Mary, Mother of God's Word Made Flesh

Mary, Mother of God Made Flesh overviews Catholic teaching on Mary, with a special focus on the "four Marian dogmas" and other major doctrines, such as Mary’s cooperation in the work of salvation and the distribution of graces. The book takes the relationship of Mary to Jesus as its starting point, while also drawing on insights from ecclesiotypical and Christotypical approaches to Mariology.

This book emphasizes that Marian doctrine must be grounded in the revealed Word of God. Thus, it does not rely on private revelations but instead draws on scriptural, magisterial, patristic, and liturgical sources. At the same time, Mary, Mother of God Made Flesh is systematic and not merely historical. It strives to show how Catholic teachings on Mary fit together and explores precisely what they mean.

In this task, Mary, Mother of God Made Flesh draws in a special way on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic school, while also incorporating insights from other approaches. Thus, it also engages with some speculative questions that have not received as much attention in other recent works of Mariology but that remain important for the correct understanding and elaboration of magisterial teachings. For example, it deals with the issue of the debitum peccati ("debt of sin"), which touches on how to connect the Immaculate Conception with the notion of redemption, and the question of precisely how Mary is involved in the conferral of graces.

The most important parts of this book are the chapters on the dogmas of the divine maternity, the immaculate conception, the perpetual virginity of Mary, and her assumption intoheaven. There are also chapters on Mary’s holiness of life, her participation in Christ’s saving work, and Marian devotion in the life of the Church. The first appendix overviews the problem of what St. Thomas Aquinas taught about the Immaculate Conception, while the second discusses the magisterium’s current approach to private revelations and extraordinary phenomena.

Dylan Schrader is the author of A Thomistic Christocentrism: Recovering the Carmelites of Salamanca on the Logic of the Incarnation.