Archbishop Viganò / Tu Reparatrix. Homily for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed and Ever-Virgin Mary
Tuti sumus te tutante,
Virgo potestatis tantæ,
Dei ligans omnipotentiam.
Grant that we may be protected by You,
Virgin who received such power from God,
That He made You adminstratress of His omnipotence.
Sequentia “O mira claritas”
Archbishop Caro Maria Viganò
This blessed day, dedicated to the celebration of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, offers us the opportunity to offer public and solemn reparation to the honor of the Most August Mother of God, in the aftermath of a hateful Vatican document – the Note entitled Mater Populi Fidelis – that has dared to declare that it is “always inappropriate” to attribute the title of Mediatrix and Co-redemptrix to the One whom the Father chose to be His Daughter, the Son to be His Mother, and the Holy Spirit to be His Spouse That cursed serpent, whose head She will crush, continues to threaten Her virginal heel, spewing the same deadly venom that heresiarchs of all times have vomited forth before. As proof of this unprecedented affront to the Most Holy Mother, let the scandal taken by the simple faithful suffice, they who venerate Her as the Sorrowful Co-redemptrix and as Mediatrix of all Graces.
In celebrating the glories of Our Lady and Queen, we cannot fail to see in Her Immaculate Conception the necessary premise and preparation not only for the Incarnation of the Eternal Word of the Father, but also for the immolation of the Mother of the Incarnate Word, a pure, holy, and immaculate victim by a very special grace, the first creature worthy of uniting Herself with Her Son in the offering to the Father. Who more than She, preserved from every stain of sin, would have been worthy of such a privilege? Who more than She would have had the right to offer Her mystical co-suffering together with the perfect Sacrifice of Our Lord? And how could She have responded with greater charity to the example of Her Divine Son than by allowing Herself to be pierced, with equal charity, by the sharp swords that make Her the Mater Dolorosa and Regina Crucis?
Our Lady is indeed Queen of the Cross by virtue of her co-suffering and co-redemption. If Christ reigns from the Cross – “God reigned from the wood” (Regnavit a ligno Deus); if the Cross is the Throne of Glory of the Divine and Universal Dominion of the King of Kings; how could the Most August Queen have deserved this title, if not by mystically extending her arms upon the Cross of her Son?
Through her mystical participation in the Passion of the Savior, she is Reparatrix, the reparatress of sins through the merits She acquired at the foot of the Cross: She is also Redemptrix, soli secunda Numini – second only to God – and therefore Co-Redemptress, our North Star guiding us through the dark night, a Star that reflects the sole light of the Sol Justitiae. Finally, thanks to those merits, she is constituted Mediatrix, Mediatress of all Graces: both the graces proper to her as well as Infinite Graces of her Son. She is the administrator of the Treasury of Christ’s infinite merits, to which are added the merits of the Saints and – it is worth remembering – also the merits of those who, during their lives, have completed in their own flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, for the good of His Body, which is the Church (Col 1:24). The offering of the Virgin – the most perfect of creatures, chosen as the Tabernacle of the Most High and the Ark of the Covenant – could not but constitute the most precious ornament of Christ’s Sacrifice, and the most brilliant example of charity for us, living members of that Mystical Body that unites us all on the Cross, mindful of the Savior’s words: “Whoever wants to come after me must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Mt 16:24). What better guide for us, on this personal and ecclesial Way of the Cross, than She who accompanied the Lord with the Holy Women along Calvary? She whom the agonizing Lord gave us as Mother and to whom He entrusted us as children? She who saw Him breathe His last pro peccatis suae gentis, for the sins of his own people? She who received His lifeless Body and placed it in the tomb? We repeat it, perhaps without paying attention, when we sing the sequence Stabat Mater: Crucifixi fige plagas cordi meo valide: Holy Mother, pierce me through, in my heart each wound renew, of the Savior Crucified.
The Immaculate Virgin – she who would never have needed to atone for sins from which she had been preserved – becomes a Victim with the Divine Victim, crosses the only Threshold that leads to Heaven, and from that Eternal Glory with her Son, continues, as Mother and Advocate, to pour out the rivers of grace that Providence has entrusted to her as the Treasurer of God.
We live in a time of great upheavals. The Blessed Virgin has reassured us: In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. In the certainty of this final triumph, dear brothers and sisters, is also contained the certainty of the Cross, an obligatory passage for any true sequela Christi. The Regina Crucis tells us: in the end. It is at the end of the ascent to Calvary, because it is from that Throne that She has mystically conquered, uniting Herself with Her Son in His Sacrifice to the Father, that the Queen of the Cross triumphs with her divine Son. From the Throne of the Cross, She reigns as the Dispensatress of all the Graces that Divine Omnipotence entrusts to her to administer.
Let us entrust the Barque of Peter to Her, so that She may guide and accompany it in the passio Ecclesiae, just as She accompanied Her Divine Son, the Head of the Mystical Body, in His Sorrowful Passion, towards the triumph of the Eternal Easter.
And finally, dear brothers and sisters, allow me to extend a greeting and my warmest wishes to Leonardo and Gilda, who have come to celebrate their Silver Wedding Anniversary with their four children and their relatives. Their testimony as a Catholic family reminds us of the special bond that unites two souls in one flesh, following the model of the union between Christ and the Church; and it points us to the daily acceptance of the Cross – which marriage certainly does not avoid – as the only path that leads to eternal glory. We entrust Leonardo and Gilda, together with their loved ones, to the Immaculate Virgin, using the words of the Sequence O mira claritas:
Grant that they may be protected by You,
Immaculate Virgin,
who received such power from God,
That He made You adminstratress of His Omnipotence.
And so may it be.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
8 December MMXXV
In Conceptione Immaculata B.M.V.
