Since this inevitably shows up whenever the “great saint debate” rears its ugly head, let’s talk about Christ’s role as sole mediator for a second. We often use “mediator” and “intercessor” as interchangeable words, because they both involve action on behalf of another, but they’re not the same.
“Mediator” refers to a person reconciling two different parties. “Intercessor” refers to a person approaching a more powerful party on behalf of a less powerful party.
Jesus is the sole Mediator. In His Incarnation, human nature and Divine nature are united in a single Person. That seeming insurmountable gap between humanity and God is closed by the Incarnation specifically because of this hypostatic union. God became man so that man could share in the Divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). The union of humanity and Divinity that occurs microcosmicly in Jesus is the source for the macrocosmic reconciliation between God and man. Does that make sense?
The statement that Jesus is sole Mediator occurs right after Saint Paul calls us to act as intercessors. He asks us to pray on behalf of worldly authorities. Throughout the epistles, we are called to act as intercessors for one another, and Paul himself acts as intercessor by praying on behalf of the Christian communities that he is writing to. We know that this intercession is efficacious as a result of this saving work of Jesus, as He said “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
So, long story short: Jesus is the only Mediator, but He is not the only intercessor. At the same time, however, all intercession is only possible because of Christ’s role as Mediator.
Earnest question from a faithful Catholic: So what does it mean when Mary is referred to as Mediatrix or co-Mediatrix?
Well, for one thing, it hasn’t been dogmatically defined, so we don’t have to believe it. And because it hasn’t been dogmatically defined, I am going to continue forward with a lot of reservation. I hope you understand.
From what I understand, this doctrine teaches that Mary is co-Mediatrix in the sense that the “full of grace” title (Kecharitomene) from the Gospel of Luke is very much literal; the fullness of God’s grace rests in Mary, and is distributed through her. Mary would thus not be a true Mediator in the sense that she reconciles God and man, but rather (like the Church, for which she is Prototype) is an instrument through which God’s grace is distributed by the Mediator.
One person who wrote a considerable amount about this is Saint Maximilian Kolbe; he spoke of Mary as the “created Advocate,” who by virtue of her Immaculate Conception and utter dedication to God is very closely associated with the Holy Spirit (i.e. the “Uncreated Advocate”). I think he actually referred to Mary as a “quasi-incarnation,” which is a scary term that probably causes a knee-jerk “don’t like that” reaction. But he meant this not in the sense that Mary is somehow the Spirit made flesh, but rather that the wills of Mary and the Holy Spirit are of such singular purpose that their function is identical, even though they remain distinct persons. We usually express this idea in the much less controversial title “Spouse of the Holy Spirit.”
Again, though, that’s just one possible explanation for how the title Co-Mediatrix or Mediatrix-of-All-Graces may be made sense of. It’s not even necessarily the right explanation; we’ll see what future theologians will say. All we can really say is that the title Co-Mediatrix has been used in our Church for over a millennium, and whatever it actually does denote, it absolutely does not denote an inherent role of Mediator between God and man. And we aren’t even bound to believe it as of now.
This plus as an addition from my understanding, she was the human that brought God (Christ Jesus) into the world to become the mediator. So like Christ mediates between us and God and Mary mediates between the divine and human nature of Christ.
We can go to her to get to Christ because she is the mediator between the humanity of Christ (since she and us are human) and Christ’s divinity which is uniquely His own (compared to the Father and Holy Spirit).
Not sure how much sense that makes, but “Ad Iesu Per Mariam” :shrug: as the trads say
Thank you, that was very helpful. I’ve been learning recently about some aspects of Mariology that I had never really encountered before (as well as Eastern devotion to the Theotokos), and I feel like I’m coming to know Mary for the first time. I have a bit of an impulse to exalt her as high as possible in my personal theology, but I also want to be careful about that and not make her something she isn’t, so I’m interested in the implications of titles like this.
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