There were many women in the life of the founder of the Society of the Atonement, Fr. Paul Wattson, S.A. In his family, in the members of the Society of the Atonement, among the clients that he gave spiritual direction to and finally the female readers of his magazine, The Lamp. Some women gave him stature; others he lifted up. The woman whom he loved the most was Mary, the Blessed Mother. To her he gave the title, Our Lady of the Atonement.
Our Lady of the Atonement — Blessed Virgin Mary
The woman Fr. Paul paid the greatest honor to was, of course, Mary, the mother of Jesus. He took great pride in the fact he, in view of certain apparitions of the Blessed Virgin at Graymoor, gave her the title of Our Lady of the Atonement. Under that title he put her Feast Day on July 9, the day on which he had received the name for his Society (At-one-ment) and the Scripture text for it.
Fr. Paul saw Mary at the foot of the Cross as intimately associated with the Atonement.
As the Blessed Virgin is inseparably associated with our divine Redeemer in the mystery of his Incarnation, so is she closely associated with him in the great act of the Atonement.
He elaborated on Mary's part in the Atonement.
"She is necessarily "of the Atonement" since it was the will of God that she play a necessary part in the atonement or redemption. This is not to say that without her man would have remained unredeemed but that God's plan gave her a large share in the redemptive work. When we address the Blessed Mother, as "of the Atonement," we mean then, that there is some very close bond between the atonement and her, that she belongs to the atonement and the atonement to her. Mary, although her part is in no way similar in nature to that of her divine Son's, cooperated with Jesus Christ, as no other creature did, in his work of reconciling man with God. Her claim to this high title rests most solidly on the fact that she consented to become, and became the mother of the Redeemer; that she suffered with Jesus during the passion; and that all graces merited for mankind by Christ have come to us through Mary." |
He pinpointed the moment when Mary became the mother of all the baptized.
| "Hear Jesus say to her, "woman, behold your son!" and then to St. John, "Son, behold your mother!" In these words, the Lord of heaven and earth crowned Mary with the motherhood of all the elect, who should be redeemed by his precious atoning blood, and through St. John, he addresses himself to all the children of the atonement until the end of the world, saying, "Behold your mother.” |
He stressed that Mary is a real mother.
We must understand by virtue of our new birth into the Kingdom of God that the Blessed Virgin is our real mother and not merely a mother that has just adopted us. By baptism we are incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ and by that process of incorporation we are also brought into relationship with the Blessed Virgin, which is intrinsically similar to the relationship which Christ has to the Blessed Virgin as his mother. The Blessed Virgin is not our stepmother. She is our real mother as far as are the sons and daughters of the atonement and members of the Mystical Body of Christ.
