To Be Catholic is to be Marian
The Ignatian, ever keen to be integrally and transparently Catholic, is therefore devoted to Our Lady.
By God’s will, due to her unique role as Mother of Christ, she is the mediatrix of all graces to the Mystical Body of Christ.
By consecrating himself to her, the Ignatian achieves his identity as Christian, priest, and apostle of souls.
By closeness to her he swiftly learns the truths that are the pillars of his vocation: God’s providential role in history, His determination to save the world through man’s cooperation with His salvific will firstly through the sacred humanity of Christ in the mysteries of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection; then, through all those who, in Christ, with Christ, and through Christ, open themselves to become mediators of grace.
For she, the Immaculata, is the model, through Christ, in Christ, and with Christ, of how to be free, of how to love, of how to dedicate one’s life to save souls. The world’s salvation depended on her answer to the angel at the moment of the Annunciation. And if ‒ shocking though it is to even think of it ‒ she had said no? Although we can presume that God’s mercy, somehow, would have sought another way to redeem mankind, we do not know how many souls’ salvation would have been endangered. She was not the cause but she certainly was the indispensable condition, historically, for our salvation. In her we see clearly that in the Almighty’s designs, human freedom is ever so seriously to be reckoned with.
She is Regina, Queen of Heaven and Earth. Her power is real, as Pope Pius XII stated in his encyclical Ad Coeli Regina. Her silent, powerful presence is especially active in the lives of those who, as spiritual warriors, commit themselves to the triumph of Christ’s Kingdom in the face of satanic fury. This is a divine promise: “I will put enmities between you and the woman, and your seed and her seed: she will crush your head, and you shall lie in wait for her heel.” (Gen 3:15)