(LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican’s newly publicized rejection of Mary’s titles of Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces marked a missed opportunity of monumental proportions.
Catholics may be aware that these titles are founded in Scripture and amply supported by the saints and popes. But what many Catholics may be unaware of is the level of grace that can be unleashed for the world through acknowledgement of these roles of the Blessed Mother. In fact, a reason behind the First Saturdays devotion is the “unstopping” of these graces, which are held back because of indifference to or contempt for her spiritual maternity.
The import of the Blessed Mother’s role as Mediatrix of All Graces can perhaps be best understood through the image and message associated with the Miraculous Medal, as seen in an apparition by St. Catherine Labouré in 1830. St. Catherine saw Mary standing on a globe, and “holding a golden globe in her hands as if offering it to heaven.”
“The ball which you see represents the whole world, especially France, and each person in particular,” Mary told Catherine. Streaming from rings on Mary’s fingers were “many rays of light.”
“These rays symbolize the graces I shed upon those who ask for them. The gems from which rays do not fall are the graces for which souls forget to ask,” the Blessed Mother said.
We see first that, while Christ is the source of all grace, the Blessed Mother is the one who “sheds” graces on souls who ask. This role as Mediatrix of all Grace has been affirmed by several popes, including Pope Leo XIII, who wrote in Octobri Mense Adventante:
Nothing at all of that very great treasury of all grace that the Lord brought us — for “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17) — nothing is imparted to us except through Mary, since God so wills.
Pope Benedict XV likewise affirmed in Inter Sodalicia, “Every kind of grace we receive from the treasury of the redemption is ministered as it were through the hands of the same sorrowful Virgin.”
This means that graces are dispensed to souls even when they do not realize that Mary is the mediator of the grace. However, intentionally making requests through her intercession and consecrating ourselves to Christ through Mary procures an abundance of graces for our souls that would not otherwise be given, because God never denies the requests of His perfectly holy Mother, as St. Louis de Montfort has expressed in True Devotion to Mary:
“When we present any thing to Jesus by ourselves, and relying on our own industry and disposition, Jesus examines the offering, and often rejects it because of the stains it has contracted through self-love; just as of old He rejected the sacrifices of the Jews when they were full of their own will.
But when we present Him anything by the pure and virginal hands of His Well-beloved, we take Him by His weak side, if it is allowable to use such a term. He does not consider so much the thing that is given Him, as the Mother who gives it. He does not consider so much whence the offering comes, as by whom it comes.
Thus Mary, who is never repelled and always well received by her Son, makes every tiling she presents to Him, great or small, acceptable to His Majesty. For Jesus to receive it and to take complacence in it, it is enough that Mary should present it.”
Thus, if people don’t realize Mary’s role as Mediatrix of all Grace, they will not only neglect an opportunity to honor her for this great role, but they will miss out on a potential abundance of graces they could have asked for through Mary’s intercession.
The loss of graces caused by indifference to the Blessed Mother, or contempt for her, her purity, and her spiritual maternity, has profound ramifications for mankind, leading to the loss of souls. This is a key reason for the First Saturdays Devotion, as Tradition in Action has noted.
Referring to the five sins against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which include the sins of “those who try publicly to implant in the children’s hearts indifference, contempt, and even hatred against this Immaculate Mother,” Guido del Rose explained:
“An ever-spreading cancer, these offenses against the Virgin Mary are effecting among the faithful a decrease of belief in her special role as Mediatrix of All Graces, producing a corresponding dwindling of those graces. At the same time, these sins preclude the possibility that the people in large numbers will seek special, extraordinary graces from her Heart, powerful graces offered to all by our Redeemer through trust and confidence in her Immaculate Heart. A decline in the flow of grace permits the forces of evil to grow in power, resulting in a massive surge of sin, both in quality and quantity.”
Devotion to the Immaculate Heart, such as through the Five First Saturdays devotion, counteracts this by procuring “extraordinary graces” that will “help remove the obstacles (the five sins) which currently restrict the ordinary flow of graces from her Heart, producing a condition which permits evil to grow at an alarming rate, plunging many souls into Hell,” Del Rose wrote.
Instead of allowing the Vatican hierarchy to stifle devotion to Our Lady, Mediatrix of All Graces, and Co-Redemptrix, let us fervently promote devotion to her under these titles all the more, so that the unfathomable richness of graces entrusted to her can be poured out on a world which so desperately needs them.
