PREPARING THE BRIDE TO MEET THE BRIDEGROOM: REFLECTIONS ON THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MARY

Abstract

Within the context of arguing for the continuity of the natural and sacramental significance of sexual complementarity, this contribution calls upon various qualities of the Marian faith, beginning with its primacy with respect to all other forms of ecclesial faith, including that of the apostles. Because her assent to God is given for all humankind, Mary is said to be the Bride of Christ par excellence. Far from exempting others from their own personal consent to Christ, however, Mary’s universal faith is presented as rendering every other act of faith possible. In virtue, moreover, of her unique personal mission as the Mother of Christians, Mary exercises an ecclesial faith: a faith that is shared. As complementary to the mission of the apostles and their successors, whom Christ employs as instruments for dispensing of his salvific graces, Mary’s mission entails preparing the self-giving faith of each of us in view of our unique, personal and salvific encounters with her Son. Because these encounters bear fruit in the form of a personal mission, the Christian might be said to thereby continue Mary’s mission of preparing others for their own “sponsal” union with Christ. Such is the fulness of the Christian life to which all are called as “brides” in the one Bride of Christ, the Church, who in Mary, already exists in the sinless splendor of perfect union with the divine Bridegroom.