The Subordinate Recapitulation of Mary in the Teachings of the Blessed John Paul II

Elżbieta Kasjaniuk

The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin , Poland

Abstract

When discussing the great topics in the teachings of the Blessed John Paul II, we cannot overlook the Marian dimension that was present in all his teachings and was evoked in various situations and contexts. It is not some mannerism of the pope but the consequence of a profound analysis of the economy of salvation, in which the Blessed Virgin Mary plays a vital role. The whole Good News, Christ, the Church, the economy of grace, contain references to Mary. She integrates the motives of the history of creation and salvation and it is in her that they are illuminated. The Mother of the Saviour is a prophetic sign of the history of man, humanity and the church; the first who experiences the ultimate destiny predicted for man and who concentrates, or recapitulates, in herself all the themes of redemption, becoming, so to speak, the embodiment and the guarantee of the recapitulation finally achieved by the Son of God. The Mystery of Mary is inseparably linked to the mystery of redemption. In the pope’s teachings the following theme was documented thoroughly: Redemptoris Mater, so also Recapitulator is Mater, or even Recapitulating Motherhood. Mary is the role model, the picture and the most perfect Daughter of the Mother Church. So she is, in a sense, the “recapitulation” of the church. She is also the Mother of the church – both through giving birth to its Founder and through her maternal presence conferred on her. In discussing subordinate recapitulation, those relations and analogies make necessary the distinction between Mary’s subordinate recapitulation and subordinate ecclesial recapitulation. But they are always in relation to the unique christological recapitulation. Mary, because of the role assigned to her by providence in the history of redemption, may be called the
recapitulating Motherhood. The mystery of recapitulation accomplished in Her is subordinate in character towards christological recapitulation – which is the source of its power and the destination it leads to. this subordinate function of Mary is performed especially towards the church and in the church that gives birth to God’s children, suffering through its members and leading towards final recapitulation in God. The discovery of subordinate recapitulation allows us to see the opulence of God’s intentions. in this context the histories of individual human beings and the history of the world acquire a certain reality, concreteness, and the specific “uniqueness” and “non-substitutability” of each human is accentuated. God’s mysteries become clarified even more, they “draw nearer’ to worldliness, and man perceives himself from the perspective of the elect and elevation. Owing to this approach we may observe a human being becoming, in a subordinate order, the way and completion of recapitulation and – by his free will – he becomes the participant in the mysterious process of divinisation.