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whom the Master promised the unfailing protection of the Holy
Spirit. In God’s name, let us be docile and obedient, and not fail
in our exalted task of explaining in its integrity the faith which
the Son of God committed to the care of His infallible Church.

Francis J. Connell, C.SS.R.
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.

Fifty Years Ago

In The American Ecclesiastical Review for November, 1900, the
leading article, contributed by Fr. Alexander MacDonald, is entitled
“The Sacrificial Idea in the Mass.” His main contention is that the
Mass is one and the same sacrifice with that of the Cross. “It is the
immolation of Christ upon the Cross, together with the fact that the
same Victim is really present upon the Altar offered by the same High
Priest which makes the Mass the distinctive and never-failing sacrifice
of the New Testament.” . . . Fr. Anselm Kroll contributes an article on
“The Support of Sick and Old Clergymen.” He explain in detail the
canonical provisions for the support of the clergy, and admits that it is
very difficult to determine the best method of extending relief to de­
serving but needy ecclesiastics. He promises to discuss this problem
in a future article. . . . Under the heading “Scholastic Methods, their
Advantages and Disadvantages” Fr. J. R. Slattery makes some sug­
gestions for improving the method of teaching theology in our semi­
naries. ... A response in the Conference section asserts that the bridal
couple may kneel within the sanctuary during the Nuptial Mass. . . .
A form for the blessing of a couple on the occasion of their silver or
golden jubilee of marriage is suggested. . . . Mention is made of a letter
sent by the Holy See to the bishops of the United States commanding
that in the event that a single Mass is celebrated on All Souls’ Day for
the deceased whose names are proposed by the parishioners (many
offerings being given), a notice should be posted in the church making
it clear that only one Mass is being offered.
F. J. C.

THE CONCEPT OF MARY AND THE
CHURCH IN THE FATHERS
The past one hundred years of the Church’s history have been
.marked by a phenomenal increase of Marian thought and devotion
that is paralleled perhaps only by the great Marian vitality of the
Middle Ages. Since the definition of the dogma of Mary’s Im­
maculate Conception, popular devotion to the Mother of God.
under the influence of such manifestly supernatural interventions
as Lourdes and Fatima, has grown into a kind of world trust in her
power of intercession. Mariology has blossomed as a field which
is preoccupying theological thought as it has never before. The
Sovereign Pontiffs since Pius IX have been consistently outspoken
regarding the privileges of Mary, and have urged the members of
Holy Church to turn with filial confidence to her to avert world
disaster and to bring peace. Not least of these papal acts was the
consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by
Pope Pius XII, October 31, 1942. The Holy Year of 1950, with
its solemn proclamation of the dogma of Mary’s Assumption, has
crowned a century that began with the proclamation of her Im­
maculate Conception.
If one considers Mary’s role in the Church history of the past
century, and the fact that this role has had an intimate influence
on the life and growth of the Church, the question may legitimately
be asked: what relationship exists between Mary and the Church
which gives significance to these Marian events ? In seeking an
answer to this question, we instinctively turn for enlightenment
to Catholic tradition, to the works of the Fathers and Doctors of
the Church. An answer, at least in its seed-form, was offered by
the early Church Fathers, and an examination of their statements
on the subject may perhaps give a greater theological perspective
to current Marian history.
In Patristic language Mary is identified, so to speak, with the
Church ; in many instances she is even called the Church. The
Fathers use the same terms to exalt Mary and explain her preroga­
tives as they use for the Church, and apply interchangeably, as
with equal fitness, the same figures, types and prophecies to Mary
as to the Church. The two main bases on which the Fathers draw
this parallel are the motherhood of the Church compared and iden331

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tilled with the motherhood of Mary ; and the Church as the Virgin­
bride of Christ compared with the similar role of Mary.
St. Ambrose in one passage speaks of the Church as the type of
Mary, but the common practice among the Fathers was to con­
sider Mary as personifying the Church. “The Virgin Mary is . ,.
the figure of the Church, which received the first fruits of the
Gospel,” wrote St. Ephrem.1 “Let us call the Church by the name
of Mary, for she is worthy of the double name.” The Virgin Mary
appears, then, as personifying most perfectly humanity, wed virginally to the Incarnate Word, the receiver of divine revelation and
responding with perfect fidelity to the whisperings of the Divine
Bridegroom. “Here [in the virginity of I lis mother J He chose
for Himself a chaste bridal chamber wherein He might be united
as the bridegroom with the bride.”2
It is also in her motherhood of the historical Jesus that a parallel
is drawn between Mary and the Church. Mary is the Mother of
Jesus, the Church, the Mother of Christians. Thus, St. Methodius
interprets the Woman in the Apocalypse as literally signifying
Mary, and mystically signifying the Church.
Most often, however, motherhood and virginity, which are
proper to both Mary and the Church, are considered in the one
concept of a fruitful virginal or bridal-motherhood. St. Ambrose
speaks of the Church’s fecundity thus : “It is a virgin who has
borne us in her womb, a virgin who has brought us forth, a virgin
who has nourished us with her own milk.”3 Elsewhere he points
to Mary as the type of this, the Church’s virginal fruitfulness:
It was fitting that Mary should be espoused and at the same time a
Virgin ; because she is the type of the Church, which is spotless, yet
married. For virgin she [the Church] has conceived us of the Spirit,
and virgin, without pangs she has given us birth.1

St. Augustine concurs with the Bishop of Milan :
The Church . . . imitating Christ’s Mother every day gives birth to
1 Sermo ad N octurnum Dominicae Resurrectionis, 2, 3, Lamy I, 531-537.
Quoted in Thomas Livius, C.SS.R., The Blessed Firgin in the Fathers of
the First Six Centuries (London: Burns and Oates, Ltd.; N. Y. : Benziger,
1893), p. 268. Subsequent texts of the Fathers are as given in Livius.
2 St. Augustine, Enarrat, in Ps. CXLVIII, n. 8. Livius, 276.
3 De Officiis Ministrorum, Lib. I, cap. 5, 22. Livius, 270.
4 In Luc. L. II, n. 7. Livius, 271.

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333

His members and is a virgin.5 Did not the holy Virgin Mary both
bring forth and remain a Virgin ? So, too, the Church brings forth and
is a virgin. And if thou reflectest, she gives birth to Christ, because those
who are baptised are his members. You, says the Apostle, are the body
of Christ, and members. If, therefore, she gives birth to Christ’s mem­
bers, she is most like Mary.6 See we not under the figure of Mary the
type of the holy Church? For on her too, as you know, the Holy
Ghost came down; her too the power of the Most High overshadowed,
and from her goes forth Christ, mighty in power. The Church is an
immaculate bride, fruitful in child-bearing, virgin in chastity. She
conceived not from man, but by the Spirit. She gives birth not in sor­
row, but in joy. She nurtures not with breast of body, but with milk
of the Teacher. Hence is she the Spouse of Christ, and Mother of the
nations, who marvels at seeing herself with child, and rejoices when
she has brought forth.7

Two hundred years later, but still in the Patristic tradition, St.
Isidore of Seville repeated : “Mary signifies the Church, which
being espoused to Christ, as a virgin hath conceived us of the Holy
Ghost, and as a virgin hath also given us birth.”8
The Fathers in these passages seem to be satisfied with compar­
ing the Church’s fruitfulness with that of Mary, and do not ex­
plicitly declare, as is now often declared, that the Church’s mater­
nity is, in effect, Mary’s spiritual Motherhood of men. The pas­
sages cited involve primarily an analogy between the Spiritual
Maternity of the Church, and the natural maternity of Mary.
Even when St. Augustine speaks of giving “birth to Christ’s
members,” it is “the Church imitating Christ’s Mother”—which
would leave Mary’s Spiritual Maternity at best only implied, not
directly stated.
Nevertheless, some of the Fathers have gone so far as to apply
the name of the Church itself to Mary.
“O mystic marvel !” wrote St. Clement of Alexandria. “One
Father of all things and one Word of all things and the Holy
Ghost, One and the same everywhere, and one only Mother Vir-

6 Enchirid. ad Laurentium, cap. 34. Livius, 275.
e Serm. 213, cap. 7. Livius, 275.
7 Serm. 121, De Nat. Dont. v. 5, Int. Opp. S. Augustini, Append. Livius,
276. This quotation, although of doubtful authenticity, is included as not
being foreign to St. Augustine’s thought, but rather as an elaboration of it.
8 Allegoriae ex N. Test. Ap. Morales Lib. II, Tr. 6. Livius, 277.

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gin. Dear to me it is to call her the Church.’^ In a manuscript
attributed to St. Methodius, these words occur in praise of Mary:
‘With hymns, O blessed Spouse of God, adorning the bridal bed,
we now venerate thee, pure virgin Church of snowy body. . . ."910
The heresiarch Manes’ ironic use of the term “that most chaste
Virgin and immaculate Church” refering to Marjr seems to indi­
cate that this was a phrase then commonly received and used.11
St. Cyril of Alexandria closes one of his homilies thus: ‘Thinning
with canticles the ever-Virgin Mary, that is to say, the holy Church,
and her Son and spotless Spouse. . . . Amen.”12
These passages are to be interpreted primarily in a metaphorical
sense, for evidently Mary is not, in the words of the Baltimore
Catechism, “the congregation of all baptized persons united in the
same true faith, the same sacrifice, and the same sacraments, under
the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff and the bishops in com­
munion with him.” But some of the Fathers wrote about a compenetration of the two ideas. In at least two respects the Patristic
view presents a real “overlapping”—the first, in that Mary is
part of the Church, is the most perfect member of the Mystical
Body; the second, in that Mary’s maternity has for its object and
effect the bestowal of divine life upon the human race, which is
likewise the object and effect of the Church’s historical existence.
Among the writings of St. Ambrose is to be found a commentary
on the Apocalypse in which we find this thought expressed that
by the Woman here we may understand the Blessed Virgin Mary,
because she is the Mother of the Church, for she brought forth
Him who is the Head of the Church, and is herself daughter of
the Church, since she is the greatest member of the Church.13
The Fathers followed St. Paul closely in holding that the Church
is the Bride of Christ. Not yet perfect because of her human mem­
bers, she grows into an ever closer union with Him through sub­
missive fidelity to His grace until the day of His coming. She
desires to be His perfect complement, to “fill up” what is lacking
to Him, and in this sense her way of acting may be called a real
seeking of Christ. That Maty is the model of this seeking of
9 Paedagogus, Lib. I, c. 6, MPG, VIII, 301. Livius, 264.
10 Dec. Virg. or. I, c. 5, p. 45. Livius, 266.
11 Cf. Livius, 265.
12 Hom. IV ad fin. Livius, 277.
13Int. Opp. St Ambrosi. Cf. In Luc. Lib. X, n. 134. Livius, 271.

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335

Christ seems to be implied in a number of passages of the Fathers.
In the Old Testament this striving for union with the Bridegroom
was expressed and prefigured in the Canticle of Canticles. The
Fathers in commenting upon this Book of the Old Law place the
words of the Bride upon the lips of both Mary and the Church.
“Mary is that beautiful spouse of the Canticles who put off the old
garment, washed her feet, and received the immortal Bridegroom
within her own bride-chamber.”14 Upon the text, “Let Him kiss
me with the kisses of His mouth,” St. Ambrose remarks:
Hereby is signified the grace of the Holy Spirit coming down fr»m
above, as the Angel said to Mary: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon
thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee.”15*
The Church ceases not to kiss the feet of Christ; and hence in the
Canticle of Canticles, she is not content with one but with many kisses.
For like holy Mary, she is intent on all His utterances, and takes in all
His words. When the Gospel or a Prophet is being read, she keeps all
His sayings in her heart.10
The view that Mary in her vicarious representation of human­
ity-to-be-redeemed personifies the perfect way of acting toward
the Divine Bridegroom, the perfection of the Church in its mem­
bers, has been brought into prominence of late in Pope Pius XII’s
Mystici Corporis:
Her sinless soul was filled with the divine Spirit of Jesus Christ more
than all other created souls . . . she more than all the faithful “filled up
those things that are wanting of the suffering of Christ . . . for His
body which is the Church.”

And the Pontiff is at pains to point out that her whole life exem­
plifies the perfect way of acting toward Christ. She seeks only His
will at the Annunciation ; with motherly tenderness she brings
Him forth and nurtures His childhood ; she is the mistress of His
hidden life; in his public life she is His alter ipse, the only complete
triumph of His apostolate ; she surrenders her maternal rights over
Him at His passion and death. . . . Finally, after His ascension, she
is left for a time upon earth to mother the infant Church and to
be the living exemplar of the great lesson Christ wished to teach
His Church : that the living Christ is to be sought and found in
14 S. Proclus, Orat. VI. 17. De Deip. laudibus. Livius, 98.
16 S. Ambrose, in Ps. CXVIII. Semi. II, n. 16. Livius, 92.
™ Epist. XLI, 18.

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the living Church. “She continued to show for the Mystical Body
of Christ, born from the pierced Heart of the Savior, the same
Mother’s care and ardent love with which she clasped the Infant
Jesus to her warm and nourishing breast.”
If the view be accepted that Mary personified perfect incorpora­
tion in Christ, then the Church’s ideal, the purpose of its action,
was realized perfectly only in her ; and thus the Church’s ultimate
goal—her presentation to Christ “in all her glory-, not having spot
or wrinkle’’ (Eph. 5, 27)—was foreshadowed from the wry be­
ginning. For nowhere in its history has the Church's perfect way
of acting (its utterly perfect co-operating fidelity to grace) been
embodied, save in Mary. The Saints have, in varying degrees of
perfection, exemplified the Church’s way of acting, but to Mary
alone should be reserved the glory of being the prototype and spot­
less exemplar. The question at least deserves consideration and
study.
The Church’s maternity is, in fact, Mary’s spiritual motherhood
of all men. Of all the Fathers, it was St. Augustine who explained
this most clearly. While stating that “Mary corporally gave birth
to the Head of this (Mystical) body, the Church spiritually gives
birth to the members of that Head,”17 he shows that Mary is in
very truth Mother likewise of all the members, and consequently,
the Church’s ministerial action is the application, throughout the
time and space of history, of Mary's spiritual motherhood of all
men. “She is clearly the spiritual Mother of His members, which
we are; because she co-operated by her charity, that the faithful
«night be born into the Church; and these are the members of that
same Head.”18 The predominant patristic concept of the New
Adam and the New Eve as parents of the regenerated human race
shows likewise Mary’s role as Mother of the redeemed, not merely
in being Mother of Jesus’ natural body, but also by an active co­
operation with the entire divine plan of redemption. “Death by
Eve, life by Mary.”19 Modern terminology has sought to reduce
the apparent complexity of Mary’s double maternity (that of
Jesus and that of mankind) in the one concept of her motherhood
of the Whole Christ.

17 De Sanet. Virginia cap. II, MPL, XL. Livius, 275 f.
18 Ibid., cap. VI, Livius, 276.
19 St. Jerome, Ep. 22, ad Eustoch. 21.

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Today, when the Church is faced with one of its greatest crises,
and when, on the other hand, she is throwing open her mystical
treasures with an unprecedented effluence, it is not surprising to
find that the Holy Father should close his masterly treatise on the
Church as the Mystical Body thus :
“May she, then, most holy Mother of all Christ’s members, to
whose Immaculate Heart we have trustingly consecrated all men,
her body and soul refulgent with the glory of heaven where she
reigns with her Son—may she never cease to beg from Him that
a continuous and copious flow of graces may pass from its glorious
Head into all the members of the Mystical Body. May she throw
about the Church today, as in times gone by, the mantle of her
protection and obtain from God that now at last the Church and
all mankind may enjoy more peaceful days.”
George Montague, S.M.
Mt. St. John
Dayton, Ohio

The Priest's Task

It is the priest’s task to clear away from men’s minds the mass of
prejudices and misunderstandings which hostile adversaries have piled
up; the modern mind is eager for the truth, and the priest should be
able to point it out with serene frankness; there are souls still hesitating,
distressed by doubts, and the priest should inspire courage and trust,
and guide them with calm security to the safe port of faith, faith ac­
cepted by both head and heart; error makes its onslaughts, arrogant
and persistent, and the priest should know how to meet them with a
defense vigorous and active, yet solid and unruffled. . . .
Therefore, Venerable Brethren, it is necessary that the priest, even
among the absorbing tasks of his charge, and ever with a view to it,
should continue his theological studies with unremitting zeal. The
knowledge acquired at the seminary is indeed a sufficient foundation
with which to begin; but it must be grasped more thoroughly, and per­
fected by an ever-increasing knowledge and understanding of the
sacred sciences. Herein is the source of effective preaching and of
influence over the souls of others.

Pope Pius XI, The Catholic Priesthood (America Press), pp. 23 f.