How can our Blessed Mother help with Porn?

Today, I give you a taste of the Restoring God’s Foundation program, What follows, is a clip of one of the lessons about Our Blessed Mother in our Battle for Purity from the program.

Imagine being perfectly loved and affirmed by your mother, knowing that she always had your back and is always your advocate when going to your father. Imagine her always being tender and loving with ultimate compassion to pick up the pieces when you fall, both literally and figuratively. This “perfect” image of a mother is not just a fantasy or idea. She is real. She is your spiritual mother in heaven. The mother of your God and your Savior. She is our Blessed Mother Mary.

Our Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary is often forgotten when we look to battle our disordered sexual desires. After all, Mary is perfect. She is the Mother of God (Luke 1:43). She is a virgin. What does she know about the struggle for sexual purity?

The truth is that Mary is much more intimately aware of all sin than we may realize. The church teaches clearly that she is our Advocate, Mediatrix (mediator of grace) and Co-redemptrix. Let’s explore where each of these come from.

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Co-redemptrix

A common misunderstanding is that the church is attempting to put Mary on equal ground with Christ. Nothing is further from the truth. The pre-fix “co” comes from the Latin term “cum” which means “with but not equal to”. Co-redemptrix therefore as applied to Mary refers to her exceptional cooperation with and under her divine son Jesus Christ, in the redemption of the human family, as manifested in Christian Scripture. With Mary’s free and active “fiat” to the invitation of the angel Gabriel to become the mother of Jesus, “Be it done unto me according to your word” (Lk. 1:38), she uniquely cooperated with the work of redemption by giving the divine Redeemer his body, which was the very instrument of human redemption. “We have been sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. 10:10), and the body of Jesus Christ is given to him through the free, active, and unique cooperation of the Virgin Mary. By virtue of giving flesh to the “Word made flesh” (Jn. 1:14), who in turn redeems humanity, the Virgin of Nazareth uniquely merits the title Co-redemptrix. In the words of the late Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “Of course Mary is the Co-redemptrix — she gave Jesus his body, and his body is what saved us.”

But the climax of Mary’s role as Co-redemptrix under her divine son takes place at the foot of the Cross, where the total suffering of the mother’s heart is obediently united to the suffering of the Son’s heart in fulfillment of the Father’s plan of redemption (Gal. 4:4). As the fruit of this redemptive suffering, Mary is given by the crucified Savior as the spiritual mother of all peoples: “Woman, behold your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘behold, your mother!” (Jn. 19:27). As described by Pope John Paul II, Mary was “spiritually crucified with her crucified son” at Calvary,

By Dr. Mark Miravalle
Professor of Theology and Mariology
Franciscan University of Steubenville

Because Mary’s enmity with Satan is complete, she is God’s perfect ally and the devil’s most hated enemy.

She fully cooperates with the redemptive plan of God through her ‘yes’ to God at the Annunciation, in Luke. That is especially highlighted and developed by John Paul II in his Marian Catechesis on January 24, 1996.

At the same time in the gospel of Luke, chapter two, we read of the prophecy of Simeon when he tells Our Lady her heart, too, shall be pierced. The Church has understood this to mean that Our Lady suffered spiritually what Christ suffered physically in his passion and death on the Cross. It is also important to note that Our Lady was present at the two most important events in the history of man, the Nativity and the Crucifixion.1

Quickly, but also important is the role of Our Lady at the wedding at Cana. When she makes the request of Our Lord, he says, “What is that to me and to thee. My time is not yet come.” This must really be understood as Christ saying, “Are you sure you want me to do this, this will bring me to the Cross.” Our Lady starts his walk to the Cross through her intercession for us. She offers her son and herself for the sake of mankind.”

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Mediatrix

As Our Lady assisted in the attainment of the graces of the Crucifixion, so too, does she assist in the distribution of those graces. This is why the Church calls her the Mediatrix of all Grace.

A clarification of the scripture verse Timothy 2:5 “there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” is necessary here.

Regarding Mary, Christian Scripture also clearly reveals the secondary and subordinate participation of the Mother of Jesus in the one mediation of Jesus Christ. At the Annunciation, Mary’s free and active “yes” to the invitation of the angel mediates to the world Jesus Christ, the Re-deemer of the world and the Author of all graces (Lk. 1:38). For this unique participation in giving to the Redeemer his body and mediating the Source of all graces to the world, Mary can rightly be called both “Co-redemptrix” and “Mediatrix of all graces” as one who uniquely shares in the one mediation of Jesus Christ.

This unique Marian participation in Christ’s mediation, specific to the Redemption of Jesus Christ, is climaxed at Calvary. At the cross, her spiritual suffering united to the redemptive sacrifice of her Son, as the New Eve with the New Adam, leads to the universal spiritual fruits of the acquisition of the graces of redemption, which, in turn, leads to the gift of spiritual motherhood from the heart of the Crucified Christ to every human heart: “Behold your mother!” (Jn. 19:27). The Redeemer’s gift of his own mother as spiritual mother to all humanity leads to the spiritual nourishment by the Mother to her children in the order of grace. This constitutes the distribution of the graces of Calvary by Mary to her spiritual children as Mediatrix of all graces, which perpetually continues her unique sharing in the one saving mediation of Jesus Christ.

John Paul II explains the Catholic understanding of this unique Marian participation in the one mediation of Jesus Christ:

Mary entered, in a way all her own, into the one mediation “between God and men” which is the mediation of the man Christ Jesus…. We must say that through this fullness of grace and supernatural life, she was especially predisposed to cooperation with Christ, the one Mediator of human salvation. And such cooperation is precisely this mediation subordinated to the mediation of Christ. In Mary’s case we have a special and exceptional mediation.

By Dr. Mark Miravalle
Professor of Theology and Mariology
Franciscan University of Steubenville

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