Saturday, 14 May 2011
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Catholic Answers Corner: Mary
There are a lot of misunderstandings about what Catholics believe about Mary, so I'd like to take this brief opportunity to address a few of them.This originated as I was responded to comments on my posts about John Paul II's beatification and about Mary as the mother of God. These come from kk_grayfox
The QuestionI will never cease to marvel at why Catholics insist on calling Mary the mother of God. The mother of Jesus the human is fine. Yes, Jesus was God and man, but obviously God existed long before Mary did, and since He created her, you can just as easily call her "Mary, daughter of God". So would she then be Mary daughter and mother of God? For the most part I suppose it doesn't really matter, but I still find it odd.
The Answer
You ask: "I will never cease to marvel at why Catholics insist on calling Mary the mother of God."
I have a few points to help with this:
1) Calling Mary "mother of God" actually has more to do with Christ than it does with Mary. Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, they hammered out that that means he has both a human nature and a divine nature, though he is one person, a divine person of the Trinity, the Son. (That was the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which is readily accepted by Protestants as well as Catholics).
Because Christ is both God and man, we do not divide him up. We don't say that he was conceived as a man then later the spirit came to him and he also assumed a divine nature. Who would be able to say when that was?
We believe what the Bible said which is that the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and a child was conceived (Luke 2:35). Being consistent in our understanding of Christ, we believe that he was always God and man from the moment of his conception. This means that Mary gave birth to the one Christ who was both man and God. Thus, the "mother of God" as the Council explained. Calling Mary the mother of God is meant to recognize the fact that Jesus was fully God at his birth rather than something he later assumed.
The things we believe about Mary are not things we decided to make up, they are logical conclusions of what we believe as taught in the Bible about Jesus.
2) You have a point about the creation thing. When we say 'Mother of God" we do not mean that Mary created God; obviously he existed before she did. We simply mean that Mary nurtured, gave birth to and raised Jesus Christ, who was God the whole time. (This is the same reasons Christians traditionally say that "God died on the cross." Jesus was fully God and he died. Of course, it doesn't mean that God ceased to exist or anything like that. It is a mystery that recognizes Jesus' simultaneous full divinity and humanity).
3. Yes, Mary certainly was a daughter of God. In fact, tradition has called her: Daughter of the Father, Wife of the Spirit and Mother of the Son. She truly has a unique relationship with all three persons of the holy trinity. This is why Christ calls her "woman" in the Gospels, not mother or Mary. Her relationship to him (as a member of the God-head) makes it impossible for him to know her only as mother. So the briefest, accurate title for her is simply "woman."
Ok cool, I hope this was helpful. See you 'round!
Does this help clear up anything you had been unsure about? How do you understand Mary and her sole as Jesus's mother? How can we approach the topic of Mary with an eye for unity?
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- From: StephanieP
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- About Me: Stephanie is a fledgling Catholic theorist with a magnifying glass at the intersection of faith and culture, and theology and technology. She holds a degree in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia and is pursuing an MA in Theology at the Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College. Though a penniless writer, Stephanie is eternally grateful for her starving artist husband.
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Comments (35)
I am a Christian. I fully understand what it is that you're saying. I think more than anything that using this phrase places emphasis on Mary versus on Christ, where it belongs.
For me, one of my issues with Catholicism is praying to Mary. This goes along with the lines of idolatry. We are ONLY to pray to God/Christ. So I'd love to see a post on Revelife in the future addressing this as I sometime intend to make a post addressing all my questions/issues with Catholicism in an attempt to understand it better.
Mark 6:3 KJV
Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary , the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.In the jewish context mary would be called miriam and she was not a virgin for ever as she had children after Jesus
1 Timothy 2:5 KJV
For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;Mary also needed a saviour
Luke 1
45
And blessed is she that believed : for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.
46
And Mary said , My soul doth magnify the Lord,
47
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
I've no problem with the phrase "Mary, the mother of God".
My question has been on why Catholics tend to revere her?
It always has seemed to me that Catholics do the same with the saints as the Jews did with the patriarchs.
I am honored that you posted my questions and your responses!
Btw, I did find your responses well thought out and rather reasonable. Though I will likely never call Mary mother of God, I'm at least comforted by the fact that those objections of mine are merely grounded in misunderstanding and/or misrepresentation from others.
@kk_grayfox@xanga - Awesome!
You are perfectly welcome to call her "daughter of God' or not worry about it at all. I just wanted to explain the terminology.
Glad you came by!
@MyTwoCentss@xanga - StephanieP wrote a post on sainthood recently, which I presume is generally along the lines of what you're thinking of: http://www.revelife.com/747373006/john-paul-ii-and-the-mechanics-of-sainthood/?page=1&jump=1520921465#1520921465
@TravelingStranger@xanga - As a Christian, are you not a member of Christ's Body; in other words, are you not a part of Him? Is not His Father your Father also because of this? Likewise His mother is your mother; this at least is part of how Catholics have come over the many centuries to understand the importance of Mary in their life. Not a full explanation mind you, but a beginning!
@deltadom@xanga - "Mary also needed a saviour" Absolutely! And she was saved at the very moment of her conception, that later she could have every grace she needed to be completely free to give her total "yes" to what God asked her through the archangel, that same angel who came to her on God's behalf, delivering her a message from God Himself, that message which began, Hail Mary, full of grace!
As to the Scripture in which the townspeople wonder about Jesus the son of the carpenter and Mary and the brother of others, if they believed Jesus was truly the son of the carpenter (which He wasn't) what makes you think they would know or believe Him to have been born of the Virgin? Also, there are other ways by which to understand this passage which does not conflict with two thousand years of Christian tradition--Catholic or Orthodox, not to mention the beliefs of some of the first and most prominent Reformers.
If you would like to talk about Mary, please feel free to message me any time!
@MyTwoCentss@xanga - You mean we can't ask someone to pray to God with or for us? Should I not pray for you? Should the people at Cana have come to Jesus themselves and asked for more wine? Did Mary do something terribly wrong when she came to Him on their behalf?
@Ancient_Scribe@xanga - that is something to consider, although I've asked a lot of practicing Catholics and never heard this explanation.
My initial thought is that I am made apart of His body... a co-sharer in His family... through the Holy Spirit, correct? In this line of speaking, every co-sharer is also a member of my family. So, wouldn't Mary be my Sister?
I take this line of reasoning because it is not Mary that made the Body which I share in, it is Christ through the Spirit. Assuming she is a member (obviously), then she is made my Sister, not my mother. Though she was the mother of my Lord, she is my Sister because she was made the Sister of Christ upon His sacrifice.
@Ancient_Scribe@xanga - The examples you give are people talking with each other, both parties alive, asking one another to pray directly to God for His help, blessings, healing, etc. I feel that prayer is our line of communication with God. It also shows respect, reverence & worship as prayer is our way to get personal & pour our hearts out to God. Because I hold prayer so dear & because I believe it is one of the ways in which we worship that it is not meant to be directed towards anyone other than Christ.
What's interesting is that the explanation you give is that praying to Mary is akin to asking those dear to us who have passed on to glory to relay a message to God on our behalf. I tend to do the reverse on rare occasions - since I believe that prayer is a personal form of worship - and ask God to pass my message on to a loved one.
I do respect you & your views & I don't mean any disrespect by disagreeing or anything.
How do you get your brain to twist up like that?
The Reformed traditions have absolutely no problem with the term "Theotokos". As you say above, this term "Mother of God" is an attempt to proclaim the divinity of Christ and has nothing to do with a divine status for Mary.
@MyTwoCentss@xanga - I'm sorry if my barrage of questions made you feel like I'd taken your comments as offensive or disrespectful! I didn't intend that at all! So, no worries there.
"The examples you give are people talking with each other, both parties alive, asking one another to pray directly to God for His help, blessings, healing, etc."So those in Heaven are dead? They are no longer alive? My goodness, then what hope have we? And what of those who were baptized in ages past; when they die, are they no longer a part of His Body? Of course not! So if by baptism they were made a part of His Body and likewise by baptism so have we, are we who are here on earth not a part of the same Body as those who have gone before us? And thus are we not united, though Christ, with those who have gone before us, even His own mother? This is what communion is, dear sister, or rather this is the beginning of it.
" I feel that prayer is our line of communication with God. It also shows respect, reverence & worship as prayer is our way to get personal & pour our hearts out to God. Because I hold prayer so dear & because I believe it is one of the ways in which we worship that it is not meant to be directed towards anyone other than Christ."
I feel the same way about prayer! And yes, any prayer that does not go to and through Christ is not heard by the Father. Amen. You are probably thinking the same thing I am-- 1 Timothy 2:5? But remember the verses preceding it, "First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is GOOD and PLEASING to God our savior, who wills everything to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth." Paul is asking Timothy and those that are with him not simply to pray in general, but to pray on behalf of others, including Paul himself; in other words, Paul is asking for a secondary kind of mediation. And when you go to church, is not your minister a mediator between you and Christ? Why would the death of our bodies separate us from our brothers and sisters in heaven if Christ's death and resurrection as well as His gift to us of the Holy Spirit unites us forever? Why would Paul ask anyone to pray for him when he himself encountered Christ on the road to Damascus? Why would he not simply pray directly to Christ?
This is not to say that one cannot pray directly to Christ; it is to say that through Christ, through His many gifts and graces, we can even in the privacy of our room gather in "twos and threes" with our brothers and sisters in Heaven and pray to Him as well, and we can ask those same brothers and sisters to pray for us NOT in Christ's place--no one can replace Him as the PRIMARY and ONLY MEDIATOR between mankind and God--but they can certainly be our own mediator between us and Him if we desire their help and friendship, just as I would pray for you, or we can have their company as we go to Christ directly.
As far as doing the reverse and asking God to pass on messages to loved ones in Heaven: awesome! I'm sure that your messages are received with great joy!
@TravelingStranger@xanga - You've probably never heard it because many Catholics are very poorly educated in their faith and likely haven't been blessed with the kinds of opportunities I have had to study and ponder that faith! Not to bash my Catholic brothers and sisters; I was very poorly educated myself in the faith until I joined religious life.
Yes you are made a part of His Body and a sharer in His family, becoming His brother or sister, a son or daughter of His Father, absolutely. Thus, yes, Mary would become your sister. However, remember as well that you are a part of His church, yes? His Bride; this is a mystery! So you are not only His sibling but His spouse as well. And again, since you are part of HIS Body, mystical or not, His incarnate body has a mother, and she becomes your mother as well. So she is both your mother and your sister; nothing new! Many ancient Christians referred to Mary as the Daughter of the Father, Mother of the Son and Bride of the Spirit!
You can even look to Acts 1:14 as a hint to this idea of Mary as the mother of the mystical body of Christ (in fact, many early Church Fathers referred to Mary, Mother of the Church), for we see Mary there in the midst of the first Christian community. Later in chapter two it says they were all in one place together and the Holy Spirit again would descend and behold, Christ's Body is again enfleshed in the world! It is no wonder that at least the Catholic Church has long seen the Feast of Pentecost as the "birthday" of the Church, for this is the day the Mystical Body was born into the world; think about the parallels of Pentecost and the Annunciation, and both times Mary was present.
Isn't saying that Mary is not responsible for the Body that you share in to say that the Body you share in is not Christ's Body or, equally dangerous, to say that Mary is not the mother of Christ? Yes it is by the Holy Spirit that you come to share in Christ's Body and it is through the same Spirit that you continue in that sharing, but there would be no Christ were not Mary His mother first, for it is by her that He came to possess a body in the first place. And yes, she is a member of His Body; the very first member in fact since it was her own flesh and her own blood by which He came to have a Body in the first place; consider the reality that Jesus Christ had a belly button! Yes, the VERY FIRST SCAR in His flesh, that flesh that would be scarred for our offenses, was the very scar that came from being separated from His human mother! He was not like Adam, being hand-crafted by God from clay but rather He was cut apart from His mother like the rest of us. That same scar remains along with the scars of our salvation, and if you share in that same Body, that belly-button is just as much yours as it is His! If one can escape Mary's motherhood you must also escape Christ, which we of course never want to do.
But don't we all want to be His beloved disciple? Did He not entrust His mother to that same disciple just before His death, and didn't He do so in a way that gave her to be that disciple's own mother? And He only gives us His mother so that we have everything we need to help come better to know Him, love Him and be like Him; what better help to have in understanding, knowing and loving Him than the love, prayers and friendship of the very woman who conceived, bore, and raised Him, was the very FIRST Christian and member of His Body, the FIRST to possess His Body and Blood and share it, who knew Him better than any living person in the whole world and who followed Him all the way to the Cross?
She is our sister in our Christian faith, being the first Christian, the very first to have faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Messiah, our sister also as a daughter of the Father. She is also our mother in that just as we are sons and daughters of God because we are joined to Christ the Son, so too then do we inherit her as our mother because she was first His and He shares all things with us. All that we know of Mary, all we revere, venerate and love (but do not worship!) is because of Christ, not because of her. Without Christ she is just a woman but through Christ, wondrous and mysterious things come about!
Yes, likely you've never heard this reflection about belly-buttons and the like either, but it just occurred to me. If it is helpful for your understanding, wonderful! If not, please disregard it!
@Ancient_Scribe@xanga - That's where I just don't agree with the Catholic argument that "we're just asking Mary to pray for us."
If I want my sister to pray for me, I can call her to ask her to pray for me. But what happens if, rather than picking up the phone, I close my eyes and address my sister and ask her to pray for me? Will she? In my mind, and I'm guessing that of most non-Catholic Christians, I'm praying to my sister, even if it is to ask for her to pray for me.
I understand that Catholics don't say they're praying to Mary, but instead asking her to pray for them. However, I hope you can see why most non-Catholics still call it "praying to Mary." I think it's a fair criticism.
In Revelation, scripture teaches that those in heaven can observe what's happening on earth. However, I don't think we have any scriptural evidence that we can communicate with those who have passed away, even in Christ.
Mark 3:33-35
33But He answered them, saying, “Who is My mother, or My brothers?”
34And He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers!
35For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother.”
Notice that Jesus never fails to clarify who His Father is...but when talking about His mother He says that above...
I personally never think of Mary as the mother of Jesus but as the woman whose purpose in life was to give birth to Him... For me GOD is my Father, my mother, my friend, my EVERYTHING.
@Ancient_Scribe@xanga - "So if by baptism they were made a part of His
Body and likewise by baptism so have we, are we who are here on earth
not a part of the same Body as those who have gone before us?"
We are not made a part of the Body of Chris by baptism. We are made a part of the Body of Christ, when we are saved, when we accept his sacrifice on our behalf, when we realize that we sinners in need of His Grace, and unable to make it on our own. That we cannot ever be good enough for God, without Christ's sacrifice.
@Ancient_Scribe@xanga - Really, you're a priest (I'm assuming you're Catholic) and you don't find it blasphemous to think that God won't listen to you pray and you must pray to Mary, who'll then pray for you?
Besides the whole "We're asking Mary to pray for us" bit is utter BS. I've spent plenty of time in Catholic churches and never once heard them say anything of the sort when praying to Mary - they pray TO her for HER to use her "magical" powers to bless them. Just one of countless things that Catholics do that are not in any way supported by the Bible, which is why Catholicism is a Christian-like religion, NOT a denomination of Christianity.
Mother Mary is an incredible figure from the Bible! She and Joseph were Christ's greatest disciples yet they are mentioned the least.
Can anyone imagine Mother Mary cleaning Jesus' dirty baby butt?
Raising children is what motherhood is all about. So although there is great theological significance to Mary Mother of God, the idea may be approached simply from our everyday understanding of natural motherhood.
Jesus upset his parents greatly when he disappeared for a few days in order to go to the temple. And then he submitted to their authority like a good son.
At the Wedding Feast At Cana, Jesus complained when Mother Mary asked him to do a miracle, but did it anyway.
We see in these stories from the Bible the intimate connection that Mother Mary had to the will of the Father.
Jesus said that he always followed the will of the Father. But he also followed the will of Mother Mary.
That is something to ponder.
@BimmerPhile@xanga - I am not a priest yet; six more years until that! But your second assumption--me being Catholic--is correct. And you are absolutely right; it is utterly blasphemous to say that if we do not pray to Mary, God will not hear our prayers. That is why I didn't say such a thing, nor does the Church teach such a thing; the Church teaches rather that we may as for Mary's intercession if we wish to, that is is both wrong to say that we MUST pray with Mary and also wrong to say that we CANNOT pray with Mary.
I'm sorry that you feel that devotion to the Mother of Jesus Christ is "B.S.;" many Christians, even Martin Luther and many of the founding Reformers, had a very strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin.
The next time you happen to be with Catholics and Mary comes up in prayer, pay careful attention to the prayer. Here are the biggies:
"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee (the words of Gabriel in the Gospel of Luke!). Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus (the words of Elizabeth in the same Gospel). Holy Mary, Mother of God *pray for us sinners,* now and at the hour of our death. Amen."
Then during the Mass, near the beginning:
"I confess to almighty God, and you my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, and I ask *blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you my brothers and sisters to PRAY for ME TO THE LORD OUR GOD*." (caps added for emphasis, not to shout at you or anything!)
During the various Eucharistic Prayers (which are addressing God the Father directly), depending on which one is used:"In union with the whole Church we honor Mary, the ever-virgin mother of Jesus Christ our Lord and God...""He was conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary, a man like us in all things but sin...""Remember our brothers and sisters who have gone to their rest in the hope of rising again; bring them and all the departed into the light of your presence. Have mercy on us all; make us worthy to share eternal life with Mary, the virgin Mother of God, with the apostles and with all the saints who have done your will throughout the ages. May we praise you in union with them, and give you glory through your Son, Jesus Christ."
While I do not find your claim of Catholicism being "Christian-like but not a denomination of Christianity" to be a new one, I would be curious to know in more detail how you support your claim or if it is merely your opinion. What denomination do you belong to, and what is your history? Do you trace your denomination's origin all the way back to Christ and Peter two-thousand years ago and if you do, do you trace it back through the Catholic Church or do you just skip over that bit? And the Bible that you use; did the founders of your denomination write the New Testament or have you, too, benefited from the work of its Catholic authors? You are right, though, in saying that Catholicism is not a denomination of Christianity, because that would be like pointing to the trunk of a tree and calling it a branch.
They called her the Mother of God because it was easier to convert people who worshiped female deities that way. Guh. It's the same reason was have Easter eggs, have Christmas on the 25, Christmas trees and all those extra things that don't seem to fit: because the church needed to make the religion appealing to pagans by borrowing aspects of those religions and traditions.
@Theophilus166@xanga - "In Revelation, scripture teaches that those in heaven can observe what's happening on earth. However, I don't think we have any scriptural evidence that we can communicate with those who have passed away, even in Christ."
If they can observe what is going on here on earth, you don't think they would pray for us? And what of the Christian belief, so explicit in the creeds by which the early Christians lived and died, "I believe...in the communion of saints?"
And if we are all, living and dead in Christ, one Body, is not every part of the Body aware of the other parts? Does not every part of the Body love the other parts, desiring its well-being for the sake of the joy of the whole Body?
@ProudToBeAChristianFruitcake@xanga - "We are not made a part of the Body of Christ by baptism."
1 Cor. 12:13 and the surrounding passages speaks of the Spirit that makes us one Body in Christ, that same Spirit that Jesus says we must be born of, as well as being born of water, in John 3:5."We are made a part of the Body of Christ, when we are saved, when we accept his sacrifice on our behalf, when we realize that we sinners in need of His Grace, and unable to make it on our own."
This is precisely what occurs! We are baptized into His death; we die to ourselves and rise in Him, we bathe in the blood and water that poured from His side, accepting His sacrifice and being made clean in the Blood of the Lamb. By a public baptism everyone around us knows that we are sinners, because only sinners are baptized, and likewise only those who cannot save themselves (all of us!) are in need of baptism, and without Christ's sacrifice we wouldn't have the gift of baptism in the first place. If baptism were not so crucial, why would His last command to His followers to be "Go and baptize?" Why would John include in his Gospel the catch of 153 different fish, symboling the rising of all races and peoples from all over the world being drawn up out of the one baptism through which Christ saves us?
Thank you for this post!
@Ancient_Scribe@xanga - You are. Just. Awesome. :D
@Ancient_Scribe@xanga - If we must be baptized, or born of water to see the kingdom, then how did the thief on the cross see Paradise with Jesus? Was the thief baptized with water somehow?