Mary And The Church


"Mary is figured in the Church, and the Church is figured in Mary."
-Serlo of Savigny

"Everything we find in the sacred books concerning the magnificence, splendor, and sanctity of the Church is justly appropriated to the glorious Virgin in all parts of the universe; for she is the most holy of all the members of the Catholic Church; she whom God our Lord has laden with as many graces as he has distributed among all the other members together. And that is why- in accordance with old custom- we sing in honor of our Lady those passages of Holy Scripture which, in their natural sense, should be interpreted with reference to the Church of Jesus Christ."
-St. Ambrose

"The glorious Virgin Mary stands for the Church, who is also both virgin and mother. She is mother because every day she presents God with news sons in baptism, being made fruitful by the Holy Spirit. At the same time she is virgin because she does not allow herself to be in any way corrupted by the defilement of heresy, preserving inviolate the integrity of the faith. In the same way Mary was mother in bringing forth Jesus and virgin in remaining intact after bearing him.

The one gave salvation to the peoples, while the other gives the peoples to their Savior. The one carried Life in her womb, while the other carries him in the wellspring if the Sacrament. What was once granted in the flesh to Mary is now granted spiritually to the Church; she conceives the Word in her unfaltering faith, bears him in a spirit freed from all corruption, and contains him in a soul overshadowed by the power of the Most High."
-Honorius of Autun

"[Our Lady and the Church] both give to God the Father a posterity; Mary, sinless, gave the body its Head; the Church, in the remission of all sins, gives the Head its body. Both are thus Mother of Christ, but neither of the two bears him wholly, without the other."
-Isaac of Stella

"As Mary bore the earthly Christ, so the Church bears the eucharistic Christ. As the whole life of Mary is centered upon the bringing up and protecting Christ, so again the deep life and solicitude of the Church are centered on the Eucharist. As Mary gives the earthly Christ to the world...and from this gift are born children of God, so also the eucharistic flesh and blood produced by the Church should form living children of God. As Mary offered up Christ together with him at the foot of the Cross, so the whole Church, at each Mass, offers the sacrifice with him. As Mary received at the foot of the Cross the whole treasury of grace in order to administer it spiritually, so the Church received it and in a certain sense receives it anew at each Mass for its ministerial administration and distribution. As Mary is in heaven, at her Son's side, a true suppliant, so aslo the Church makes effective prayer for her children...Where subjective redemption is concerned, the Church signifies what Mary stood for in the accomplishing of objective redemption."
-Carl Feckes

"At the moment when Mary appeared to have brought to perfect completion her life as Mother of Christ, she became, in reality, the Mother of all Christians. And then was realized for the second time the angel's greeting- 'all genereations shall call thee blessed.' There will be no further mention of Mary in the Gospels, but the Acts of the Apostles are to show her to us as the great art of the West is to paint her later- reunited with the disciples at Jerusalem to await the outpouring of the Spirit. At the foot of he Cross Mary realized for the second time the blessing of the Gospel salutation; on the morning of Pentecost she was visited for the second time by the Holy Spirit. The Mother of Christ became the great maternal figure of the Mother Church."
-Gertrud von le Fort