Mary, Our Mother Sctn.:

Mary / Eve

Also See: Blessed Virgin Mary (Topic Page)

"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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