in relation to God, but in a subordinate sense, Christians exercise a mediation "that is effective through, with, and in Christ. The subordinate mediator never stands alone, but is always dependent on Jesus."

With special reference to Mary, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting the Second Vatican Council, which in its document Lumen gentium referred to Mary as "'Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix and Mediatrix," says:

Similarly, the Catechism of Saint Pius X affirms: A. Jesus Christ is our Mediator with God, because being true God and true man He alone in virtue of His own merits has reconciled us to God and obtains us all graces. But in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, and through the charity which unites them to God and us, the Blessed Virgin and the Saints help us by their intercession to obtain the graces we ask. And this is one of the great benefits of the Communion of Saints.|Catechism of Saint Pius X}}

At a Mariological Congress held at Czestochowa in August 1996, a commission was established in response to a request, by the Holy See, which had asked to know the opinion of the scholars present at the Congress on the possibility of defining a new dogma of faith regarding Mary as Coredemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate. (In recent years, the Pope and various dicasteries of the Holy See had received petitions requesting such a definition.) The response of the commission, deliberately brief, was unanimous and precise: It found that the titles, as proposed, were ambiguous, as they can be understood in very different ways. It also held that it was not opportune to abandon the path marked out by the Second Vatican Council and proceed to the definition of a new dogma.

Marian mediation is exercised in the following areas:{{cite book|author=Flynn M. Fernandes|author2=Margaret E. Guider, O.S.F.|author3= Michael Simone, S.J.|url=https://ur.bc.edu/system/files/2025-04/bc-ir105006.pdf|title=Mary: Co-redemptrix, mediatrix of all graces, and advocate of the people of God: An interdisciplinary exposition and evaluation of the proposed fifth Marian dogma|publisher=Boston College University Libraries |year=2015|p=43|format=PDF|archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20250902142622/https://www.academia.edu/128327198/Mary_Co_redemptrix_mediatrix_of_all_graces_and_advocate_of_the_people_of_God_An_interdisciplinary_exposition_and_evaluation_of_the_proposed_fifth_Marian_dogma|archive-date=2 September 2025|url-status=live}}

• mediator of the Incarnation of the Word of God in her maternal womb;
• mediation in the Redemption, inasmuch as the *mediation of the Son of God would not have been possible if he had not assumed human nature from the womb of a ever Virgin, thus remaining in hypostatic union with the divine nature (the divine nature and the human nature of Christ are equally important for the purpose of his saving mediation);
• Intercession for divine grace with God;
• in an ascending sense, as a way to reach Christ.

Fr. David Meconi and Carl E. Olson affirmed that Mary is witness that divinization is no longer out of reach. Christ is a divine hypostasis incarnated; Mary is a human hypostatis divinized."

Mediatrix of all graces

Main article: Mediatrix of all graces

Going further than expressing belief in Mary as Mediatrix, proposals have been made to declare that Mary is the Mediatrix of all graces. Pope Benedict XV allowed the dioceses of Belgium to celebrate the feast of Mary Mediatrix of all graces on May 31 each year. In printings of the Roman Missal from that date until 1961, the Mass of Mary Mediatrix of All Graces was found in the appendix Missae pro aliquibus locis (Masses for Some Places), but not in the general calendar for use wherever the Roman Rite is celebrated. Other Masses authorized for celebration in different places on the same day were those of the Blessed Virgin Mary Queen of All Saints and Mother of Fair Love and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Belgian celebration has now been replaced by an optional memorial on 31 August of the Virgin Mary Mediatrix.

References

References

1. (1960). "Mary and the Protestants". [[College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University]].
2. (10 December 2019). "Art. XXI (IX): Of the Invocation of Saints". [[Book of Concord]].
3. McGurkin, John Anthony 2011. ''The Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity'', {{ISBN. 1-40518539-2 p. 597
4. Second Vatican Council, [https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html ''Lumen gentium''], §62, November 21, 1964.
5. . (4 November 2025). ["Doctrinal Note on Marian titles: Mother of the faithful, not Co-redemptrix"](https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2025-11/doctrinal-note-mother-of-the-faithful-not-co-redemptrix.html). *[[Vatican News]]*.
6. 978-1-882972-06-7, p. 104
7. Antoine Nachef (Sep 1, 2000) ''Mary's Pope: John Paul II, Mary, and the Church'' {{ISBN. 1-58051077-9 pp. 179–80
8. Thomas Aquinas, [http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4026.htm Summa, III, 26,1], New advent.
9. Council of Trent, [http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct25.html Session XXV], U. Hanover.
10. Mark Miravalle, 1993, ''Introduction to Mary'', Queenship Publishing {{ISBN. 978-1-882972-06-7, p. 156
11. Mark Miravalle, 1993, ''Introduction to Mary'', Queenship Publishing {{ISBN. 978-1-882972-06-7 p. 175
12. St Alphonsus Liguori (Jun 7, 2009) ''Treatise on Prayer'' {{ISBN. 0-98199010-X p. 26
13. Paul Haffner (2004) ''The Mystery of Mary'' {{ISBN. 0-85244650-0 p. 260
14. Pope John Paul II's encyclical ''Redemptoris Mater'', Part III, "Maternal Mediation" [https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031987_redemptoris-mater_en.html On the Blessed Virgin Mary in the life of the Pilgrim Church]
15. Castro, June Keithley. [http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/66814/messages-from-mama-mary "Messages from Mama Mary"], Inquirer.
16. {{bibleverse. 1. Timothy. 2:5. 130
17. [http://www.scborromeo.org/papers/interces.pdf The Intercession of Saints]
18. [https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2C.HTM Catechism of the Catholic Church, 969–970]
19. [https://udayton.edu/imri/mary/m/mediatrix-coredemptrix-and-advocate-declaration.php "Declaration of the Theological Commission of the Pontifical International Marian Academy", ''L'Osservatore Romano'']
20. ''[[L'Osservatore Romano]]'', [http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/ormaria2.htm Weekly ed in English], 25 June 1997, p.10
21. In Latin: "quod non est assumptum, non est sanatum" (cf. St. [[Gregory of Nazianzus]], Ep. 101 ad Cledon.). Quoted in [[Pope John Paul II]] 's [https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/formulation-of-the-faith-in-christ-conciliar-definitions-i-23922 General Audience of 9 March 1988]
22. See the [[Latin language
23. Guy McClung. (20 January 2019). "Mary: Deified Human Hypostasis".
24. Mark Miravalle, 2008, ''Mariology: A Guide for Priests, Deacons, seminarians, and Consecrated Persons'', Queenship Publishing {{ISBN. 1-57918-355-7 page 448
25. See, for instance, [http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/bjm.htm#czt the 1957 printing] and a [http://www.sanctamissa.org/en/resources/missale-romanum-pdf.html late-1920s printing.] {{Webarchive. link. (2020-03-01)
26. [http://www.liturgiecatholique.fr/Calendrier-liturgique-francophone,3146.html Calendrier liturgique francophone 2010-2011]