NO, BROTHER KIERAN FENN, MARY HAD NO SISTER

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The Deposition
Sandro Botticelli

            "Describing Mary as a sister of one of the Gospel women, or placing Mary as one of a 'sisterhood of celebrated women' is to derogate and depart from the true sense of sacred tradition and the Gospels."

Matthew and Teresa Walton of Palmerston North take exception to the article by Brother Kieran Fenn F M S published in NZ Catholic (May 2). As well they might. 

 "Such a description is really an anti-doctrine created on the apparent basis of the people known to be present (on Calvary)" they add. "It is in effect, to deny Mary her Divine Maternity and hence, all her other privileges."

In other words, Keiran Fenn's "anti-doctrine" is Protestant thinking. 

"In claiming that Mary had a sister on Calvary (May 2 N.Z.Catholic) Br. Kieran Fenn F.M.S. shows he is not in touch with the record from Sacred Tradition. Overall, from sources including the Gospels and sacred tradition we have a list of those women who were on Calvary with Mary in the final moments (of Christ's Passion) and who were there when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus came to assist John in bringing Jesus' body down from the Cross.

"These women were: Mary Magdalen, Mary of Alphaeus (the mother of James and Jude), Mary Salome (the mother of James and John), Susanna and Martha. There were other women present on the day (of Christ's Passion) but they had had to go down (from Calvary) earlier.

"None of these women was a blood sister to Mary. Mary of Alphaeus was her sister-in-law (married to Alphaeus, the brother of St Joseph). As we know, a "sister-in-law" can sometimes be known as a 'sister'. We refer the reader to The Poem of the Man-God by Maria Valtorta, a work regarded as being fully consistent with authentic Catholic theology and with all the relevant secular disciplines.

"In the human and natural sense, these women assisted Mary at the Deposition of Jesus' Body. In the spiritual and theological sense they were then, and remain, her daughters in faith in Christ.

"For Mary is the "Mother of all the living".

"One of the ways we can know Mary is through knowledge of dogma and accepted Doctrine. The dogma here is that of the Motherhood of God - which Jesus on the Cross extended to embrace all of humanity, in particular those who profess belief in Jesus.

 "The doctrine that applies here is that of Mary as Co-Redemptrix with Christ our Redeemer, our redemption having been brought about by the union of the suffering of the Son and the Mother. The presence of the women on Calvary went beyond the merely human sense; it carried with it the real sense of assisting Mary as their Queen and Mother in the Act of Redemption.

"Further, tradition and the Gospel place only one child in Mary's original family. "Anne, wife of Joachim, conceived in her old age". Tradition also tells us that at the age of three, Mary was handed over to the Temple and placed under the guidance of Anna.

"Tradition has always accepted without the slightest doubt that the point of creating Mary - and this parallels Jesus -  was not to give her blood-brothers and sisters, but to bring into the world this unique person who was to be the Mother of our Saviour and thus our Mother too.

God's economy of salvation is intended for each person created, with equal dignity in the eyes of God. Humans being what they are, if any were closely related to Jesus or Mary they would have made a claim of superiority or preference on the basis of their close relationship to the Saviour.

Even as things were, there was a tendency for later generations to make such claims on the basis of their being descended from cousins of Jesus.

"We know now, that in her Divine Maternity,  Mary becomes "Mother of all the living".

 

Mary as Co-Redemptrix