Mary
This article on Mary builds upon our article on Salvation.
Honoring Mary
Luke 1:39-56 † Genesis 3:15
The Church has always paid due reverence to Mary, the mother of Jesus the Christ, for her unique contribution to salvation history. Her cousin Elizabeth was the first to pay homage to Mary, elevating her above all women as most blessed. As she herself then prophesied, all generations call her blessed because of the work God accomplished through her. All Marian worship* is offered in celebration of two things: the Incarnation of Jesus Christ whereby God became man, and the fulfillment of God’s promise of Redemption that he made to the first man and first woman following their fall from his grace. Mary is the very model of saved man, so in her we gain hope in the world to come.
The New Creation
Genesis 1-3 † Luke 1:1-38,57-80 † John 1:1-2:12 † John 19:25-27
In the first creation, God made the world and everything in it in six days, including the first man and the first woman. Having seen that the world was good, he handed dominion over to man and rested on the seventh day. While God was not with them, a serpent deceived the woman, undermined her trust in God, and convinced her to willfully disobey God’s command. She turned then toward the man who, having been led away from God’s love, committed a most devastating act by which they both fell from the favor of God, losing his friendship and protection. They were expelled from his presence. In his mercy, though, God promised ultimate victory against the deceiving serpent. The man named the woman Eve because she was the mother of all who were to live in the flesh.
In the new creation, having seen that the world had completely rebelled against him, God again created, beginning with a woman, innocent and new like her first ancestor. While in God’s favor, the woman placed her complete trust in God and abandoned her own will in obedience to him. On the seventh day reckoned by John the Evangelist, she turned to her son who, out of love, committed a miraculous act by which the public ministry of Jesus began. All of mankind was invited to live in the presence of God once again. Through his death and resurrection, God’s promise of victory was fulfilled. By adoption, Mary became the mother of all who were to live in the Spirit.
Death & Resurrection
Genesis 3:16-19 † Genesis 5:24 † Hebrews 11:5 † 2 Kings 2:1-18
1 Corinthians 15 † Matthew 27:45-54 † Philippians 3:17-21
God justly rewarded the man and women for their disobedience in the garden, and their punishment reveals much about human nature. The gifts of God graced upon them who were good in his sight were removed when man fell from God’s favor. Male and female he created them, which means that they already possessed the faculties to procreate; however, God would no longer protect the woman from the excruciating pains of childbirth. God had placed man in the garden to cultivate it, providing all that was needed to sustain life; but after the fall, he would no longer protect the man from the pains of labor by which he must eat. God would also no longer grace them with protection from the pains of death — the immortal soul would now be ripped from mortal flesh when the body ceased to function.
This last great grace is worthy of deeper examination. The ability to procreate implies that the body would grow, age, and eventually fail, even if by natural or accidental external causes. If, after the fall, man was to return to the dust from whence he came, how then was man’s earthly life to end before the fall? The answer to this question is speculative, but only one explanation has roots in Scripture: that the body and soul remain intact and be assumed into the dwelling place of God. This would be done completely by his power for the body may appear to be lifeless as if asleep. Two men left this world in such a manner: Enoch walked with God and Elijah was taken up in a fiery chariot, and neither was seen on earth any longer. But neither man could have been taken to dwell with God on account of the first man’s disobedience. They too would wait for God to redeem man, to restore man to his presence, and to grace him once again with his gifts.
Though he was forgiven, those first graces did not return to man following the Redemption. Above all, the temporal punishment of physical death remained even for the righteous. But man was created with both body and soul, and it was the whole person that was redeemed and restored unto God just as it was created. By accepting the sentence yet without guilt, Jesus confused the meaning and power of death, and by rising from the dead and walking the earth in his glorified body, he restored a true life to man. So, too, will the bodies of they who are spiritually alive and who will inherit the kingdom of God, be glorified.
Full Of Grace
Romans 5:12-14 † Romans 8:1-11 † Luke 22:39-44 † Luke 1:26-38
Guilt for the disobedience of the first man and its penalty of death is inherited by his descendants in the flesh, and those who live to satisfy the flesh and its worldly desires cannot please God, for the flesh is hostile to God and cannot obey. Thus God sent his son, Jesus, in flesh yet without sin and in perfect obedience to his father to be a fitting sacrifice for the sins of man.
That this sacrifice be perfect and above reproach, God prepared a woman to be his mother, one who lived in the Spirit from the moment of her own creation, for she was told by the angel messenger that not only had she found favor with God, but that she was in his presence. How frightening these words must have been, for all of mankind had been removed from God’s real presence since the Fall! Mary’s flesh was able to obey God completely. She gave her consent and conformed her own will to his, allowing him to pour his love into her.
Mary — and Mary alone — contributed the flesh that became Jesus incarnate. It was her womb that enrobed his spirit with flesh and bore him into the world. For this, she is called the Mother of God. To diminish her role as simply the mother of the man Jesus is to deny that Jesus was both true God and simultaneously true man** and is thus a denial of the Incarnation itself.
It was by God’s grace that Mary was obedient. Alive in the Spirit, she lived not for the satisfaction of the flesh but for the will of God and thus had real life in her. Having accomplished this great act of faith, how little one must think of God’s grace to suggest that she fell to even a mere trifle of temptation. Indeed, the Church professes that Mary lived free from sin in the love of God all her days. What then of that last great grace, the protection from death, from the ripping of the soul from the body? Mary was fully graced, not subject to the penalty of sin, so when her body finally did fail***, she experienced resurrection according to the promise and was assumed with body and soul intact into the household of God. Mary is our greatest living proof that God has kept his promise of redemption and salvation.
Mary Revealed
Revelation 11:15-12:17 † Genesis 3:15 † Romans 16:20
That Mary resides now in Heaven is not a matter of conjecture, but of divine revelation. In Saint John’s apocalyptic vision, the reign of the Messiah is announced with the last of seven trumpet blasts, the Ark of the Covenant is visible in God’s temple, and the nativity of the Christ unfolds before John’s eyes. The woman clothed in the light of glory and crowned with stars and the man-child she births are undoubtedly the woman and her offspring promised by God in the beginning. Enmity indeed exists between them and the dragon, for the child is taken to God and the woman takes flight to a place prepared by God where this serpent cannot destroy her. While the woman and child in the vision refer simultaneously to both the Blessed Mother and the Christ Child in particular, and to Mother Church and the Body of Christ metaphorically, John’s account touches upon two themes: Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant and as the Queen of Heaven.
The Ark of the New Convenant
Deuteronomy 10:1-5 † Exodus 25:10-22 † Exodus 40:17-21,34-38
Exodus 16:31-35 † Numbers 17 † Hebrews 9:1-4 † 2 Samuel 6:1-15
John 1:1 † John 6:25-59 † Hebrews 4:14-16 † Luke 1:39-41,56
The Ark of the Old Covenant was built to contain the Decalogue, the ten words of God given to Moses as commandments for his people. It was a box made from a wood considered to be incorruptible, and it was plated inside and out with pure gold. So that God could reside amongst his people, the Ark was sheltered by a special tent. He would overshadow the Ark, and the tent would be filled with his radiant glory.
The holiness of the Ark was derived from the sacred items it contained. Besides the stone tablets upon which God wrote his ten words, the Ark contained a golden jar of bread sent from Heaven to sustain his people while they journeyed through the desert. It also held the staff of Aaron which had budded, a relic from the institution of the Aaronic priesthood. So holy was the Ark that anyone who touched it thereby defiled it and was struck dead.
Long after the time of Moses, the Ark was brought into the City of David (Jerusalem) from Baalah (Kiriath Jearim) in the hill country of Judea . It remained in a country household for three months before being brought into the city where it was ushered in with trumpets and shouts of joy and a leaping priest.
The Ark of the Covenant that appeared in the Heavenly temple in John’s vision was not the Ark of Moses, for the old Ark was the sign of the broken covenant of the Law. A new and eternal covenant had been made with the redemption of man. In the tales of the Old Ark, however, the Church recognizes Mary, created pure and incorruptible for she bore within her Jesus Christ who is the Word of God, The Bread of Life that came down from Heaven, and our Great High Priest. Her holiness, therefore, was also derived from that which she contained. God’s presence dwelled within her when the Spirit of God overshadowed her. Before the infant Jesus was born and presented in the temple in Jerusalem, Mary entered the home of her cousin Elizabeth in the hill country of Judea (Ein Karem) and stayed there three months. She was greeted with a shout of joy, and the yet-unborn John the Baptizer, a member of the priestly tribe of Levi, leapt in his mother’s womb.
Queen Mother
1 Samuel 8 † 2 Samuel 7 † 1 Kings 2:1-12
1 Kings 2:13-25 † Jeremiah 13:8-11,18
1 Kings 14, 15, 22 † 2 Kings 8, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24
Matthew 1:1-17 † Luke 1:28,43
Revelation 11:15 † Revelation 17:14 † Revelation 19:16 † John 18:28-40 † Matthew 28:18
When the last judge appointed by God to guide his Chosen People had grown old and his sons found incapable of ruling with justice, the People demanded a king, for the other nations were ruled by kings and were powerful. They failed to recognize that God was their king, but God granted their wish nonetheless and established a kingdom for them. The kingship came to a young man named David from the tribe of Judah. God promised that David’s royal line would rule the kingdom forever. David trusted God and knew that so long as they obeyed God’s commands, his descendants would share in the inheritance of the kingdom. He ruled in the city of Jerusalem for thirty-three years before he died.
The mother of David’s son and successor sat in her throne at his side. She was his adviser and delivered to him the petitions of others. So much respect was she given that even the king bowed down before her. The queen mother only received her crown through the majesty of the king who was appointed by God or else received the kingdom through inheritance. The queen mother did possess genuine power though. One queen mother survived her son and remained on the throne until she was eventually deposed by her grandson, while another ruled for six years after her son was killed and a new king took the throne. Finally, when God threatened captivity as a reward for the disobedience of his people, it was made clear that both the king and his mother should lose their crowns.
It was not long after God established the kingdom that the other tribes of Israel rebelled against the tribe of Judah and established a kingdom of their own. Of the nineteen kings who ruled over Judah, all but two are announced in Sacred Scripture along with the names of their mothers, and not one queen mother is mentioned for the kings of Israel.
Indeed, had the kingdom not been overthrown by an invading army and God’s people led away into captivity, the line of David would have continued and Mary would have reigned as Queen of Judah, for Joseph accepted the Christ child into his family. ‘Hail!’ Mary receives a royal greeting (chairo) when the angel messenger from God announces to her that she is to bear the Christ. ‘Who am I that the queen mother should come to me?’ asked Mary’s cousin.
Christ was not simply the King of Judah, but the King over all Kings, and his kingdom is not of this world. He reigns now in Heaven with his Queen Mother by his side.
*The word ‘worship’ means to offer honor and praise to one who is worthy to receive it. Paying honor to Mary or any other person for the good they do for us can never be equated with the worship offered to God for our very creation.
**The belief that Jesus had two distinct and separate persons is known as Nestorianism, and was condemned as heresy in the 5th Century.
***The Church has never made a definitive declaration about how Mary’s earthly life ended. It is commonly believed, especially in the West, that she died physically before the Assumption, while another tradition more popular in the East holds that she was alive, but dormant. The end result is the same.
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