Sherry W of Intentional Disciples has an interesting post, Raised to the Dignity of Being Causes, where she quotes from St Irenaeus:
Eve... having become disobedient, was made the cause of death for herself and for the whole human race, so also Mary, betrothed to a man but nevertheless still a virgin, being obedient, was made the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race... Thus, the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed through faith.
Against the Heresies, 190AD
I've been thinking a lot about Mary recently: about the extraordinary significance of her choosing obedience, in the face of all human caution and respectability. What an astonishing girl, to risk everything she held dear, her own life even, to become the living bridge between God and mankind, the frail vessel that sheltered the Son of the living God for nine long months, and bore him into an unknowable future.
No wonder - and all wonder - that "all generations will call [her] blessed" whose free choice, to dare all for what must be the most fantastic promise ever made, opened the gate through her own flesh and blood for salvation to come to all Creation (see Romans 8.14-17; 19-21). That she knew very well what she was getting into is shown by the remarkable fact that she had the presence of mind neither to reject, nor accede to, Gabriel's word till she was clear in her mind how this was to come about. And then she chose to obey, to accept the greatest and the strangest gift of the Spirit that ever a human accepted from the hand of God.
Truly she is blessed among women!
No comments:
Post a Comment