Part 2 of She Magnifies the Lord: Why Catholic Devotion to Mary Leads Us to Christ

A Catholic response to common objections about Mary, Scripture, the Church, and the Communion of Saints

 New to the series? Start here: Part 1: Before We Talk About Mary, We Need to Talk About Truth

In Part 1 of this series, linked above, I argued that many objections to Catholic Marian doctrine begin with a deeper question:

How do Catholics receive truth?

As Catholics, we are taught not to isolate one verse from the rest of divine revelation and then ask whether a later doctrinal phrase appears in exact form. We read Scripture within the Church Christ founded, together with Sacred Tradition and the living teaching office entrusted with guarding the deposit of faith.

But before we can ask what the Church teaches about Mary, we need to clear away what she does not teach. Much confusion begins here, because many objections to Catholic Marian doctrine are objections to claims the Church herself has never made.

I. What the Church Does Not Teach About Mary

Before saying what the Church does teach about Mary, it is important to say what the Church does not teach.

The Church does not teach that Mary is divine. She is not a goddess. She is not a fourth member of the Trinity. She is not equal to Christ. She is not the source of grace. She is not a rival mediator standing beside Jesus. She does not save us by her own power (cf. CCC 487–511; Lumen Gentium §§53–56).

Everything Mary is, she is by grace. Everything she has, she has received from God. Everything she does for the Church depends entirely upon Christ and leads back to Christ. The Church is very careful to preserve this boundary. The Second Vatican Council teaches that Mary’s maternal role “neither takes away from nor adds anything to the dignity and efficacy of Christ the one Mediator” (Lumen Gentium §62). That is the Church’s own standard. So if a Catholic ever speaks about Mary in a way that makes her seem independent from Christ, or as though Christ were distant, insufficient, or reluctant to give grace unless Mary persuades Him, then that Catholic is not speaking with the precision of the Church.

The Catechism teaches the same thing. It says that Mary’s maternal role toward us “in no way obscures or diminishes” the unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power. It then explains that her role “flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on his mediation, depends entirely on it, and draws all its power from it” (CCC 970, drawing from Lumen Gentium §60).

That sentence is one of the most important safeguards in Catholic Marian doctrine. Mary’s role does not compete with Christ because it comes entirely from Christ. Her intercession does not add to Christ as though He were lacking. It participates in the grace He alone has won. Her motherhood does not create a second source of salvation. It manifests what Christ’s saving work can accomplish in a creature whom He perfectly prepared by grace and who received Him perfectly by grace.

So when I say that every authentic Marian title is derivative from Christ, dependent upon Christ, and ordered back to Christ, I am not offering that as a separate doctrine of my own. I am putting plainly what the Catechism and Vatican II are teaching when they say that Mary’s role depends entirely on Christ’s mediation and neither adds to nor takes away from Him.

That includes Mother of the Church. That includes Queen. That includes her intercession. If a Marian title is separated from Christ, it becomes distorted. But when Mary is seen within the mystery of Christ, she does not obscure Him. She magnifies Him, just as she says in Scripture: “My soul magnifies the Lord” (Luke 1:46).

II. The Catechism Did Not Invent Marian Doctrine 

The next thing to establish is that the Catechism is not inventing Marian doctrine from nothing. When the Catechism speaks about Mary as Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church, it is not giving us private speculation or unsupported devotional language. It is summarizing what the Church has received, prayed, taught, and clarified over time.

One of the easiest ways to make Catholic teaching sound suspicious is to quote a Catholic phrase by itself, detached from the sources behind it. But the Catechism does not present its Marian teaching in isolation. Paragraphs 963–975 are built from Scripture, the Second Vatican Council, St. Augustine, papal teaching, and ancient liturgy.

For example, when the Catechism calls Mary “Mother of the Church,” it cites Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium §53 and St. Augustine’s De virginitate, where Augustine says that Mary is “clearly the mother of the members of Christ” because “she has by her charity joined in bringing about the birth of believers in the Church, who are members of its head” (CCC 963; Lumen Gentium §53; St. Augustine, De virginitate 6).

When the Catechism speaks of Mary’s union with Christ in the work of salvation, it cites Lumen Gentium §§57–58 and explicitly points to John 19:26–27, where Christ says from the Cross, “Woman, behold your son,” and to the beloved disciple, “Behold your mother” (CCC 964; John 19:26–27).

When the Catechism speaks of Mary praying with the Church after the Ascension, it cites Lumen Gentium §§59 and 69, and this is anchored in Acts 1:14, where Mary is explicitly present with the apostles in prayer before Pentecost (CCC 965; Acts 1:14).

When the Catechism speaks of Mary being taken up into heavenly glory and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, it cites Lumen Gentium §59, Pius XII’s Munificentissimus Deus, and the ancient Byzantine liturgy for the Feast of the Dormition (CCC 966). The liturgical reference draws the doctrine into the Church’s ancient prayer, not merely into later theological argument. The Dormition/Assumption tradition is not a late medieval Roman invention. At the same time, I do not want to overstate the evidence. We do not possess an apostolic-age liturgical text for the Dormition in its fully developed form. What we do see is an early Marian liturgical root in the fourth and fifth centuries, especially after the Church’s defense of Mary as Theotokos, Mother of God, at the Council of Ephesus in 431. The ancient Jerusalem and Armenian liturgical tradition preserves an August 15 Marian commemoration connected to Mary as Theotokos. Later, by the sixth century, the Dormition feast was established throughout the Byzantine Empire, and by the seventh and eighth centuries it was preached and theologically developed by Fathers such as St. Modestus of Jerusalem, St. Andrew of Crete, St. Germanus of Constantinople, and St. John Damascene.

So the honest claim is not that the Dormition feast appeared all at once in its final form from the apostolic age. The honest claim is that the Church’s belief was received, prayed, contemplated, and clarified within the ancient liturgical and patristic life of the Church. It is not medieval piety detached from the early Church. It is patristic liturgy and theology, received in the West from the ancient East and later defined with dogmatic precision.

When the Catechism speaks of Mary’s maternal role and intercession, it repeatedly returns to Lumen Gentium §§60–62 and carefully states that Mary’s role does not rival Christ’s one mediation, but depends entirely upon it (CCC 967–970; Lumen Gentium §§60–62). When the Catechism explains why the Church honors Mary, it cites Mary’s own words in Scripture: “All generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:48; CCC 971). So the Church’s honor for Mary is not an addition foreign to Scripture. Properly understood, it is the Church receiving and fulfilling what Scripture itself says would happen.

So when these paragraphs of the Catechism become difficult, I think the right question is not, “Did the Church invent this?” The Catechism itself shows that she did not. The better question is, “Are these sources being read rightly, and does this reading fit within the whole mystery of Christ and His Church?”

That is the question this series will walk through. Not by asking anyone to accept vague Marian language, and not by asking anyone to ignore Scripture, but by looking at the actual sources the Church uses and asking whether Mary’s titles flow from Christ, depend upon Christ, and lead us back to Christ.

In the next article, we will turn to three Marian phrases that often sound alarming when pulled from context: that Mary “continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation,” that she is called “the All-Holy One,” and that the Church invokes her as Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix. Each title must be read according to the Church’s own rule: Mary’s role depends entirely upon Christ and leads back to Him.

May we all go forth in the peace of Christ. Seek truth over victory, speak with charity, and magnify the Lord. Read on:

Part 3 of She Magnifies the Lord: Does the Church Give Mary Too Much?

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