Preach My Psalter / Predica Mi Salterio

     After commemorating the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ during the Holy Triduum, the Roman Catholic Church celebrated the Sunday of Divine Mercy last Sunday, April 24^th, in her Liturgy.  In doing so, she teaches her members, all Catholics, that God’s offer of divine mercy to human beings in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, includes His passion, His death and His resurrection.  For this reason, the Church’s celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday cannot be reduced merely to the passion, or to the death, or to the resurrection of Christ.  After all, Christ does not just suffer or die for human beings; and He is certainly not just raised to the life of glory for them either.  On the contrary, He fully offers Himself to God the Father in His passion, death and resurrection for human beings.  As such, in this complete offering of Himself to God, Christ offers God’s grace of salvation to them.  This is a grace they certainly do not deserve, but a grace He still mercifully offers to them.  In this act, He conforms them spiritually and physically to Himself, after His image, as the Crucified and Risen Lord. On this basis, in the Church’s celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday, she fully commemorates the passion, death, and resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

     For the Church, this celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday involves, first of all, commemorating Christ’s sacrificial offering of Himself to God the Father in His passion and death to save human beings from sin and their punishment for sin.  After all, by sin, particularly the original sin of Adam and Eve and mortal sin, people justly incur not only the moral guilt for sin, but also the debt of eternal punishment for such sin, for here they act against the order of God’s divine justice.  This divine order requires, in justice, that human beings offer to God the honor due Him by good or virtuous actions.  Consequently, by sinning against God, they unjustly deny God this honor.  In fact, after the first human beings, Adam and Eve, first deny God this honor due Him by sinning against Him, their descendants do the same.  They do this either directly or indirectly.  On the one hand, they directly deny God the honor due Him in justice by failing to love Him as their First and Greatest Good, by failing to worship Him daily, especially at Holy Mass on Sundays, by offering false worship to idols, and by using His Holy Name in vain.  On the other hand, they also deny God the honor due Him, indirectly, by failing to love their neighbors virtuously or chastely, by dressing immodestly, by abusing alcohol or drugs, and by using profanity.  In this direct and indirect denial of God’s honor, through sin, by human beings, they introduce an inequality of actions in the order of God’s divine justice.  This means that the evil action, the sin, they introduce in this divine order is unequal to the good action required, in justice, to honor God.  For this reason, they can only restore equality in the order of justice by paying to God, the Just Judge, a penalty of compensation for sin through a good action, for such an action is, at least, equal in goodness to an action that honors God. 

     In Catholic Teaching, this compensatory payment of the penalty for sin is called satisfaction.  In St. Thomas’ doctrine of satisfaction, he recalls the general principle that a human being, a just man, can satisfy for the sin of his neighbor, his brother or sister, if he remains in a state of charity, but he cannot satisfy for all human beings because the action of a single human being, a mere creature, as good as he may be, does not have the full value of all the people in the human race.  On the other hand, the action of Christ has a value that could fully satisfy for the sins of all people, particularly the sin of Adam and Eve and all mortal sins, by reason of His divine dignity as the Son of God.  In fact, here the action of Christ, the Son of God who has become the Son of man, has a divine goodness infinitely greater in efficacy than the goodness of all the members of the human race.  Accordingly, He alone, by His dignity as the God-man, could offer infinite satisfaction for the guilt and debt of punishment for all the sins of human beings in human history.  In this sense, in offering such satisfaction for all human beings, Christ does not merely offer to God a good action equal in goodness to some action that honors God, as divine justice requires.  On the contrary, by His divine dignity, Christ offers to God the perfect action, the perfect sacrifice, infinitely greater than the requirements of justice, for He acts by a higher principle, divine charity, to satisfy for sin perfectly through His passion and death.  In this perfect sacrifice, the perfect act of love, Jesus obeys His Father’s will to voluntarily suffer and die for human beings as satisfactory payment for their guilt and punishment for sin, because of His love.  Indeed, in obedience to His Father, He offers Himself sacrificially as satisfaction for them, principally because He loves His Father as His First and Greatest Good, and secondarily, because He loves His neighbors, all human beings, as Himself.  On this basis, He satisfies this compensatory penalty, required by God’s divine justice, through an act of divine love, the greatest act of love He could ever offer to His Father for human beings.  As He says in the Gospel, He could offer no greater love for His friends than to offer Himself as a sacrifice for them.

     According to the Fathers of the Church, in this sacrificial love, the perfect love that satisfies for the guilt and punishment for sin, Christ uses His humanity as an instrument of His divinity to merit the grace of justification that spiritually purifies and sanctifies human beings in their souls.  This involves meriting for them, by His passion and death, God’s forgiveness and reconciliation.  Indeed, He forgives them for their sins and reconciles them to God in the communion of God’s friendship.  In doing so, He removes their spiritual defects of sin that separate them from God.  These defects include, first and foremost, the stain of original sin, the moral guilt for mortal sin, and the debt of eternal punishment for these sins.  The Church teaches that people stained in their soul by original and mortal sin, including the eternal debt, are spiritually dead.  Yes, they are alive physically, but they are dead in their soul, spiritually.  After all, in this dead state, they do not have the supernatural life-principle of their soul, the grace of God.  Accordingly, by meriting God’s grace for them in His passion and death, Christ raises them up interiorly to a life of holiness by the spiritual resurrection of their soul.  In this sense, here their soul is not dead anymore, but alive supernaturally.  This means that by His meritorious grace, Christ spiritually conforms them to Himself, to His holy life, for He recreates them in His divine image as holy sons and daughters of God by the Holy Spirit.  For this reason, this sacred dignity, the dignity they receive as sanctified sons and daughters of God, after the image of Christ, prepares them for the life of glory.  Thus, Christ’s perfect sacrifice of love merits God’s grace of salvation for all human beings spiritually.

     Secondly, the Church’s celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday also involves commemorating Christ’s sacrifice to save human beings from bodily death.  In this sacrificial offering of Himself, this meritorious act of love, Jesus, the Lamb of God, suffers the death penalty, the bodily punishment for sin, required by divine justice, that satisfies the penal debt of death for all people.  This is the debt of punishment, incurred by the sin of Adam and Eve, that subjected them, including their descendants, to the sentence of bodily death.  In this sense, death, a defect of sin, is a punishment for sin in the body.  As such, by His sacrificial death, Christ offers to God the honor due Him by a good, meritorious action that satisfactorily compensates Him for the evil action of Adam and Eve, their deadly act, that required all people to die.  In doing so, He restores equality in the order of God’s divine justice, for this sacrifice fully satisfies for the payment of the debt of this death penalty.  According to St. Thomas, because Christ’s action here, meaning His sacrificial death, has an infinitely great value, by virtue of His divine dignity, He alone meritoriously satisfies this debt, the death penalty, for all people.  Indeed, He more than fulfills this requirement of God’s divine justice by an act of divine love.  In this meritorious act of satisfaction, the perfect act of love, He suffers the bodily punishment of death that pays the debt on behalf of all people, because He loves them.  As a result, He saves them from death, particularly from the unholy death of Adam and Eve.  This means that by the grace He merits for them through His death, they still die, but their death becomes a holy participation in the sacrificial death of Christ.  On this basis, here Christ really does end the unholy, bodily death of all human beings by His holy death on the cross.

     Finally, in the Church’s celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday, she also commemorates Christ’s bodily resurrection from the dead to the life of glory.  This means that if He does not die, if He does not offer Himself sacrificially to the Father by His death, He will not be raised from the dead to the life of glory by the Father through the Holy Spirit.  As such, His glorious resurrection from the dead is the fruit of God’s grace for suffering His passion and death faithfully.  For St. Thomas, this resurrection to glory by Christ is the cause of the glorious resurrection of all the just or righteous people of God.  At the same time, they will only be raised physically from the dead to a life of glory on the Last Day, the Day of General Judgment.  Here they will finally be fully conformed in their body to the glorious image of the bodily resurrection of Christ.

     As I have said in this article, the Church’s celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday, in fidelity to God’s plan of divine mercy to save human beings, involves fully commemorating the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, just as the Church does during the Holy Triduum.  In this sense, the divine mercy of God, fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, through His passion, death, and resurrection, as commemorated during the Holy Triduum, informs the Church’s celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday.  As merciful as this divine plan of salvation is for human beings in Christ Jesus, and as faithful as the Church is in celebrating Divine Mercy Sunday, people in society still question God’s divine mercy.  In doing so, they claim that God, in a sense, abandons human beings mercilessly, at least temporarily, in their sufferings, by punishing them for their sins, both spiritually and physically.  First of all, they argue that God abandons them by sentencing them to the penalty of spiritual death after they sin against Him through original and mortal sin.  In this spiritual death sentence, they die spiritually in their souls through the stains of original sin and mortal sin, including the debt of eternal punishment, for these sins.  Secondly, people also claim that God abandons human beings by sentencing them to the penalty of bodily death as punishment for sin. In this physical death sentence, they die physically in their bodies, not immediately, but eventually.  According to them, a merciful God would not abandon them to bodily death.  For this reason, they use these punishments for sin to argue against God’s divine mercy for human beings. Consequently, for them, God, in a sense, abandons people mercilessly, at least for a time, by punishing them spiritually and physically for their sins. 

     In their desire to develop their argument against the divine mercy of God, they consider the question that Jesus asks God the Father from the cross, right before He dies, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” This is the same question that people have asked God through the centuries.  They have included people from the first century who questioned God’s divine mercy.  In fact, in the Gospels, St. Peter, the apostle, after hearing Jesus’ prophecy during His ministry that He would have to suffer, die and be raised from the dead to fulfill God’s plan of divine mercy for human beings, St. Peter questions this plan by arguing that God would never subject Jesus to such a plan, suggesting that this would not be merciful by God.  After the passion and death of Jesus, St. Peter certainly learns about Jesus feeling abandoned by God on the cross.  Similarly, in the Gospel reading for Divine Mercy Sunday, St. Thomas, the apostle, questions the mercy of God, especially in the aftermath of Christ’s passion and death. He also learns about Jesus questioning God for abandoning Him on the cross.  Consequently, he, himself, questions God’s plan of divine mercy in the person of Jesus Christ by arguing that he will not believe unless God reveals to him the Crucified and Risen Christ alive firsthand.  This questioning of God’s divine mercy by people in the first century, particularly by Saints Peter and Thomas, is also a question that can be heard from people in society today, especially after considering Christ’s question to God the Father from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”  Why have you abandoned me in my sufferings?  According to the people who question the divine mercy of God, here Jesus seems to be saying that His Father has failed to offer Him mercy by abandoning Him, by leaving Him all by Himself in His passion, especially on the cross.  After all, the act of abandoning someone, in a sense, means failing to be there for him, failing to guard or save him from his suffering.  Consequently, people claim that from the cross Jesus tells God that He has failed to offer Him mercy as a merciful Father by abandoning Him in His passion and death.  On this basis, people in human society, from the first century to the present day, have argued that Jesus’ question from the cross reveals that He believes that God is a failure as a Father, for He fails to offer Him mercy in His suffering, by abandoning Him.  Here they have also questioned if a merciful Father would really sentence His Son to such a merciless spiritual and physical punishment by subjecting Him to His passion and death.  This is the same question they have about the God of mercy punishing people mercilessly for their sins, both spiritually and physically, by sentencing them to spiritual and physical death.

     All the same, these arguments by people, against the divine mercy of God, are false.  In the first place, they have argued, falsely, that God the Father fails to be merciful to His Son, Jesus, by failing to guard Him or save Him from His suffering and death.  Their false argument, of course, is informed, badly informed, by their false understanding of Jesus’ question to His Father from the cross.  By questioning His Father, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”, Jesus is only quoting the first verse of Psalm 22.  This Psalm is David’s prayer of faith that the innocent man, as difficult as his sufferings may be, will still receive salvation from God as an act God’s divine mercy.  Here David describes this innocent man as a suffering servant of God, a Messiah.  This is the same image of the Messiah that Isaiah later develops in chapters 52 and 53, the image of the Messiah as an innocent suffering servant of God.  In doing so, he was certainly informed by David’s image of the Messiah in Psalm 22.  For this reason, after reading this Psalm from David, Isaiah develops a fuller or more complete image of the Messiah as the Lord’s suffering servant.  In developing this image first, David believes and proclaims that the suffering servant of the Lord, in his faithfulness to God, will receive victory from God, but only through suffering.  In this sense, God’s servant, the Messiah of God’s people, will have no victory from God unless he suffers faithfully as God wills.  Accordingly, for David, God does not fail the innocent suffering servant in Psalm 22.  On the contrary, by His divine mercy, God offers him grace in his suffering that will lead him to the victory of salvation.  In fact, reading Psalm 22 completely, through verse 32, not just the first verse quoted by Jesus on the cross, reveals this victory that He will receive from God as His suffering servant.  As such, by quoting the first verse of Psalm 22, as He suffers faithfully on the cross, Jesus is really proclaiming all of Psalm 22, the full meaning of this Psalm, especially the victory.  In doing so, He is saying that He Himself is God’s suffering servant, prophesied by David and Isaiah in Scripture, who will receive salvation from God by His passion and death.  At the same time, this suffering servant will not just receive victory for himself from God through His passion and death.  On the contrary, His victory will be for all human beings.  For this reason, according to Isaiah, the passion and death of the suffering servant, the Messiah, as a compensatory payment of the penalty for sin, meritoriously atones or satisfies for the sins of all people for their salvation, as required by the divine justice of God.  This understanding of Jesus’ passion and death on the cross is faithful to the principle of the unity of the Scriptures.  This means that human beings can only really understand Jesus’ question from the cross, as He suffers, and finally dies, by fully understanding all the Scriptures, particularly those Scriptures that concern the suffering servant of God in the Psalms, in Isaiah and in the Gospels. 

     Secondly, the claim by people that God fails to be merciful to human beings because He punishes them for sin, as God’s divine justice requires, is also false.  They are, once again, informed by their false understanding as to the true meaning of divine mercy, particularly in relationship to God’s divine justice.  As such, they argue that God’s mercy has no relationship to justice.  As a result, in their denial of this relationship, they separate God’s mercy from God’s justice, thereby deforming and falsifying the true meaning of the mercy of God.  According to St. Thomas, all the divine attributes, including the divine mercy and justice of God, are identical to God Himself. Moreover, these divine attributes are also identical to God’s divine nature or essence, just as God is.  This means that God is essentially justice and mercy.  For this reason, as divine attributes of God, justice and mercy cannot be separated, for they are naturally or essentially the identity of God Himself from all eternity.  In this sense, God is, by nature or essence, divine justice and divine mercy.  He does not change in Himself.  On the contrary, He remains the same forever in His divine dignity. On this basis, He is not nor can He become a God of mercy separated from divine justice.

     Accordingly, in God’s plan of salvation, He acts mercifully and justly to save human beings.  In fact, in this plan, as God acts in creation for human salvation, His divine mercy is said to be the origin or source of His justice.  On this subject, St. Thomas teaches that the justice of God proceeds from the mercy of God, as an effect proceeds from a cause.  As such, he calls justice a fruit of mercy.  In this sense, in God’s mercy, He justly punishes human beings for sinning against Him, firstly, Adam and Ave, and secondly, their human descendants. Indeed, He sentences them to spiritual and bodily death for original and mortal sin, including the debt of eternal punishment for sin.  In doing so, He certainly does not desire their eternal death.  He has no desire for them to remain dead spiritually and physically for all eternity.  On the contrary, He desires their eternal salvation.  In this sense, by punishing them justly for their sins, God desires them to be moved or inspired, by their sufferings.  According to Scripture and Tradition, including St. Thomas, in disciplining people justly for their sins, God sends sufferings to them as penances to help them humbly open their hearts to fully understand that they have acted unjustly by sinning against Him.  The more they deny God the honor due Him by sinning, the more they will suffer.  Only by fully understanding that they have sinned against the just honor of God can they receive the contrition that will prepare them for the Sacrament of Confession.  This contrition will certainly move them to confess their sins in this Sacrament, eventually.  In this good act that honors God, their confession, they merit to receive a participation in the grace that Jesus Christ merited for them by His satisfactory passion and death.  This grace includes God’s forgiveness and reconciliation.  For this reason, as a fruit of divine mercy, the justice of God, including His just punishments for sin, move or inspire human beings, particularly Roman Catholics, to open their hearts to receive the mercy of God in the Sacrament of Confession.  In doing so, they are spiritually raised up to the life of grace, after the image of the Crucified and Risen Christ, to fully participate in God’s plan of salvation.  In this spiritual state of grace, they can merit a greater conformity to Christ daily by their voluntary, meritorious penances and sufferings for others, by virtue of the infinite merits of Christ’s sacrifice.

     In conclusion, in this article, I have, first of all, argued that the Church’s celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday includes fully commemorating the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as the Church does during the Holy Triduum.  For this reason, this celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday cannot be reduced merely to the passion, or to the death, or to the resurrection of Christ.  Secondly, I have argued that mercy requires justice against the false claim that only mercy is required.  Only by fulfilling the requirements of God’s divine justice in His passion and death does Jesus Christ merit God’s divine mercy for all human beings.  Indeed, He satisfies for sin as required by the divine justice of God, but because He offers this satisfaction by an act of divine love, far above the requirements of justice, He acts especially merciful.  Consequently, if there is no justice, there is no mercy.  Thirdly, I argue against the false claims by people that God fails as a Father to Jesus by abandoning Him mercilessly on the cross.  In doing so, I offer a proper understanding of Psalm 22 and Isaiah to help people understand the meaning of Jesus’ question to His Father from the cross.  Finally, I also address the false argument by people in society that God punishes human beings mercilessly for their sins.  I hope and pray you had a fruitful time learning about the divine justice and mercy of God.

In Christ with Blessed Mary,

Friar Mariano D. Veliz, O.P.

     In the Gospel reading for Easter Sunday (Jn 20:1-9), the Evangelist, St. John, describes a race involving certain disciples of Jesus after they learn about the empty tomb.  First, after finding Jesus’ tomb empty early Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene, a disciple of Jesus, runs, as if she is in a race to be the first disciple to tell Peter and John about not finding the body of Jesus in the tomb.  After receiving this message from her, they also run to Jesus’ tomb, as if they are racing each other.  According to the Gospel reading, John reaches the tomb first because he runs faster than Peter, but he does not enter the tomb.  He initially remains outside at the entrance of the tomb from where he can still see the burial cloths that Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and the disciples had used to cover the body of Jesus when they prepared His body for burial in the tomb.  After Peter finally reaches the tomb, he enters first, finding only the burial cloths for Jesus’ body and the cloth for His head rolled up separately in the tomb.  In St. John’s Gospel, this race to Jesus’ tomb by the disciples, particularly after they do not find the body of Jesus there, prepares them to receive faith in the Risen Christ.  In fact, the final passages in Sunday’s Gospel reading, verses 8 and 9, suggest that not only John, the Evangelist, but also Peter, after running to Jesus’ tomb and finding only His burial cloths, begin to believe in a mystery they do not understand.  They are not ready to understand because Jesus has still not directly and fully revealed Himself to them after His resurrection.  For them, the revelation that Jesus may be alive is only indirect and partial through the finding of the burial cloths in the empty tomb.  Accordingly, the race leading the disciples to this finding in the empty tomb will prepare them to have faith in the Risen Christ. 

     Similarly, in St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (9:24-25), he describes the disciples of Jesus, all Christians, metaphorically as runners in a race.  He says that just as the runners in a stadium all practice discipline in running the race to win a perishable crown, the disciples of Jesus are also called to be disciplined as they run the race to win, not a perishable, but an imperishable crown.  As such, for St. Paul, the disciples cannot win this crown if they are not disciplined by running the race daily.  In this sense, in this life, they are called to be runners in the race each and every day that they may win the imperishable crown. For this reason, the Gospel reading suggests that running the race to the tomb, and finding only Jesus’ burial cloths, prepares the disciples to win an imperishable crown.  This is a race that they will have to run throughout their life.  According to St. Paul, the disciples of Jesus, as runners in the race, first receive this imperishable crown as a grace they merit interiorly in this life through the discipline of virtue, particularly through love.  This love alone will lead them to the imperishable crown of glory in Heaven someday.

     For the disciples, running in the race, the race to Jesus’ tomb, means they love Jesus.  Indeed, here running is an act of love.  They would not be running to His tomb, hoping to find Him, if they did not first love Him. After all, human beings only run after someone, only desire someone, they love.  The same is true for the disciples.  In running after Jesus spiritually, as runners in a race, they desire to find Jesus’ body in the tomb, because they love Him.  In fact, their love for Him inspires them to run after Him.  True, they do not find Him in the tomb, but they certainly find Him in their hearts through love.  For this reason, this love they have for Him in their hearts prepares them to receive faith in His resurrection.  If they did not first love Him, if they did not first run after Him, as if in a race, they would not have been prepared to believe His revelation to them, the revelation that He is not dead, but fully alive.  Accordingly, the disciples’ love for Jesus prepared them to have faith in Him as the Risen Christ. 

     In all four Gospels, the Evangelists recall that Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John all became disciples of Jesus because they loved Him. Indeed, after receiving their calling to discipleship from Him, their love for Him moved them to run after Him, spiritually, as His disciples.  Henceforth, this is the race they would run in life, the race to Jesus.  First of all, after John received his calling from Jesus to be a disciple of His, and said yes to Him, as an act of love, he would become the beloved apostle, the apostle who had the fortitude to love Jesus faithfully during His passion, particularly as Jesus was suffering on the cross.  Only John’s love for Jesus moved him to remain there until He died.  Secondly, after Peter said yes to Jesus’ call to discipleship by an act of love, he would be named the chief apostle by Jesus.  In this ministry of the chief apostle, Jesus called Peter to love Him as no other apostle by pastoring all the apostles, including all God’s people, as a loving shepherd.  As you may remember, in the Gospel Jesus identifies Himself in all human beings, especially in the suffering members of His people.  For this reason, He tells His disciples that by loving the poor, the ill, the orphan, the elderly, and the widow, they are really loving Him.  This is especially true of Peter, for he alone was the apostle called by Jesus to be the chief shepherd of God’s people, the first pope, who would faithfully love them by shepherding them to holiness.  Finally, Mary Magdalene received her calling from Jesus to be His disciple, and said yes to Him, as an act of love, only after He had saved her from her spiritual slavery to demons, for she had become demonically possessed for a time, through a sinful life, according to the Evangelists.  As a result, she is called the penitent woman who loved Jesus much because she received much from Him.  Indeed, He forgave her for her many sins.  For this reason, in her love for Jesus, after receiving her healing from Him, she would become a member of a group of women disciples who traveled to wherever Jesus preached and ministered to the people of God to help Him materially from their resources as a ministry of charity.  On this basis, after receiving their calling from Jesus, all three disciples here certainly loved Jesus during their life by running after Him.  As such, after His death and burial, they all ran to His tomb, hoping to find Him, because they loved Him.

     Still, Peter, John and Mary Magdalene could only love Jesus because He loved them first.  He revealed this love for them by becoming man, by mercifully calling them to discipleship, and especially by suffering and dying for them on the cross for their salvation. In doing so, He loved them in all their sinfulness as human beings, before they ever loved Him. In fact, as many times in their life as they may have sinned, as badly as they may have sinned, Jesus was there for them, before anyone else, because He loved them.

     The message here is that the love that Peter, John and Mary Magdalene offered to Jesus as His disciples, after they had first received His love, prepared them to become believers and preachers of the Risen Christ. In particular, Mary Magdalene, according to St. John’s Gospel, was not just the first disciple of Jesus to learn about the empty tomb. In fact, she was also the first disciple in St. John’s Gospel that Jesus appeared to as the Risen Christ. At the same time, this was a gradual process. She first learned only indirectly and implicitly that Jesus could be alive by finding the empty tomb. Later, He revealed Himself directly and fully to her in His first appearance to her as the Risen Christ. For this reason, she fully believed that He was alive, not dead. In this first appearance, He commissioned her, a woman of faith, to be an apostle, by sending her to His brother apostles, including to Peter and John, as a preacher of the Easter message. This was the message that He was, indeed, raised from the dead, after three days, just as He had prophesied to His disciples during His ministry.  Mary Magdalene certainly would not have received this Easter faith in the Risen Christ if she had not first loved Jesus.  This love she had for Jesus opened her heart to believe and proclaim this article of faith. 

     The question I have for you is this: Will you open your heart fully to the love of Jesus that you may not just believe in the Risen Christ, but also proclaim Him to others, just as Mary Magdalene did as a faithful disciple of Jesus?  She ran the race to win the imperishable crown of grace and glory as a believer and preacher of the Easter faith.  Will you do the same?

In Christ with Blessed Mary,

Friar Mariano D. Veliz, O.P.

     Today, on Good Friday, the day of Christ’s sacrificial act of love on the cross, He offers human beings a model of perfect love. In doing so, He calls them to have the same perfect love. In fact, in His preaching, He proclaims to the people in His day, particularly to the men He called to Himself, that they could only be perfect as such by becoming His disciples.  For this reason, He tells them that in this discipleship, they are called to be perfect, just as their Heavenly Father is perfect.  According to Him, this call to perfection alone will lead them to true happiness as His disciples. At the same time, they can only be perfect, just as their Heavenly Father is perfect, by learning such perfection from their Master, Jesus Christ, the perfect image of the Father.

     At first, this call to perfection, for the disciples, may have seemed completely unreasonable to them, and to the people of God in the first century, especially to their families and friends.  After all, in all four Gospels, they are described by the Evangelists as imperfect human beings, as sinners, who eventually abandon their shepherd, Jesus Christ, during His passion. In fact, in today’s reading for Good Friday from St. John’s Gospel, the Evangelist recalls the sinfulness of the chief apostle, Peter, and the treasurer, Judas Iscariot.  According to St. John, they both fail to love Jesus by sinning against Him during His passion. 

     On the one hand, Peter tells Jesus, multiple times, as the chief apostle, that he would remain faithful to Jesus, even die for Him, but he eventually denies Jesus three times during His passion.  In doing so, he denies that he is a friend or disciple of Jesus.  In this denial, he sins against the love of Jesus through the passion of fear.  Indeed, Peter sins here because, in his human fragility, he is afraid for his life.  He is afraid that the persecutors of Jesus will persecute him if he says he is a friend or disciple of Jesus.  Consequently, moved by fear, Peter does not have the fortitude to love Jesus publically or openly, before others, during His passion.  He denies Him.  As such, in the Gospels, the Evangelists rightly describe Peter as a man who suffers from fear, especially during the passion of Jesus, as recounted in St. John’s Gospel today.  At the same time, as bad as Peter’s denial of Jesus is, considering he was called by Jesus to be the chief apostle, the leader of the other apostles, Peter will learn from his failure.  If he is the leader, the chief apostle, who can fall but can also learn from falling, to be perfect just as His Heavenly Father is perfect, then all the apostles can do the same.  This is a message of hope that he offers to them, really to everyone. In this sense, as a sinner, as a sinful leader, he becomes a model of redemption for the apostles, for all Christians, by learning from his fall that he can rise up again not just by repenting, but by saying yes to his call to perfection in this life. 

     On the other hand, Judas, in his betrayal of Jesus during the passion, sins against Him through malice because of greed.  Indeed, he fully intends to betray Jesus for the right price by having Him arrested by the chief priests and Pharisees.  As a result, after telling them about his proposal for such a betrayal, and the payment he would require from them, they pay him thirty pieces of silver.  For this reason, in St. John’s Gospel today, the Evangelist describes Judas leading armed guards and soldiers from the chief priests and Pharisees to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.  He fully plans and premeditates this act of betrayal because of his greed.  The Evangelists recall that Judas, in his greed, would steal donations from the collection bag that Jesus and the disciples would receive from people.  As treasurer of the group, this was easy for him to do.  After all, he held the money bag and would help himself to the proceeds.  Consequently, this greed leads Judas to sin maliciously against the love of Jesus by a planned act of betrayal.  The problem is that after Judas repents for sinning against Jesus, he does not learn.  He decides that he has no desire or will to rise up, as Peter did, after his fall.  On the contrary, he, once again, says no to the call to perfection, but this time by the act of suicide.

     In the teaching of St. Thomas, grace is said to perfect the nature of man.  In the case of Peter, after falling, he opened his heart to be perfected as man by the grace of God by saying yes to his call to be perfect, just as the Heavenly Father is perfect.  This is the petrine model of discipleship, meaning a disciple can fall, but he can also rise to perfection, just as Peter did.  Judas, on the other hand, did not open himself to God’s grace to be perfected as man.  He decided to remain in sin after falling in sin.  In doing so, he became a model not for the disciples of Jesus, but for sinners, for sinners who do not desire perfection.

     After Peter rises to the call to be perfect by the grace of God, he opens his heart to learn from Jesus, the perfect image of the Father, by contemplating His life, His preaching, and His virtue, especially during His passion.  In doing so, he develops a true understanding of Jesus’ call to perfection.  In particular, he begins to understand that he can only fulfill this calling by maturing as a disciple through the grace of God.  In this understanding, Jesus’ call to be perfect really means to become perfect, to mature to perfection as a disciple.  In this sense, becoming perfect in discipleship does not mean reaching full or final perfection in this life as a disciple, but maturing to final perfection in Heaven.  Only in Heaven does the disciple become fully perfected.  In this life, his perfection involves saying yes to his perfectibility as a disciple that he may someday be fully perfected after the perfect image of the Father, Jesus Christ.  In fact, just as Jesus matured as man to perfect adulthood, as the Gospels recount, the disciples are called to do the same.  For this reason, in His sayings, parables, and stories, Jesus regularly uses images or truths from nature, agriculture, commerce and family life to teach His disciples that they are called to mature to perfection, not in a single moment or in a single day, but gradually throughout their life in preparation for Heaven.  In the petrine model of discipleship, the model inspired by Jesus, a disciple can certainly fall daily, but he can also rise daily.  After all, in the Old Testament, the just or righteous man of God is said to rise seven times daily after falling as many times in a day.

     In considering this call to perfection, St. Thomas, in his Treatise on the Perfection of the Spiritual Life, teaches that love is at the heart of Jesus’ message to His disciples about becoming perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect.  Specifically, according to St. Thomas, spiritual perfection for the disciples involves maturing to perfection in love.  The disciples, of course, have Jesus as their perfect model of such love.  Jesus Himself says that there is no greater love they can have than to offer their life for their friends.  In the first place, He offers His life to the Father in fidelity to His Divine Filial Friendship to the Father.  In His agony in the Garden, Jesus says to His Father, “Let this cup pass from me, but not my will.  Your will be done.”  Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen teaches that this offering of the life of Jesus begins at His conception as man but culminates at His passion, for Jesus was conceived and born to offer the greatest act of love to the Father by suffering His passion on Good Friday.  In doing so, St. Thomas says that Jesus fulfills the Shema perfectly, for He loves God the Father as His First and Greatest love unto death.  For the disciples, maturation in this love for God lasts a lifetime.  Secondly, for St. Thomas, the perfection of the disciples in love also involves loving their neighbors as themselves.  Jesus models this love perfectly for them by suffering His passion and death for their salvation.  Indeed, He loves them by the perfect sacrifice as His Father wills.  According to St. Thomas, maturation in this love of neighbor for the disciples involves four degrees of perfection. These four degrees of perfection in love refer to them maturing in their love for four groups or classes of people, as recounted in the Gospel teaching of Jesus. Accordingly, the disciples are first called to learn to love their family members, especially their parents, at home. Later, as they mature, they learn to love certain people as friends.  Thirdly, they develop a love for people suffering in society, including the poor, the homeless, the widow, the orphan, and the ill.  Finally, they mature to the highest degree of the love of neighbor by learning to love their enemies.  In St. Thomas’ Treatise, he says that Jesus perfectly fulfills these four degrees of perfection in loving neighbor.  As such, for the disciples, saying yes to Jesus’ call to be perfect, just as their Heavenly Father is perfect, means not only maturing to perfection in their love for God, but also learning to image Jesus’ love for everyone.  On this basis, on Good Friday, the day of perfect love, Jesus offers the perfect and greatest act of love for God and neighbor by His suffering and death on the cross.

In Christ with Blessed Mary,

Friar Mariano D. Veliz, O.P.

WELCOME

     Greetings, dear friends!  Welcome to the Registration Page of the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary in the Dominican Province of St. Martin de Porres.  Our Province is geographically located in the Southern United States.  This provincial area includes Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.  If you live in any of these southern states, you are welcome to register as a member of the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary through this page.  The Confraternity is an ancient apostolate of the Order of Preachers that has helped lead people for centuries to Jesus through His Blessed Mother, Mary, under her title of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary.

REGISTRATION

     Membership in the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary requires registration.  You become a member by registering in the Confraternity after reading this article and agreeing to the requirements.  You will then be enrolled in the Rosary Confraternity registry.  There are no meetings or membership dues.

COMMISSION

     You have a choice to become either a daily member, an ordinary member, or a perpetual member of the Rosary Confraternity.  As a member, you are commissioned to pray the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary once either daily, weekly, or annually.  First of all, as a Daily Member of the Confraternity, you would pray the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary once every day.  According to St. Louis Mary De Montfort, this daily offering of the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary by Confraternity members is the ideal practice.  Secondly, as an Ordinary Member of the Confraternity, you would pray the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary once every week.  Finally, as a Perpetual Member of the Confraternity, you would pray the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary once a year.

     Moreover, you may offer the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary all together or separately in three groups of Five Mysteries, either daily, weekly, or annually.  In doing so, you promise to pray for all the members of the Confraternity every time you offer a Rosary to Our Lady.  This is your only requirement as a member of the Confraternity, but the hope and prayer is that you will fulfill this requirement because of your faithful love for the Blessed Mother who leads all her children to her Son, Jesus Christ, through the Rosary.  In this act of love for her in the Rosary, you faithfully honor her as your Mother who became the Mother of God that she would become your Mother, the Mother of God’s people.  At the same time, this commission to pray the 15 Mysteries of the Rosary for all the members of the Confraternity, either daily, weekly, or annually, does not bind under sin.

PROMISES

     According to Dominican Tradition, after the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, commissioned St. Dominic to propagate her Psalter, her Holy Rosary, in the early 13^th Century (1208), she revealed Fifteen Promises to him and later to Blessed Alan de la Roche in the 15^th Century. In doing so, she said that she would fulfill these promises for them, and all other Catholics, who faithfully pray the Rosary.

1. Whosoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary shall receive signal graces.
2. I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all people who recite the Rosary.
3. The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin and defeat heresies.
4. It will cause good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire for Eternal things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means!
5. The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish.
6. Whosoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its Sacred Mysteries, shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death; if he be just he shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of Eternal Life.
7. Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Holy Rosary shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church.
8. Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the Light of God and the plenitude of His Graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the Merits of the Saints in Paradise.
9. I shall deliver from Purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary.
10. The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of Glory in Heaven.
11. You shall obtain all you ask of me by recitation of the Rosary.
12. All those who propagate the Holy Rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities.
13. I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire Celestial Court during their life and at the hour of death.
14. All who recite the Rosary are my children, and brothers and sisters of my Son Jesus Christ.
15. Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.

BENEFITS

     As a member of the Confraternity, you are the beneficiary of various blessings.  In the first place, the members of the Confraternity pray for you, even after death.  Secondly, you also receive the fruits of the prayers, Masses and apostolic ministries of the Order of Preachers.  Thirdly, various plenary and partial indulgences are made available to you as a Confraternity member.  An indulgence is the remission of the temporal punishment due for sin whose guilt has already been forgiven. On the one hand, a partial indulgence frees you partially from the temporal punishment due for your sin. On the other hand, a plenary indulgence frees you completely. You can only gain a plenary indulgence once a day, unless you are near death.  Both partial and plenary indulgences can be applied to the dead, but only by means of suffrage. Fourthly, you can receive a plenary indulgence on the day of your enrollment, on Christmas day, Easter Sunday, the Feast of the Annunciation, the Feast of the Assumption, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and the Feast of Our Lord’s Presentation.  You can also receive a plenary indulgence by praying the Rosary in a Church or oratory, in a family, religious community, or in a pious association of the faithful.  If not, the indulgence is only partial.  Finally, you only receive a plenary indulgence on the aforementioned days by fulfilling certain conditions or requirements. They include: Sacrament of Confession, Holy Communion, prayer for the intention of the Pope, and freedom from all sin, even venial.  If you are not detached from such sin, or if you have not fulfilled any of the other conditions, your indulgence is only partial. 

ENROLLMENT

     If you are a Catholic in the Southern United States, such as Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia or Florida, I hope you will consider registering in the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary after reading this article about the requirements, promises and benefits of the Confraternity membership.  You can register here: http://www.jotform.us/form.  At the same time, you may only register yourself, not your family members or friends, or the deceased.  After you complete the registration, the chapter members of the Dominican laity in Tallahassee, FL will process your information and officially enroll you in the register.  Finally, they will mail you a copy of the certificate of your Confraternity membership.  This certificate will have certain signatures, including the signature of the Prior Provincial of the Province of St. Martin de Porres and the signature of the Promoter of the Rosary in the Province. 

In Christ with Our Lady of the Rosary

Friar Mariano D. Veliz, O.P., Promoter of the Rosary

     Greetings, dear friends!  Today I offer you this brief article in honor and remembrance of a great lady, a holy daughter of God, Sister Olvido Galiana Grijelmo, who fully dedicated herself to God as a consecrated member of the Conceptionist Mission Sisters of Education for some 65 years, mainly in California, until her death on January 2^nd, 2021.  This Congregation in the Roman Catholic Church, commonly called the (Missionary) Sisters of the Immaculate Conception in California, was founded in Spain on February 22^nd, 1892, by Sister María del Carmen (Carmen de Jesus) Sallés y Barangueras (b. April 9, 1848 – d. July 25, 1911).  She was canonized a saint in Rome by Pope Benedict XVI on October 21^st, 2012.  Through her holy work as the foundress, she inspired Sister Olvido to become a member of her Congregation.

     As such, here I want to briefly talk about the work of this holy foundress, Sister María del Carmen. After all, by her work, she would inform and influence Sister Olvido’s decision to join her Congregation. Sister Maria herself was a Dominican, a Sister of the Order of Preachers, in Spain.  After being formed and educated spiritually and academically in the Dominican Congregation of the Annunciation to teach children and adolescents, she remained in the Congregation for about 20 years.  During those years, as a Dominican, she witnessed firsthand the many social and moral problems that had developed in her day among children and adolescents, especially among girls of poor and working-class parents, who did not have the financial means or adequate public resources available to them in their society to help them, including education and childcare.  Consequently, these parents would leave their sons and daughters unsupervised.  Under these circumstances, they would walk the streets either alone or in small groups.  Sister María del Carmen was primarily concerned about the problems that had developed among the girls due to the absence of such parental supervision and education.  These problems for them included illiteracy, intellectual malformation, gender discrimination, alcohol abuse, rape, fornication and prostitution.  They would begin during their childhood and continue during their adolescence and young adulthood. 

     For this reason, Sister María del Carmen eventually approached her Dominican Superiors, asking them for permission to establish a female Dominican congregation or apostolate that would be dedicated to the formation and education of girls, adolescent females and young women suffering from the problems just mentioned.  She certainly had no intention of leaving the Order of Preachers or of founding a non-Dominican congregation, but after her Dominican Superiors denied her request, she and three of her Dominican Sisters of the Annunciation left the Order in 1892 to establish a congregation that would be similar to the Dominicans.  As a result, they founded this congregation on the Dominican virtues of study (through faith and reason), contemplation and action, and teaching, but their apostolate would be especially dedicated to forming and educating young females intellectually, spiritually and morally.  Moreover, this congregation would also be established under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Dominicans. In fact, in their love for St. Dominic, the founder of the Order of Preachers, including the Dominican family, Sister María del Carmen and her Sisters originally named their congregation after St. Dominic himself. They called this congregation the Conceptionists of St. Dominic, but this name would not last.  I imagine the Dominican authorities in Spain and Rome objected to this name after Sister María del Carmen and her Sisters formally left the Order of Preachers.  In any case, they finally named their Congregation the Conceptionist Mission Sisters of Education.  Their apostolate eventually developed to include the formation and education of boys and male adolescents.  Through such ministry, they saved many children, adolescents and young adults from the social and moral problems of the day.  On this basis, from the beginning, Sister María del Carmen and her Sisters founded this congregation to teach the youth to live virtuously as a holy people.

     The holy work of Sister María and her Sisters in founding a teaching congregation, modeled after the Order of Preachers, for the formation and education of young people reveals the virtues that Sister Olvido desired for herself in a congregation of Sisters.  First of all, in fidelity to her congregation, she loved the youth.  The love she had for them in her heart inspired her to dedicate herself to them by being a model of holy virtue for them as a Sister.  This was the same loving dedication that the foundress, Sister María del Carmen, had for the youth. Secondly, Sister Olvido practiced her love for children and adolescents by teaching them to be the holy people God created and redeemed them to be.  In doing so, she formed them spiritually, intellectually and morally in fidelity to Sister María’s mission for the congregation.  Finally, Sister Olvido’s decision to join a Marian congregation of Sisters reveals her love for the Blessed Virgin Mary.  For Sister Olvido, including Sister María del Carmen, Catholics honor the Immaculate Mother of God by loving her as Christ loves her.  This is a Marian love that Sister Olvido communicated to her students, throughout her life, as a daughter of Mary.  On this basis, these three virtues would be the primary criteria that Sister Olvido would use in forming a prudential judgment to become a Missionary Sister of the Immaculate Conception.

     Sister Olvido’s story begins in Northern Spain.  She was born on April 22^nd, 1938, in the small municipality of Ciadoncha in the Province of Burgos in the region of Castille and León.  Her parents, Irenaeus and Elisha, in their love for God, for each other and for their four children, faithfully raised them as Roman Catholics.  In their fidelity, they also supported them as farm laborers.  Sister Olvido was the third oldest of the four children her parents had.  She had a great love for them all, especially for her sister.  They had such a loving relationship.  Unfortunately, they lost their mother, Elisha, during childhood.  As a result, they certainly suffered much because of her death, but in their suffering God would providentially bless and console them, especially through the holy vocation that Sister Olvido would receive from God.  Indeed, by the grace of God, she would become a spiritual mother to them all in God’s providence.

     As a young girl of 12 years of age, Sister Olvido, accompanied by her father, Irenaeus, visited the convent of the school of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception in Burgos, Spain, telling them: “I want to be a nun.”  She certainly had already learned about them.  In a sense, only after suffering the death of her mother at such a young age, did God help her understand that she could only fulfill the happiness she desired in her heart by a life of holiness as a Sister. 

     In God’s providence, He calls the members of His Body, the Church, to fulfill their call to happiness through various holy vocations in the Church.   Indeed, He calls some Church members to the single life, others to Marriage and still others to religious life, consecrated virginity and Holy Orders.  In fact, by calling them to these various vocations in the Church, God calls them to be holy as He is holy.  In Scripture, hagiazo  means to “sanctify” and hagio means “holy” or “sacred.”  In this sense, by saying yes to God’s call to holiness, people are made holy or sacred in their vocations, beginning in Baptism, by the grace of God’s Holy One, Jesus Christ.  In this sanctification, they are set apart from the profane to live their life for God in Christ Jesus.  For this reason, they are called hagioi, or saints (holy ones).  In Scripture and Tradition, this life of holiness alone will lead the members of the Church to the perfect happiness in Heaven they desire in their hearts.  This is a desire for sainthood.  In the case of Sister Olvido, God providentially called her to be set apart, to become a saint, a holy woman of God, through her holy desire to be a nun as a Missionary Sister of the Immaculate Conception. For this reason, she was certainly inspired by God as a young girl to fully offer herself to Him by telling the Sisters that she wanted to become a nun in their Congregation. 

     After witnessing Sister Olvido’s authenticity, her authentic desire for religious life, as a fruit of God’s grace at work in her, the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception readily accepted her at the school convent in Burgos as an aspirant on November 21^st, 1950.  This aspirancy was the first stage in her formation as a Sister.  Yes, in a sense, she left all her family members behind, but she was never really alone.  They all accompanied her in spirit, through the love they had for her, including her father, her brothers, her sister and especially her deceased mother.  As she began this life as an aspirant, she believed that the Blessed Virgin Mary, her Immaculate Mother and Teacher in Heaven, was providentially guiding and forming her in Christ, through the Holy Spirit, to be the religious Sister God created and redeemed her to be.  Accordingly, from an early age she fully consecrated herself to Christ, through Blessed Mary, and remained faithful to that consecration throughout her vocation.  After completing this first phase of her formation as an aspirant, she entered the postulancy in Marcilla, Spain on September 13^th, 1954.  This lasted 6 months until March 14^th, 1955.  The day after, on March 15^th, she began her novitiate in Marcilla, and a year later, she made her first profession on March 16^th, 1956.  In this act, she professed her temporary vows of poverty, chastity and obedience for 6 years as a Sister of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception.  During those 6 years, she studied in Segovia, Spain for her education in Teaching.  Later, in Madrid, the capital of Spain, she completed her studies in Singing and Piano.  At the end of this initial formation, Sister Olvido finally made her perpetual profession in Madrid on September 20^th, 1961.  In this act of profession, she consecrated herself perpetually to Christ, through the Virgin Mary, by the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience for life as a Missionary Sister of the Immaculate Conception. 

     As a Missionary Sister, she had to be prepared to leave Spain for a foreign country if she ever received such an assignment from her Superiors. As a result, only a month and a half after Sister Olvido made her perpetual profession in Madrid as a young member of her congregation, only 24 years old, her Superiors assigned her to California on November 3rd, 1961. She arrived in early 1962. After moving to California, she enrolled as a student of Fresno State University and graduated in Education, obtaining her credentials in Teaching and a Master’s degree in Psychology. This education would prepare her to teach children and adolescents in California for years.  She would remain in California for 53 years and 8 months until she finally returned to Spain in June of 2016 at the age of 81.  During those years, Sister Olvido lived in all four convents that her Congregation had in Central and Northern California.  As a Sister, she faithfully and joyfully fulfilled all the virtues of this conventual religious life daily, including praying the Liturgy of the Hours in common, participating in the conventual Mass, loving her Sisters as herself in the communion of consecrated friendship; practicing chaste celibacy, poverty and obedience; and discharging prudently and charitably her canonical assignments as Secretary and Mother Superior in her Congregation’s convents for many years. 

     These four convents, located in Firebaugh, Madera, Clovis and San Francisco, all had Catholic schools.  Throughout her teaching profession, Sister Olvido educated her students in these schools to be mature as disciples of Christ.  Indeed, as a teacher, she had a desire for them to develop to full maturity in their discipleship through a life of holiness.  In Catholic Tradition, such a holy life for people includes their natural and supernatural maturation in Christ through the grace of God.  In this sense, by her teaching ministry, Sister Olvido’s students matured naturally and supernaturally as holy sons and daughter of God in their Christian discipleship.  For this reason, in no time, she defined herself as a gifted and dedicated teacher who fully prepared herself for her classes every day in her desire to offer her students a great education that would hopefully form them in holiness by God’s grace.  On the one hand, this education in holiness that she offered them involved teaching them to use natural reason in their study of the secular subjects she taught them, such as science, math, music, art, English and Spanish.  As such, through her teaching, her students learned to mature naturally as rational persons.  On the other hand, for Sister Olvido, teaching her students to be holy also involved forming them to use the theological virtue of faith in their study of the religious subjects she offered them, particularly Catholic faith and morals in Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium.  This included teaching them about the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ and the Sacraments. Moreover, in the great love that Sister developed for the Virgin Mary, throughout her life from childhood, she regularly communicated Marian doctrine to her students by her Marian piety.  In doing so, she planted seeds in them that would develop in their hearts to help form them as holy sons and daughters of the Virgin Mary.  Similarly, she also educated her students about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist by her Eucharistic piety in Mass and Adoration.  Here she communicated to them her First and Greatest Love, Jesus Christ.  Accordingly, through Sister’s teaching ministry in class and in her piety, her students learned to mature supernaturally as a holy people of faith by the grace of God.  They learned from her that just as grace perfects nature in general, faith perfects reason in particular.  In fact, as she formed them in holiness intellectually, by teaching them to use reason and faith in their studies, she also formed them morally as a people of virtue.  After all, in Catholic Teaching, reason and faith in the human intellect inform the moral actions of the human will, particularly the actions to love God and neighbor.  As a teacher, especially as a religious woman of faith and reason, fully dedicated to God, Sister Olvido loved God as her Greatest Good and her neighbors as herself, especially her students, including their parents and families.  As a result, she made many friends in Firebaugh, Madera, Clovis and San Francisco during her nearly 54 years in Central and Northern California.  They all loved her in life, and will certainly love her forever.  On this basis, throughout all her years in California, Sister Olvido fulfilled her sacred ministry in education by teaching her students in the classroom, but she also became a teacher to all people in secular society, especially in the Church, through her holy life of virtue.

     During Sister Olvido’s later years in California, including her last four and a half years in Spain, after returning in June of 2016, she suffered from poor health and eye problems.  As difficult as this was for her, she spent her last months peacefully in the community of las Rozas, Madrid, offering her gratitude to God for the grace to be all the more dedicated to Him, especially in prayer, during her suffering.  As her poor health continued to decline, she became bedridden to end a difficult year of 2020. Consequently, she was eventually moved to a hospital in Madrid, but after only 2 days there, God called her to Himself.  She died on January 2^nd, 2021, the first Saturday of the year.

     As I recall the holy life of Sister Olvido, including her many years in California, I thank God for having her as a childhood teacher at St. Joseph School in Firebaugh from the late 70s to the early 80s.  True, I never had her as my homeroom teacher, but she did teach me music through the first quarter of my 5^th grade year.  During those 5 years, besides Sister Olvido, I also had Sister Cruz, Sister Gloria and Sister Margarita as teachers.  Sister Carmen and Sister Paulina also lived in the convent at St. Joseph School.  They all certainly had received the gift of teaching from God.  This was a gift they developed and perfected by their university education and their years of teaching in California.  All the same, as gifted and prepared as they all were as teachers, I still had a difficult time learning from them.  This, of course, was not their fault.  They did not fail me in their teaching ministry.  I failed myself as a student.  I failed them.  I alone was at fault here.  I neither studied nor did I behave in class.  I had no desire for school.  I had no desire at all to use reason or faith to study and learn about secular and religious subjects academically.  Consequently, having no desire for school, I behaved badly as a student.  Indeed, I often verbally abused and disobeyed my teachers in class, especially Sister Gloria, Sister Cruz and Sister Margarita, but not Sister Olvido.  As bad as I normally was in class, I never acted badly in Sister Olvido’s class.  Of all my teachers at St. Joseph School, she alone inspired me to be good in class, not academically by her teaching, but personally or spiritually by her particular virtues, especially her piety.  As such, I, at least, behaved in her class as a student.

     In this sense, as bad as I generally was as a student, during those childhood years, I was certainly not a bad person. For all my difficulties, Sister Olvido still believed in me as a son of God.  She still believed that God’s goodness was at work in me through the love I had for God, for Blessed Mary and for the people of God.  I participated in Holy Mass every Sunday, prayed regularly and loved helping others, especially the poor.  In fact, I first remember God calling me to be a priest at the age of 7 in 1978.  I was in the first grade at St. Joseph School.  Sister Gloria was my teacher that year.  One day, after my father, a drug addict, had finally left my mother and my family and I for good, I heard some people (acquaintances in the neighborhood, not family members or friends) gossiping about me, claiming that someday I would end up in drugs just as my father.  They based this presumption on the failures I had as a student academically and behaviorally at St. Joseph School.  As a child, who was only 7 years old, that was difficult for me to hear.  He was still my dad.  I was angry at him, but I loved him. Consequently, later that night, moved by the Holy Spirit in my suffering, I offered a prayer to God.  As I recall, my prayer included my sorrow for sin and my desire to help my father by becoming a saint in Heaven someday: “Dear Jesus, I am sorry for my sins.  I am sorry for all my failures in school.  As sinful as I am, I have no desire to become a drug addict as my father, as some people claim. I offer myself to you, Lord.  I only desire to become great someday as a saint in Heaven.  Hopefully, I can then help my father.  I have heard the Sisters, especially Sister Olvido, talk about the greatness of the saints, including the great works they did in this life.  I hope and pray, Lord, you will help me become great in Heaven someday.”  Right after I offered this prayer to Jesus in my suffering, He said to me: “Be a priest. You will fulfill your desire for greatness in Heaven someday through the priesthood.”  On hearing this interiorly in my heart, I received the gift of tears from the Holy Spirit.  True, as a child, I was underdeveloped academically.  I had a difficult time learning from class lectures and by reading.  Still, does this mean that I was neither gifted intellectually nor contemplatively?  Certainly not. I often raised my mind to contemplate the greatness of God, Blessed Mary, the saints and the perfect happiness of Heaven, especially during times of suffering.  Is this not what suffering often does to the man of faith?  Certainly.  In suffering, he often raises his mind prayerfully to God in contemplation, desiring for himself the greatness of God and God’s holy people in the perfect beatitude of Heaven.  In fact, my childhood prayer here, as I later learned, was really an intellectual act of prayerful contemplation, including the Word I received from God intellectually.  Shortly thereafter, still only 7 years old, I was inspired by God to ask my maternal grandmother to teach me to pray the Rosary of Our Lady.  After the Eucharist, this Marian devotion would become my greatest spiritual practice.  As a result, I began praying the Rosary regularly.  For this reason, as bad as I was, behaviorally and academically, as a student of St. Joseph School, Sister Olvido was right.  The goodness of God was at work in me through my Catholic faith.  He was at work in me preparing me to be the man He created and redeemed me to be.  He alone would have the last Word as to who I would become in life.  He alone, in the end, would determine my vocation, not the gossip from people in the neighborhood.

     At the same time, for all the good at work in me as a Roman Catholic, I failed the first grade and did not develop adequately in my academics through the fifth grade as the Sisters had hoped.  I had not yet formed the desire or virtue to become a good student, especially not in a classroom.  Consequently, during the fall of my fifth-grade year in 1982, after determining that I would continue having a difficult time behaving and learning in the milieu of a classroom at St. Joseph School, the principal, Sister Paulina, in her patience and mercy as a faithful daughter of God, recommended to my mother and grandmother the only alternative left for me at St. Joseph School: private lessons.  She offered to teach me privately at the convent.  My mother and grandmother certainly appreciated this offer from Sister Paulina, but after much prayer, they decided that they would enroll me in Firebaugh Junior High School.  They hoped that the resources available in public school would eventually help me develop academically as a student.  On my last day at St. Joseph School, all the Sisters, especially Sister Olvido, promised me they would pray for me.  At the time, I believed their prayers, including the prayers of my mother and grandmother, and others, would someday help me fulfill the work that God had begun in me as a Roman Catholic, the work of becoming a priest.

     In the providence of God, all the prayers offered for me by the people of God, including my prayers, would eventually lead me to the Order of Preachers, also called the Dominicans, to study for the religious priesthood.  This is an Order in the Church founded by a Spanish priest, St. Dominic de Guzman (b. August 8, 1170 – d. August 6, 1221), some 800 years ago in 1216 in Southern France.  As a man inspired by God, he determined that the mission of the Order, under the maternal patronage of Our Lady of the Rosary, would be the spiritual and intellectual formation and education of men as holy friars and priests to preach the Truth for the salvation of all people, particularly the Albigensians.  In this plan, friars would discharge the ministry of preaching as university professors, researchers, authors, campus ministers and itinerant preachers. 

     In contemplating God’s will for me in a vocation, I developed three desires for particular virtues as criteria that helped me prudentially judge that the Order of Preachers was, in fact, the Order that God was calling me to join. First of all, I formed a holy desire in my heart for reading and studying Truth (Veritas).  The Order of Preachers was the first Order in the Church to define and develop a program of study for friars at the universities to prepare them for the holy work of preaching the Truth.  I wanted this Truth for myself as never before. Secondly, I developed a desire to become an itinerant mission preacher as a Dominican friar.  The virtue of itinerant ministry, practiced by St. Dominic, was modeled after the itinerancy of Jesus as a traveling preacher.  In the Gospel, Jesus moves from place to place in preaching the Truth of God’s Word to the people.  This is my ministry as an itinerant preacher. Finally, I also joined the Order of Preachers because of the love I formed in my heart for Our Lady of the Rosary, through the years, by praying her Rosary from childhood.  According to Tradition, St. Dominic was the first person in the Church to receive the Rosary in an apparition from Our Lady in a forest near Toulouse, France in the early 13^th century.  After learning this many years ago, I was moved to become a son of Our Lady of the Rosary, a Marian priest, in the Order of Preachers.  I thank God that my mother and grandmother helped form this Marian piety in me from childhood.  On this basis, my desire for Truth, my desire to be an itinerant preacher and my love for Blessed Mary helped form me in Christ to become a Dominican friar.   

     After my ordination in 2015, after many years of study in the Order of Preachers, I visited Sister Olvido at Our Lady of Perpetual Help School in Clovis, California.  When she saw me as a Dominican friar for the first time, she joyfully offered her gratitude to God for completing the holy work He had begun in me years earlier.  He was, indeed, at work in me from childhood, just as she said, purifying and preparing me for my vocation, through my suffering in Christ, as a son of God.  After thanking God for my vocation in the Order of Preachers, she proceeded to tell me that even though I had many difficulties as a student of St. Joseph School, academically and behaviorally, she still believed that God was at work in me during those years. She said God had a plan for me, but this plan was only fulfilled because I said yes to Him, just as she did years ago as a Sister of the Immaculate Conception.  In the providence of God, during the 37 years the Sisters worked at St. Joseph School, I was, by the mercy of God, only the second student ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood, after Tony Monreal, but the first friar of the Order of Preachers.  I thank God for my vocation.  I thank Him for mercifully healing my father in Christ. I thank Him for inspiring His people to mercifully offer prayers on my behalf in their love for me, especially the prayers of my family, my friends and all the Sisters, in particular Sister Olvido. Thank you, Sister! May you rest in the peace of Christ’s love!

In Christ with Blessed Mary,

Friar Mariano D. Veliz, O.P.

     En el siglo II de la Iglesia, los antiguos Padres de la Iglesia, inspirados por Dios, desarrollaron su comprensión de la revelación recibida de Dios acerca de la Virgen María, al contemplar y estudiar a la Virgen en relación con su Hijo, Jesucristo, en la Sagrada Escritura y Tradición. Específicamente, en su comprensión de la revelación de Dios, creían que Dios creó a la Virgen María en perfecta santidad como la Segunda Eva para que algún día concebiría y daría a luz al Santísimo Hijo de Dios, Jesucristo, como hombre en perfecta santidad como el Segundo Adán. Según los Padres de la Iglesia, después de que el Primer Adán y Eva perdieron su santidad, a través del pecado, en la primera creación de Dios de la raza humana, Dios finalmente comenzó Su segunda creación de la humanidad al formar a Jesucristo y a la Virgen María en perfecta santidad como el Segundo Adán y Eva. En su perfecta santidad, como Hijo y Madre, solo ellos cumplirían perfectamente la obra que Dios los llamó a hacer en su plan de salvación para todas las personas. De hecho, solo podrían completar este trabajo con total santidad. Por un lado, en cuanto a la Virgen María, en su perfecta santidad, Dios la llamó a convertirse en la Segunda Eva, la Madre de Su Hijo Jesucristo. Esta vocación, como Madre suya, implicó formarlo en santa virtud hasta la madurez plena como hombre, no solo con sus palabras, sino también con sus acciones. En esta obra de la Divina Maternidad, se convertiría en la Primera y Máxima Discípula de su Hijo Jesucristo para la salvación de la humanidad. Por otro lado, Dios también llamó a Su Hijo, en Su perfecta santidad, a convertirse en el Hijo del Hombre, el Segundo Adán, a través de la Virgen María. Esta vocación implicó predicar el Evangelio con su vida santa, con sus palabras y acciones, especialmente con su sufrimiento y muerte, para salvar a todas las personas. En la providencia de Dios, Jesús cumple esta obra de salvación no por sí mismo, sino con la ayuda de su Madre. En consecuencia, los Padres de la Iglesia creían que la base para llamar a la Virgen María la Segunda Eva era su creación por Dios en perfecta santidad para ser la ayuda maternal de su Hijo, la Madre del Salvador, el Segundo Adán. Por eso, desde la antigüedad, los Padres de la Iglesia han llamado a la Virgen María Panagia, la Santísima Mujer, o la Sanctisisima, la Santísima Mujer. Sobre esta base, providencialmente, esta perfecta santidad de la Virgen María, como Segunda Eva, la preparó para convertirse en la Santísima Madre del Hijo de Dios, Jesucristo, el Segundo Adán, para la salvación de todos los hombres.

     En este breve artículo, comentaré algunos capítulos de tres obras de San Justino Mártir y San Ireneo de Lyon, los primeros Padres de la Iglesia del siglo II que ayudaron a la Iglesia, y a través de la inspiración de Dios, desarrollaron su comprensión de la Virgen María como la Segunda Eva, la Santísima Madre del Segundo Adán, Jesucristo. Estas obras incluyen el Diálogo con Trifón de San Justino y Contra las Herejías y La Prueba de la Predicación Apostólica de San Ireneo. Aquí estos Padres desarrollan paralelos de oposición para defender la perfecta santidad de la Virgen María como la Segunda Eva en relación con su Santo Hijo, el Segundo Adán, Jesucristo. En primer lugar, en algunos paralelos, comparan a la Virgen María y la Virgen Eva como contrarias entre sí espiritual y moralmente. Al hacerlo, no llaman directamente a la Virgen María la Segunda Eva, pero ciertamente profesan que ella es esta Segunda Mujer en la segunda creación de Dios por esta comparación. De hecho, después de proclamar a la Primera Virgen, la Virgen Eva, una virgen pecadora en la primera creación de la humanidad por parte de Dios, los Santos Justino e Ireneo proclaman la Segunda Virgen, la Virgen María, una santa virgen en la segunda creación de Dios de la raza humana. En segundo lugar, en otros paralelos de oposición, también comparan a la Virgen María y Jesucristo como contrarios espirituales y morales al Primer Adán y Eva. Aquí, una vez más, no nombran directamente a la Virgen María y Jesucristo como el Segundo Adán y Eva, pero ciertamente los proclaman como este Segundo Hombre y Mujer en la segunda creación de Dios por esta comparación. En este sentido, después de profesar que el primer Adán y Eva fueron pecadores en la primera creación de Dios de la raza humana, los Santos Justino e Ireneo proclaman que la Virgen María y Jesucristo son el Santo Hombre y Mujer en la segunda creación de la humanidad por parte de Dios. Sobre esta base, al comparar, en todos estos paralelos, la Virgen María con la Virgen Eva, o la Virgen María y Jesucristo con el Primer Adán y Eva, los Padres de la Iglesia enseñan que la naturaleza de su oposición entre sí como seres humanos sigue siendo el mismo, porque permanecen espiritual y moralmente opuestos entre sí en su humanidad.

     Como los Santos Justino e Ireneo desarrollan sus paralelos de oposición para defender la perfecta santidad de la Virgen María como la Segunda Eva, la Madre del Segundo Adán, Jesucristo, basan principalmente estos paralelos en el Génesis, las Cartas de San Pablo y el Evangelio de San Lucas, mientras los estudian y contemplan, como hombres de fe.  En estas fuentes primarias de la Sagrada Escritura, los autores humanos inspirados, Moisés y San Pablo, con la ayuda de San Lucas, desarrollan allí paralelos de oposición.  Moisés, por su parte, a través de una revelación de Dios, profetiza la venida de una Mujer y su Hijo que salvará a la humanidad del mal oponiéndose a la Serpiente y sus demonios. En cuanto a San Pablo, después de escuchar el mensaje evangélico de Cristo mismo, incluida la Tradición oral de la Anunciación en San Lucas, desarrolla un paralelo de oposición de Adán y Cristo. Por esta razón, los Santos Justino e Ireneo basarían sus paralelos principalmente en las obras de Moisés y San Pablo después de leer el Evangelio de San Lucas. Como tal, estas fuentes primarias de las Escrituras informan sus paralelos. En ellos, los Santos Justino e Ireneo comparan a la Virgen María con la Virgen Eva, o la Virgen María y Jesucristo con el Primer Adán y la Primera Eva. En consecuencia, antes de comentar las obras de los Santos Justino e Ireneo, primero comentaré brevemente el Génesis y las Cartas de San Pablo, incluido el Evangelio de San Lucas, las fuentes primarias que utilizan para desarrollar sus paralelos de oposición, como bases de la perfecta santidad de la Virgen María.

     En la primera fuente de las Escrituras, Génesis, después del pecado del Primer Adán y Eva, Dios inspiró a Moisés, el autor humano del Génesis, a proclamar, a través de un paralelo de oposición, la venida de una Mujer y su Hijo que se opondrían a la maldad (Génesis 3:15). La Iglesia profesa que esta Mujer y su Hijo, profetizados por Moisés como oponentes del mal, son el Segundo Adán y Eva, Jesucristo y Su Madre, la Virgen María, del Evangelio. Este primer paralelo de oposición del Génesis, llamado el Protoevangelio, informa los paralelos que los Santos Justin e Ireneo desarrollarían más tarde.  En este paralelo particular del Génesis, Moisés primero compara al Segundo Adán y Eva con el Primer Adán y Eva.  Por eso después de que recuerda en Génesis el pecado del Primer Hombre y la Primera Mujer, el pecado de Adán y Eva, profetiza la virtud del Segundo Hombre y la Segunda Mujer, la virtud de la Mujer y su Hijo, que algún día vendrían como el Segundo Adán y Eva para oponerse al pecado del Primer Adán y Eva por su virtud.  Como tales, estos hombres y mujeres, Adán y Cristo, por un lado, y Eva y María, por el otro, se opondrían entre sí espiritual y moralmente como seres humanos. De hecho, por su oposición entre sí, el Segundo Adán y Eva serían santos, pero el Primer Adán y Eva, pecadores.

     Además, en el segundo paralelo de oposición del Protoevangelio del Génesis, Moisés, inspirado por Dios, compara la bondad de la Mujer y su Hijo, el Segundo Adán y Eva, con la maldad de la Serpiente y Sus ángeles caídos o demonios. Ciertamente, la Mujer misma y su Hijo, en su bondad, trabajarían en nombre del Buen Dios en la guerra contra la Serpiente malvada y Sus demonios. Asi, en esta guerra del bien contra el mal, se opondrían como agentes espirituales y morales. Por lo que en este pasaje, Dios proclama, a través de Moisés, que la Mujer y su Hijo, por un lado, y la Serpiente y Sus demonios, por el otro, serían enemigos entre sí espiritual y moralmente por la Voluntad de Dios. Esto significa que la Mujer y su Hijo serían santos, pero la Serpiente y Sus demonios, impíos. En consecuencia, en el Protoevangelio, Dios promete, a través de Moisés, que la Mujer y su Hijo, en su santidad como siervos de Dios, vencerían la pecaminosidad de Satanás y Sus ángeles caídos aplastando sus cabezas, porque con este acto santo, los destruirían. Sobre esta base, este versículo del Génesis es la primera fuente en las Escrituras que los Santos Justino e Ireneo usan a medida que desarrollan sus paralelos de oposición para defender la perfecta santidad de la Virgen María en relación con su Hijo, Jesucristo.

     La segunda fuente de la Sagrada Escritura que los Santos Justino e Ireneo usan para desarrollar sus paralelos de oposición es el corpus de San Pablo, en particular su Primera Carta a los Corintios y su Carta a los Romanos. Al hacerlo, utilizan la comparación de San Pablo en su paralelo del Primer Hombre, Adán, y el Segundo Hombre, Cristo, como base para comparar a la Virgen Eva, como la Primera Mujer, y a la Virgen María, como la Segunda Mujer en sus paralelos de oposición. Por esta razón, aquí comentaré brevemente las enseñanzas de San Pablo sobre Cristo y Adán que informan las obras de los Santos Justino e Ireneo.

     En la Primera Carta de San Pablo a los Corintios alrededor del año 56, primero desarrolla un paralelo de Adán y Cristo después de estudiar y contemplar la revelación de Dios sobre Adán en el Génesis y también la revelación que recibió de Cristo mismo durante su vida (Gálatas 1:12, Hechos de los Apóstoles 9:3-5), incluida la Tradición oral del Evangelio de San Lucas. Aquí compara a Adán y Cristo como creadores o padres de la humanidad. En primer lugar, cuando San Pablo comienza este paralelo de oposición en La Primera Carta a los Corintios comparando a Adán con Cristo, llama a Adán el Primer Hombre o el Primer Adán (1 Corintios 15: 45a) en la primera creación de Dios. De hecho, Dios creó a Adán a su imagen divina (Génesis 1:27) como la primera persona humana, un ser racional y libre, que se convertiría en el padre original de la raza humana por naturaleza. Al hacerlo, formó a Adán del “polvo de la tierra” y sopló su “aliento de vida” en él (Génesis 2: 7). En consecuencia, cuando San Pablo recuerda esta revelación de Dios en el Génesis, dice que el Primer Hombre, Adán, se convirtió en el primer ser humano en recibir vida “natural” por la acción de Dios (1 Corintios 15: 45-46). De hecho, Dios lo formó para que fuera una “persona natural” (1 Corintios 2:14) “de la tierra” (1 Corintios 15: 46-47). Por lo tanto, después de que Dios creó a este primer hombre a su imagen, proclamó que era realmente “bueno” (Génesis 1:31). De todos modos, a pesar de lo bueno que Dios creó a Adán para que fuera el Primer Hombre, se hizo “terrenal” (1 Corintios 15:47). Según San Pablo, esto significa que se convirtió en un hombre “de la carne” (1 Corintios 3:3). Se convirtió en pecador (1 Corintios 3:3, 15: 21-22, Gálatas 5: 16-21). Por lo que, en la enseñanza de San Pablo, como hombre de la carne, Adán perdió la gracia de Dios por el pecado. Como consecuencia, todos los descendientes de Adán en la primera creación de Dios llevan la “imagen” de Dios según la naturaleza caída del “hombre terrenal” desde la concepción (1 Corintios 15:49), porque todos han recibido la misma naturaleza humana que Adán. Por su pecado, el Primer Hombre, Adán, sometió a todas las personas a la mortalidad y corrupción de la muerte. Sobre esta base, San Pablo llama a Adán el origen o causa de la muerte de todas las personas, porque “todos mueren en Adán” (1 Corintios 15:22). Esta no es solo una muerte espiritual, una contaminación del alma, sino también una muerte corporal para todos.

     En segundo lugar, cuando San Pablo completa este paralelo de oposición en su Primera Carta a los Corintios comparando a Cristo con el Primer Hombre, Adán, llama a Cristo el “Segundo Hombre” o el “Segundo Adán” (1 Corintios 15:45, 47). Esto significa que Dios formó a Cristo como hombre para que fuera, en cierto sentido, el Segundo Padre de la raza humana espiritualmente (1 Corintios 5: 5, 15: 3-4) en la segunda creación de Dios de la humanidad. Por lo tanto, Cristo es su Cabeza o Salvador. De hecho, así como un padre es el cabeza de familia, Cristo también es el cabeza de su familia, la Iglesia. Según San Pablo, en “la plenitud de los tiempos, Dios envió a su Hijo” para ser concebido y “nacido de una mujer” como el segundo Adán por el Espíritu Santo (Gálatas 4: 4). Por esta razón, como el Segundo Adán, el Hijo de Dios, es un hombre espiritual, un hombre del Espíritu (1 Corintios 15:46, Romanos 4: 6, 29). Como tal, el Hijo de Dios se convirtió en el Hijo del hombre, a través de una mujer, por el Espíritu Santo para comunicar la vida espiritual de “adopción” a todos los seres humanos (Romanos 8:15, Gálatas 4: 5, 1 Corintios 15:45 -46). En este acto, el Hijo natural de Dios, formado como hombre, como el Segundo Adán, los llamó a ser recreados espiritualmente como hijos e hijas adoptivos de Dios por medio del Espíritu Santo (Gálatas 4: 5-6). San Pablo llama a esta segunda creación de Dios, una recreación espiritual en Cristo, para las personas humanas (2 Corintios 5:17, Gálatas 6:15). Se vuelven “santificados en Cristo” (1 Corintios 1: 2, 6:11). En esta recreación, Dios los conforma espiritualmente a la imagen de Su Hijo por la gracia de Su Espíritu (2 Corintios 3:18, Romanos 8:29, Gálatas 4: 6-7). De hecho, por esta gracia del Espíritu de Dios, “llevan la imagen del celestial” resucitado de entre los muertos (1 Corintios, 15:49, Romanos 6: 9). Como el segundo Adán, Cristo es el origen o la causa de la resurrección de los muertos de todas las personas, porque “en Cristo todos resucitarán” (1 Corintios 15: 21-22). Esto es, ante todo, una resurrección espiritual para ellos, por la gracia del Espíritu Santo, en el Bautismo. San Pablo llama a esto la gracia de la justificación (Romanos 5:17), porque todos se vuelven justos. Sobre esta base, esta gracia ciertamente los prepara espiritualmente para una resurrección corporal incorruptible de entre los muertos en el Ultimo Día, el Día del Señor (1 Corintios 15: 52-54, 5: 5).

     Además, en la Carta de San Pablo a los Romanos alrededor del año 57 o 58 (Romanos 5:12-21), desarrolla otro rasgo de su paralelo Adán y Cristo al comparar el juicio que Adán recibió por su desobediencia y el don que Cristo recibió por Su obediencia. Así como el primer Adán recibió un juicio de condenación a muerte por su desobediencia, Cristo, el segundo Adán, el justo Hijo de Dios, mereció el don de la justificación por su obediencia. En consecuencia, como cabezas o padres de sus descendientes naturales y espirituales, San Pablo dice que tanto el Primer Adán como el Segundo Adán comunicaron a su pueblo las consecuencias o frutos de sus acciones. Por un lado, esto significa que los descendientes naturales del Primer Adán, todas las personas, recibieron el juicio de la condenación que Adán recibió por su acto de desobediencia. Esta fue una condena a muerte para todos los seres humanos. Asi, por su desobediencia, el Primer Adán los engendró a todos a la muerte espiritual, la pérdida de su gracia original, desde su concepción en el vientre de su madre. Esta muerte comienza interiormente en su corazón, pero termina en su muerte corporal. Por otro lado, el Segundo Adán, Cristo, comunicó a Sus descendientes espirituales, miembros de Su Cuerpo, la Iglesia, el don de la justificación que Él merecía para ellos por Su acto de obediencia. Sobre esta base, se hicieron justos, por el don de la gracia que recibieron de Cristo, a través de Su obediencia.

     La tercera fuente primaria de las obras de los Santos Justino e Ireneo es el Evangelio. Aquí solo comentaré brevemente la Anunciación del Evangelio de San Lucas. Como recordará, este pasaje de la Sagrada Escritura narra la revelación del ángel Gabriel de la Palabra de Dios a la Virgen María. Cuando aparece ante ella, primero le proclama su saludo angelical: “¡Salve, llena eres de gracia! El Señor es contigo ”(Lucas 1:28). Según la Tradición, aquí el saludo del ángel Gabriel a la Virgen María, Dios te salve, llena eres de gracia, se refiere a la plenitud de la gracia de Dios que ella recibió de Él, mediante su concepción, como ser humano. En otras palabras, este saludo del ángel Gabriel recuerda que Dios formó a la Virgen María en la gracia de la perfecta santidad. De hecho, la palabra griega “kecharitomene” (llena de gracia) revela que Él la creó completamente santificada en su persona. Por lo que ella nunca estuvo sujeta al pecado. La base para que Dios concibiera a la Virgen María en perfecta santidad fue que Él quiso que fuera la Segunda Eva, la Santa Madre del Segundo Adán, Jesucristo. Por lo cual, ella recibió esta plenitud de gracia de Dios como la Segunda Eva para prepararla para convertirse en la Madre del Segundo Adán. Asi, después de saludarla como tal, el ángel Gabriel le revela a la Virgen María que ella concebirá y dará a luz al Hijo de Dios como Hijo del Hombre por el Espíritu Santo (Lucas 1:35). Por eso, en su fidelidad como Segunda Eva, la Virgen María cree la revelación que recibe de Dios a través del ángel Gabriel. En este acto de fe, ella ofrece fielmente su obediencia a la Palabra de Dios: “He aquí, soy la esclava del Señor. Hágase en mí según Su palabra” (Lucas 1:38). Aquí su obediencia a Dios es fruto de su perfecta santidad. Sobre esta base, en su Evangelio, San Lucas describe a la Virgen María como lo opuesto a la Virgen Eva, que desobedeció a Dios, porque ella es la Segunda Eva, la Santa Mujer, que concebiría y daría a luz a su Hijo, el Segundo Adán, en obediencia a la Palabra de Dios. Como tal, aquí la enseñanza de San Lucas sobre la Virgen María informa los paralelos de oposición que los Santos Justino e Ireneo se desarrollarían como base para la perfecta santidad de la Virgen María.

     Para continuar, ofreceré mi comentario sobre las obras de los Padres de la Iglesia, San Justino Mártir y San Ireneo de Lyon, quienes utilizaron los pasajes antes mencionados del Génesis, las Cartas de San Pablo y el Evangelio de San Lucas para desarrollar sus paralelos de oposición como base para la perfecta santidad de la Segunda Eva, la Virgen María, en relación con su Hijo, el Segundo Adán, Jesucristo. La Virgen María tenía que ser santa como mujer antes de poder concebir y dar a luz a su santo Hijo como hombre. Los paralelos de oposición, desarrollados primero en Génesis, las Cartas de San Pablo y el Evangelio de San Lucas, y más tarde en las obras de los Santos Justino e Ireneo, revelan que la santidad de la Virgen María y Jesucristo, como el Segundo Adán y Eva, nunca podría ser contaminada por la pecaminosidad del Primer Adán y Eva o por la maldad de Satanás y Sus ángeles caídos. Como resultado, estos paralelos de oposición en la Sagrada Escritura y la Tradición revelan que la Virgen María y Jesucristo, por un lado, y Adán y Eva, y Satanás y sus demonios, por otro lado, se oponen entre sí espiritual y moralmente. Los Santos Justino e Ireneo proclamaron esta verdad en sus obras.

     En cuanto a San Justino Mártir, un apologista del siglo II (100-165 d. C.), fue el primer Padre de la Iglesia en desarrollar el paralelo Eva y María en su Diálogo con Trifón (161 d. C.) después de leer el Libro de Génesis, las Cartas de San Pablo, y el Evangelio de San Lucas. Al hacerlo, San Justino considera su relación solo brevemente al final del capítulo 100, pero es el primer Padre de la Iglesia en hacer esto. Su breve paralelo aquí fue todavía un desarrollo en la enseñanza mariana en el siglo II. Este es un desarrollo en la comprensión de la revelación recibida de Dios sobre la persona y misión de la Virgen María. En su Diálogo, San Justino desarrolla este paralelo de Eva y María comparando la desobediencia de la Primera Eva, la Virgen Eva, y la obediencia de la Segunda Eva, la Virgen María. En particular, el Hijo de Dios se convirtió en el Hijo del Hombre mediante la obediencia de la Virgen María para destruir la desobediencia de la Virgen Eva. Por eso, así como la Virgen Eva destruyó su obediencia a la Palabra de Dios al obedecer la palabra de la Serpiente, la Virgen María destruyó la obediencia de la Virgen Eva a la palabra de la Serpiente al obedecer la Palabra de Dios que le fue anunciada a través del ángel. En consecuencia, por un lado, al concebir la palabra de la Serpiente a través de la desobediencia, la Virgen Eva “llevó la muerte en sí misma”. Y por ende, se convirtió en la madre de la muerte. Por otro lado, al concebir la Palabra de Dios en la fe mediante la obediencia, la Virgen María se convirtió en la madre de la vida divina a través del Espíritu Santo. Asi, en fiel obediencia a Dios, ella creyó fielmente en la Palabra que recibió de Dios a través del ángel. Esta es la Palabra de que ella se convertiría en la madre de Su Hijo, el Dios-Hombre, Jesucristo. Cuando proclamó: “He aquí la esclava del Señor. Hágase en mí según tu palabra ”(Lucas 1:38). Por esto, mediante su fiel sí a Dios, la Virgen María concibió y dio a luz al Hijo de Dios, como Hijo del Hombre, que salvaría, en primer lugar, a todos los arrepentidos, que creyeran fielmente en Él. En segundo lugar, este Hijo de Dios, que fue concebido y nacido de la Virgen María como el Hijo del Hombre, también destruiría a todos los incrédulos impenitentes por su infidelidad. Asi, todas las personas de fe arrepentidas serían salvadas del pecado y la muerte por el Dios-Hombre, Jesucristo, imitando la fe de Su madre, la Virgen María, quien obedeció fielmente a la Palabra que recibió del ángel de Dios. A la inversa, todos los incrédulos impenitentes serían destruidos por Él por imitar la infidelidad de la Virgen Eva, que desobedeció la Palabra de Dios, al obedecer la palabra que recibió de la Serpiente. Esta Serpiente, incluidos los ángeles caídos, también sería destruida por el Dios-Hombre. Sobre esta base, aquí San Justino desarrolla este paralelo de Eva y María para proclamar que la Virgen Eva, la Auxiliadora de Adán, se convirtió en la madre de la muerte de todas las personas por su desobediencia a Dios, pero la Virgen María, Auxiliar de su Hijo, Jesucristo, se convirtió en la Segunda Eva, la madre de la vida de la gracia para todos los seres humanos, por su obediencia a Dios (Diálogo, Capítulo 100).

     San Ireneo (115-202 d.C.), Obispo de Lyon, fue el segundo Padre de la Iglesia en desarrollar la comprensión de la Iglesia de la Virgen María en relación con su Hijo, Jesucristo, después de leer las fuentes mencionadas en la Sagrada Escritura, incluida la obra de San Justino. Lo hace, en primer lugar, en el capítulo 19 del Libro III en Contra las Herejías (180 d.C.). En esta obra, San Ireneo presenta a la Virgen María como la Segunda Eva, la Ayudante de su Hijo, Jesucristo, en el plan de salvación de Dios para los seres humanos. Es cierto que no menciona directamente a Adán y Eva en este capítulo, pero estos primeros seres humanos, creados por Dios, como esposo y esposa, que se convertirían en los primeros padres de la raza humana, ciertamente informan lo que él enseña aquí sobre Jesús y María. Según San Ireneo, después de que el Primer Adán y Eva corrompieron a sus descendientes humanos, a través del pecado, Dios levantó un Segundo Adán y Eva, Jesús y María, para salvarlos a través de su fidelidad a Dios. En consecuencia, para San Ireneo, Dios llamó a Jesús y María, Hijo y Madre, para ser, en cierto sentido, los segundos padres de los seres humanos, un Padre y una Madre espirituales, que trabajarían para salvarlos en el plan de salvación de Dios. De hecho, San Ireneo cree, en el plan de Dios, que esta obra de salvación de Jesús y Su Ayudante, la Virgen María, inició una segunda creación de todas las personas por adopción. Esto significa que en la providencia de Dios, llamó a todos los seres humanos a “recibir el don de la adopción” convirtiéndose en hijos e hijas de Dios a través de una “promoción a Dios”. Por esta razón, en la enseñanza de San Ireneo, el Hijo de Dios, Jesucristo, se hizo hombre para que los seres humanos fueran adoptados como hijos e hijas de Dios. Como resultado, les ofreció la inmortalidad y la incorruptibilidad, por adopción, porque era “más que un simple hombre”, “mas que todos los hombres.” Para San Ireneo, solo Jesucristo, como Hijo de Dios, pudo haber salvado a todas las personas como hombres. Solo Él podría haberlos recreado en Su imagen divina como hijos e hijas de Dios inmortales e incorruptibles por adopción (Contra las Herejías, Libro III, Capítulo 19, Párrafos 1-3).

     De todos modos, San Ireneo también enseña que debido a que el Hijo de Dios requirió una verdadera naturaleza humana que descendiera del Primer Adán, a través de la casa de David, solo Él pudo haber ofrecido este regalo de adopción a los seres humanos, por Su concepción humana. y nacimiento de una virgen hija de David. En la providencia de Dios, esta virgen, por supuesto, fue la Virgen María, la Segunda Eva, que concibió y dio a luz al Hijo de Dios. En esta obra de San Ireneo, Contra las Herejías, proclama que así como el Hijo de Dios recibió una generación divina preeminente de Dios Padre desde toda la eternidad, también recibió una generación humana preeminente en el tiempo de Su Madre, la Virgen María. Al hacerlo, San Ireneo indica que la preeminencia de las generaciones divina y humana del Hijo de Dios significa que ambos generadores, Dios Padre y la Virgen Madre de Dios, serían perfectos en su divinidad y humanidad respectivamente. Como tal, el Hijo de Dios mismo también sería perfecto como Dios y como hombre. En este sentido, en su perfección, el Hijo de Dios se convirtió en el Hijo del Hombre de la humanidad de María para salvar a todos los seres humanos como hijos e hijas adoptivos de Dios Padre y de la Virgen Madre. Finalmente, San Ireneo se hace esta pregunta: ¿Quién hubiera imaginado que el Hijo de Dios, engendrado eternamente del Padre, hubiera salvado a la humanidad por una generación temporal de una Virgen humana? ¿Quién se hubiera imaginado que podría haber concebido virginalmente al Hijo de Dios como hombre y permanecer virgen al dar a luz? Solo convirtiéndose en un verdadero hombre de una verdadera Virgen podría el verdadero Dios sufrir, morir y resucitar en gloria por la salvación de todos los seres humanos. De hecho, solo por Su concepción y nacimiento como hombre, a través de la Virgen María, podrían todos convertirse en beneficiarios de Su resurrección inmortal e incorruptible de entre los muertos. Sobre esta base, para San Ireneo, la salvación de todas las personas, por adopción, fue una obra realizada principalmente por el Segundo Adán, Cristo mismo, como Agente Principal, pero en segundo lugar por la Virgen María, Su Auxiliadora materna, como Segunda Eva, porque Él recibió Su humanidad de ella (Contra Herejías, Libro III, Capítulo 19, Párrafos 1-3).

     Adicionalmente, en el capítulo 21 del Libro III en Contra las Herejías, San Ireneo desarrolla un paralelo que involucra la creación de Dios del Primer Hombre, Adán, de la tierra virgen (Génesis 2: 7) y Su formación del Segundo Adán, Cristo, de la Virgen María. Por lo que, así como el Primer Adán no tuvo un padre natural, sino que fue creado de la tierra virgen por Dios mismo, tampoco el Segundo Adán, Cristo, tuvo un padre natural, sino que fue formado por Dios mismo de la Virgen María. En este paralelo, San Ireneo compara la moralidad del Primer Adán creado de la tierra virgen para ser un padre natural y la moralidad del Segundo Adán creado de la Virgen María para ser un padre espiritual. Por un lado, el Primer Hombre, Adán, recibió la sustancia de su naturaleza humana de tierra virgen a través de la Palabra de Dios. Como el Primer Hombre, fue creado por la Palabra de Dios en la sustancia de su humanidad de la tierra virgen para ser el origen natural o padre de todos los seres humanos en la primera creación de Dios, pero desobedeció la Palabra de Dios. Realmente, desobedeció la Palabra de Dios al pecar contra él. Por eso, con su desobediencia, el Primer Hombre, Adán, introdujo a todos los seres humanos fruto malo, el fruto del pecado, incluso la muerte. Por consiguiente, como padre del pecado, se convirtió en padre de la muerte para todos. Por otro lado, el Segundo Adán, Cristo, recibió la sustancia de su naturaleza humana de la Segunda Eva, la Virgen María, en la segunda creación de Dios. En consecuencia, formado por Dios a partir de la Virgen María en la sustancia de su humanidad, recapituló o resumió la creación del Primer Adán en sí mismo, incluidos sus descendientes. Como tal, como el Segundo Adán, fue concebido y nacido de la Virgen María, mediante la Palabra de Dios, para ser el origen espiritual o padre de todos los seres humanos, por Su obediencia a Dios mismo, en Su segunda creación. En Su obediencia a Él, presentó buen fruto, el fruto de justicia, a todas las personas. Esto significa que, como origen o padre de la justicia, se convirtió en el padre de la vida espiritual de todos los seres humanos. Según San Ireneo, Cristo, el Segundo Adán, solo podría haberse convertido en un origen espiritual o padre de justicia para todas las personas, por medio de la Segunda Eva, la Virgen María. Después de todo, como el Segundo Adán, en la segunda creación de Dios, recibió de la humanidad de la Virgen María, la naturaleza humana del Primer Adán. Como resultado, a través de esta naturaleza, recapituló al Primer Adán en Sí mismo, incluidos todos los descendientes de Adán. Sobre esta base, en esta recapitulación, los salvó como hombres, por Su justicia, en obediencia a la Palabra de Dios (Contra las Herejías, Libro III, Capítulo 21, Párrafo 10).

     Además, en el capítulo 22 del Libro III en Contra de las Herejías, San Ireneo desarrolla, por primera vez, un paralelo de Eva y María. En este paralelo, compara la desobediencia de la Virgen Eva y la obediencia de la Virgen María. Por un lado, como mujer, casada con su esposo, Adán, la Primera Eva fue desobediente a Dios como virgen en su matrimonio. En consecuencia, por su desobediencia, se convirtió en causa de muerte para ella y para todos los seres humanos. Por esta razón, se le llama la madre de la muerte, porque ella fue la madre de todas las personas para la muerte espiritual y corporal. Al hacerlo, San Ireneo enseña que esta Primera Mujer, la Virgen Eva, ató a todos los seres humanos en un nudo, el nudo de la muerte, por su desobediencia a Dios. Por otro lado, como mujer, casada con su esposo, San José, María, la Segunda Eva, fue obediente a Dios como virgen en su matrimonio. En consecuencia, a través de su obediencia a Dios, se convirtió en la causa de la salvación para ella y para todas las personas. Como tal, ella es la madre de la vida, porque ella llevó a todas las personas a la vida de salvación espiritual y corporal. Según San Ireneo, esto significa que esta Segunda Eva, la Virgen María, desató el nudo de la muerte de todas las personas por su obediencia a Dios. De hecho, a través de su obediencia, desató la desobediencia de Eva. Por eso, con su acto de obediencia, liberó a los seres humanos de su esclavitud a la desobediencia, incluida la muerte. San Ireneo llama a la obediencia de la Virgen María un acto de fe, porque ella obedeció fielmente la Palabra de Dios. A la inversa, él llama a la desobediencia de la Virgen Eva un acto de incredulidad, porque ella desobedeció infielmente la Palabra de Dios. Ella no tenía fe en lo que le decía. Como tal, la Virgen Eva se convirtió en la madre de la esclavitud de la muerte, pero la Virgen María se convirtió en la madre de la vida en libertad. Sobre esta base, lo que la Virgen Eva ató con su incredulidad, la Virgen María lo desató con su fe (Contra las Herejías, Libro III, Capítulo 22, Párrafo 4).

     También en el capítulo 19 del Libro V en Contra las Herejías, San Ireneo desarrolla aún más su paralelo Eva y María. En este paralelo, compara la influencia que los ángeles santos y caídos tuvieron sobre la Virgen Eva y la Virgen María. Por un lado, después de escuchar la palabra engañosa de la Serpiente, el mismo Satanás, la Virgen Eva creyó la mentira que escuchó de Él. En consecuencia, fue engañada por Su engaño para que huyera de Dios por desobediencia. Por otro lado, después de que la Virgen María, la Segunda Eva, escuchó la Palabra de Dios del santo ángel, San Gabriel, ella creyó que Su mensaje era verdadero. Este fue el mensaje de que ella concebiría y llevaría a Dios mismo. Por esta razón, el santo ángel la guió a Dios, a través de Su mensaje, que se convertiría en Madre de Dios por su obediencia a Su Palabra. Según San Ireneo, esto significa que a través de su obediencia a la Palabra de Dios, al convertirse en Su Madre, la Virgen María se convertiría en la Patrona (Abogada) de la Virgen Eva, incluida la Patrona de todos los descendientes de la Virgen Eva.  En este sentido, para San Ireneo, tan pecadora como lo fue la Virgen Eva, todavía fue redimida por Dios, a través del Patronato de la Virgen María, Madre de Dios. Por tanto, así como la Virgen Eva sometió a la muerte a sus descendientes por su desobediencia virginal, la Virgen María salvó a la Virgen Eva, incluidos sus descendientes, instrumentalmente de tal muerte, por su obediencia virginal (Contra las Herejías, Libro V, Capítulo 19, Párrafo 1).

     Finalmente, en su Prueba de la Predicación Apostólica (185 d.C.), San Ireneo continúa su desarrollo de su paralelo Eva y María. Al hacerlo, aplica su doctrina de la recapitulación, por primera vez, a Eva y María en relación con Adán y Cristo. Como recordará, San Ireneo primero aplica esta doctrina solo a Adán y a Cristo en el capítulo 21 del Libro III en Contra las Herejías. En esta obra, Prueba de la Predicación Apostólica, San Ireneo proclama que esta recapitulación involucra, en primer lugar, a Cristo y a la Virgen María resumiendo la creación original de Adán y Eva, a través de su formación como Segundo Hombre y Mujer, por la Voluntad y Sabiduría de Dios. Este es el comienzo de la segunda creación de la humanidad por parte de Dios. Por un lado, Cristo, el Segundo Adán, recapituló en Sí mismo Su creación del Primer Adán de la tierra virgen al formar una naturaleza humana para Él mismo de la Virgen María, la Segunda Eva, por Su Voluntad y Sabiduría. En verdad, fue concebido y nacido de ella como hombre, por la Voluntad de Dios, mediante el Espíritu Santo, el Espíritu de Sabiduría. Por otro lado, la Virgen María recapituló en sí misma la creación de Cristo de la Virgen Eva del Primer Hombre, Adán, porque la formó, en cierto sentido, de Él mismo, el Segundo Adán, por Su Voluntad y Sabiduría. Como tal, para San Ireneo, la recapitulación es, ante todo, una obra de creación. Aquí Dios mismo, por Su Voluntad y Sabiduría, formó la humanidad una segunda vez en las personas del Segundo Adán y la Segunda Eva. En este acto de creación, recapitularon la creación original de Adán y Eva. En segundo lugar, San Ireneo también proclama que la recapitulación es una obra de salvación que Jesús y la Virgen María, Hijo y Madre, cumplieron como el Segundo Adán y Eva por su obediencia a Dios. En este sentido, Cristo y la Virgen María, mediante su obediencia, resumieron espiritual y moralmente a Adán y Eva para destruir su desobediencia por la Voluntad y Sabiduría de Dios. De hecho, así como Cristo, mediante su obediencia, como agente espiritual y moral, recapituló a Adán en sí mismo para destruir la desobediencia de Adán, de manera similar la Virgen María, por su parte, recapituló a Eva en sí misma espiritual y moralmente, mediante su obediencia, para destruir la desobediencia de Eva. En esta obra de recapitulación del plan de salvación de Dios por la obediencia de Cristo y Su Madre, la Virgen María, no solo destruyeron la desobediencia de Adán y Eva, sino que también destruyeron la consecuencia de su desobediencia, la muerte. Según San Ireneo, esta obra de salvación, a través de la recapitulación, implicó un proceso de restauración llamado recirculación. En su enseñanza, esta obra se cumplió, ante todo, por las acciones de Cristo mismo, Agente Principal de la salvación, pero también en segundo lugar por las acciones de la Virgen María, como Auxiliadora de su Hijo, el Salvador. Aquí las acciones virtuosas de Cristo y la Virgen María contrarrestaron las acciones pecaminosas de Adán y Eva. En consecuencia, como el Primer Adán perdió su comunión en la amistad de Dios al ordenar sus acciones pecaminosamente contra Dios por medio de la desobediencia, Cristo, el Segundo Adán, por Su parte, recuperó esta unión o amistad divina al ordenar sus acciones virtuosamente a Dios a través de la obediencia. Asimismo, como la Primera Eva perdió su comunión en la amistad de Dios al ordenar sus acciones pecaminosamente contra Dios por la desobediencia, la Virgen María, por su parte, como Segunda Eva, preparó a su Hijo, el Segundo Adán, para recuperar esta amistad divina ordenando sus acciones virtuosamente a Dios mediante la obediencia. En este sentido, aquí las acciones virtuosas de Cristo y la Virgen María, Hijo y Madre, son paralelas a las acciones pecaminosas de Adán y Eva, esposo y esposa, paso a paso, en orden inverso. Este es el proceso de restauración de la raza humana que Cristo y la Virgen María cumplieron en obediencia a la Voluntad y Sabiduría de Dios al volver sobre los pasos en falso de la desobediencia de Adán y Eva como medio para deshacer lo que hicieron. En esta obra de restauración, Cristo ciertamente salvó a la humanidad, como Agente Principal, por Su obediencia a Dios, pero Su obediencia dependía de la obediencia de Su Auxiliar, la Virgen María. Esto significa que Él solo pudo obedecer a Dios porque la Virgen María primero ofreció su obediencia a Dios como una preparación para que Él obedeciera a Dios. Por lo tanto, la obediencia de la Virgen María a Dios al concebir y dar a luz a Cristo, el Hijo de Dios como Hijo del Hombre, lo preparó para sufrir y morir por la humanidad en obediencia a Dios. Como resultado, San Ireneo proclama que los seres humanos fueron “reanimados y recibieron vida” a través de la obediencia de la Virgen María a Dios, porque por su obediencia, el Hijo de Dios se hizo hombre, mediante ella, para ofrecer su vida inmortal e incorruptible a todas las personas en obediencia a Dios. Por esta razón, San Ireneo llama a la Virgen María la Intercesora de la Virgen Eva y su esposo, Adán, incluidos sus descendientes humanos. Sobre esta base, por su intercesión materna, como Madre del Hijo de Dios, la Virgen María trabajó como Ayudante de su Hijo para devolver a los seres humanos la comunión de la amistad de Dios (Prueba de la Predicación Apostólica, 30-33).

     En conclusión, los diversos paralelismos de oposición en la Escritura, particularmente en el Génesis, las Cartas de San Pablo y el Evangelio de San Lucas, informan los paralelos desarrollados en la Tradición por los Santos Justino e Ireneo. En estos paralelos, Dios proclama, a través de los autores humanos de la Escritura y la Tradición, la perfecta santidad que la Virgen María recibió de Dios como la Segunda Eva. Por medio de esta perfecta santidad, la preparó para convertirse en la Santísima Madre del Hijo de Dios, el Segundo Adán, Jesucristo.  Por lo que, en estos paralelos de oposición, los autores de Escritura y Tradición ofrecen tres comparaciones de personas que se oponen espiritual y moralmente.

     En primer lugar, estos autores inspirados comparan la santidad de la Segunda Eva, la Virgen María, con la pecaminosidad de la Primera Eva, la Virgen Eva. En este sentido, para ellos, la Virgen María, en su santidad, se opone a la pecaminosidad de la Virgen Eva; y la Virgen Eva, en su pecaminosidad, se opone a la santidad de la Virgen María. Por eso, como Virgen santa, llaman a María modelo de fe, mujer de obediencia, madre de vida, madre de la libertad, madre de la salvación y desatadora de nudos.  Por el contrario, en la pecaminosidad de la Virgen Eva como Primera Eva, la llaman el modelo de la incredulidad, la mujer de la desobediencia, la madre de la muerte, la madre de la esclavitud, la madre de la condenación y la atadora de nudos.

     En segundo lugar, los autores de la Escritura y la Tradición también comparan la santidad de la Virgen María y Jesucristo, el Segundo Adán y Eva, con la pecaminosidad del Primer Adán y Eva. Asi, la Virgen María y Jesucristo, Madre e Hijo, por su santidad como segunda pareja en la segunda creación de Dios, se oponen a la pecaminosidad de Adán y Eva, la primera pareja, como marido y mujer; y Adán y Eva, por su pecaminosidad, se oponen a la Virgen María y Cristo. Por lo que, en su santa relación de Madre e Hijo, Jesucristo y la Virgen María, como el Segundo Adán y Eva, son descritos, por los autores inspirados, como un padre y una madre espiritual para la humanidad, no por naturaleza, sino por la gracia. De hecho, en su trabajo como Madre e Hijo en la segunda creación de Dios, engendran hijos para Dios, espiritualmente, por adopción, a través del Espíritu Santo. Por eso se les llama madre y padre de la vida, vida divina, para el pueblo de Dios. Asi, el Segundo Adán se hizo hombre por medio de la Segunda Eva para que todas las personas serían recreadas como hijos santos de Dios a través de ellos. Por otro lado, los autores inspirados de la Escritura y la Tradición, describen al Primer Adán y Eva como la madre y el padre de todas las personas, por generación natural, según la carne. Como sus primeros padres, por naturaleza, que pecaron contra Dios, los engendraron a una vida de pecado. Esta es una generación pecadora. En consecuencia, no solo se les llama la madre y el padre del pecado, sino también la madre y el padre de la muerte, porque por su pecado, todas las personas sufren la muerte espiritualmente desde la concepción y por fin morirán físicamente.

     Finalmente, los autores inspirados de la Escritura y la Tradición comparan la santidad de la Virgen María y Jesucristo, el Segundo Adán y Eva, con la pecaminosidad de la Serpiente y Su descendencia, los demonios. Por esta razón, la Virgen María y Jesucristo, Madre e Hijo, por su santidad como el Segundo Adán y Eva, se oponen a la pecaminosidad de la Serpiente y Sus demonios; y por su parte, la Serpiente y sus demonios, por su pecaminosidad, se oponen a la Virgen María y a Cristo. Como resultado, los autores, bajo la inspiración de Dios, describen a la Virgen María en relación con su Hijo, Jesucristo, como la Auxiliadora maternal del Salvador. En su trabajo para salvar a los seres humanos del mal, como Madre e Hijo, aplastan la cabeza de la Serpiente, el Padre del mal, incluidos Sus demonios. Como tal, la Virgen María, como Segunda Eva, es llamada Patrona o Abogada de todas las personas, porque ella intercede ante su Hijo, el Segundo Adán, en su nombre, a través de sus oraciones, en la guerra contra Satanás y sus demonios. Sobre esta base, mediante su ministerio como compañera de su Hijo, el Segundo Adán, la Virgen María participa en la obra de su Hijo para salvar a los seres humanos de la maldad de la Serpiente y sus demonios.

     En todos estos paralelos, por los autores inspirados de la Escritura y la Tradición, Dios revela la perfecta santidad de la Virgen María, la Segunda Eva, como Madre del Segundo Adán, por su oposición a la pecaminosidad de la Virgen Eva y la Serpiente. En este sentido, aquí se opone a todos los pecadores, humanos y demoníacos, a través de su santidad. Según la Tradición, esta oposición a los pecadores, por parte de la Virgen María, la Segunda Eva, no es una oposición parcial e imperfecta, sino una oposición completa y perfecta. Esto significa que ella se opone perfecta y completamente, por su perfecta santidad, a la pecaminosidad de Eva y la Serpiente. Por un lado, la Santísima Virgen, ciertamente se opone total y perfectamente al pecado de Eva y sus hijos, pero también intercede en oración ante Dios por ellos por su salvación para que se arrepientan de sus pecados. Por otro lado, en su perfecta santidad, la Virgen María no reza por Satanás y sus demonios, sino que sigue siendo por toda la eternidad su enemigo perfecto y completo como Auxiliadora materna de su Hijo, el Salvador. Por lo que, en la perfecta y completa enemistad de la Virgen María con el pecado de la Virgen Eva y la Serpiente, los opone plena y perfectamente por su perfecta santidad. Como tal, los paralelos de oposición en la Escritura y la Tradición solo funcionan porque la Virgen María fue concebida por Dios en perfecta santidad a través de la gracia singular de su Inmaculada Concepción y vivió una vida perfectamente santa en la tierra como la Segunda Eva. Así que, ella nunca estuvo sujeta al pecado en absoluto, ni al pecado original ni al pecado personal o actual, porque su Hijo, el Segundo Adán, la salvó, por los méritos previstos de Su pasión, al preservarla del pecado, en creándola inmaculadamente como un ser humano, la Santísima Segunda Eva.

En Cristo con la Santísima María,

Fray Mariano D. Veliz, O.P.

     In the second century of the Church, the ancient Fathers of the Church, inspired by God, developed their understanding of the received revelation from God about the Virgin Mary, as they contemplated and studied the Virgin in relationship to her Son, Jesus Christ in Scripture and Tradition.  Specifically, in their understanding of God’s revelation, they believed that God created the Virgin Mary in perfect holiness as the Second Eve that she would someday conceive and bear the All-Holy Son of God, Jesus Christ, as man in perfect holiness as the Second Adam.  According to the Church Fathers, after the First Adam and Eve lost their holiness, through sin, in God’s first creation of the human race, God eventually began His second creation of humanity by forming Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary in perfect holiness as the Second Adam and Eve.  In their perfect holiness, as Son and Mother, they alone would fulfill perfectly the work that God called them to do in His plan of salvation for all people.  Indeed, they could only complete this work by such holiness.  On the one hand, as for the Virgin Mary, in her perfect holiness, God called her to become the Second Eve, the Mother of His Son, Jesus Christ.  This vocation, as His Mother, involved forming Him in holy virtue to full maturity as man not only by her words, but also by her actions.  In this work of the Divine Maternity, she would become the First and Greatest Disciple of her Son, Jesus Christ, for the salvation of humanity.  On the other hand, God also called His Son, in His perfect holiness, to become the Son of Man, the Second Adam, through the Virgin Mary.  This vocation involved preaching the Gospel by His holy life, through His words and actions, especially by His suffering and death, to save all people.  In God’s providence, Jesus fulfills this work of salvation not by Himself, but through the help of His Mother.  Accordingly, the Fathers of the Church believed that the basis for calling the Virgin Mary the Second Eve was her creation by God in perfect holiness to be the maternal helpmate of her Son, the Mother of the Savior, the Second Adam.  For this reason, from ancient times, the Church Fathers have called the Virgin Mary the Panagia, the All-Holy Woman, or the Sanctissima, the Most Holy Woman.  On this basis, providentially, this perfect holiness of the Virgin Mary, as the Second Eve, prepared her to become the All Holy Mother of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, for the salvation of all people. 

     In this brief article, I will comment on certain chapters from three works by St. Justin Martyr and St. Irenaeus of Lyons, the first Fathers of the Church from the second century who helped the Church, through God’s inspiration, to develop her understanding of the Virgin Mary as the Second Eve, the All-Holy Mother of the Second Adam, Jesus Christ.  These works include the Dialogue with Trypho by St. Justin and Against Heresies and the Proof of the Apostolic Preaching by St. Irenaeus.  Here these Fathers develop parallels of opposition to argue for the perfect holiness of the Virgin Mary as the Second Eve in relationship to her All-Holy Son, the Second Adam, Jesus Christ. First of all, in some parallels, they compare the Virgin Mary and the Virgin Eve as contraries to each other spiritually and morally.  In doing so, they do not directly call the Virgin Mary the Second Eve, but they certainly profess her to be this Second Woman in God’s second creation by this comparison.  Indeed, after proclaiming the First Virgin, the Virgin Eve, a sinful virgin in God’s first creation of humanity, Sts. Justin and Irenaeus proclaim the Second Virgin, the Virgin Mary, a holy virgin in God’s second creation of the human race.  Secondly, in other parallels of opposition, they also compare the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ as spiritual and moral contraries to the First Adam and Eve.  Here, once again, they do not directly name the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ as the Second Adam and Eve, but they certainly proclaim them to be this Second Man and Woman in God’s second creation by this comparison.  In this sense, after professing the First Adam and Eve to be sinners in God’s first creation of the human race, Sts. Justin and Irenaeus proclaim the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ to be the Holy Man and Woman in God’s second creation of humanity.  On this basis, by comparing, in all these parallels, the Virgin Mary to the Virgin Eve, or the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ to the First Adam and Eve, the Church Fathers teach that the nature of their opposition to each other as human beings remains the same, for they remain spiritually and morally opposed to each other in their humanity.

     As Sts. Justin and Irenaeus develop their parallels of opposition to argue for the perfect holiness of the Virgin Mary as the Second Eve, the Mother of the Second Adam, Jesus Christ, they primarily base these parallels on Genesis, the Letters of St. Paul and the Gospel of St. Luke, as they study and contemplate them, as men of faith.  In these primary sources from Scripture, the inspired human authors, Moses, and St. Paul, through the help of St. Luke, develop parallels of opposition there.  Moses, for his part, through a revelation from God, prophesies the coming of a Woman and her Son who would save humanity from evil by opposing the Serpent and His demons.  As for St. Paul, after hearing the Gospel message from Christ Himself, including the oral Tradition of the Annunciation in St. Luke, he develops a parallel of opposition of Adam and Christ.  For this reason, Sts. Justin and Irenaeus would base their parallels primarily on the works of Moses and St. Paul after reading the Gospel of St. Luke.  As such, these primary sources from Scripture inform their parallels.  In them, Sts. Justin and Irenaeus compare either the Virgin Mary to the Virgin Eve, or the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ to the First Adam and the First Eve.  Accordingly, before commenting on the works of Sts. Justin and Irenaeus, I will first briefly comment on Genesis and St. Paul’s Letters, including the Gospel of St. Luke, the primary sources they use to develop their parallels of opposition, as the bases for the perfect holiness of the Virgin Mary.

     In their first primary source from Scripture, Genesis, after the sin of the First Adam and Eve, God inspired Moses, the human author of Genesis, to proclaim, through a parallel of opposition, the coming of a Woman and her Son who would oppose evil (Genesis 3:15).  The Church professes this Woman and her Son, prophesied by Moses as opponents of evil, to be the Second Adam and Eve, Jesus Christ and His Mother, the Virgin Mary, from the Gospel.  This first parallel of opposition from Genesis, called the Protoevangelium, informs the parallels that Sts. Justin and Irenaeus would later develop.  In this particular parallel from Genesis, Moses first compares the Second Adam and Eve to the First Adam and Eve.  For after Moses recalls in Genesis the sin of the First Man and Woman, the sin of Adam and Eve, he prophesies the virtue of the Second Man and Woman, the virtue of the Woman and her Son, who would come someday as the Second Adam and Eve to oppose the sin of the First Adam and Eve by their virtue.  As such, these men and women, Adam and Christ, on the one hand, and Eve and Mary, on the other hand, would be opposed to each other spiritually and morally as human beings.  Indeed, by their opposition to each other, the Second Adam and Eve would be holy, but the First Adam and Eve, sinful. 

     Furthermore, in the second parallel of opposition from the Protoevangelium of Genesis, Moses, inspired by God, compares the goodness of the Woman and her Son, the Second Adam and Eve, to the evil of the Serpent and His fallen angels or demons.  For the Woman herself, and her Son, in their goodness, would work on behalf of the Good God in the war against the evil Serpent and His demons.  In this sense, in this war of good versus evil, they would oppose each other as spiritual and moral agents.  As a result, in this passage, God proclaims, through Moses, that the Woman and her Son, on the one hand, and the Serpent and His demons, on the other hand, would be enemies to each other spiritually and morally by the Will of God.  This means that the Woman and her Son would be holy, but the Serpent and His demons, unholy.  Accordingly, in the Protoevangelium, God promises, through Moses, that the Woman and her Son, in their holiness as God’s servants, would defeat the sinfulness of Satan and His fallen angels by crushing their head, for by this holy act, they would destroy them.  On this basis, this verse from Genesis is the first source in Scripture that Sts. Justin and Irenaeus use as they develop their parallels of opposition to argue for the perfect holiness of the Virgin Mary in relationship to her Son, Jesus Christ. 

     The second source from Scripture that Sts. Justin and Irenaeus use to develop their parallels of opposition is St. Paul’s corpus, particularly his First Letter to the Corinthians and his Letter to the Romans.  In doing so, they use St. Paul’s comparison in his parallel of the First Man, Adam, and the Second Man, Christ, as a basis for comparing the Virgin Eve, as the First Woman, and the Virgin Mary, as the Second Woman, in their parallels of opposition.  For this reason, here I will briefly comment on the teachings of St. Paul about Christ and Adam that inform the works of Sts. Justin and Irenaeus.  

     In St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians around the year 56, he first develops an Adam and Christ parallel after he studies and contemplates God’s revelation about Adam in Genesis and also the revelation he received from Christ Himself during his life (Galatians 1:12, Acts of the Apostles 9:3-5), including the oral Tradition of the Gospel of St. Luke. Here he compares Adam and Christ as originators or fathers of humanity.  First of all, as St. Paul begins this parallel of opposition in First Corinthians by comparing Adam to Christ, he calls Adam the First Man or First Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45a) in God’s first creation.  Indeed, God created Adam in His divine image (Genesis 1:27) as the first human person, a rational and free being, who would become the original father of the human race by nature.  In doing so, He formed Adam from the “dust of the earth” and breathed His “breath of life” in him (Genesis 2:7).  Accordingly, as St. Paul recalls this revelation from God in Genesis, he says the First Man, Adam, became the first human being to receive “natural” life by God’s action (1 Corinthians 15:45-46).  Indeed, God formed him to be a “natural person” (1 Corinthians 2:14) “from the earth” (1 Corinthians 15:46-47).  Thus, after God created this First Man in His image, He proclaimed him to be really “good” (Genesis 1:31).  All the same, as good as God created Adam to be as the First Man, he became “earthly” (1 Corinthians 15:47).  According to St. Paul, this means that he became a man “of the flesh” (1 Corinthians 3:3). He became a sinner (1 Corinthians 3:3, 15:21-22, Galatians 5:16-21).  In this sense, in St. Paul’s teaching, as a man of the flesh, Adam lost God’s grace, through sin.  Consequently, all the descendants of Adam in God’s first creation bear the “image” of God after the fallen nature of the “earthly man” from conception (1 Corinthians 15:49), for they have all received the same human nature as Adam.  As a result, by his sin, the First Man, Adam, subjected all people to the mortality and corruption of death.  On this basis, St. Paul calls Adam the origin or cause of death for all people, for they “all die in Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:22).  This is not only a spiritual death, a defilement of the soul, but also a bodily death for them.

      In the second place, as St. Paul completes this parallel of opposition in First Corinthians by comparing Christ to the First Man, Adam, he calls Christ the “Second Man” or the “Second Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45, 47). The means that God formed Christ as man to be, in a sense, the Second Father of the human race spiritually (1 Corinthians 5:5, 15:3-4) in God’s second creation of humanity.  This means that Christ is their Head or Savior.  Indeed, just as a father is the head of his family, Christ is also the Head of His family, the Church.  According to St. Paul, in “the fullness of time, God sent His Son” to be conceived and “born of a woman” as the Second Adam by the Holy Spirit (Galatians 4:4).  For this reason, as the Second Adam, the Son of God, is a spiritual man, a man of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:46, Romans 4:6, 29).  As such, the Son of God became the Son of man, through a woman, by the Holy Spirit to communicate the spiritual life of “adoption” to all human beings (Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:5, 1 Corinthians 15:45-46).  In this act, the natural Son of God, formed as man, as the Second Adam, called them to be recreated spiritually as adopted sons and daughters of God through the Holy Spirit (Galatians 4:5-6).  Accordingly, St. Paul calls this God’s second creation, a spiritual recreation in Christ, for human persons (2 Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 6:15).  They become “sanctified in Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:2, 6:11).  In this recreation, God spiritually conforms them to the image of His Son by the grace of His Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18, Romans 8:29, Galatians 4:6-7).  Indeed, by this grace of God’s Spirit, they “bear the image of the heavenly man” raised from the dead (1 Corinthians, 15:49, Romans 6:9).  As the Second Adam, Christ is the origin or cause of the resurrection of the dead of all people, for “in Christ they will all be raised to life” (1 Corinthians 15:21-22).  This is, first and foremost, a spiritual resurrection for them, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, in Baptism.  St. Paul calls this the grace of justification (Romans 5:17), for they all become righteous or just.  On this basis, this grace certainly prepares them spiritually for an incorruptible bodily resurrection from the dead on the Last Day, the Day of the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:52-54, 5:5) .

     Furthermore, in St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans around the year 57 or 58 (Romans 5:12-21), he develops another feature of his Adam and Christ parallel by comparing the judgment Adam received for his disobedience and the gift Christ received for His obedience.  For as the First Adam received a judgment of condemnation to death for his disobedience, Christ, the Second Adam, the righteous Son of God, merited the gift of justification for His obedience.  Consequently, as the heads or fathers of their natural and spiritual descendants, St. Paul says that both the First Adam and the Second Adam communicated to their people the consequences or fruits of their actions.  On the one hand, this means that the natural descendants of the First Adam, all people, received the judgment of condemnation that Adam received for his act of disobedience.  This was a condemnation to death for all human beings.  As a result, by his disobedience, the First Adam fathered them all to spiritual death, the loss of their original grace, from their conception in their mother’s womb.  This death begins interiorly in their heart, but terminates in their bodily death.  On the other hand, the Second Adam, Christ, communicated to His spiritual descendants, members of His Body, the Church, the gift of justification that He merited for them by His act of obedience. On this basis, they became righteous, by the gift of grace they received from Christ, through His obedience.

     The third primary source for the works of Sts. Justin and Irenaeus is the Gospel.  Here I will only briefly comment on the Annunciation from the Gospel of St. Luke.  As you may recall, this passage from Scripture recounts the angel Gabriel’s revelation of God’s Word to the Virgin Mary.  As he appears before her, he first proclaims his angelic salutation to her: “Hail, full of grace!  The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28).  According to Tradition, here the angel Gabriel’s salutation or greeting to the Virgin Mary, Hail, full of grace, refers to the fullness of God’s grace that she received from Him, through her conception, as a human being.  In other words, this greeting by the angel Gabriel recalls that God formed the Virgin Mary in the grace of perfect holiness.  Indeed, the Greek word “kecharitomene” (full of grace) reveals that He created her fully sanctified in her person.  In this sense, she was never subject to sin.  The basis for God conceiving the Virgin Mary in perfect holiness was that He willed her to be the Second Eve, the All Holy Mother of the Second Adam, Jesus Christ.  As a result, she received this fullness of grace from God as the Second Eve to prepare her to become the Mother of the Second Adam.  Accordingly, after greeting her as such, the angel Gabriel reveals to the Virgin Mary that she will conceive and bear the Son of God as the Son of Man by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35).  For this reason, in her faithfulness as the Second Eve, the Virgin Mary believes the revelation she receives from God through the angel Gabriel.  In this act of faith, she faithfully offers her obedience to God’s Word: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.  May it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).  Here her obedience to God is a fruit of her perfect holiness.  On this basis, in his Gospel, St. Luke describes the Virgin Mary as the opposite of the Virgin Eve, who disobeyed God, for she is the Second Eve, the All Holy Woman, who would conceive and bear her Son, the Second Adam, in obedience to God’s Word.  As such, here St. Luke’s teaching on the Virgin Mary informs the parallels of opposition that Sts. Justin and Irenaeus would develop as a basis for the perfect holiness of the Virgin Mary.

      In proceeding, I will offer my commentary on the works of the Church Fathers, St. Justin Martyr and St. Irenaeus of Lyons, who used the aforementioned passages from Genesis, the Letters of St. Paul and the Gospel of Luke to develop their parallels of opposition as the bases for the perfect holiness of the Second Eve, Virgin Mary, in relationship to her All Holy Son, the Second Adam, Jesus Christ.  The Virgin Mary certainly had to be holy as a Woman before she could ever conceive and bear her Holy Son as man.  The parallels of opposition, developed first in Genesis, the Letters of St. Paul and the Gospel of St. Luke, and later in the works of Sts. Justin and Irenaeus, reveal that the holiness of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ, as the Second Adam and Eve, could never be tainted at all by the sinfulness of the First Adam and Eve or by the evil of Satan and His fallen angels.  As a result, these parallels of opposition in Sacred Scripture and Tradition reveal the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ, on the one hand, and Adam and Eve, and Satan and His demons, on the other hand, to be opposed to each other spiritually and morally.  Sts. Justin and Irenaeus will proclaim this truth in their works.

     As for St. Justin Martyr, a second-century apologist (A.D. 100-165), he was the first Father of the Church to develop the Eve and Mary parallel in his Dialogue with Trypho (A.D. 161) after reading Genesis, St. Paul’s Letters and the Gospel of St. Luke.  In doing so, he considers their relationship only briefly at the end of chapter 100, but he is the first Father of the Church to do this.  As such, his brief parallel here was still a development in Marian teaching in the second century.  This is a development in the understanding of the received revelation from God concerning the person and mission of the Virgin Mary.  In his Dialogue, St. Justin develops this Eve and Mary parallel by comparing the disobedience of the First Eve, the Virgin Eve, and the obedience of the Second Eve, the Virgin Mary.  In particular, the Son of God became the Son of Man through the obedience of the Virgin Mary to destroy the disobedience of the Virgin Eve.  For just as the Virgin Eve destroyed her obedience to God’s Word by obeying the word of the Serpent, the Virgin Mary destroyed the Virgin Eve’s obedience to the Serpent’s word by obeying God’s Word as announced to her through the angel.  Consequently, on the one hand, by conceiving the Serpent’s word through disobedience, the Virgin Eve “bore death in herself”.  As a result, she became the mother of death.  On the other hand, by conceiving the Word of God in faith through obedience, the Virgin Mary became the mother of divine life through the Holy Spirit. After all, in faithful obedience to God, she faithfully believed the Word that she received from God through the angel.  This is the Word that she would become the mother of His Son, the God-Man, Jesus Christ.  Accordingly, she proclaimed: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.  May it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).  For this reason, through her faithful yes to God, the Virgin Mary conceived and bore the Son of God, as the Son of Man, who would, first of all, save all repentant people, who faithfully believed in Him.  Secondly, this Son of God, who was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary as the Son of Man, would also destroy all unrepentant nonbelievers for their infidelity.  As such, all penitent people of faith would be saved from sin and death by the God-Man, Jesus Christ, by imitating the faith of His mother, the Virgin Mary, who faithfully obeyed the Word she received from the angel of God.  Conversely, all unrepentant nonbelievers would be destroyed by Him for imitating the infidelity of the Virgin Eve, who disobeyed God’s Word, by obeying the word she received from the Serpent. This Serpent, including the fallen angels, would also be destroyed by the God-Man.  On this basis, here St. Justin develops this Eve and Mary parallel to proclaim that the Virgin Eve, the Helpmate of Adam, became the mother of death for all people through her disobedience to God, but the Virgin Mary, the Helpmate of her Son, Jesus Christ, became the Second Eve, the mother of the life of grace for all human beings, by her obedience to God (Dialogue, Chapter 100).

     St. Irenaeus (A.D. 115-202), Bishop of Lyons, was the second Father of the Church to develop the Church’s understanding of the Virgin Mary in relationship to her Son, Jesus Christ, after reading the aforesaid sources in Sacred Scripture, including the work of St. Justin.  He does this, first of all, in chapter 19 of Book III in Against Heresies (A.D. 180).  In this work, St. Irenaeus presents the Virgin Mary as the second Eve, the Helpmate of her Son, Jesus Christ, in God’s plan of salvation for human beings.  True, he does not directly mention Adam and Eve in this chapter, but these first human beings, created by God, as husband and wife, who would become the first parents of the human race, certainly inform what he teaches here about Jesus and Mary.  According to St. Irenaeus, after the First Adam and Eve corrupted their human descendants, through sin, God raised up a Second Adam and Eve, Jesus and Mary, to save them through their faithfulness to God.  Accordingly, for St. Irenaeus, God called Jesus and Mary, Son and Mother, to be, in a sense, the second parents of human beings, a spiritual Father and Mother, who would work to save them in God’s plan of salvation.  In fact, he believes, in God’s plan, this work of salvation by Jesus and His Helpmate, the Virgin Mary, began a second creation of all people by adoption.  Indeed, in God’s providence, He called all human beings to “receive the gift of adoption” by becoming sons and daughters of God through a “promotion into God”.  For this reason, in the teaching of St. Irenaeus, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, became man that human beings would become adopted as sons and daughters of God.  As a result, He offered them immortality and incorruptibility, by adoption, for He was “beyond all men”, “more than a mere man”.  For St. Irenaeus, Jesus Christ alone, as the Son of God, could have saved all people as man.  He alone could have recreated them in His divine image as immortal, incorruptible sons and daughters of God by adoption (Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 19, Paragraphs 1-3).

     All the same, St. Irenaeus also teaches that because the Son of God required a real human nature that descended from the First Adam, through the house of David, He only could have offered this gift of adoption to human beings, by His human conception and birth to a virgin daughter of David.  In God’s providence, this virgin, of course, was the Virgin Mary, the Second Eve, who conceived and bore the Son of God.  In this work by St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, he proclaims that just as the Son of God received a preeminent divine generation from God the Father from all eternity, He also received a preeminent human generation in time from His Mother, the Virgin Mary.  In doing so, St. Irenaeus indicates that the preeminence of both the divine and human generations of the Son of God means that both generators, God the Father and the Virgin Mother of God, would be perfect in their divinity and humanity respectively.  As such, the Son of God Himself would also be perfect both as God and as man.  In this sense, in His perfection, the Son of God became the Son of Man from the humanity of Mary to save all human beings as adopted sons and daughters of God the Father and the Virgin Mother.  Finally, St. Irenaeus asks himself this question: Who would have ever imagined that the Son of God, generated eternally from the Father, would have saved humanity by a temporal generation from a human Virgin? Who would have ever imagined that she could have conceived the Son of God virginally as man, and remained a Virgin in bearing Him?  Only by becoming a true man from a true Virgin could the true God suffer, die and be raised up in glory for the salvation of all human beings.  Indeed, only by His conception and birth as man, through the Virgin Mary, could they all become beneficiaries of His immortal, incorruptible resurrection from the dead.  On this basis, for St. Irenaeus, the salvation of all people, by adoption, was a work fulfilled primarily by the second Adam, Christ Himself, as Principal Agent, but secondarily by the Virgin Mary, His maternal Helpmate, as the Second Eve, for He received His humanity from hers (Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 19, Paragraphs 1-3).

     Moreover, in chapter 21 of Book III in Against Heresies, St. Irenaeus develops a parallel that involves God’s creation of the First Man, Adam, from the virgin earth (Genesis 2:7) and His formation of the Second Adam, Christ, from the Virgin Mary.  In this sense, just as the First Adam did not have a natural father, but was created from the virgin earth by God Himself, similarly neither did the Second Adam, Christ, have a natural father, but was formed by God Himself from the Virgin Mary.  In this parallel, St. Irenaeus compares the morality of the First Adam created from the virgin earth to be a natural father and the morality of the Second Adam created from the Virgin Mary to be a spiritual father.  On the one hand, the First Man, Adam, received the substance of his human nature from untilled virgin soil through the Word of God.  As the First Man, he was created by God’s Word in the substance of his humanity from the virgin earth to be the natural origin or father of all human beings in God’s first creation, but he disobeyed God’s Word.  Indeed, he disobeyed the Word of God by sinning against Him. For this reason, by his disobedience, the First Man, Adam, introduced bad fruit, the fruit of sin, including death, to all human beings.  Consequently, as the father of sin, he became the father of death for all people.  On the other hand, the Second Adam, Christ, received the substance of His human nature from the Second Eve, the Virgin Mary, in God’s second creation.  Accordingly, formed by God from the Virgin Mary in the substance of His humanity, He recapitulated or summed up the creation of the First Adam in Himself, including His descendants.  As such, as the Second Adam, He was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary, through God’s Word, to be the spiritual origin or father of all human beings, by His obedience to God Himself, in His second creation.  In His obedience to Him, He introduced good fruit, the fruit of righteousness, to all people.  This means that as the origin or father of righteousness, He became the father of the spiritual life for all human beings.  According to St. Irenaeus, Christ, the Second Adam, could have only become such a spiritual origin or father of righteousness for all people, through the Second Eve, the Virgin Mary.  After all, as the Second Adam, in God’s second creation, He received from the humanity of the Virgin Mary, the human nature of the First Adam.  As a result, through this nature, He recapitulated the First Adam in Himself, including all the descendants of Adam. On this basis, in this recapitulation, He saved them as man, by His righteousness, in obedience to the Word of God (Against Heresies Book III, Chapter 21, Paragraph 10). 

     Furthermore, in chapter 22 of BK III in Against Heresies, St. Irenaeus develops, for the first time, an Eve and Mary parallel.  In this parallel, he compares the disobedience of the Virgin Eve and the obedience of the Virgin Mary.  On the one hand, as a woman, married to her husband, Adam, the First Eve was disobedient to God as a virgin in her marriage.  Consequently, by her disobedience, she became the cause of death for herself and for all human beings.  For this reason, she is called the mother of death, for she mothered all people to spiritual and bodily death.  In doing so, St. Irenaeus teaches that this First Woman, the Virgin Eve, tied all human beings in a knot, the knot of death, by her disobedience to God.  On the other hand, as a woman, married to her husband, St. Joseph, Mary, the Second Eve, was obedient to God as a virgin in her marriage.  Accordingly, through her obedience to God, she became the cause of salvation for herself and for all people.  As such, she is the mother of life, for she mothered all people to the life of salvation spiritually and bodily.  According to St. Irenaeus, this means that this Second Eve, the Virgin Mary, untied the knot of death for all people by her obedience to God.  Indeed, through her obedience, she untied Eve’s disobedience.  In this sense, by her act of obedience, she freed human beings from their slavery to disobedience, including death.  St. Irenaeus calls the Virgin Mary’s obedience an act of faith, for she faithfully obeyed the Word of God.  Conversely, he calls the Virgin Eve’s disobedience an act of unbelief, because she unfaithfully disobeyed God’ Word.  She did not have faith in what He said to her.  As such, the Virgin Eve became the mother of slavery to death, but the Virgin Mary became the mother of the life of freedom.  On this basis, what the Virgin Eve tied by her unbelief, the Virgin Mary untied by her faith (Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 22, paragraph 4).

     In chapter 19 of Book V in Against Heresies, St. Irenaeus further develops his Eve and Mary parallel.  In this parallel, he compares the influence that the holy and fallen angels had on the Virgin Eve and the Virgin Mary.  On the one hand, after hearing the deceitful word of the Serpent, Satan Himself, the Virgin Eve believed the lie she heard from Him.  Consequently, she was misled by His deception to flee from God, through disobedience.  On the other hand, after the Virgin Mary, the Second Eve, heard God’s Word from the holy angel, St. Gabriel, she believed His message was true.  This was the message that she would conceive and bear God Himself.  For this reason, the holy angel guided her to God, through His message, that she would become the Mother of God by her obedience to His Word.  According to St. Irenaeus, this means that through her obedience to God’s Word, by becoming His Mother, the Virgin Mary would become the Patroness (Advocata) of the Virgin Eve, including the Patroness of all the descendants of the Virgin Eve.  In this sense, for St. Irenaeus, as sinful as the Virgin Eve was, she was still redeemed by God, through the Patroness of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God.  On this basis, just as the Virgin Eve subjected her descendants to death through her virginal disobedience, the Virgin Mary saved the Virgin Eve, including her descendants, instrumentally from such death, by her virginal obedience (Against Heresies Book V, Chapter 19, Paragraph 1). 

     Finally, in his Proof of the Apostolic Preaching (A.D. 185), St. Irenaeus continues his development of his Eve and Mary parallel. In doing so, he applies his doctrine of recapitulation, for the first time, to Eve and Mary in relationship to Adam and Christ.  As you may recall, he first applies this doctrine to Adam and Christ alone in chapter 21 of Book III in Against Heresies.  In this work, the Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, St. Irenaeus proclaims that this recapitulation involves, first of all, Christ and the Virgin Mary summing up the original creation of Adam and Eve, through their formation as the Second Man and Woman, by the Will and Wisdom of God.  This is the beginning of God’s second creation of humanity.  On the one hand, Christ, the Second Adam, recapitulated in Himself His creation of the First Adam from the virgin earth by forming a human nature for Himself from the Virgin Mary, the Second Eve, by His Will and Wisdom.  For He was conceived and born from her as man, by the Will of God, through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Wisdom.  On the other hand, the Virgin Mary recapitulated in herself Christ’s creation of the Virgin Eve from the First Man, Adam, for He formed her, in a sense, from Himself, the Second Adam, by His Will and Wisdom.  As such, for St. Irenaeus, recapitulation is, first of all, a work of creation.  After all, here God Himself, by His Will and Wisdom, formed the human race for a second time in the persons of the Second Adam and the Second Eve.  In this act of creation, they recapitulated the original creation of Adam and Eve.  Secondly, St. Irenaeus also proclaims that recapitulation is a work of salvation that Jesus and the Virgin Mary, Son and Mother, fulfilled as the Second Adam and Eve by their obedience to God.  In this sense, Christ and the Virgin Mary, through their obedience, summed up Adam and Eve spiritually and morally to destroy their disobedience by the Will and Wisdom of God.  Indeed, just as Christ, through His obedience, as a spiritual and moral agent, recapitulated Adam in Himself to destroy Adam’s disobedience, similarly the Virgin Mary, for her part, recapitulated Eve in herself spiritually and morally, through her obedience, to destroy Eve’s disobedience.  In this work of recapitulation in God’s plan of salvation by the obedience of Christ and His Mother, the Virgin Mary, not only did they destroy the disobedience of Adam and Eve, but they also destroyed the consequence of their disobedience, death. According to St. Irenaeus, this work of salvation, through recapitulation, involved a restoration process called recirculation. In his teaching, this work was fulfilled, first and foremost, by the actions of Christ Himself, the Principal Agent of salvation, but also secondarily by the actions of the Virgin Mary, as the Helpmate of her Son, the Savior.  Here the virtuous actions of Christ and the Virgin Mary counteracted the sinful actions of Adam and Eve.  Accordingly, as the First Adam lost his communion in God’s friendship by ordering his actions sinfully against God through disobedience, Christ, the Second Adam, for His part, recovered this divine union or friendship by ordering His actions virtuously to God through obedience.  Similarly, as the First Eve lost her communion in God’s friendship by ordering her actions sinfully against God through disobedience, the Virgin Mary, for her part, as the Second Eve, prepared her Son, the Second Adam, to recover this divine friendship by ordering her actions virtuously to God through obedience.  In this sense, here the virtuous actions of Christ and the Virgin Mary, Son and Mother, parallel the sinful actions of Adam and Eve, husband and wife, step by step, in reverse order.  This is the process of restoration of the human race that Christ and the Virgin Mary fulfilled in obedience to the Will and Wisdom of God by retracing the missteps of the disobedience of Adam and Eve as the means to undo what they did.  In this work of restoration, Christ certainly saved humanity, as Principal Agent, by His obedience to God, but His obedience depended on the obedience of His Helpmate, the Virgin Mary.  This means that He could only obey God because the Virgin Mary first offered her obedience to God as a preparation for Him to obey God.  In this sense, the Virgin Mary’s obedience to God by conceiving and bearing Christ, the Son of God as the Son of Man, prepared Him to suffer and die for humanity in obedience to God. As a result, St. Irenaeus proclaims that human beings became “reanimated and received life” through the Virgin Mary’s obedience to God, for by her obedience, God’s Son became man, through her, to offer His immortal, incorruptible life to all people in obedience to God.  For this reason, St. Irenaeus calls the Virgin Mary the Intercessor for the Virgin Eve and her husband, Adam, including their human descendants.  On this basis, by her maternal intercession, as the Mother of the Son of God, the Virgin Mary worked as her Son’s Helpmate to restore human beings to the communion of God’s friendship (Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, 30-33).

     In conclusion, the various parallels of opposition in Scripture, particularly in Genesis, the Letters of St. Paul and the Gospel of St. Luke, all inform the parallels developed in the Tradition by Sts. Justin and Irenaeus.  In these parallels, God proclaims, through the human authors of Scripture and Tradition, the perfect holiness that the Virgin Mary received from God as the Second Eve.  Through this perfect holiness, He prepared her to become the All Holy Mother of the Son of God, the Second Adam, Jesus Christ.  In this sense, in these parallels of opposition, the authors of Scripture and Tradition offer three comparisons of persons who oppose each other spiritually and morally. 

     First of all, these inspired authors compare the holiness of the Second Eve, the Virgin Mary, to the sinfulness of the First Eve, the Virgin Eve.  In this sense, for them, the Virgin Mary, in her holiness, opposes the sinfulness of the Virgin Eve; and the Virgin Eve, in her sinfulness, opposes the holiness of the Virgin Mary.  For this reason, as the holy Virgin, they call Mary the model of faith, the woman of obedience, the mother of life, the mother of freedom, mother of salvation and the untier of knots.  Conversely, in the Virgin Eve’s sinfulness as the First Eve, they call her the model of unbelief, the woman of disobedience, the mother of death, the mother of slavery, the mother of condemnation and the tier of knots.

     Secondly, the authors of Scripture and Tradition also compare the holiness of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ, the Second Adam and Eve, to the sinfulness of the First Adam and Eve.  In this sense, the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ, Mother and Son, by their holiness as the second couple in God’s second creation, oppose the sinfulness of Adam and Eve, the first couple, as husband and wife; and Adam and Eve, by their sinfulness, oppose the Virgin Mary and Christ.  Accordingly, in their holy relationship as Mother and Son, Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, as the Second Adam and Eve, are described, by the inspired authors, as a spiritual father and mother to humanity, not by nature, but by grace.  Indeed, in their work as Mother and Son in God’s second creation, they generate children for God, spiritually, by adoption, through the Holy Spirit.  For this reason, they are called the mother and father of life, divine life, for God’s people.  As such, the Second Adam became man through the Second Eve that all people would become recreated as holy children of God through them.  On the other hand, the inspired authors of Scripture and Tradition, describe the First Adam and Eve as the mother and father of all people, through natural generation, according to the flesh.  As their first parents, by nature, who sinned against God, they mothered and fathered them to a life of sin.  This is a sinful generation.  Consequently, they are not only called the mother and father of sin, but also the mother and father of death, for by their sin, all people suffer death spiritually from conception and will eventually die physically.

     Finally, the inspired authors of Scripture and Tradition compare the holiness of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ, the Second Adam and Eve, to the sinfulness of the Serpent and His offspring, the demons.  For this reason, the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ, Mother and Son, by their holiness as the Second Adam and Eve, oppose the sinfulness of the Serpent and His demons; and for their part, the Serpent and His demons, by their sinfulness, oppose the Virgin Mary and Christ.  As a result, the authors, under God’s inspiration, describe the Virgin Mary in relationship to her Son, Jesus Christ, as the maternal Helpmate of the Savior.  In their work to save human beings from evil, as Mother and Son, they crush the head of the Serpent, the father of evil, including His demons.  As such, the Virgin Mary, as the Second Eve, is called the Patroness or Advocata of all people, for she intercedes to her Son, the Second Adam, on their behalf, through her prayers, in the war against Satan and His devils.  On this basis, by her ministry as helpmate to her Son, the Second Adam, the Virgin Mary participates in the work of her Son to save human beings from the evil of the Serpent and His demons.

     In all these parallels, by the inspired authors of Scripture and Tradition, God reveals the perfect holiness of the Virgin Mary, the Second Eve, as the Mother of the Second Adam, by her opposition to the sinfulness of the Virgin Eve and the Serpent. In this sense, here she opposes all sinful persons, human and demonic, through her holiness. According to Tradition, this opposition to sinners, by the Virgin Mary, the Second Eve, is not a partial and imperfect opposition, but a complete and perfect opposition.  This means that she perfectly and fully opposes, by her perfect holiness, the sinfulness of Eve and the Serpent.  On the one hand, as the All-Holy Virgin, she certainly opposes the sin of Eve and her children fully and perfectly, but she also prayerfully intercedes to God for them for their salvation that they may repent for their sins.  On the other hand, in her perfect holiness, the Virgin Mary certainly does not pray for Satan and His demons, but remains for all eternity their perfect and complete enemy as maternal Helpmate of her Son, the Savior.  In this sense, in the Virgin Mary’s perfect and complete enmity with the sin of the Virgin Eve and the Serpent, she opposes them fully and perfectly by her perfect holiness.  As such, the parallels of opposition in Scripture and Tradition only work because the Virgin Mary was conceived by God in perfect holiness through the singular grace of her Immaculate Conception and lived a perfectly holy life on earth as the Second Eve.  On this basis, she was never subject to sin at all, neither to original sin nor to personal or actual sin, for her Son, the Second Adam, saved her, through the foreseen merits of His passion, by preserving her from sin, in creating her immaculately as a human being, the All-Holy Second Eve.

In Christ with Blessed Mary,

Friar Mariano D. Veliz, O.P.

     During the season of Advent, the Church prepares herself for the coming of the messiah.  In the history of God’s people, God revealed to them that the messiah, who would save them, would be a son of the tribe of Judah from the house of David.  This is recorded not only in the Old Testament, but also in the New Testament, particularly in the Gospels.  In fact, all four Evangelists, the inspired authors of the four Gospels of the New Testament, proclaim Jesus as the son of David, the messiah, who would save the people of Israel from sin and death, but only St. Matthew and St. Luke proclaim this sonship of Jesus in the house of David, His messiahship, through their genealogies and infancy narratives of Jesus. In doing so, they profess their belief that Jesus was virginally conceived and born of the Virgin Mary, His mother, through the Holy Spirit.  In this sense, Jesus, the son of David, only had a natural human mother, not a human father, according to nature. 

     All the same, in his genealogy, St. Matthew traces Jesus’ status as the son of David, through St. Joseph, not through the Virgin Mary.  The reason for this is because in ancient times, the people of Israel legally traced the descent of a son, through the genealogy of his father, especially a son of the house of David (Nm 1:18).  As such, here the basis for his legal sonship in his father’s household was generally his physical descent from his father.  In the days of Jesus, the people in general believed that St. Joseph was Jesus’ natural father, His father by procreation, because St. Joseph raised Him as his legal son in his marriage to the Virgin Mary.  As already mentioned, in his Gospel, St. Matthew professes his belief that Jesus did not descend naturally, through St. Joseph, as a son of David.  On the contrary, he believes that Jesus descended legally, as a son of David, through St. Joseph.  In doing so, he traces Jesus’ legal status, as a son of David, through His paternal genealogy, the genealogy of His legal father, St. Joseph, who was a son of David himself, through his father, Jacob (Mt 1:16).  In other words, for St. Matthew, Jesus received His legal sonship in the house of David by law, through His adoptive father, St. Joseph, a natural son of David himself, through Jacob.  In this sense, this was not a natural genealogy for Jesus, a genealogy based on physical descent, but a legal genealogy, a genealogy based on the law, for Jesus was only the legal son of St. Joseph by adoption, not by natural generation.  On this basis, in this genealogy, St. Matthew proclaims Jesus the messiah of Israel by His legal sonship in the house of David, through His adoptive father, St. Joseph, not through His natural mother, the Virgin Mary. 

     Does this really mean that the Virgin Mary, the natural mother of Jesus, was neither a daughter of the house of David nor a member of Judah’s tribe?  In other words, was Jesus really the legal son of David, through His adoptive father alone, St. Joseph, but not the son of David naturally, through His mother, the Virgin Mary? Certainly not! In the Tradition, the Church professes a belief that Jesus descended from David as the messiah, not only legally, through St. Joseph, but also naturally, through the Virgin Mary. This belief in Jesus’ natural descent from David, through the Virgin Mary, has a basis in Sacred Scripture.  Indeed, God proclaims, through His prophets and inspired authors of the Old and New Testaments, that Jesus received His natural sonship, His messiahship, in David’s house, through His mother, the Virgin Mary, who was naturally a virgin daughter of David.

     Here I will briefly consider the basis in Sacred Scripture for the Church’s belief in Jesus’ status as a natural son of David.  First of all, in the Second Book of Samuel from the Old Testament, God promises David, through the prophet Nathan, that He would raise up a son after him, from his loins, who would rule his kingdom forever (2 Sm 7:12-13).  In Scripture, the prophets use the word “loins” as a euphemism for the male and female genitals of human nature that a man and woman in marriage would use to procreate human life (2 Sm 7:12, Jdt 8:5).  As a result, the human life they procreate naturally, through genital intercourse, would be their natural son or daughter. In this first verse from Second Samuel, God tells David, through Nathan, that the messiah of Israel would be a natural son of David because he would be generated from David’s genitals, not directly, by David himself, but indirectly, after his death, through the genitals of a descendant of his (2 Sm 7:12).  This is the first basis in Scripture for Jesus’ natural sonship in the house of David by physical or biological descent, for He naturally proceeds as man from the loins of David.  Secondly, God also proclaims, through the prophet Isaiah, that someday a son would be born to the house of David who would reign from David’s throne over his kingdom forever (Is 9:5).  In human biology, human birth requires and presupposes human conception. This is a law of human biological nature.  In other words, a human person, a son, cannot be born as a biological being unless he is first conceived biologically (Rt 4:13, Jgs 13:3-5, Is 66:9).  In this biological process, he naturally acquires the biological nature of his father and mother as their son.  This means that the son in Isaiah’s prophecy, who would be born of the house of David, the messiah of God’s people, would descend from David naturally, as his biological son, through his conception and birth as a member of David’s family.  In this sense, here the natural sonship of Jesus in the house of David has a physical or biological basis.  He alone, as the natural son of David, would be the perfect or ideal messiah who would have certain divine qualities or gifts to govern the people (Is 9:5-6).  This is the second biological basis for the natural sonship of Jesus in the house of David.  Accordingly, in Second Samuel and Isaiah, God inspires His prophets to proclaim His Word about the natural sonship of the messiah in literal terms.  The literal meaning here is that the messiah of Israel would be a natural son of David by physical descent.  Thirdly, under God’s inspiration, the prophet Isaiah uses the figurative language of metaphor to proclaim that the messiah would be a natural son of David.  In particular, after all the sufferings that the people of Israel would be subjected to by their Babylonian conquerors, especially the house of David, God reveals to them, through Isaiah, that only a stump, or holy remnant, of David’s family would remain, but from this stump a branch of the Lord would sprout and blossom, a perfect son of David, who would receive the Spirit of the Lord to shepherd the people righteously forever as messiah.  This messiah, or sacred branch of the Lord, alone would save the people of Israel (Is 11:1, 4:2-3).  Similarly, God also proclaims metaphorically, through the prophet Jeremiah, that He would raise up a righteous branch, a messiah, from this stump, the house of David, who would reign and govern the people of God virtuously (Jr 23:5, 33:14-17). As such, for Isaiah and Jeremiah, this metaphor means that just as a branch proceeds naturally from a stump as a natural development, the messiah of Israel would also proceed naturally from David as a natural son.  For this reason, here they proclaim metaphorically what they already professed literally.  Finally, in St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans in the New Testament, he confirms God’s revelation to the prophets about the natural sonship of the messiah in the house of David.  Indeed, he professes Jesus as this messiah of Israel who “descended from David according to the flesh” (Rm 1:3). This is a physical or biological descent from David.  On this basis, in the Church’s faith in the Word of God, she believes that Jesus certainly descended from David as David’s son, the messiah, not only legally, through St. Joseph, but also naturally, by His virginal conception and birth, through His natural mother, the Virgin Mary.

     In his Gospel, St. Luke professes this belief that Jesus was a natural son of David.  Indeed, he believes the Word of God that Jesus descended naturally from the loins of David, not directly, but indirectly, through the loins of the Virgin Mary, a daughter of the house of David, for she virginally conceived and bore Him, naturally as the son of David, by the Holy Spirit.  In this sense, for St. Luke, Jesus was the sacred branch of the Lord, the messiah, who naturally sprouted and blossomed from the stump, the holy remnant of the house of David.  Accordingly, he traces Jesus’ descent from David, not legally, through St. Joseph, as St. Matthew does, but naturally, through the Virgin Mary.  For this reason, according to Tradition, in his Gospel, St. Luke offers Jesus’ maternal genealogy, the genealogy of His natural mother, the Virgin Mary, as a basis for His natural sonship in the house of David as a member of the tribe of Judah. 

     In the study of St. Luke’s genealogy, there are some questions to ask.  These questions, hopefully, will help establish the Marian nature of this genealogy.  The first question to ask is this:  If this really is a genealogy of the Virgin Mary, why does St. Luke not mention her there?  In other words, why does he mention St. Joseph in this genealogy, but not her?  This would seem to be contrary to the traditional belief that St. Luke offers a genealogy of the Virgin Mary in his Gospel.  Consequently, people in society today, including Roman Catholics, may easily presume that the absence of the Virgin Mary’s name in the genealogy, and the presence of St. Joseph’s, could only mean that this genealogy is really not about the Virgin Mary at all, but about St. Joseph.  Yet, such a presumption would be false, for the ancient practice in the Tradition of Israel, in general, was for the people to record a woman’s genealogy in her father’s and husband’s names.  As such, a woman was generally not directly named in her genealogy.  For this reason, St. Luke does not directly name the Virgin Mary in hers.  On the contrary, he names her only indirectly, through the names of her father and husband, St. Joseph.  This was the traditional practice in such a patriarchal society as Israel.  The only time the people of God, including St. Luke and St. Matthew, would record the names of women in their genealogies was for historical or theological reasons.  Accordingly, the people used genealogies in ancient Israel, first and foremost, to establish the natural and legal descent of men as sons in the tribes and houses of their fathers.  In this sense, in St. Luke’s Gospel, he establishes Jesus’ sonship in the house of David, as a member of the tribe of Judah, not by law, or legal adoption, but by nature, or physical descent, through the genealogy of His natural mother, the Virgin Mary.  On this basis, St. Luke does not directly name the Virgin Mary in her genealogy, but only indirectly, through the names of her father and her husband, St. Joseph.

     This leads to the second question in the study of the genealogy from St. Luke’s Gospel.  The question is this: If St. Luke names the Virgin Mary indirectly in her genealogy, by calling her husband, St. Joseph, the son of her father, what, then, is the name of her father? According to St. Luke, her father’s name is Heli.  For this reason, he calls her husband, St. “Joseph, the son of Heli” (Lk 3:23) in his genealogy.  On the other hand, St. Matthew, in his genealogy, calls “Jacob the father of Joseph” (Mt 1:16). Who, then, according to this practice, is the Virgin Mary’s natural father: Heli or Jacob?  In other words, who is the natural father of St. Joseph? What is his name?  This is the first question to ask here, the question about the name of St. Joseph’s natural father.  For naming him would reveal, by deduction, the Virgin Mary’s natural father.  In this sense, for his part, St. Matthew records in his genealogy that St. Joseph was the natural son of Jacob, by physical descent, for he proclaims there that Jacob fathered St. Joseph naturally, through his loins.  The noun, father, from the verb to father means to beget or to generate.  This is the terminology that St. Matthew uses to define Jacob’s relationship to St. Joseph in his genealogy.  He professes his belief in the Word of God that Jacob and St. Joseph have a paternal-filial relationship based on nature.  As such, by deduction, this would mean that Heli would be the Virgin Mary’s natural father.  According to a tradition in the Church, after St. Joseph’s natural father, Jacob, died, Heli became St. Joseph’s adoptive father, through his marriage to Heli’s daughter, the Virgin Mary.  For this reason, St. Luke records St. Joseph as the son of the Virgin Mary’s father, “the son of Heli” (Lk 3:23), in his genealogy.  On this basis, St. Joseph was, indeed, the legal son of Heli, his son-in-law, by his marriage to Heli’s daughter, the Virgin Mary.

     The third question in the study of the genealogy from St. Luke’s Gospel is this: If the name of the natural father of the Virgin Mary is Heli, as St. Luke records in his genealogy, then why has the Church called the Virgin Mary’s natural father by the name, St. Joachim, from antiquity?  According to an ancient tradition, the names, Heli and Joachim, are not for separate persons, but for one and the same person, the natural father of the Virgin Mary.  In this sense, her father had multiple names.   In fact, these names may seem to be unrelated linguistically, but they really do have a linguistic relationship.  In particular, according to linguistic studies, the name Joachim, from the Hebrew Yehoyaqim, has a variant form, Eliacim.  This name, Eliacim, is abbreviated as Eli, a variant of Heli.  As such, the use of multiple names by people, names that had a linguistic relationship, including the names of the Virgin Mary’s natural father, Joachim and Heli, was a common practice in ancient times.  Indeed, in antiquity, many people used multiple names, a formal or legal name and a common or familiar form of the same name. On the other hand, oftentimes the multiple names that people used had no linguistic relationship.  In either case, in the New Testament, people often had multiple names, linguistically related or not.  These people included St. Peter (Simon), St. Paul (Saul), St. Thomas (Didymus) and St. Bartholomew (Nathanael).  In the case of the Virgin Mary’s natural father, Joachim was his formal or legal name, but Heli was his common or familiar name.  According to this tradition, this familiar name, Heli, would have been the name that St. Luke’s hearers or readers would have commonly known St. Joachim by. 

     In this genealogy, St. Luke establishes Jesus’ natural sonship in the house of David by establishing His mother, the Virgin Mary, as a natural daughter of David, through her natural father, Heli (St. Joachim), a son of David.  Indeed, St. Luke does this in his genealogy by naming the Virgin Mary indirectly in the name of her husband, St. Joseph, by calling him the son of her father, Heli.  In doing so, he establishes Jesus’ physical descent, as a natural son of David, the messiah of Israel, through His virginal conception and birth to His natural mother, the Virgin Mary. 

     This virginal conception and birth of the messiah, through a virgin daughter from the house of David, was first prophesied by the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament.  Indeed, God first reveals to the house of David, through Isaiah, that the sign of the coming of the messiah would be His conception and birth to a virgin daughter of David.  This prophecy reads as follows: “Hear, O house of David…Therefore the Lord himself shall give you this sign: Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel” (Is 7:14).  In this sense, according to Isaiah, the messiah would descend naturally from David, not directly from David himself, but indirectly, through a descendant of his, a virgin daughter from his house.  As such, He would be a natural son of David, by physical descent, through His natural virgin mother.  In his Gospel, St. Luke professes his belief in the Word of God that this virgin daughter of David’s house from Isaiah’s prophecy, who would naturally conceive and bear the son of David, the messiah, was the person of the Virgin Mary herself.  On the one hand, in his genealogy, he traces Jesus’ natural sonship in the house of David, through the natural genealogy of His mother, the Virgin Mary.  On the other hand, in his narrative of the angel’s annunciation to the Virgin Mary, he proclaims that the Virgin Mary would virginally conceive and bear Jesus, the son of David, as the messiah, by the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:31-35).  For this reason, He would be “called holy, the son of God” (Lk 1:35).  Accordingly, in Jesus, the son of God would become the son of David, through the Virgin Mary, by the Holy Spirit, to reign as the messiah from the throne of His father, David, forever.

     Furthermore, as already mentioned, in St. Matthew’s genealogy, he traces Jesus’ legal sonship in the house of David, not through His natural mother, the Virgin Mary, but through His legal father, by adoption, St. Joseph.  In doing so, he establishes Jesus’ legal right to the messiahship as a legal son of David.  At the same time, this does not mean that St. Matthew does not believe in Jesus’ natural sonship in the house of David.  On the contrary, he does believe that Jesus descended naturally from David, through His natural mother, the Virgin Mary.  Indeed, in his infancy narrative, St. Matthew professes his belief that the Virgin Mary was the virgin daughter of the house of David from Isaiah’s prophecy who would conceive and bear the son of David, the messiah, by the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:20-21).  He does not call Jesus the holy son of God, as St. Luke does, but he does call Him “Emmanuel” (Mt 1:23), as Isaiah does (Is 7:14).  According to St. Matthew, the name Emmanuel means God is with His people (Mt 1:23).  In this sense, for St. Matthew, as for St. Luke, in Jesus, God is with His people.  On this basis, St. Matthew proclaims that Jesus, conceived and born of a virgin daughter of David’s house, by the Holy Spirit, would “save His people from their sins” (Mt 1:21)

     According to the ancient Fathers of the Church, including St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Hesychius of Jerusalem, Pope St. Leo the Great and St. Paschasius Radbertus, the Virgin Mary was certainly the virgin daughter of David’s house who became the natural mother of Jesus. Indeed, they trace Jesus’ status as a son of David, not only legally, through St. Joseph, but also naturally, through the Virgin Mary.  In this sense, they believe that the Virgin Mary descended naturally from David based on Scripture and Tradition.  By her faithful yes to God at the annunciation, she becomes the natural mother of the son of David, the messiah, through the Holy Spirit: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.  May it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). As a result, the Holy Spirit descends upon her, thereby forming her as the mother of the son of God by conceiving and bearing Him as the son of man, the son of David.  For this reason, in the person of the Virgin Mary, a virgin daughter from the house of David, God fulfills the coming of the messiah, the son of David, through the Holy Spirit, for she fully offers herself to Him by her faithful yes.  In doing so, He calls all people to become sons and daughters of the house of David, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, through their faithful yes to Him.  What about you?  Will you say yes to Him faithfully, during this season of Advent, in preparation for the coming of the messiah, the son of David?

In Christ with Blessed Mary,

Friar Mariano D. Veliz, O.P.

      Today the subject of this article is the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, particularly the guarding of the sanctity and beauty of the marital act by being open to the third essential good of Marriage, the openness to the generation of human life.  This good belongs to the nature of a true Marriage.  In Church teaching, God calls the married man and woman to guard this third essential good of Marriage by being open to the generation of human life in the marital act.  This is a call to be open to the sovereign God Himself.  For this reason, in Genesis, after instituting Marriage through His creation of the first man and woman in His image as the first couple, “God blessed them and said to them: ‘Be fertile and multiply’” human life (Genesis 1:8).  In this sense, by being open to generate human life in faithfulness to God’s call, couples use their bodies in intercourse to be fruitful and multiply as God wills.  In doing so, they subject their Marriage, including their marital act, to the sovereignty of God, their Creator and Redeemer.  As a result, by being open to the generation of life interiorly in their hearts, couples guard the sanctity and beauty of the inseparable relationship of the unitive and procreative meanings of the marital act.  In this sense, they say yes to God, first in their hearts, but also in the language of their bodies.  In doing so, they welcome God to create the gift of human life through them, through their marital intercourse if He wills.  Accordingly, this faithful yes to God in their hearts prepares them to say yes to God’s gift of human life in their marital act. This means that guarding the sanctity and beauty of this third essential good of marriage begins interiorly in their hearts and terminates in natural marital intercourse.

     The Catholic Church believes and professes that marital intercourse is a sacred and beautiful act of complete self-giving which involves the love-giving and life-giving communion of married spouses. Yes, beautiful and sacred, for the act, informed by God’s Truth and Goodness, is reasonable, natural and chaste.  Marital intercourse is a sacred and beautiful gift from God for those couples who have entered the Marriage covenant.  This covenant of husband and wife in Marriage represents the sacred and beautiful love-giving and life-giving nuptial union involving the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, and His Bride, the Church.  Indeed, in their nuptial union, God calls husband and wife to image the sanctity and beauty of the nuptial union of Christ and His Church through a faithful and loving marital complementarity.  In this complementarity in Marriage, the husband faithfully loves his wife as himself, just as Christ, the Head, faithfully loved His Body, the Church, by fully offering Himself for her to sanctify her that she would conceive and bear holy children for God in Baptism. In this sense, by faithfully imaging Christ’s love for the Church in Marriage, the husband, in his love for his wife, faithfully offers himself fully for her that she may be sanctified in conceiving and bearing children in holiness.  Moreover, the wife, as image of the Church, faithfully images the Church’s love for Christ by faithfully loving her husband in Marriage.  In this faithful love for her husband, she opens her heart to his love by faithfully offering herself fully to him, as his helpmate, that she may conceive and bear holy children for God through the marital act.  In this complementarity of faithful love for one another in Marriage, husband and wife become one. Indeed, as Genesis says, a man leaves his mother and father to marry his wife and they both become one, particularly in marital intercourse.  According to Church teaching, in this marital act, God calls them to faithfully participate in the sacredness and beauty of His divine plan.  In doing so, they not only open their hearts for God to perfect their love for one another as married spouses, but also open their hearts to receive from God the great gift of human life.

     On the other hand, spouses using artificial contraception would be acting contrary to the third essential good of Marriage, the openness to the generation of human life.  This would involve separating the unitive meaning from the procreative meaning in their marital act.  Their intention here would be to prevent the conception of human life.  This would be against God’s command in Genesis for spouses to be fertile and multiply through intercourse.  After all, such fertility and multiplication of children requires that they have an openness to life. Consequently, they would neither be acting reasonably nor naturally nor chastely by separating the unitive and procreative meanings of the marital act from each other.  In doing so, they would not be open to God’s divine action at all in their marital intercourse.  On the contrary, they would be completely closed to the sovereignty of God, the Creator and Redeemer, interiorly in their hearts and in the language of their bodies by contracepting artificially.  Indeed, they would be saying “no” to God’s desire to act in and through their Marriage, first and foremost for their sanctification as a married couple, but also for their participation in God’s creation and redemption of human beings.  For this reason, when spouses separate these unitive and procreative meanings from one another in the marital act, namely the language of love and life, through artificial contraception, they act as false gods or judges of the divine plan who claim to have the sovereign authority to manipulate the sacred and beautiful gift of the marital act.  As a result, the act becomes “profane” and “ugly” in a spiritual and moral sense, even physically.  For they give themselves to one another not fully and virtuously according to God’s divine will, but only partially and sinfully according to their inordinate desires, which is neither natural nor holy.  As such, their contracepted marital intercourse is not an act of total self-giving to one another.  They do not offer this gift fully to each other through a perfect or complete love-giving and life-giving union in the marital act.  On the contrary, according to St. John Paul II, by this unnatural act, the natural meaning of marital intercourse as the total self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, a language that says that they are not giving themselves totally to each other in the marital act, but only in a fragmented and deformed manner. 

     In Catholic moral teaching, couples who artificially contracept in marital intercourse commit an intrinsically grave moral evil.  This means that the object of their evil act is gravely immoral by nature. In this sense, such an act is grave materially from the evil object. According to St. Thomas, the object of the material act itself is the first and primary criterion for judging the morality of the act. In the case of contracepted intercourse, the object of the material act is judged by the Church as a grave moral evil objectively.  For this reason, for St. Thomas, this act would neither be reasonable for the couple nor ordainable to their Last End, God Himself, nor perfectible of their love for each other.  As a consequence, there could never be a good or acceptable reason that would morally justify artificial contraception.  Every reason to artificially contracept is a bad reason.  At the same time, not every grave evil act of contraception in marital intercourse is a mortal sin.  On the contrary, the gravity or grave matter of the evil object alone does not fully define the nature of a mortal sin.  For a couple to sin mortally by using artificial contraception in the marital act, they require in their intellect a full and true understanding of their immoral action, the act of contracepting in intercourse. Finally, they also have to be fully free in their will as moral agents in contracepting.  This is called full deliberate consent.  On this basis, if they have full understanding and full freedom in contracepting, they would certainly be guilty of a mortal sin.  This is called the spiritual death of the soul, because such an act destroys the grace of justification in the soul, including charity.

     At the same time, the Church teaches that there are seven factors or conditions that could diminish either their full understanding in their intellect, or their full freedom in their will.  On the one hand, one such condition in their intellect would be invincible ignorance.  This is a form of ignorance that the couple cannot remove or overcome either because they are unable to acquire all the information they need, even after a reasonable effort, or because they just do not know that there is any problem. In this sense, the couple contracepting under invincible ignorance would not have a full and true understanding of their act.  On the other hand, spouses suffering from an intrinsic grave fear of becoming pregnant because of poor health would not be fully free in their will in contracepting.  In both cases, the artificial contraception of these couples in the marital act remains morally evil, and they remain spiritually and morally malformed, but their moral guilt or culpability would be diminished or removed altogether because of their deficient understanding and freedom. This means that because they would not be culpable or fully culpable for their action, they would neither be guilty of a mortal sin.

     On this basis, by contracepting for any reason or circumstance, married couples falsify and mutilate the true nature and meaning of marital intercourse. They essentially redefine their Marriage, first in their hearts, but also in the language of their bodies in the marital act.  Their bodily contraception in martial intercourse is merely a consequence of this interior spiritual contraception. Sin, including artificial contraception, does not begin in their bodies, but in their hearts. 

     Pray that all couples will be faithful in imaging the faithful love of Christ and His Church by fully and faithfully guarding their love for each other in the marital act through their openness to God’s gift of life.  God calls them to be open to the generation of children that they may form and educate them to be a holy people, to be saints in Heaven, someday.  God help them.  They have a great calling in the Church, especially in the domestic church, the family. 

In Christ with Blessed Mary,

Friar Mariano D. Veliz, O.P.

     The subject for today is the perfection of the spiritual life.  In this brief article I do not intend to say everything that could be said about spiritual perfection.  I will only consider the primary means to this perfection of the spiritual life. This primary means to this perfection is certainly love, but the human being can only love what he first knows. For this reason, for the human being, knowing prepares him to love in the perfection of the spiritual life. According to Scripture and Tradition, the Shema from Deuteronomy is a call to know and love both God and neighbor that informs Jesus’ teaching on the perfection of the spiritual life in the Gospel.

     Do you have a desire for such perfection?  Do you desire to be holy son or daughter of God? The saints certainly did.  This is the greatest mission you have in this life in preparation for perfect happiness in Heaven. God Himself desires your spiritual perfection.  Yes, He desires your sainthood.  In fact, you can only be the holy person God created and redeemed you to be by reaching spiritual perfection someday in heavenly beatitude.  In this life, the spiritual perfection of the human being is only imperfect, but in Heaven such perfection for the saint is perfectly fulfilled.  This is the perfection, the perfect happiness, that God desires for you, for everyone.

     At the same time, the perfection of the spiritual life requires maturation.  The human being can only mature to spiritual perfection gradually.  The more he moves from potency to act, as he matures spiritually, through the grace of God, the more he becomes the holy man God created and redeemed him to be. This involves the perfection of his intellect and will, including his passions, through holy virtue, throughout his life.  The human being, in this life, remains unfinished.  Only through the beatific vision of God in heaven and his glorious resurrection can he reach full or final perfection in the afterlife.  On this basis, you may have imperfections, vices and sins, as I myself do, but do not be discouraged or despair. Be patient in this maturation process to perfection.

     In the Gospel, Jesus calls His disciple to be perfect just as His heavenly Father is perfect.  This is a call to be spiritually perfect by imaging the charity of Jesus, the love He has for His Father and for His neighbor, the human being.  Accordingly, St. Thomas says that the perfection of the spiritual life primarily involves the perfection of charity in the disciple.  In his teaching, he says that the disciple can only be perfected spiritually by loving the Lord and his neighbor, as Jesus Himself does, according to the order of charity.  Consequently, the disciple could never reach spiritual perfection by loving the Lord alone or by merely loving his neighbor.  Nor could he ever be perfected spiritually by loving the Lord as he loves his neighbor or by loving his neighbor as he loves the Lord.  For the Lord and his neighbor are not the same. The Lord is God, the Creator and Redeemer; and his neighbor, the human being, is a creature.  Nor could the disciple reach spiritual perfection through a natural love proportionate to his human nature.  On the contrary, he is perfected spiritually in his humanity by the divine grace of God to love both God and neighbor supernaturally according to the order of charity.  This means loving God first and the human person second.  In fact, as St. Thomas says, Jesus Himself establishes this order of charity in the Gospel. 

     First of all, He calls His disciple to love God as his First and Greatest Good.  In doing so, he says, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind” (MT 22:37).  In this sense, there is no greater commandment or precept of charity for the disciple than loving God above all.  Indeed, “This is the greatest and the first commandment” (MT 22:38).  In loving God in this manner, as his First and Greatest Good, the disciple images the love that Jesus has for God the Father.  This prepares him for true and lasting happiness in Heaven someday.

     Secondly, in the Gospel, Jesus also calls His disciple to spiritual perfection by loving his neighbor, not as he loves God, but as he loves himself.  “You shall love your neighbor as yourelf” (MT 22:39).  In doing so, he images the love that Jesus has for His neighbor.  After all, he is united to his neighbor in a fraternal relationship, either in anticipation of perfect happiness or in the enjoyment of such happiness in heaven.  This involves loving not just his family members and friends, but also the poor, the ill, the imprisoned, and even his enemies.  As such, Jesus calls His disciple to love his neighbor as himself that he may reach perfect happiness with him in heaven someday.  This means that loving his neighbor as himself is the second greatest commandment or precept of charity that perfects him spiritually after the image of Jesus (MT 22:39). 

     For this reason, for the disciple, the perfection of his spiritual life primarily involves loving God; and secondarily, loving his neighbor.  According to Jesus, the “whole law and the prophets depend on these commandments” to love God and neighbor (MT 22:40).  In other words, this double commandment to love is the source of the Word that God revealed to Moses and the prophets.  Indeed, in God’s love for the people of Israel, He illumined and inspired Moses and the prophets to proclaim His Word to them, including His commandments of love.  For God Himself desired that they would learn to love Him and their neighbors according to the order of charity.  On this basis, the disciple can only be perfected spiritually after the image of Jesus by loving God and neighbor faithfully.

     At the same time, St. Thomas says that the disciple cannot love what he does not know.  On the contrary, as a human being, he can only love what he knows, for knowing is the antecedent or precondition that opens and prepares him to love.  In this sense, his spiritual perfection as a disciple involves both knowing and loving. Yes, knowing that he may love. For this reason, in calling His disciple to be perfect spiritually by loving the Lord as His First and Greatest Good in the Gospel, Jesus is also calling him to know the Lord as His First and Greatest Truth.  Indeed, He calls His disciple to know the Lord that he may love the Lord faithfully.  In doing so, the disciple remains faithful not only to the order of charity, but also to the order of truth.  As such, by knowing that the Lord really is God, and not something else, the disciple learns to love Him as God.  He learns to love Him as His First and Greatest Good.  Thus, Jesus’ first and greatest commandment to love the Lord includes the call to know the Lord, for the disciple can only love what he knows.  Similarly, this is also true of Jesus’ second greatest commandment.  In commanding His disciple to love his neighbor as himself, Jesus is calling him to know his neighbor as himself.  Yes, Jesus is calling him to know his neighbor that he may love his neighbor, not as he knows and loves the Lord, but as he knows and loves himself.  Here, once again, the order of truth informs the order of charity.  This means that in the Gospel Jesus’ double commandment to love God and neighbor presupposes or implies a double commandment to know God and neighbor.

     In calling His disciple to know and love God and neighbor faithfully in the Gospel, Jesus is basing this teaching on the Shema passage from Deuteronomy in the Old Testament.  In the first verse of this passage (DT 6:4), the Lord proclaims to His people, through Moses, the Truth that He is the One True God.  “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, is Lord alone!”  This is the first Truth that the Lord calls His people to know in their intellect by faith.  He is their One True God who created them and redeemed them.  For this reason, there is no God besides Him.  All other gods are idols or false gods.  Consequently, these false gods can neither know the people of God nor love them.  Only the Lord can know them and love them. For He alone is their One True God.  As a result, the Lord calls them to know Him by faith as the One True God.  Indeed, He calls them to believe in Him alone intellectually. This is the greatest act of their intellect in this life as a people of faith, for God Himself is their Highest Truth.  He alone is their God.  This is the first Truth proclaimed by God, through Moses, in the Shema passage.  In calling His disciple to be faithful to the Shema by loving the Lord as his First and Greatest Good, Jesus is also calling him indirectly or implicitly to know the Lord, as His First and Greatest Truth, as a man of faith.  In this sense, He is calling him to believe that the Lord alone is his God.

     Moreover, in the second verse of the Shema (DT 6:5), Moses also teaches the people of God to use their will to love the Lord, their God, as their First and Greatest Good. Jesus has this verse from the Shema in mind in commanding His disciple to love the Lord in the same manner.  This is the greatest act of his will in this life.  In this sense, in the Gospel Jesus calls His disciple to be faithful to the Shema as Moses does for Israel in Deuteronomy.  According to Moses, for the people of Israel, this act of loving the Lord, through their full human nature, in the Shema involves loving Him with all their heart, with all their soul and with all their strength.  Indeed, using all these human capacities to love the Lord, their God, through an act of their will is their greatest act of love.  In St. Thomas’s reading of the Shema, he says that loving the Lord with all their heart means intentionally directing everything to Him, all that they are and all that they have, as to their Last End.  In other words, for Thomas, the people of God can only love the Lord with all their heart by ordering their life completely to the loving service of God through the right intention.  Here their heart represents their intention to love the Lord, their First Love and Greatest Good, as their Last End.  As for loving the Lord with all their soul, St. Thomas teaches that the people of God can only love the Lord as such by loving everyone and everything in the act of loving the Lord Himself, which involves referring all their affections or passions for them to the love of God.  In this sense, for God’s people, loving the First Cause, God Himself, involves loving His effects in creation for love of Him.  Lastly, St. Thomas says that the people of God can only love the Lord with all their strength by establishing all their words and actions in divine charity.  That is to say, they can only use all their strength to love the Lord as their Greatest Good by speaking and acting with charity in loving Him.  This is their greatest act of love as free moral persons: loving the Lord, as their God, with all their heart, with all their soul and with all their strength, because He is their First Love and Greatest Good.  As such, this is a love they may only offer to God.  In the Shema passage from Deuteronomy, God is calling His people, through Moses, to image His Truth and Goodness by knowing Him and loving Him as their Highest Truth and Greatest Good, through their intellect and will.

     Furthermore, in the third and fourth verses of the Shema (DT 6:6-7), Moses calls the people of God to teach their children to know and love their neighbors as themselves.  In doing so, he does not use these particular words in teaching the second greatest commandment to them.  On the contrary, he pronounces this message to them only indirectly by telling them in the third and fourth verses of the Shema to teach their children what he proclaims to them in the first and second verses.  As you recall, in the first and second verses of the Shema, Moses teaches the people of God to know the Lord as their Highest Truth, their One True God, and to love Him as their Greatest Good with all their heart, with all their soul and with all their strength.  For this reason, in the third and fourth verses of the Shema, Moses tells the people to teach their children these words.  Indeed, he says, “These words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them to your children, and you shall talk of them when you are at home.”  For the people of Israel, God’s people, this act of teaching their children to know the Lord, as their One True God, and to love Him as such is really an act of knowing and loving their neighbors as themselves in the highest or greatest manner.  After all, what greater act of knowing and loving their children as themselves could parents ever offer their children than teaching them to know and love the Lord according to the order of truth and charity?  In other words, what greater gift could they offer them than forming them to know the Lord, as their One True God, their Highest Truth, and to love Him as their Greatest Good?  There is nothing greater they could ever do for them.  Nothing.  Accordingly, for the people of God, this formation of their children is the greatest act of knowing and loving their neighbors as themselves because here they teach their children to image the Truth and Goodness of God, above all, by knowing Him and loving Him, through their rational, free human nature.  In the Gospel, Jesus calls His disciples to do the same for their children by teaching them to know and love the Lord according to the order of truth and charity.  As such, here Jesus bases His teaching on the Shema in Deuteronomy. As a result, through the formation that children receive from their parents, they learn to image the Truth and Love of Jesus by knowing and loving their neighbors as themselves in the highest manner. This involves teaching them, first and foremost, to know and love God.  This is the greatest act of knowing and loving that will lead their neighbors to Heaven.  On this basis, the perfection of the spiritual life for the disciple involves God’s grace perfecting human nature that he may know and love God and neighbor faithfully according to the order of truth and charity.

In Christ with Blessed Mary,

Friar Mariano D. Veliz, O.P.