Welcome to the latest Thomas More Centre newsletter.

On Thursday, January 25 in Brisbane, our Queensland organiser and scripture enthusiast Mark Makowiecki followed up his earlier talk on the ‘new Adam’ with another entitled, “The New Eve: How Mary Undoes the Fall of Woman in the Gospel of John”.

Mark began by pointing out that, while the notion of Mary being the new Eve was well known to the Church Fathers, the existence of this ‘typology’ in John’s Gospel has been largely overlooked.

While many would assume that Mary’s two appearances in John’s Gospel – at the wedding at Cana and at the foot of the cross – would offer the most ‘grist for the mill’ in terms of demonstrating Mary’s depiction as a new Eve, Mark showed that the groundwork for it is actually laid in 16:21: “When the woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.”

A close reading revealed that three elements in this passage – the reference to “the woman”, the experience of “sorrow” in childbirth, and the birth of a “man” – tie the labouring woman to Eve. For Eve was simply “the woman” before Adam named her (e.g. Genesis 3:1), she too was to suffer “sorrow” during childbirth (Genesis 3:16, LXX), and she too gave birth to a “man” (Genesis 4:1).

Mark said that by portraying the labouring woman in John 16:21 as one who suffers during childbirth like Eve and who delivers a “man” like Eve, John seems to be implying that she and her son are the ones through whom the prophecy of Genesis 3:15 is to be fulfilled (“I will put enmity between you and between the woman and between your offspring [plural] and between her offspring [singular]”).

He backed up this claim by showing how Jesus is at enmity with the seed of the serpent in John 8 – a fact that would seem to indicate that the mother of Jesus is the woman being spoken of in both Genesis 3:15 and John 16:21.

Using the birth imagery found in John 16:21, Mark then went on to describe how John’s Passion, death and resurrection account amounts to a nativity scene, with Mary labouring, in some mystical manner, to give birth to Christ and his members such that she becomes “the mother of all the living” (Genesis 3:20).

After describing how the birth “from above” (John 3:3, cf. Revelation 12:1-2) took place, Mark then showed how Mary, as the new Eve, played her part in reversing the Fall.

For example, he showed that, unlike Genesis 3 where it is Eve who “sees”, “takes” and “gives” (whilst Adam remains a bystander), in John 19 it is the new Adam who “sees”, “takes”, and “gives (over)” (while Mary remains a bystander).  What might be the significance of this role-reversal?

According to Mark, it demonstrates that Christ, by taking the initiative and doing “as the Father has commanded [him]” (Jn 14:31), undoes Adam’s sin of “listening to the voice of his wife”. Yet he argued that it can be inferred that Mary was cooperating with this event, despite the fact that she does not seem to have an active role.

How so? Well, just as the original (disordered) role-reversal required the cooperation of both a man and a woman, so the latter (corrective) role-reversal also required the cooperation of a man and a woman. Thus it was not only Jesus who atoned for Adam’s acquiescence by exercising his authority and initiative in the way that Adam should have, but didn’t, but Mary also atoned for Eve’s insubordination by submitting to the man’s authority in the way that Eve should have, but didn’t.

Upcoming events & content

In other news, the Thomas More Centre is pleased to be a co-sponsor of the Democratic Conference 2024, which is to be held at Campion College in Sydney this coming Friday and Saturday. Anna Krohn will be involved in the proceedings, and on Sunday will give a talk about the TMC relaunch at St Andrew's Ukrainian Catholic Church after the 11am Divine Liturgy.

Online content is also on the way. We have recorded an interview with the creator of the ‘Saints Alive’ podcast, Alex Dee, in which we discuss the origins and success of the podcast, before branching out to discuss things such as the widespread use of AI imagery. It is in the process of being edited, and should be posted to our YouTube channel (with links on our Facebook page) by the end of the month.

Other interviews that have been lined up include a discussion with a Dutch academic about the Catholic roots of Tintin, and a chat with Larry Chapp who runs the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Farm in Harvey’s Lake, Pennsylvania.

Stay tuned!

The Thomas More Centre team