There is a chronic misfiring in a kind of unintentional warm and fuzzy theology of the Woman. All the sharply delineated edges are left off. Genesis 3:15 states to Lucifer: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, thy seed and her seed; and s/he shall crush they head; and thou shalt lie in wait for her/his heel.” Genesis, and this particular passage, is the start of a continuity which continues through to John’s Apocalypse.

Adam had the office of Steward of Life, granted before Woman was even created. It is the basis for the male-only priesthood. After the Sin of Adam, God granted the Woman her own, separate office of ultimate power and authority: that of Vanquisher of Satan, Father of Lies and Murder. Adam’s and the Woman’s is a derivative authority. The male’s general self-sacrifical headship is still extant, including the priesthood stemming from atonement for the Sin of Adam.

Woman’s power and authority goes from the Woman to her Seed, a collective term from Genesis 3:15 aptly denoting our collective identity within the Mystical Body of Christ. Christ derived a dual power and authority as the Son of Man: priestly Adamic duties and rights and Seed of the Woman’s conquest of Lucifer.

Christ’s exclusive references to His mother as “Woman” are lost in thinking of the Woman (“Eve” was her post-exilic name) as just an archetype. It was divine power and authority which was given to Adam, and a separate grant to the Woman, and through her, to her Seed, and not just a type. We don’t call Peter a “type” of John Paul II. It’s more. It’s an office.

Christ adopted John to the Woman, and she to he, with His dying breath that all may be completed. This wasn’t just a caretaker handing over His burdensome charge. It was empowerment and authorization for triumphing over Lucifer together as a family. Adoption is the mechanism by which all are ingrafted into Christ’s family with the Woman, the Virgin Mary, as our spiritual mother.

Apocalpyse 12 shows the Woman appearing in the heavens clothed with the Sun, crowned with 12 stars, the queen-mother of the spiritual twelve tribes. Her Son is persecuted. She is persecuted. And her [u:3o08v60c]other[/u:3o08v60c] children, numberless by adoption, are persecuted. Our kinship with Christ comes through our spiritual adoption which gives us Woman, foe of Satan and his seed, as our mother and ally in this fight.

The forensic, legal ramifications of the Virgin’s office as Woman remain virtually untouched. May our understanding of the Woman flower through our love for Jesus Christ, Seed of the Woman, our Brother.