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The Blessed Virgin Mary

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The Blessed Virgin Mary All About Mary Prepared and Presented by Deacon in Formation Barry S. Phillips www.sacredheartofhartwell.com/barry.htm THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY Who is Mary? Mother of God - Mary is the true physical mother of Jesus Christ, Who is truly God; hence Mary is the Mother of God. The doctrine was defined at the Council of Ephesus in 431 in order to counter Nestorius, who thought that Mary gave birth to Jesus Christ's human nature only. The Catholic Church responded by stating that persons, and not natures, are conceived and born, and that Jesus Christ was a Divine Person, and God-Man. The purpose of this doctrine was, and is, to safeguard the Divinity of Jesus Christ. As such, it is Christ-centered, not Mary- centered. In no way does it imply that Mary is greater than, or prior to, God. Our Mother - Jesus Christ gave to John - and by implication, all Christians - His Mother, to be our Spiritual Mother (Jn 19:26-27; cf. Rev 12:1-2,5,17). Our Lord said, ―Behold your mother.‖ He was not suggesting that Mary become our mother, but that Mary is our Mother. And to Mary He gave us as children. But, if this is true, how do we make theological sense of this relationship? Turning again to Scripture, we can best understand it by considering St. Paul‘s beautiful doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ (cf. Col 1:18, Eph 4:15). In this whole Body, St. Paul refers to Christ as the Head and the Church as the Body. Head and Body make up the entire and whole Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. Now, if we say that Mary gave birth to Jesus, the Head of the Body, then it must be that she gave birth to the entire Body since a true body cannot be separated. Thus, it would mean that she gave birth to the members as well. Thus, we can ask for her prayers on our behalf, which have great efficacy due to her exalted holiness and closeness to our Lord Jesus Christ. New Eve - It is based on and reaffirms the fact that Jesus is the New Adam, come to undo the Fall of the first Adam. Early Christians taught that the Annunciation marks the reversal of the temptation of the first Eve. In the Garden, Eve believed the lies of a fallen angel, disobeyed God and so became the cause of Adam's Fall (Genesis 3:1-7). At the Annunciation, Mary believed the words spoken by a holy angel, obeyed God and so became the Mother of the One who would save us from Adam's Fall! Mary's obedience reversed Eve's disobedience; thus Mary is the New Eve for the new creation in Christ. Just as Eve cooperated with Adam in the Fall, Mary cooperates with Jesus. St. Elizabeth's inspired reference to Christ as the "fruit of (Mary's) womb" (Luke 1:42) also identifies Our Lady as the New Eve. The first Eve gave Adam the forbidden fruit, and so she became the indirect cause of the Fall, The New Eve gave the New Adam "the Fruit of her womb" - His human Body, in which He suffered and died for us - and so she became the indirect cause of the Redemption. St. John's depiction of Calvary clearly parallels the Garden of Eden: there is a tree (the Cross - see Galatians 3:13), a man (Jesus) and a woman (Mary). E V E M A R Y Created without Original Sin Born without Original Sin (LUK 1:28) Mother of all the living (GEN 3:20) Mother of all living in Christ (REV 12:17) Heeded the evil angel (GEN 3) Heeded good angel (LUK 1:26 – 38) Pursued by the Serpent (GEN 3) Pursued by the Serpent (REV 12:13) Believed the Devil Believed God Did according to her will (GEN 3:6) Did according to God‘s will (LUK 1:38) Brought death into the world Brought Life into the world Approaches Adam which manifests Approaches New Adam manifests His his downfall glory (JOH 2) Old Adam calls her ―woman‖ (GEN 2:23) New Adam calls her ―woman‖ (JOH 2:4) Intercessor - All Christians should be intercessors. This is what happens when we ask others to pray for us. The Bible makes it clear that those who are just or righteous are heard by God, and since we know that those in heaven have no impurity or unrighteousness in them (otherwise they would not be able to withstand the presence of God), then we say that the prayers of the saints have a power and efficacy which may not always be the case with those of us who are still steeped in imperfection. In line with this way of thinking, we see that Mary's intercessory prayers, (because she is the Mother of God and therefore as pure as any human being could be) have a special power to them. Who is closer to Jesus than Mary? Jesus performed his first public miracle, changing the water to wine, at the behest of his mother, Mary. (John 2:1-12) Perfect Disciple - Mary was the first believer. She said ―yes‖ to God on faith alone. Although graced by God, she was not merely a passive instrument. She was active and cooperative. She interceded at Jesus‘ first public miracle. She suffered at the foot of the cross. She was with the apostles praying in the upper room at Pentecost. She is the mother of Jesus, but also his disciple. According to St. Luke, to be a disciple of Christ is more blessed than to be his mother. (Luke 11:27-28). Hers was the happiness of first bearing in her womb him who she would obey as her master. (Augustine). Mary Always With Us At every crucial point in the history of salvation, since the fall of our first parents (Gen 3:15), to the announcement of the incarnation of the Word (Lk 1:26ff.), from the beginning of the public mission of Jesus at Cana (Jn 2:1-11), to His redemptive sacrifice consummated on the Cross (in 19:25-27), up to the accomplishment of the very last detail in the universal salvific plan (Rev 12), Mary is the "woman" always present with her Son, never alone, to fulfill her role of "generous companion and humble handmaid of the Lord". Bible and Tradition Catholicism needs only to show the harmony of a doctrine with the Bible. It is not our view that every doctrine of Christianity must appear whole, explicit, and often, in the pages of the Bible. We have also Sacred Tradition, Church Authority, and an acceptance of the development of understanding of essentially unchanging Christian truths. A belief implicitly biblical is not "anti- biblical" or "unbiblical," as many Protestants would have us believe. In fact, many Protestant doctrines are either not found in the Bible at all (e.g., "Bible alone" and the Canon of the Bible), are based on only a very few direct passages (e.g., the Virgin Birth), or are indirectly deduced from many implicit passages (e.g., the Trinity, the two natures of Jesus Christ). Likewise with the Immaculate Conception and other Catholic Marian beliefs. Genesis 3:15 "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed; He shall crush your head, and you shall lie in wait for his heel." – Genesis 3:15 The passage has come to be known as the "Protoevangelium" or "Protogospel" because, as not a few Church Fathers recognized, and as a number of Popes have confirmed, in this malediction pronounced upon Satan God announced to fallen mankind the First Glad Tidings of a future Redeemer. The overwhelming majority of Catholic scholars (exegetes as well as dogmatic theologians) today agree that the Protoevangelium refers, in some truly Scriptural sense, not only to Christ but also to His Blessed Mother. Certainly, within the last century a great number of bishops have asserted the Marian sense of the Protoevangelium—for example, the 113 bishops who at the Vatican Council signed a petition for the definition of the Assumption and the many others who later, down to 1950 A.D., signed like petitions. Very likely, by now, at least, morally all Catholic bishops teach, with recent Popes, the Marian sense of Gen. 3, 15. Replying to a query about the historical character of the first three chapters of Genesis, the Biblical Commission appointed by the Vatican in 1909 gave us to understand that these chapters contain a number of fundamental teachings of the Christian religion, truths presupposed for the economy of salvation, among which, the 1909 decree expressly states, is "the promise of a future Redeemer." Now the only passage in the first three chapters of Genesis which could constitute such a promise is Gen. 3, 15. This is confirmed by the manner in which the Popes use the Protoevangelium; as we shall see, they treat it as a "dogmatic" text. Such was the belief and teaching of the first Pope known to us as referring to Gen. 3, 15, St. Leo the Great (d. 461). In a sermon on Christ‘s Nativity, he stated: God . , as soon as the diabolical wickedness killed us by the poison of its envy, at the very beginnings of the world signified beforehand the remedies prepared by His mercy for renewing us mortals; announcing to the serpent the future seed of the woman, which would crush by its power the haughtiness of the guilty head; namely, signifying Christ who was to come in the flesh, God and man, who, born of the Virgin, would by His incorrupt birth condemn the violator of the human race.
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