WL 3386: Mary in the Christian Tradition
Spring 2022
FINAL EXAM
INSTRUCTIONS:
Please select two of the following passages (scroll all the way down to see the passages) and write two essays (of around 500 words each) that accomplish all the objectives listed in Roman numerals I-III. You may structure your essays however you wish as long as you cover all the required topics. Please reproduce the passage chosen at the beginning of your essay, or otherwise indicate for us which passage you are discussing. Remember to engage with ALL the important ideas expressed in the passage.
Make sure that you address at some point in your two essays at least 6 of the 20 readings we have covered in the second half of the semester. Quotes are fine but not required. When you do refer to the readings we have studied, please give us a page number (or paragraph number for the papal and Council documents).
You may discuss additional readings from the earlier part of the semester if you wish but do make sure to cover at least 6 (3 per essay) from the weeks since the midterm.
Remember that you have three hours to complete the exam, and budget your time accordingly.
- I) Identify the text the passage is from, explain the significance of the passage for the complete text, and then discuss the theological elements of the passage.
- II) Explain the significance of the ideas mentioned in the passage for the Marian tradition as a whole by comparing the passage to works from (at least) two other sources we have worked with in the second half of this semester. Note: if you discuss the passage plus two other works in each essay, you will have exactly the six sources we have required.
III) Explain what Marian principles the passage illustrates, and how it relates to historical, social, political, and/or cultural contexts.
List of works covered in the second half of the course:
René Laurentin, A Short Treatise on the Virgin Mary
Denis Farkasfalvy, The Marian Mystery: Outline of a Mariology
Martin Luther, Commentary on the Magnificat, Part 1
Council of Trent, 25th Session: Invocation of the Saints
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695), Villancicos and devotional poems
Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda, Mystical City of God
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae IIIa, 27, (1-) 2
John Duns Scotus, “The Immaculate Conception and the Mediation of Christ”
Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus
John Henry Cardinal Newman, Letter to Pusey
Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe,” and “May Magnificat”
Henry Adams, “The Dynamo and the Virgin” (from The Education of Henry Adams). Also “Prayers to the Virgin and the Dynamo”
Charles Cardinal Journet, Our Lady of Sorrows
Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater
Luis Laso de la Vega, The Story of Guadalupe
Franz Werfel, The Song of Bernadette
Joris Karl Huysmans, The Crowds of Lourdes
Pope Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus
Lumen Gentium, Ch. 8 (“The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God in the Mystery of Christ and the Church”)
Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary
PASSAGES TO CHOOSE FROM:
- “The most perfect mediator would perform the most perfect act of mediation on behalf of any person for whom he mediated. But Christ is the most perfect Mediator…For no other person did he exhibit a more excellent degree of mediation than he did for Mary…But this would not have happened if he had not merited that she should be preserved from original sin.”
- “Whoever, therefore, would show her the proper honor must not regard her alone and by herself, but set her in the presence of God and far beneath Him, must there strip her of all honor, and regard her low estate, as she says; he should then marvel at the exceedingly abundant grace of God, who regards, embraces, and blesses so poor and despised a mortal. Thus regarding her, you will be moved to love and praise God for His grace, and drawn to look for all good things to Him, who does not reject but graciously regards poor and despised and lowly mortals. Thus your heart will be strengthened in faith and love and hope.”
- “Understand, rest very much assured, my youngest child, that nothing whatever should frighten you or worry you. Do not be concerned, do not fear the illness, or any other illness or calamity. Am I, your mother, not here? Are you not under my protective shade, my shadow? Am I not your happiness? Are you not in the security of my lapfold, in my carrying gear? Do you need something more? Do not let anything worry you or upset you further.”
- “And of all passions love is the most unmanageable; nay more, I would not give much for that love which is never extravagant, which always observes the proprieties, and can move about in perfect good taste, under all emergencies. What mother, what husband or wife, what youth or maiden in love, but says a thousand foolish things, in the way of endearment, which the speaker would be sorry for strangers to hear; yet they are not on that account unwelcome to the parties to whom they are addressed.”
- All things rising, all things sizing
25
Mary sees, sympathising
With that world of good,
Nature’s motherhood.
Their magnifying of each its kind
With delight calls to mind 30
How she did in her stored
Magnify the Lord.
- “And when Jesus stopped to speak, she knew from the beginning that for her He would have no word. It was to the women of Jerusalem that He spoke. He did not wish that they should weep for Him. He wished for no natural consolation. Let them weep for themselves and for their children. But the Virgin, who wept in the midst of them – for her Child she had no need to weep. She must weep for other women’s children, for the children of those who were bringing her Son to His death. She had accepted fully, totally. But she must be broken anew, her nature more utterly crushed.”
- “This blessing reaches its full meaning when Mary stands beneath the Cross of her Son (cf. Jn. 19:25). The Council says that this happened “not without a divine plan”: by “suffering deeply with her only-begotten Son and joining herself with her maternal spirit to his sacrifice, lovingly consenting to the immolation of the victim to whom she had given birth,” in this way Mary “faithfully preserved her union with her Son even to the Cross.” It is a union through faith- the same faith with which she had received the angel’s revelation at the Annunciation.”
