Understand The Times, International

"You have heard, O Virgin, that you will conceive and bear a son; you have heard that it will not be by man but by the Holy Spirit. The angel awaits an answer; it is time for him to return to God who sent him. We too are waiting, O Lady, for your word of compassion; the sentence of condemnation weighs heavily upon us."The price of our salvation is offered to you. We shall be set free at once if you consent. In the eternal Word of God we all came to be, and behold, we die. In your brief response we are to be remade in order to be recalled to life."

These words of St. Bernard of Clairvaux bespeak the historical, global, and eternal significance of the response of a 15-year-old virgin for the salvation of the entire world. The price of our salvation is indeed offered to her, and her "yes" will set us free, because it will set the Redeemer free.

From the ancient Church of the second century, St. Irenaeus tells us that the obedient Virgin of Nazareth becomes the "cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race." A contemporary version of the same truth is found in the words of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta: "Of course Mary is the co-redemptrix. She gave Jesus his body, and the offering of his body is what saved us." The Letter to the Hebrews confirms both the early Apostolic Father and the modern Apostle to the Poor: "We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10:10). From whom does Jesus receive his body, the instrument of his redemption?

Mary was a free, personal, and feminine cooperator in God's plan of salvation. It was not a Pope, nor a bishop, nor a priest, nor a layman who joined the New Adam in redeeming the world by her fiat and consequent lifetime of fiats. It was a woman who became a mother. This was neither an accident nor accidental to divine providence. It was God's perfect will to grace the human race with a new "Eva" or mother of the living.

Jesus always abundantly blesses and sustains those who work and suffer intimately with him. He does so most of all by his accentuated presence for those who give him more time in prayer during times of great vocational trial, especially during times of Eucharistic adoration, where we can all directly experience the fruit of Mary's yes in the Incarnate Jesus present in the Eucharist.

Jesus, uncreated grace and source of all grace; Mary, the mysterious mediatrix. The sublime Annunciation solemnity must celebrate both, as these two lovers of humanity cooperate like none other in bringing saving graces to a world of sinners, of whom we all are all members.

Benedict XVI reflects this essential Catholic doctrine in his most recent March 21, 2010 Sunday Angelus: "Dear friends, let us learn from the Lord Jesus not to judge and not to condemn our neighbor. Let us learn to be intransigent with sin -- beginning with our own! -- and indulgent with people. May we be helped in this by the Holy Mother of God, who, free of every fault, is the mediatrix of grace for every contrite sinner."