Sunday, September 15, 2024

René Laurentin on κεχαριτωμένη in Luke 1:28

Catholic theologian, René Laurentin, wrote the following on why he renders κεχαριτωμένη as “one who has won God’s favor” or “object of God’s favor”

 

It is out of a concern for exactness that the expression is not translated simply “full of grace.” But this expression is used only for Christ in Jn 1:14. This is not without significance, for the Word made flesh has the fulness of grace from within by his very divinity. In Mary grace is purely and simply the fruit of gratuitous love and kindness. Probably it is not by chance that the inspired text, in speaking of Mary’s grace, does not refer to it as a thing possessed by the Virgin, but as a gift of God. The text thus considers grace not from the angle of created effects but from the angel of the cause of grace, God’s creative kindness. In verse 30 Gabriel comments, “You have done God’s favor.” No doubt the love of God for her whom he names prominently “the object of his favor” (one could even say “the beloved”) realizes a fulness of her; thus the translation of the Vulgate here represents a valid dogmatic interpretation, but it is a transposition rather than a translation. (René Laurentin, A Short Treatise on the Virgin Mary [6th ed.; trans. Charles Neumann; Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022], 20 n. 9)

 

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