"Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Feast Day!"
I have sometimes heard it said that if Mary is sinless, then it makes it difficult for us sinners to identify with her as a model of discipleship. Underlying this question are several others:
- What is human nature?
- What is discipleship?
- What is the Church?
- Does growth in holiness take us away from the rest of humanity or bring us closer to them?
What is human nature?
According to some theologies, human nature is inherently sinful. Catholic teaching, in contrast, says that to be human is to be dependent upon God. Our sinfulness is rooted in pride, the refusal to acknowledge our dependence upon God. Jesus is the perfect embodiment of human nature because He always recognizes His human dependence upon the Father. Tripartite anthropology (found in St. Paul and re-emphasized in the CCC) says that humans are not only body and soul, but also spirt: we have a structual need for God.
What is discipleship?
Discipleship is following the will of the Father. Since Jesus is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, His very nature is discipleship. As true God and true man, Jesus is the perfect model of our discipleship because He always depends upon the Father for everything. Even more, Jesus obtains for all other humans the grace to follow the Father's will through the Holy Spirt. Jesus makes Mary the prototype of the Church by offering her the gift of perfect discipleship. Her sinlessness, then, is a gift for us and a promise of our ultimate perfection in Christ.
What is the Church?
The Church is the new humanity, the humanity reconsecrated in the image of Christ. In Mary, the perfection of the Church is there as pure grace, from the very beginning of our salvation in Christ. The Church is also a pilgrim, a redeemed prostitute, the people called out of the desert of sin and the nations. Both the perfection of the Church and her struggle to follow Christ are rooted in the same reality: the unmerited gift of God and human nature as depending upon the Father in the Holy Spirit for everything.
Does growth in holiness take us away from the rest of humanity?
If our nature is spirit, the longing for God, then growth in holiness deepens our human nature, bringing us closer to all human beings. By taking on our human nature, Jesus came nearer to us than we are to ourselves. He gave us Mary as an entirely creaturely form of discipleship. In other words, Mary is not the source of her own perfection, but by the grace of the Father in Christ through the Holy Spirit offers herself to the will of God. We call those people saints who by the power of God become more fully alive and human by following Christ in dramatic ways. In fact, insofar as we beg for and follow Jesus Christ, the name saint applies also to us. Our humanity is not rooted in sin, but in the unmerited gift of God. Sin obscures and alienates us from our humanity, taking us away from the deepest needs of our fellow human beings.
"Only in Christ are all things in communion. He is the point of convergence of all hearts and beings and therefore the bridge and the shortest way from each to each (Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat).
Since I am not a professional theologian, I respectfully beg my brothers and sisters in Christ for fraternal correction if any of the above is poorly framed or misleading.
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