As many know, 2017 is the 100th anniversary of the purported appearances of Mary to the three child seers at Fatima, Portugal. As one who has written a great deal on the topic of Mary, this is important to me, but not for the same reasons as it is for our Roman Catholic friends (Fatima is an approved apparition, unlike that of Medjugorje, so it has Vatican backing).
To understand why Fatima is so important to Catholics, see the following documentary:
Today, I read a book by leading Catholic Mariologist and proponent of the “Fifth Marian Doctrine” (Mary as co-redemptrix, co-mediatrix, and advocate), Mark Miravalle, “With Jesus”: The Story of Mary Co-Redemptrix (Goleta, Calif.: Queenship Publishing, 2003). The book is a full-length discussion and defense of this doctrine and the “propriety” of it being elevated to the status of a dogma. There is a significant portion of the volume dedicated to modern Marian revelations and apparitions, including a chapter on those of Fatima and Mary’s role as co-redemptrix and co-mediatrix. As Miravalle writes:
In the monumental apparition of July 13, 1917, which predicts great upcoming trials and persecutions for the Church and world, and specifically for the Holy Father. Our Lady of Fatima, again directs the children to “sacrifice yourselves for sinners” and identifies her own coredemptive mediation and the consistent praying of the Holy Rosary as the only true remedy by which to obtain peace in the world: “ . . . . Continue to pray the Rosary every day in honor of our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace in the world and the ending of the war, because only she can help you.” It is thereby most fitting that she would later appear on October 13 during the historic event of the great solar miracle under the appearance of Our Lady of Sorrows.
Indeed, human coredemption envelops the July 13 Fatima message, with its call for Christian offering of sacrifice and consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In addition, Our Lady of the Rosary predicts an eventual Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary as the fruit of various levels of human cooperation: “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” (Miravalle, With Jesus, pp. 235-36, emphasis in bold added)
Miravalle then discusses the theology of Fatima as enunciated by Lúcia de Jesus dos Santos (1907-2005), one of the three Fatima seers:
In her treatment on the devotion of Mary’s Immaculate Heart, Sr. Lucia acknowledges the unity of the Heart of Mary Co-redemptrix with the Heart of Christ from the Annunciation to Calvary:
God began the work of our redemption in the Heart of Mary, given that it was given that it was through her “fiat” that the redemption began to come about: “And Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.’ (Lk. 1:38). “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:14). Thus, in the closest union possible between two human beings, Christ began, with Mary, the work of our salvation. The Christ’s heart-beats are those of the heart of Mary, the prayer of Christ is the prayer of Mary, the joys of Christ are the joys of Mary; it was from Mary that Christ received the Body and Blood that are to be poured out and offered for the salvation of the world. Hence, Mary made one with Christ, is the Co-redemptrix of the human race. With Christ in her womb, with Jesus Christ in her arms, with Christ at Nazareth and in his public life; with Christ she climbed the hill of Calvary, she suffered and agonized with Him, receiving into her Immaculate Heart the last sufferings of Christ, his last words, his last agony and the last drops of his blood in order to offer them to the Father. (Sr. Lucia, “Calls” from the Message of Fatima, p. 137) (Miravalle, With Jesus, pp. 237-38, emphasis in bold added)
Finally, Miravalle offers the following commentary and quotation of the theology of Fatima:
Sr. Lucia’s commentary on the Presentation describes the Mother’s knowledge of the eventual fulfillment of Simeon’s prophecy and her expiatory offering “with Jesus” as Co-redemptrix of humanity:
Mary knows that this prophecy is to be fulfilled in the person of her Son; she knows that He has been sent by God to carry out the work of our redemption. And far from wanting to save Him from such pain and suffering, she takes Him in her pure arms, brings Him to the temple with her virginal hands and places Him on the altar so that the priest may offer Him to the eternal Father as an expiatory victim and sacrifice of praise.'
Here, Mary does not simply offer her Son, she offers herself with Christ, because Jesus had received his body and blood from her; thus she offers herself in and with Christ to God, Co-redemptrix, with Christ, of humanity. (Sr. Lucia, “Calls” From the Message of Fatima, p. 279)
The powerful intercession of Mary, Mediatrix of all graces, in no way violates the scriptural revelation of 1 Timothy 2:5 of Christ, the One Mediator (Cf. Lumen Gentium, 61, 62). Rather, the Mother’s subordinate participation in the mediation of Christ leads to the fulfillment of the redemptive mission of the One Mediator. Sr. Lucia defends the Mother of God’s intercessory prayer in virtue of her prior mission as Co-Redemptrix:
. . . So if the Apostle tells us to pray for one another, we have much more reason to ask Mary to pray for us, because her prayer will be much more pleasing to the Lord in view of her dignity as Mother of God and her loser union with Christ, true God and true Man, by reason of her mission of Co-redemptrix with Christ as well as of her great sanctity. (Sr. Lucia, “Calls” From the Message of Fatima, p. 266) (Miravalle, With Jesus, pp. 238-40, emphasis in bold added)
The reference to Mary aiding the priest to offer Christ as an expiatory sacrifice, for those wondering, refers to Mary’s role in the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Christ in the Mass (see my articles responding to Robert Sungenis, Not by Bread Alone on the biblical and historical problems of Catholic teachings on the Mass).
Such a theology, reflective of the over-exaltation of the Mother of Jesus, is part-and-parcel of Catholic theology and piety. As Philip Schaff once aptly put it:
After the middle of the fourth century it [the Church] overstepped the wholesome biblical limit, and transformed "the mother of the Lord" into the mother of God, the humble "handmaiden of the Lord" into a queen of heaven, the "highly favored" into a dispenser of favors, the "blessed among women" into an intercessor above all women, nay, we may almost say, the redeemed daughter of fallen Adam, who is nowhere in Holy Scripture excepted from the universal sinfulness, into a sinlessly holy co-redeemer. (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church [8 vols.], 3:410, comment in square brackets added for clarification)
