The Mother of God well deserved our salvation as taught by Pope Saint Pius X, and her suffering participated in the satisfaction of our sin, as we have shown in the last two articles. Continuing the comparison with the Passion of Christ, the following inquiry examines whether Mary’s compassion was a real sacrifice.
There are two magisterial texts, two texts from popes that suggest this. Leo XIII, in his encyclical Semper Jucundaone of the many encyclicals dedicated to the Holy Rosary, tells us: Mary “in a miracle of charity, that she may receive us as her sons, generously offered his own son to divine justice, and died in his heart with himstabbed by the sword of pain.
Saint Pius X, in the encyclical Illum ad diem for the 50th anniversary of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, wrote: “Besides, it was not only the prerogative of the Most Holy Mother to have provided the matter of her flesh to the only Son of God, who was to be born with human limbs (S. Bede Ven. L. Iv. in Luke. xl.), the material of which must be prepared the Victim for the salvation of men; but his was also responsible for caring for and feeding this victim, and presenting it at the time fixed for the sacrifice..”
What should a sacrifice contain?
–A person who offers — and more precisely who immolates the victim.
–A thing offered – which is immolated.
–The person to whom the sacrifice is offered.
–The purpose of this offering, its reason.
It is possible to say that the Blessed Virgin causes our salvation through the mode of sacrifice if she stands next to the victim or next to the priest, that is, if she participates in any way in the role of one or the other in the sacrifice of the Cross which causes our salvation.
The role of the Mother of God in the sacrifice of Christ
–Is the Mother of God a victim in the sacrifice of the Cross?
* As for the external sacrifice itself, it must be said that Christ is the only victim.
*As for sacrifice in the broad and inner sense, that is to say, the virtuous dispositions that express the act of sacrifice, whoever has these dispositions is in some way a victim. This is the case of Notre Dame. Incidentally, she has her “own cross” which is to have delivered Christ to suffer as her mother.
–Did the Mother of God offer the sacrifice of the Cross?
*The priest of Calvary is Jesus Christ alone: it is he who is immolated, for it is he who gives up his life. This is not the case for Notre-Dame.
*Those who participate in the oblation of the victim participate in the sacrifice alongside the priest; this is the case of the Virgin who prepared the material for the sacrifice. She is singular in that the matter of the sacrifice is something of herself, her Son, and that she made the sacrifice possible by her Decree.
*Those who unite with the intention of sacrifice participate in a certain way in the priesthood: this is the case of Notre-Dame, more than anyone else. This intention is qualitatively superior to that of any baptized person, because the Mother of God has, by right, the concern that all men be saved, because they are potential members of her Son.
Both by her intention and by her motherhood, the Virgin is united in a sacrificial way to the Passion of her divine Son, in a very particular and unique way, by her compassion which is a true sacrifice.
