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Mary /
Eve
Also See:
Blessed Virgin Mary (Topic Page)
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"Death
through Eve, life through Mary." (St. Jerome, Doctor of the
Church)
"The
second Eve is to be worthy of the second Adam, conquering and not
to be conquered." (Dom Gueranger)
"Just as the first Eve was
associated with the first Adam in the Fall of the human race, so,
too is the second Eve associated with the new Adam in the divine
plan of redemption."
"[A]
virgin had cast us out from paradise, through a virgin we have
found eternal life" (St. John Chrysostom, Doctor of the
Church)
"And thus, as the human race fell into
bondage to death by means of a virgin, so it is rescued by a
virgin." (St. Irenaeus, 2nd century A.D.)
"The knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed
by the obedience of Mary. The knot which the virgin Eve tied by
her unbelief, the Virgin Mary opened by her belief." (St.
Irenaeus, 2nd century A.D.)
"Let women praise Her, the pure
Mary - that as in Eve their mother, great was their reproach - lo! in Mary their
sister, greatly magnified was their honor." (Ephraim the
Syrian, Doctor of the Church)
"Eve sought the fruit, but did not find
there what she wished for. In her fruit the blessed Virgin found
all that Eve had wanted." (St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church and "greatest theologian in the history of the Church")
"[Eve]
by disobeying became the cause of death for herself and the whole
human race, so also Mary...was obedient and became the cause of
salvation for herself and the whole human race" (St. Irenaeus of Lyons)
"What
Lucifer has lost by pride, Mary has gained by humility. What Eve
has damned and lost by disobedience, Mary has saved by obedience.
Eve, in obeying the serpent, has destroyed all her children
together with herself, and has delivered them to him; Mary, in
being perfectly faithful to God, has saved all her children and
servants together with herself, and has consecrated them to His
Majesty." (St. Louis Marie de Montfort)
"Mary
in the work of redemption was by God's will joined with Jesus
Christ, the cause of salvation, in much the same way as Eve was
joined with Adam, the cause of death. Hence it can be said that
the work of our salvation was brought about by a restoration in
which the human race, just as it was doomed to death by a virgin,
was saved by a virgin. Moreover, she was chosen to be the Mother
of Christ in order to have part with him in the redemption of the
human race." (Pope Pius XII)
"For it was while Eve was yet a virgin,
that the ensnaring word had crept into her ear which was to build
the edifice of death. Into a virgin's soul, in like manner, must
be introduced that Word of God which was to raise the fabric of
life; so that what had been reduced to ruin by this sex, might by
the selfsame sex be recovered to salvation. As Eve had believed
the serpent, so Mary believed the angel. The delinquency which the
one occasioned by believing, the other by believing effaced."
[Tertullian ("an excellent early Christian writer" - although he would ultimately fall into heresy), 3rd century A.D.]
"She
gave Him Sonship, but He also gave her Motherhood. At the crib she
became His Mother; at the Cross she was called the 'Woman'. No Son
in the world but Christ could ever make His Mother the mother of
all men, because the flesh is possessive and exclusive. Making her
the Woman or the Universal Mother was like a new creative world.
He made her twice: once for Himself, and once for us in His
Mystical Body. She made Him as the new Adam; He now installs her
as the new Eve, the Mother of mankind." (Archbishop Fulton
Sheen)
"By divine decision, the new Eve, mother of
the new generation of the living, is the irreducible enemy of
Satan and, together with the Savior, has the task of defeating
Satan and crushing his head. The pride of the rebellious angel is
given a deadly blow, from the moment in which God makes use of a
creature, and in particular a woman, to realize the plan of
redemption entrusted to His Son. Satan has other and no less
important reasons for nourishing a particular hatred against Mary.
In this regard, it is interesting to report the testimony of
exorcist priests, who agree that when the name of Mary is
pronounced, a person possessed or disturbed by a demon manifests
the most violent reactions." (Fr. Fanzaga)
"But
this is the sum of the whole message. The Word of God, as the
Bridegroom, effecting an incomprehensible union, Himself, as it
were, the same both planting, and being planted, has molded the
whole nature of man into Himself. But comes last the most perfect
and comprehensive salutation; Blessed are you among women. i.e.
Alone, far before all other women; that women also should be
blessed in you, as men are in your Son; but rather both in both.
For as by one man and one woman came at once both sin and sorrow,
so now also by one woman and one man has both blessing and joy
been restored, and poured forth upon all." (Greek Expositor, as quoted by St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church)
"Mary
brought forth life for the world, and Eve brought upon it the law
of death. She by her sin ruined us, Mary by her divine Child saved
us. Eve poisoned our very root by the fruit of the tree; Mary is
the branch whence springs the flower that refreshed us with its
fragrance and healed us by its fruit. Under the curse Eve brings
forth her children in sorrow, Mary gives us blessing and
salvation. Faithless Eve yielded to the serpent, deceived her
husband, and ruined her children; Mary by her obedience appeased
the Father's wrath, merited to have God for her Son, and saved her
posterity. Eve gave us to drink the juice of a bitter fruit, Mary
pours upon us unending sweetness from its fountain-head, her Son.
Eve's bitter apple set her children's teeth on edge, our Lady has
made us the sweetest bread for our food; near her none can perish
unless he disdain to feast upon this bread." [Prayer of the
Liturgy (Liturgical Year)]
"Eve
listened to the serpent with lamentable consequences; she fell
from original innocence and became his slave. The most Blessed
Virgin, on the contrary, ever increased her original gift, and not
only never lent an ear to the serpent, but by divinely given power
she utterly destroyed the force and dominion of the evil one..
Accordingly, the Fathers have never ceased to call the Mother
of God the lily among thorns, the land entirely intact, the Virgin
undefiled, immaculate, ever blessed, and free from all contagion
of sin, she from whom was formed the new Adam, the flawless,
brightest, and most beautiful paradise of innocence, immortality
and delights planted by God himself and protected against all the
snares of the poisonous serpent, the incorruptible wood that the
worm of sin had never corrupted, the fountain ever clear and
sealed with the power of the Holy Spirit, the most holy temple,
the treasure of immortality, the one and only daughter of life -
not of death - the plant not of anger but of grace, through the
singular providence of God growing ever green contrary to the
common law, coming as it does from a corrupted and tainted
root." (Pope Pius IX, "Ineffabilis Deus", 1854)
"Gabriel
goes on still enumerating the supernatural riches of Mary. He says
to her: 'The Lord is with thee.' What means this? It means, that
even before Mary had conceived our Lord in her chaste womb, she
already possessed Him in her soul. But, would the words be true,
if that union with God has once not been, and had begun only when
her disunion with Him by sin had been removed? The solemn
occasion, on which the angel uses this language, forbids us to
think that he conveyed by it any other idea, than that she had
always had the Lord with her. We feel the allusion to a contrast
between the first and the second Eve; the first lost the God who
had once been with her; the second had, like the first, received
our Lord into her from the first moment of her existence, and
never lost Him, but continued from first to last and forever to
have Him with her. Let us listen once more to the salutation, and
we shall find from its last words that Gabriel is announcing the
fulfillment of the divine oracle, and is addressing Mary as the
woman foretold to be the instrument of the victory over Satan.
'Blessed art thou among women.' For four thousand years, every
woman has been under the curse of God, and has brought forth her
children in suffering and sorrow: but here is the one among them,
that has been ever blessed of God, that has ever been the enemy of
the serpent, and that shall bring for the fruit of her womb
without travail." (Dom Gueranger)
"By
these last words of thine, O Mary! Our happiness is secured. Thou
consentest to the desire of heaven, and thy consent brings us our
Savior. O Virgin-Mother! Blessed among women! We unite our thanks
with the homage that is paid thee by the angels. By thee is our
ruin repaired; in thee is our nature restored; for thou hast
wrought the victory of man over Satan! St. Bernard, in one of his
homilies on this Gospel, thus speaks: 'Rejoice, O thou our father
Adam! But thou, O mother Eve, still more rejoice! You were our
parents, but you were also our destroyers; and what is worse, you
had wrought our destruction before you gave us birth. Both of you
must be consoled in such a daughter as this: but thou, O Eve, who
wast the first cause of our misfortune, and whose humiliation has
descended upon all women, thou hast a special reason to rejoice in
Mary. For the time is now came when the humiliation is taken away,
neither can man any longer complaining against the woman, as of
old, when he foolishly thought to excuse himself, and cruelly put
all the blame on her, saying: 'The women whom thou gavest me,
gave me of the tree, and I did eat.' Go, Eve, to Mary; go, mother,
to thy daughter; let thy daughter take thy part, and free thee
from thy disgrace, and reconcile thee to her father: for if man
fell by a woman, he is raised up by a woman.' [As St. Bernard
says,] 'What is this thou sayest, Adam? 'The woman whom thou
gavest me, gave me of the tree, and I did eat?' These are wicked
words; far from effacing thy fault, they aggravate it. But divine
Wisdom conquered thy wickedness, by finding in the treasury of his
own inexhaustible mercy a motive for pardon, which he had in vain
sought to elicit by questioning thee. In place of the women thou
complainest, he gives thee another: Eve was foolish, Mary is wise;
Eve was proud, Mary is humble; Eve gave thee of the tree of death,
Mary will give thee of the tree of life; Eve offered thee a bitter
and poisoned fruit, Mary will give thee the sweet fruit she
herself is to bring forth, the fruit of everlasting life. Change,
then, thy wicked excuse into an act of thanksgiving, and say: 'The
woman, whom thou hast given me, O Lord, hath given me of the tree
of life, and I have eaten thereof; and it is sweeter than honey to
my mouth, for by it thou hast given me life.'" (Gueranger)
Also
See: Praise
of Mary | Immaculate
Conception / Sinlessness [Pg.] | Original
Sin (Catholic Basics/Reflections) | Mary
Vs. Satan | Mary's
Maternity [Pg.] | Catholic
Basics Section | Marian
Facts | Marian
Scriptural
References | Some
Reasons
to Honor the Blessed Virgin Mary | Some
Thoughts
on the Blessed Virgin Mary
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