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The Blessed Virgin Mary: The Ever-Virgin Mother of God of the Assumption Adult Faith Formation, Advent 2020 Rev. Ryan Amazeen

• Mary: The Mother of God () o Council of Ephesus, 431 A.D. ▪ Debate: Is Mother of God fitting title for Mary? • Some oppose this title o Does this imply she gave His divinity? (NO!) o Does this imply she is divine? (NO!) • Others say what we believe about Jesus leads us to proclaim Mary as Mother of God – let’s explore why! o Reasons why Church calls Mary “the Mother of God” ▪ Mother of Christ • No doubt that Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ • “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town. And too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:1-7) • Jesus was truly conceived and born of Mary – avoid heresies denying His true humanity ▪ Mother of God? • Our belief about Jesus reveals the answer o Nestorian heresy: “Christ [is] a human person joined to the divine person of God’s Son” (CCC 466) ▪ In Jesus, there are two persons; one human, one divine ▪ Conception and birth is of the human person, not the divine person ▪ So, Mary is the Mother of the human person in Jesus, but not of the divine person (i.e. God) – not the Mother of God o Orthodox belief (i.e. the TRUTH) ▪ Jesus is one Person, the Second Person of the Trinity (God), who took on a human nature (Jesus is God who took on a human nature!)

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▪ In this one person, a complete human nature is united to the divine nature without mixture; the two natures are united in this one divine person ▪ So, Jesus is not two persons; He is not a human person ▪ Jesus is a divine person (God) who took on a human nature; because He has a human nature, He can do human things • Every human action of Jesus is attributable to the one divine person who Jesus is o We say “God does this in His human nature” • Every divine action of Jesus is attributable to the one divine person who Jesus is o We say “God does this in His divine nature” • So, Mary gives birth to God “in His human nature” • Therefore, Mary is the Mother of God – Jesus is conceived and born from her, meaning the Second Person of the Trinity is conceived and born from her in His human nature. Mary is the Mother of God because Jesus, her Son, is God o Does this title imply Mary gave Jesus His divine nature? ▪ No – Mary only helped to form human nature in her womb ▪ “Mother of God” means that the human nature she helped to form belonged to God; it was God’s human nature o Summary from the Catechism: “The One whom [Mary] conceived as man by the , who truly became her Son according to the flesh, was none other than the Father's eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Hence the Church confesses that Mary is truly "Mother of God" (CCC 495) • Basis in Scripture o “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end…Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (Luke 1:31-33, 35)

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o “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled” (Luke 1: 41-45)

• Ever-Virgin: virgin before, during, and after the birth of Christ o Second Council of Constantinople (553), the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), and the Second Council of Lyons (1274) o Virgin before Christ’s birth ▪ “From the first formulations of her faith, the Church has confessed that Jesus was conceived solely by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, affirming also the corporeal aspect of this event: Jesus was conceived ‘by the Holy Spirit without human seed’” (CCC 496) • Mary was a virgin when she conceived Jesus; there was no human man involved in this conception – miracle o “The Fathers see in the virginal conception the sign that it truly was the Son of God who came in a humanity like our own” (CCC 496) o The virgin conception and birth clearly reveal Jesus is the Son of God, a divine person ▪ Why would God choose the Virgin conception of Jesus? • Shows that God is in charge of the Incarnation o Only God could have effected such a miracle • “By his virginal conception, Jesus, the New , ushers in the new birth of children adopted in the Holy Spirit through faith” (CCC 505) • Mary’s virginity as a sign of her pure, unadulterated faith o Virgin during Christ’s birth ▪ Christ’s birth “did not diminish His mother's virginal integrity but sanctified it” (Lumen Gentium 57) ▪ Mary remained a virgin during the birth of her son o Virgin after the birth of Christ ▪ Mary remained a virgin her whole life

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• The early call Mary “the Virgin,” implying that “they considered this quality a permanent fact with regard to her whole life” (St. John Paul II) • Early Church fathers gave her the title “ever-virgin” to emphasize her life-long virginity, even after Christ’s birth • “There are no grounds for thinking that the will to remain a virgin which Mary expressed at the moment of the was subsequently changed” (St. John Paul II) ▪ Objection based on the Scriptures: Jesus’ “brothers and sisters?” • Analysis of language reveals the term translated as “brother and sisters” actually implies cousins, or close blood relatives ▪ Basis in scripture? • Yes – “This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it; because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it” ( 44:2) • “What means this closed gate in the House of the Lord, except that Mary is to be ever inviolate? What does it mean that 'no man shall pass through it,' save that Joseph shall not know her? And what is this—'The Lord alone enters in and goeth out by it'—except that the Holy Ghost shall impregnate her, and that the Lord of angels shall be born of her? And what means this—'it shall be shut for evermore'—but that Mary is a virgin before His Birth, a virgin in His Birth, and a virgin after His Birth?" ( Augustine) ▪ Why does perpetual virginity make sense? Reasons of St. • In His divine nature, Jesus is the only Son of the Father; in His human nature, the only son of His mother • Would be ungrateful of Mary to have other children and show discontent with having the perfect Son (interesting!)

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