Lesson 1: Mary Mother of God and All Believers mary, the Mother of God I. The point of departure: A. Everything that we believe about Mary is because of Christ. She has nothing, and does nothing on her own accord. (CCC 487) B. The importance of the incarnation: 1. (CCC 457) Jesus took flesh to accomplish our salvation. “He paid a debt he did not owe, because we owed a debt we could not pay.” 2. (CCC 488) Jesus won our salvation through his incarnation and bridged the gap between our humanity and his divinity. In the person of Christ, our humanity and his divinity are united. But, he received his humanity from Mary. Thanks to Mary, Christ was able to save us! Think about it, Jesus chose to take our human nature through a woman. Our Lord’s plan of salvation was impossible without Mary’s maternity. C. (CCC 495) Therefore, our profession that Mary is the “Mother of God” is the first and most foundational belief about her. All other gifts and graces she received from God are in relation to this truth—She is the mother of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity. It was through her cooperation with God that Jesus was able to take a human nature! D. We’ll see that all our beliefs about Mary are not only directly relative to our beliefs about Christ, but they are very much connected to each other. (e.g. The incarnation and personhood of Jesus.) II. Nestorius and the Council of Ephesus (431 A.D.) A. (CCC 466) The Council condemned the error of Nestorius, who said Jesus was two persons, one human person united to a divine person. The council decreed that Jesus is one divine person with two natures. 1. Nature: answers the question: what is it? (e.g. a flower, and cat, a man). The nature allows the thing to do stuff proper to the nature (e.g. bloom, meow, think abstractly). 2. Person: answers the question: who is it? Note: only a rational nature with a self- consciousness is truly a “who.” The who is responsible of the actions of the nature. B. Saying that Mary was the “Mother of God” (theotokos) was a definitive argument defending the one personhood of Jesus Christ against Nestorius. This is because motherhood is of person to person, not person to nature. My own mom is not the mother of my human nature, but the mother of me. Mary is mother of the one person of Jesus Christ, not just his human nature, as Nestorius said! 1. “By acknowledging Mary as the Mother of God, we confess that she gave birth to a divine being with a true human nature. This is the center of our understanding of Jesus Christ, for a belief in Mary’s divine motherhood is also linked to the doctrine of the Incarnation.” (Essential Mary Handbook, p. 8) C. Here is a very basic, logical syllogism: (a) Jesus is God; (b) Mary is the mother of Jesus; (c) therefore, Mary is the mother of God. 1/4 Lesson 1: Mary Mother of God and All Believers D. Clarification: When we say Mary is the Mother of God, we’re not saying ... 1. Mary is the mother or origin of the Trinity; We believe only that she is the Mother of the second person of the Trinity. 2. Mary gave Jesus his divine nature or personhood. He had this for all eternity. We believe that Mary gave Jesus his human nature, which was united, but not absorbed into, to his divine nature. a) Even human parents don’t even give children their immortal souls. b) Thus, we can truly say that Jesus is the son of God and also son of Mary. E. “She is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God....It is certain that Mary is the Mother of the real and true God.” ~ Martin Luther. III. Scripture verses stating Mary’s motherhood of Jesus: A. Elizabeth’s exclamation is clear: 1. [Luke 1:43] “How is it that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?” B. Scripture calls Mary “the mother of Jesus Christ” over and over again. 1. Matt 2:13; Matt 2:20; Jn 2:1-3; Acts 1:14. C. [Gal 4:4-5] “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.” IV. Final Considerations: A. Consider the meaning of motherhood and the intimacy that a mother has with her child. No one knows the child like the mother! B. The Motherhood of Mary continues even in heaven! (see CCC 969) Mary, New Eve & Mother of Christians To understand Scripture is to understand how God prepared for the coming of his Son and the images he used to do so. This is typology (CCC 128). We have to understand Mary’s participation and involvement in God’s plan in the greater context of Salvation History. I. The Fall From Grace: A. Adam and Eve were created in a state of grace, a state of intimate union with God as his children. Original sin means they lost this state of grace for themselves and all the posterity. B. God promised a redeemer in Genesis 3:15 - the “protoevangelium”. Notice that in this promise of salvation there will be a new woman, and a new man. Adam and Eve are types. A New Creation and a New Wedding: I. The NT explicitly calls Jesus the New Adam: (1 Cor 15:21-22, 45-49 and Romans 5:14 - 21) A. This point is clearly seen in the passion too. Like Adam, Jesus was: tested in a garden, led to a tree, stripped naked, fell into a deep sleep (death), so that his bride, the church, would come from his side. (See Hahn, Hail Holy Queen, p. 32) 2/4 Lesson 1: Mary Mother of God and All Believers II. St. John’s description of the wedding of Cana: A. In the prologue of John’s Gospel, he uses language and images that recall the first creation: “In the beginning” ... “life and light” ... “Spirit over the waters” B. Also, notice the progression of the narrative in “days” — “the next day,” “the next day,” “the next day” .... then the “third day,” which is also the 7th day, the day of the wedding feast of Cana. C. John writes with all these allusions to introduce the arrival of a new creation in the context of a new wedding feast. 1. Just like the first creation followed after the Spirit of God hovered over the waters, the new creation occurs through faith and the power of the Holy Spirit in the waters of Baptism. We are a new creation through the holy sacraments. 2. In the book of Genesis, on the seventh day, God established a covenant with his creation, which was also the occasion of the marital union between Adam and Eve. Just like there was a wedding on the seventh day of the first creation, St. John depicts this new creation in the context of the wedding of Cana on the seventh day. D. In the midst of all this, Mary makes her entrance and introduces Jesus to the world. III. “O Woman, what is this between you and me?” A. This is not a disrespectful rebuke: 1. Jesus didn’t rebuke his mother, otherwise he wouldn’t have complied with her wish. 2. The term itself isn’t used for disrespect. (See Luke 8:28). 3. Jesus was sinless and therefore would not have broken the 4th commandment. He honored his parents entirely and completely (Luke 2:51). 4. Finally, Mary herself certainly didn’t take his words as dismissive or disrespectful. B. Why did Jesus call Mary “woman” and not “mother,” for example. 1. Nowhere else in the Bible or in ancient literature does a son refer to his mother as “woman.” 2. Jesus also calls her “woman” when he was on the cross (John 19:26). 3. Remember, Adam called Eve “woman” (Gen 2:23). 4. This seems to demonstrate that at both Cana and Calvary Jesus is evoking Genesis and showing that he and Mary are the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15. a) Consider: If St. John is saying that God is inaugurating a new creation, then a new man and woman is in order. We saw that Jesus is clearly the new Adam. You can’t have a new Adam without a new Eve. This woman can only be Mary! b) Consider: The married couple is never mentioned at Cana! They’re not the focus here, Jesus and Mary are! C. Revelation 12 also confirms this Mary as the “woman.” 1. The images of the woman, the child, and the devil all explicitly recall, and fulfill, the events and promises of Genesis 3:15. 2. The child can only be Jesus, so the woman must primarily be Mary (but she can also be the Church in general). 3/4 Lesson 1: Mary Mother of God and All Believers IV. What’s the importance of the wedding feast? A. Our “sabbath rest” with God is understood in the context of marriage. God made a covenant with creation and the marriage communion between Adam and Eve is the form of the covenant. B. Throughout the OT, God promised he will come to his people and wed them: 1.