Mary Mother of God

Pope John Paul II's Teaching on Marian Coredemption by Arthur Burton Calkins. I. Introduction At greater length and more often than any of his predecessors, Pope John Paul II has dealt with the theme of collaboration in the work of redemption. In fact, in the course of the present series of Marian catecheses which he is giving, he has been highlighting creaturely cooperation in the history of our salvation. [1] Further, he has devoted an extensive Apostolic Letter, Salvifici Doloris, precisely to the Christian and redemptive meaning of human suffering. In that notable document, as in so many other places, he has underscored both the unique and never to be equalled suffering of the God-man by which we are redeemed and also the value of the sufferings of the members of his Mystical Body. These latter were given classic expression by Saint Paul in his Letter to the Colossians: " Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ...

Virgin, most holy, Mother of the Word Incarnate, Treasurer of graces, and Refuge of sinners, I fly top your motherly affection with lively faith, and I beg of you the grace ever to do the will of God. Into your most holy hands I commit the keeping of my heart, asking you for health of soul and body, in the certain hope that you, my most loving Mother, will hear my prayer. Into the bosom of your tender mercy, this day, every day of my life, and at the hour of my death, I commend my soul and body. To you I entrust all my hopes and consolations, all my trials and miseries, my life and the end of my life, that all my actions may be ordered and disposed according to your will and that of your Divine Son. Amen.