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Dear catholic.com visitors: This Catholic Answers website, with all its free resources, is the world’s largest source of explanations for Catholic beliefs and practices. We receive no funding from the institutional Church and rely entirely on your generosity to sustain this website with trustworthy, accessible content. If every visitor this month donated $1, catholic.com would be fully funded for an entire year. If you’ve never made a gift, now is the time. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar this week only. Thanks and God bless.
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Mary as the Mother in the Order of Grace?

Question:

What does it mean that Mary is our Mother “in the order of grace"?

Answer:

In short, Eve is described as “the mother of all the living” in the natural order (Gen. 3:20). Similarly, the early Church Fathers viewed Mary as “the New Eve,” i.e., of God’s children in the supernatural order, the order of grace. For through her yes, in contrast to Eve’s no, came forth the Redeemer of the world.

We see this further illustrated in Revelation 12, as the dragon, who represents the devil, goes off “to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus” (Rev. 12:17). The author makes clear he’s referring to Mary, the Mother of Jesus (Rev. 12:13).

For further reading, please see our article on “Making Peace with the Mediatrix.”

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