Friday, June 21, 2024

O. R. Vassall-Phillips (RC) on the "Woman" in Revelation 12:1

  

It is well known that it is often difficult in Holy Scripture to discover whether the direct reference (particularly in Old Testament types) is to the Mother, or to the Church, of Christ. We are taught by writers of great authority that our Lordy and the Church are merged in the Sacred Writings into a mystic unity; for example, already in the second century St Clement of Alexandria writes: “One only Mother Virgin. Dear it is to me to call her the Church.” He was speaking in the first place of the Blessed Virgin (Paed. i. 6). And St Augustine: “His Mother is the whole Church, because through the grace of God, everywhere she gives birth to the faithful of Christ” (De Sancta Virg. vi). It is also certain that our Lady represents and personifies the Church, as for example in her obedience: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to why word”; and in her prayer as at Cana: “They have no wine”; and in her submission to Christ: “Whatsoever he shall say to you, that do ye”; and in her faithfulness to our Lord to the end. Therefore, we shall not be surprised if we find that some of the few writers of antiquity who have written on this Vision in the Apocalypse refer it in the first place to our Lady and others to there can be no doubt that it is to the Church under the figure of the Blessed Mother of God, who is represented to us as the Mother, not only of the Man-Child who was to rule the nations with a rod of iron, but also of “the rest of her seed,” who are expressly pointed out as Christians “having the testimony of Jesus Christ.” (O. R. Vassall-Phillips, “Mary, Mother of God,” in The Teaching of the Catholic Church: A Summary of Catholic Doctrine, ed. George D. Smith, 2 vols. [New York: The MacMillan Company, 1927, 1961], 1:540 n. 1)

 

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