New Eve

"The mutual relationship between the mystery of the Church and Mary appears clearly in the "great portent" described in the Book of Revelation: "A great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" (12:1). In this sign the Church recognizes an image of her own mystery: present in history, she knows that she transcends history, inasmuch as she constitutes on earth the "seed and beginning" of the Kingdom of God. 139 The Church sees this mystery fulfilled in complete and exemplary fashion in Mary. She is the woman of glory in whom God's plan could be carried out with supreme perfection. The "woman clothed with the sun"-the Book of Revelation tells us-"was with child" (12:2). The Church is fully aware that she bears within herself the Saviour of the world, Christ the Lord. She is aware that she is called to offer Christ to the world, giving men and women new birth into God's own life. But the Church cannot forget that her mission was made possible by the motherhood of Mary, who conceived and bore the One who is "God from God", "true God from true God". Mary is truly the Mother of God, the Theotokos, in whose motherhood the vocation to motherhood bestowed by God on every woman is raised to its highest level. Thus Mary becomes the model of the Church, called to be the "new Eve", the mother of believers, the mother of the "living" (cf. Gen 3:20)."

"Eve was condemned to sadness, to tears, to the pains of childbirth, to death, for having lent her ear to the evil suggestions of the hostile serpent; and it was just. But how would this blessed Virgin who has shown herself obedient to God, how would this Virgin united in all her being to God become the prey of death and the prisoner of the tomb?"

"The First-born of the Father is born of the Virgin, in order that the disobedience caused by the serpent might be destroyed in the same manner in which it had originated. For Eve, an undefiled virgin, conceived word of the serpent, and brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary, filled with faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced to her the good tidings that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her, and the power of the Highest would overshadow her, and therefore the Only One born of her would be the Son of God, she answered: "Be it done unto me according to thy word" (Lk. 1:35). And, indeed, she gave birth to Him, concerning whom we have shown so many passages of Scripture were written, and by whom God destroys both the serpent and those angels and men who have become like the serpent, but frees from death those who repent of their sins and believe in Christ."

"For as Eve was seduced by the word of an angel to avoid God after she had disobeyed His word, so Mary, by the word of an angel, had the glad tidings delivered to the her that she might bear God, obeying His word. And whereas the former had disobbeyed God, yet the latter was persuaded to obey God in order that the Virgin Mary might be the advocate of the virgin Eve."

"For into Eve, as yet a virgin, had crept the Devil's word, the framer of death. Equally, into a virgin was introduced God's Word, the builder of life; so that what had been lost throught one sex might by the same sex be restored and saved."