It was in a difficult format so I cleaned up the whole thing and posted it here. I was going to only post a portion but I thought others might want to read the whole thing. This is an interview done for the Robinsonville Shrine newsletter.
Father Peter Damian Fehlner, a member of the Franciscans of the Immaculate and Rector of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, gave the Fall Marian retreat at the Shrine on Saturday, October 2nd. Shortly after the retreat, I had the opportunity to speak with Father Peter regarding the topic of his retreat: “Mary's Maternal Mediation, the Spiritual Crisis of our time and the Month of the Holy Rosary”. The transcript of the interview will appear in the Shrine's Newsletter in a series of articles.
JJM: The first segment of your talk was entitled “Mary's Maternal Mediation” and you defined Our Lady's role as Mediatrix through her giving birth to Jesus who is the fountain of all grace. Are there other aspects of Mary's life that help to further define her role as Mediatrix?
Fr. Peter: Yes there are, but I mention this one in particular because it is especially helpful in grasping what we mean when we say Christ is the one Mediator of all, yet associates others with Him in carrying out His work of mediation, above all His Mother. In the natural order the most perfect example of mediation we know is that of our mothers. I am human because I am the child of my father. But I become a human being only through the mediation of my mother. Christ became man, not by an act of the Blessed Trinity alone, but through the maternal-mediatory action of His Mother, the Virgin Mary. You cannot divorce the mother from the son; Mary as Mother and Mediatrix cannot be divorced from Christ. By God's choice Mary remains “Mediatrix in the Mediator”, our link with Christ in all the mysteries of His life, death and resurrection. He came to us through her, and we go to Him through her. Just as there is no better way to become a human being than through a mother, so there is no better way to become a child of God the Father than through Mary. This of course implies in Mary a peculiar relationship to the Father and Holy Spirit as well. St. Francis expresses it by calling her the first-born daughter of the Father, Mother of His only begotten Son, and Spouse of the Holy Spirit. This indicates the Trinitarian dimensions of our belief about our lady.
You can take every single one of the great mysteries of her life, the Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries, and you will discover each one is exemplified by some aspect of her role as Mediatrix with the Mediator, or in the Mediator. She is the Mediatrix between Jesus and us in the same way as my mother is Mediatrix between my father and myself. She doesn't get in the way; it is just that without her, I would not be around. That being the case, everything else that follows that moment when she is mediating Jesus' virginal conception and birth, every further advance of Christ towards the consummation of his mission on the Cross and in the Resurrection, involves a maternal mediatory participation of Our Lady. We see this at the presentation of Jesus in the Temple by Mary and Joseph, the flight into Egypt, the return to Nazareth, the finding of Jesus in the Temple after three days, the introduction of our Lord to his public life, especially at the marriage feast in Cana, her quiet presence in His ministry, the praise the good woman showered on her when the wicked were accusing Jesus of having cut a deal with Satan, and more importantly the praise Our Lord bestowed on Mary on that occasion: More blessed is she who heard the word of God and kept it, as did Mary at the Annunciation. Here, we see what St. Luke means when twice he says: Mary kept all these things in her heart pondering them. Mary in hearing and doing the word of God above all did the one thing that is most difficult; she became the Mother of the Redeemer and therefore shared in his suffering.
Gloriously assumed into heaven Mary continues to exercise this same mediatory role in our behalf. All of these are aspects of the unique mediation on which is founded our participation and cooperation in this tremendous work of Jesus. This is the whole point of her presence at the foot of the cross.
What is she doing there? She is there because she is sharing in the sorrows of our Lord that she might function, as He wished, as our Mother to sustain our faith and our hope.
Especially our hope, because that is where the apostles and even St. John fell short, the model of hope at the foot of the cross was Our Lady. They didn't loose their faith, but it seems obvious from the testimony in the Gospels, that after the resurrection they were very slow to believe because they really did not expect Him to rise. However, it was our Lady who never blinked an eyelash because she expected Him to rise on the third day, and He did. St. Ambrose says she stood there like the courageous women of Proverbs 31.
JJM: We see this in Lumen Gentium. The Second Vatican Council called Mary our Mother in the order of grace through her suffering with Christ as He died on the Cross. They spoke of this as cooperation in the work of the Savior. What did they mean by the “order of grace and does this aspect of Mary define her role in redemption?
Fr. Peter: Yes, that is the highest order of existence of a creature. St. Bonaventure puts it very nicely, although he is not original in this, “Whom she brought forth without pain at Bethlehem despite the circumstances, the Incarnate Word, she brought forth with great pain and suffering on Calvary: His mystical members.” Her Spiritual Motherhood cost her dearly. The cost was the sacrifice of her Son and her participation in His sorrows. She is unique in this. She is the only Mother of God. In view of this Christ has entrusted her with the mediation or distribution of all graces or blessings of salvation, precisely because in sharing the victory of Christ as His Mother, she is able to associate us with Christ forever. JJM: This seems to define a more proactive role in the redemption of mankind.
Fr. Peter: That's right. She is pre-redeemed you might say, or preserved in the most perfect way from all stain of original sin precisely to be able to cooperate with Our Lord, subordinate to him yet still in cooperation with him in our liberative redemption, our being delivered or freed from sin. We can't do that precisely because we are conceived in the state of original sin, but she can because she is preserved from contracting original sin at conception. There is still but one Mediator, Christ, who can do whatever he wants himself. But he chooses as it were, to save us with the cooperation of His Mother. He could merely have descended to earth alone. But divine generosity is such that He did not want to be alone.
And so, as St. Thomas tells us, He chose the best way by coming as he did through a mother. That is why it is possible for us not only to receive the gift of redemption, but to also cooperate actively with Christ in the realization of its full implications in the Church and gain eternal life also as a reward for our good works. JJM: In Luke's Gospel, the Angel called Mary, Full of Grace. I always saw this as a title, much like the Immaculate Conception. Fr. Peter: It is equivalent to the Immaculate Conception. She is full of grace because she was immaculately conceived.
JJM: Then can we assume that if she is full of Grace, or as the Greek implies bursting forth or enriched with Grace, she is also the Mediatrix of all graces rather than only some or certain graces?
Fr. Peter: Right. Not that she is the one who is the authoress of the graces but all of them as it were, identical as they are in Christ, pass through her to come to us, precisely because He only comes on earth through His Mother.
JJM: You made the statement: “there is no Grace that passes to us from the Cross except through the mediation of Mary.” Yet, St. Thomas argued that only Christ can be the perfect mediator between God and man. How do we balance this understanding of Mary as Mediatrix of all Graces with the teachings of St. Thomas?
Fr. Peter: Mary's maternal mediation is part of the perfection of Christ's one mediation. We are saying in a general statement that Christ is the one Mediator, but that does not exclude cooperation. He can involve anyone He wants, anyway He wants. He still is the one Mediator, but His Mother is part of this in a very unique way as the only Mother of God. The statement I quoted in my talk is from Pope Benedict XVI three years ago in Brazil. He was reminding the Bishops that in practice our only contact with Christ, especially for the Blessings of redemption, is through Our Lady. He comes to us through her; His Blessings come to us through her. We can't begin to describe this wonder. We are simply stating a very simple fact: If you are alive, you are alive because your mother was generous enough to conceive you and give birth to you. Such generosity is stupendous, because this is the indispensible basis of all else in your life. In the same way, in a higher order of Grace, we are born again of water and the Holy Spirit precisely through the intervention of Our Lady, Spouse of the Holy Spirit.
JJM: What I am hearing from you is that as Mediatrix of all Graces, Mary's mediation is more than intercessory prayer as some would believe.
Fr. Peter: Yes. Her intercession is unique, because her mediation is unique. The saints have a certain mediatory role by prayer, but Mary is unique because she can play a role that no other saint can. This is the tradition; her perfection at her Immaculate Conception was greater than all of the saints put together. We on the other hand intercede and pray for each other. But we cannot intervene in the lives of others to help them as Our Lady can because she really is their mother. She has an immediacy to each of us because she is our spiritual mother. She does truly give us supernatural life. She is not its origin; Christ is the origin of supernatural life. But that we have it comes through her intervention as well as her intercession. That intervention is truly a maternal act.
JJM: Father, in your talk you said, “to be a mother is to be a mediator” and you spoke of the “nobility and role of every woman.” Please explain what you mean by the nobility and role of every woman.
Fr. Peter: “Woman” is a title, whereas “female” is not. Female is simply a word describing a sexual difference. “Woman” instead describes the dignity of the person who enjoys certain powers that men do not have. Men also enjoy powers that women do not have. In this case the power of the woman to conceive, give birth, nourish and educate, is the noblest natural power that anyone can enjoy short of being a divine person. It is a natural power not only biological, but above all personal and spiritual. This is what is so horrible about the modern feminist movement. It denies that the noblest aspect of the title Woman is precisely the power to procreate and educate. That is the heart of mediation exercised by a created person. All other aspects of mediation depend upon the mystery of the woman and her relation to the divine Savior and one Mediator of all. Here we see why to become man the Son of God chose to be born of a Woman, why he made our becoming children of God depend spiritually on being born again of Mary. “Woman” is the title with which Our Lord twice addressed His mother: at the beginning of His public ministry at the wedding feast in Cana and again on Calvary as He was dying. This is why Mary is found at the very center of the Apostles on Pentecost, just as at the Annunciation she is the center of attention of God, of the Angels and of us. When Mary agreed to the redemptive Incarnation: Be it done to me according to thy word, she spoke, St. Thomas says, for us also. In coming to believe and obey God as does Mary, we make her acceptance of the Savior and salvation our own.
JJM: Then what you are saying is that somehow the aspect of woman identifies with Mary's role as Mediatrix of all Graces?
Fr. Peter: That is because the role of a woman to be a mother is essentially mediatory. The reason that I am human is because I am a child of Adam, but I cannot be a child of Adam except through the mediation of my mother. The same thing is true if I am to be a child of GOD born again of water and the Holy Spirit, adopted as His child. This must be through the mediation of a mother, for the same reason Jesus was born of Mary by the working of the Holy Spirit. The Second Vatican Council tells us that the motherhood of the Church is simply an extension of the motherhood of the preeminent member of the Church, namely the Virgin Mother of GOD. She is the preeminent member of the Church precisely because she is the victorious Co-Redemptrix. She is the victorious woman. The woman in Genesis who crushes the head of the serpent is going to guarantee us life and immortality.
JJM: You mentioned Father that “all things should be considered through Our Lady as our loving Mediatrix.” In the Wisconsin apparitions, unlike other Marian apparitions, Adele received a unique commission from Our Lady to teach the children. How does this request of Mary fit into the role of mediator?
Fr. Peter: What we are saying here is that the role of maternal Mediatrix is not only to give life, but it is also to refine life. Not only to give birth and procreate, but also to educate.
JJM: The formation of the corporal, spiritual and intellectual as you presented during the retreat.
Fr. Peter: Yes, and therefore teaching is one of the essential aspects of mediation. We learn to the extent that we truly trust, believe and confide in our teachers. Here we say that teaching in the first instance is the prerogative of the mother. Once you have learned everything you can from your mother, you are sent off to school. But if you do not learn the essential truths from your mother, you probably are never going to learn them. Whatever the relative merits of our mothers as professional teachers, with the support of the New Eve, Mary, they are indeed capable of communicating the basics of wisdom. Indeed, more than once Mary has intervened to secure the teaching of essentials as she did with Sister Adele. This is the case of the great theologian, John Duns Scotus. He was slow when he was a little child, but Our Lady intervened and brought him stupendous intellectual gifts. We can trust so good, so pure a teacher as the Mother of God who calls herself at Lourdes the “Immaculate Conception.” She, who exalts in her God and Savior because as His Mother He is her Jesus, is also our best teacher about Jesus. Here we see the link between Lourdes and Champion.
JJM: Can we not see this same mediation of Our Lady with Sister Adele who only had a third or fourth grade education?
Fr. Peter: Absolutely. Not having attained a higher level of education, she nonetheless became a very successful teacher of essentials when most needed. This is what is so significant about this particular apparition, its great coming on the wake of Lourdes and not many years after the apparitions of La Salette and Rue du Bac in Paris concerning the miraculous medal. We still need this miracle of sound education.
Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help
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