Crayon & pencil drawing by Sr. Grace Remington, OCSO.
Copyright 2005, Sisters of the Mississippi Abbey
O Eve!
My mother, my daughter, life-giving Eve,
Do not be ashamed, do not grieve.
The former things have passed away,
Our God has brought us to a New Day.
See, I am with Child,
Through whom all will be reconciled.
O Eve! My sister, my friend,
We will rejoice together
Forever
Life without end.
— Sr. Columba Guare copyright© 2005 Sisters of the Mississippi Abbey
This has been posted around the web many places, so acknowledgements to Inside Catholic, where I found it.
One place where all Christians can unite in an affirmation about Mary is her status as “the Mother of God,” which is celebrated in the Roman calendar tomorrow. While Protestants won’t refer to Mary as “Queen,” they can join with other Christians in recognizing her place in the story of redemption: the human mother of the incarnate God.
The Internet Monk Archives 
There’s actually a pretty cheesy 19th century poem called “Ireland’s Queen†where, on a far-flung battlefield, in the lull of fighting, several soldiers are discussing their queens and praising them; the Frenchman produces a picture of Marie Antoinette; the Scotsman one of Mary, Queen of Scots; the Englishman, one of Queen Victoria; and the Irishman, a picture of Our Lady
Ireland was the only occupied country. Our population, clergy, language and heritage had gone through hundreds of years of theft, occupation and genocide by a foreign invading regime. The Protestants in there various disguises (Church of Ireland, Quakers, Presbyterians etc) were integral to this ethnic cleansing. Hardly surprising an Irishman would hold up an Image that would outlast all your worldly “Queens”. May Victoria continue to rot in Hell.
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Nice picture, someone should make a calender of it. Someone is getting their mythologies mixed up. Anyway I was thinking:
Interesting that Mary, a young woman had an immaculate conception as a virgin. Therefore without male sperm.
Elizabeth, described as an old woman who could not conceive (post-menopausal) conceived without an egg, but presumably sperm from her husband. A highly ranked man in THE temple, where he was told a Prophet would be born to him, and was then struck dumb.
Mary, and Joseph from the Galaliee, a seperate jurastiction were the lowest of the low carpenter family. Just how were they related? And how did Mary know to go and stay with Elizabeth for the final 3 months of her pregnancy.
The Sperm fertilizes the egg, just as the Prophet John the baptist fertilized Jesus into Christ conciseness. Awakening in him the divine that is within. (The kingdom of God is at hand (meaning NOW), The Kingdom of God is within you (not outside, or in any other space/time)
One more note. Elizabeth was told that john was not to Drink Alcohol. No fully realized Prophet would drink (then as now), yet that order was not given to mary. Because Jesus would not be a realized spiritual being until his baptism. Until then, unlike john, he was a gifted, yet quite ordinary boy.
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Fr. Ernesto;
“the first and second Eve theme in St. Paul”
Say what?
I remember reading Paul talking about the Second Adam. It’s your inference that a Second Adam requires a Second Eve. It may be a valid inference, but it’s not Paul’s.
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Very. And I will look into Athanasius (I’m not totally unfamiliar with it).
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Bob,
maybe this ancient drawing, called “the Shield of the Trinity” will help you out, as well as studying the Athanasian Creed. The major thing in order to remain within the limits of orthodoxy is to understand that there is only one God, yet that He is three Persons, which are distinct, yet “form” (if we can speak of that) one God, Who is Triune.
It is only the Son Who became Man, not the whole Trinity, so Mary is only the Mother of God the Son incarnate. Jesus is God, not some lesser being, as Arius thought (this is what “fulness of the Godhead” means); but He, as God Incarnate, is not identical with the Trinity.
I hope this was helpful…
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This leads me to another thought — one that is new to me — that since the scripture says that in Him (Jesus) dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, maybe Mary is the mother of the Father and the mother of the Spirit, as well as the mother of the Son. (See my first comment much earlier in this thread, which said just the opposite.)
Can someone straighten me out, please? I seem to be a doctrinal mess.
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Jason Cebalo @ 8:24 a.m., 01/01/2009: If what you say is true (and I have no reason to believe it isn’t) then I won’t be using those particular analogies any more. The last thing I want is to be guilty of perpetuating a second-century heresy. I was just casting about for ways to better explain the concept of the Trinity. If, as you say, God is three persons existing in an eternal relationship with one another, it sounds like Scot McKnight’s perichoretic interpenetrating dance (I don’t know whether that is the exact quote) is a more accurate phrase even though I find it almost incomprehensible.
Maybe that is the point: the Trinity is, after all, a mystery — one that human words and thoughts can probably never grasp.
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When an OT type is repeated in the NT, fine. When it’s not explicitly repeated, I’d just prefer “This is what church tradition says.†Makes a lot more sense.
I would agree with the general sense of the comment. It is true that many people do and have gone off the deep end with the “typological” reading of the OT. As you infer, though, it is a valid method of reading the OT, given that it is one used by St. Paul et al. And, in fact, one finds that this particular method of reading the OT carried from St. Paul onwards. It never stopped with St. Paul. Though certainly many may wish it did.
My other point would be that your comment kinda “hermeneutically seals” off tradition from Scripture, as if they were two complete and distinct subsets of revelation. But that is certainly not the Catholic take, anyway (or at least, not the only one). An example would be the tradition of Mary as the New Eve. As Cardinal Newman points out, this is a tradition that dates back to at least the mid-second century, and crops up in writings from all around the Mediterranean. But where it is mentioned in detail, it is put forth as the fruit of a meditation on Scripture (namely Genesis and St. Luke).
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To be serious, I do want to say how much I appreciate the courteous and civil tone of the discussion on here.
Those who can’t understand our notions have expressed their views without rancour or abuse, and believe me, that’s very welcome.
Thank you all for that.
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I admit, I get a certain naughty pleasure in teasing sensitive Protestant sensibilities by quoting the Litany of Loreto; if titles like “Queen of Heaven” rock your boat, then how about the likes of:
“Mirror of justice/Seat of wisdom/Cause of our joy/Spiritual vessel/Vessel of honour/Singular vessel of devotion/Mystical rose/Tower of David/Tower of ivory/House of gold/Ark of the covenant/Gate of heaven/Morning star/Health of the sick/Refuge of sinners/Comforter of the afflicted/Help of Christians”?
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Michael, I think the “Bathsheba as Queen Mother” example is a purely American Catholic apologetics thing, and I’m pretty sure it originated in Scott Hahn’s “Hail, Holy Queen”.
Most Catholics are happy enough to hail Our Lady as Queen of Heaven without looking for Biblical warrant 🙂
I think, if we’re going to go that route, that Esther is a better example (the queen who saved her people). The typology of Mary as Queen is not as a Queen by her own right, reigning and ruling; that perogative belongs to God alone. It’s a title of honour and of love: as someone pointed out, most ancient and mediaeval people were perfectly accustomed to the notion of being ruled by a king, and I think the ‘Mary, Queen of Heaven’ imagery comes from a mix of things:
(1) The fact that people up to quite recently (in the span of human history) were ruled by monarchs; if her son is a king, then she’s a queen (e.g. the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, as wife of the preceding King and mother of the current reigning Queen Elizabeth II)
(2) The whole “He will inherit the throne of his father David” Messianic prophecy; if Jesus is the promised Messiah who inherits the throne of David, then how is this fulfilled? The inheritance is not by Joseph, since he is not His father according to the flesh, but comes through Mary. Ergo, since He is (by the flesh) of a royal line laying claim to a throne, she too is royal. Again, this would be commonplace for people accustomed to rulers claiming rights to inherit thrones by various lines of descent. I think this is also emphasised by the Jewish inheritance being matrilineal; if your mother is Jewish, you’re Jewish, but if your father is Jewish and your mother isn’t, sorry – no.
(3) “He has exalted the lowly and pulled the rich from their seats” and “The last shall be first and the first shall be last”. It seems fitting that the woman who declared herself the lowly servant of the Lord should be exalted as Queen.
(4) Title of honour and affection. The Middle Ages went crazy about these, but they weren’t alone. We call her Queen of Ireland, but we’re a constitutional republic, last anytime anyone looked 🙂 And supposedly early Irish religious poetry refers to her by a pet name “muinelnat” meaning “little white-necked one”.
There’s actually a pretty cheesy 19th century poem called “Ireland’s Queen” where, on a far-flung battlefield, in the lull of fighting, several soldiers are discussing their queens and praising them; the Frenchman produces a picture of Marie Antoinette; the Scotsman one of Mary, Queen of Scots; the Englishman, one of Queen Victoria; and the Irishman, a picture of Our Lady.
Looking at it from the outside, I can see how a title like Queen of Heaven gives Protestants the heebie-jeebies, but from this side, it’s not that big of a deal – honest!
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Timothy:
Have you ever considered what one could do with that level of typological argument?
When an OT type is repeated in the NT, fine. When it’s not explicitly repeated, I’d just prefer “This is what church tradition says.” Makes a lot more sense.
peace
ms
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>”There were no Kings in the Book of Judges. Read the last verse. Thanks for playing, though.”
Thanks! I did say I was an amateur. Don’t know why I thought Bathsheba, wife of David and mother of Solomon, appeared in Judges. Definitely should have been Kings and not Judges.
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Mr. Brague,
I dont want to sound harsh but “I’m one person who is someone’s husband, someones son, someone’s father” isn;t an illustration of the trinity but of the ancient heresey of modalism.
The orthodox doctrine accepted by all Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants is that God is three persons existing in an eternal relationship with one another. The modalists, a heretical group originating in the second century held that God was one person acting out three different roles in different circumstances. which is pretty much what that annalogy ammounts to, as well as the ice/water/steam annalogy.
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Thanks for the picture. I posted it on my blog with a link to iMonk. It is full not only of theology but of humanity and shows the love of God who offers us a place in the story of salvation. Eve is our parent – we grieve with her for the great harm done. Mary is the mother of our Lord – we rejoice with her in the great blessing that has come to us all through her.
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Wolf Paul – “Mary’s function up to the birth of Jesus”? That’s the attitude demonstrated by some which I’m talking about – yeah, for some odd reason, God decided that instead of manifesting as an adult human male, His Son would be a baby, but as soon as she had the kid, that’s it – outta the picture. No more use for her. Between the flight into Egypt and the time He commenced His public ministry, nothing. She and Joseph settled down to having a housefull of kids, she was an ordinary Jewish housewife and mother, and her function in the life of her Son was done and dusted.
Seeing as Our Lord is fully Man as well as fully God, is it so crazy to think that He had the ordinary human love and respect for His parents? That He did, in fact, learn things from them? That St. Joseph did teach Him carpentry? That His mother taught Him what mothers teach their sons?
Are we supposed to believe that she never, ever once talked to Him about the Annunciation? Simeon’s prophecies?
Definitely popular folk piety can and has and indeed does go overboard about Mary, but the opposite extreme of denying any role or presence to her apart from the ‘human incubator’ bit is just as bad.
BlaineFabin, I’m sorry, but the ‘Mary=Semiramis’ (or I suppose, to be accurate, the ‘Semiramis=Mary’) bit always makes me laugh. I once attempted to read Alexander Hislop’s “The Two Babylons” (which some generous soul has put up online) just to see what all the fuss was about, but had to give it up only a few paragraphs in because his theorising was so wildly fanciful – even I, with a limited knowledge of Middle Eastern mythology and a very sketchy historical timeline just could not swallow the conflation of Nimrod and Semiramis with practically every deity plus eminent historical personage you ever heard of from Egypt to Parthia and beyond.
Honestly, some of it is on the level of “Some images of Semiramis portray her with doves! Some specific Romanist images of Mary portray her with a dove (which they claim represents the Holy Spirit at the moment of the Incarnation – yeah, right)! Obviously, they are one and the same person!!”
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Returning to the catholic church I think that dealing with Mary was the hardest thing I ran into. I still give pause and my wife is more cautious yet. (she converted a few years after me). On one level I really don’t have any problems with her doctrinally. I see the reasoning, the types and all that and even the scripture that can support the various teachings about Mary. But on the other it’s hard to shake that “where there’s smoke there is fire” mentality that treats Mary like Semiramis. I still prefer using a paternoster as opposed to a rosary though I do plan on delving into the rosary soon. What I find most interesting about Mary is that she didn’t laugh at the annunciation. Is that because she was preserved from original sin? I don’t know but she certainly was full of enough grace to have faith and that seems like it should mean something.
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I have often used “I am somebody’s son; I am somebody’s spouse, I am somebody’s father” as an analogy to help explain the Trinity. I am a single human being, but I have these three relationships with the members of my immediate family.
I have also used an egg (white, yolk, shell) and a candle (wick, tallow, flame) and the states of H2O (ice, water, steam) to help understand what the Trinity is, but the human example has resonated most with me. It’s interesting that Martha makes a similar statement about Mary….
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Martha,
Thank you for that formulation of Mary to the Trinity. I haven’t heard or read that before. I will definitely remember it.
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There were no Kings in the Book of Judges. Read the last verse.
Thanks for playing, though.
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I’m somewhat amazed that with both women in one illustration that no one brought up the early church discussions of Mary as the new Eve, which seems implicit in the artwork.
As an amateur Catholic apologist, I’d be content if the anti-Marianists could all come to accept the concept of Mary as the Theotokos. Then perhaps, after accepting Mary as the human mother of God incarnate, everyone can read the books of Judges together and discover that the mother of a Jewish king was queen.
Baby steps… unity of faith will eventually happen.
>Surfnetter: “Where did the other half of Jesus’ DNA come from?”
You’ve got Jesus DNA? Let’s get that to a lab and analyze it! Personally, I like that God leaves us little mysteries.
God bless… +Timothy
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Thanks Confused — will do
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I find it interesting that as an Evangelical who grew up Catholic but has lately learned to appreciate Catholicism again, I have less trouble with the term “Theotokos” than with “Mother of God”. I think it has to do with the associations the latter term has in popular Marian piety here in Austria.
Theotokos, meaning “bearer of God”, describes Mary’s function up to the birth of Jesus. “Mother of God” is associated with our own mothers something like this: Good sons obey their mother. So, if we can somehow get on the good side of Mary, we can use her to get results from Jesus we would not otherwise get. Mothers are also often indulgent; we might be able to persuade Mary to intercede for us despite our sinfulness where we might be required to change if we went directly to Jesus.
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I would recommend debating the term, “Theotokos” within the context of the Counsel of Ephesus. You almost need to understand what Nestorius was doing to the faith to know why the church responded with such language. It was not a declaration of Mary as a goddess in the likeness of Diana, as Jack Chick and his ilk would imply. I think the term, Theotokos, is more of a statement about Jesus than it is Mary. Jesus was God from (and before!) conception; the godhead was not bestowed upon him at a later time. That is the great mystery and wonder behind the words of Chrystostom in his Divine Liturgy, that although all the universe could not contain God, He chose to dwell fully in Mary’s womb. But it also points out what happens when one banishes Mary from the Gospel; suddenly, Jesus could be anything: a bodiless spirit, a normal man possessed by God, a mere moral teacher, etc.
BTW, thanks for posting this. I think you set an example for the rest of us on how to restle with issues without compromising under pressure nor refusing to see things from a different perspective.
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Fr. Ernesto, I always enjoy reading your comments. I’m curious as to your dispute with the article, but I’ll try to E-mail you and not sidetrack Michael’s blog. I think the author was ROCOR, which would put him a tad outside “mainstream” Orthodoxy. I just picked it because it explained a lot in a concise manner.
Memphis Aggie, I don’t know how much of a reliable source of tradition you would consider this, but the early icons of the “harrowing of Hell” typically show Christ plucking both Adam and Eve out of their graves. Doing a Google image search on “harrowing of Hell” brings up lots of cool icons.
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To step back from a discussion of Marian dogmas, I think that one reason we don’t really have the “Jesus is my boyfriend” type of music in Catholicism is that any tendencies towards treacle (and they do exist) get shunted onto Mary instead.
And for those of you wishing to explore the liturgical year and traditions, here’s a suggestion for Epiphany: the Irish tradition is to call it Little Christmas or Women’s Christmas, and it is the day when the women get to rest and the men do all the household work instead 🙂
Of course, nowadays it’s more of an opportunity for a Girls’ Night Out rather than the idea of the men doing the cooking and cleaning, but gentlemen – how about it? Or is it too blatant a denial of Male Headship? 😉
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Actually I have a quibble with the poem and the premise that Eve was saved. I thought when Christ died He ventured to Hell to retrieve Adam and thus release us from original sin. Does tradition hold that Eve was likewise saved? I had thought not.
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This is all very interesting and informative. But it doesn’t speak to the heart of the issue and that is that all the dogma on Mary, no matter what it is and who embraces it, comes out of the experience of who the Catholic Church recognizes as Saints and Doctors of the Faith. And I can attest to the fact that the same experience is available today.
The drawing and the poem are wonderful renditions of what is really a teaching story. I don’t think the Church actually still holds that the early Genesis accounts are anything more than teaching stories — myths in the classical sense.
But I have felt Mary’s comforting touch, and that is really all I need to know about it.
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Let me make some quick comments but try to stay away from promoting Marian debate since iMonk asked us not to.
1. I thoroughly love the drawing and the poem. It binds together nicely the first and second Eve theme in St. Paul. And, yes, who crushed the serpent is a matter of which Greek text is used, but this is not the place for an argument on Greek textual criticism. The Orthodox go with Jesus doing the crushing. But, to get back to iMonk, Adam and Eve were saved by faith. They, like Abel and those afterwards, are shown as offering sacrifices, and God is shown as speaking to them and giving them promises. And, I can just see the second Eve, after her death, going to the first Eve and saying to her that the promise has been fulfilled, we are free from her (and Adam’s) disobedience. It is a wonderful picture, the type and the antitype meeting and greeting each other.
=== WHAT FOLLOWS BELOW IS ABOUT THE COMMENTS. STOP HERE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ MARIAN THINGS===
2. Actually, yes, we can do dogma. All the Orthodox receive the dogma of the Seven Ecumenical Councils as proclaimed dogma. There are an additional two councils that are seen by some Orthodox as ecumenical, but accepted by all as expressing our mind, and an additional 13 councils, letters, and confessions that are received as having expressed the mind of Orthodoxy, the last being a letter from the Patriarch of Constantinople published in 1952.
3. We have a different view of Holy Tradition than the Roman Church does. This is one of the points were we are much closer to the Reformation than to Rome. We may not agree with the Reformation on what Holy Tradition is, but we certainly agree that it does not endlessly develop doctrines out of seed form. This is one of the items of main dispute between Romans and Orthodox.
4. The article posted by Confused is a good one. Because our view of original sin is not Augustinian, we see much of the debate in the West about Mary’s sin (or not sin) to be based on a mistaken view by both sides. If you look at Revelation 12, we see the Virgin Mary there in the same way as David and Solomon are seen in the Messianic Psalms. Those Psalms always begin with the earthly King, but through them you see the Messianic King. The messianic Psalms start out with what is true about the earthly king, but then go on to say things that could only be fully true about the Messianic King. Thus Revelation 12 starts out with Mary but goes on to the Church. That woman has children and so we call both Mary and the Church our mother. It is both Mother Mary and the Holy Mother Church. And, if you notice, it is not mandatory to consider her fully sinless among us. But, we do all say that she was sinless later in life. I do have one minor dispute with the article, but . . .
5. The title Mother of God is the translation into Latin of the Greek Theotokos, which means “God bearer” or “Birth-giver to God.” The competing term was Christotokos meaning “Christ bearer” or “Birth giver to Christ.” The second term emphasized that Mary gave birth to Christ’s humanity and nothing else. It was used by Nestorios and his followers. That second idea was condemned at the Third Ecumenical Council in Ephesus in 431.
iMonk is right, once we know the “definition” of Jesus, we have little choice but to reject Christotokos in favor of Theotokos. You see, Jesus is one person, two natures, two wills. Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman agree on that. Mary gave birth to the one person. You can read some of the debates to see why there is a grave danger in trying to separate the two natures. But, basically, either the human nature was fully taken on by God, in which case he is the perfect human sacrifice which was promised, or it was put on like an almost discardable cloak, in which case his humanity is actually questionable as is our salvation. But, read the arguments, please.
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Am I missing something?
Bob, I don’t think so. Authentic Christology is that Jesus is a divine person possessing two natures, a human and a divine. Mary is the mother of a person, not a nature. That is, Mary is the mother of a divine person, not a human nature. That is, she is Mother of God. That is how the title protects an authentic Christology.
But you probably knew that, so I’ll shut up.
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How about this? Where did the other half of Jesus’ DNA come from? Did God just create it out of nothing, or was (is) it all Mary’s? Has the Catholic Church dealt with this yet?
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The idea that Mary reflects the church is far more acceptable to Protestants than you probably assess. I think most of the popular evangelical treatment of Mary goes down that line, i.e. Mary as the example of the ideal response to God in faith and obedience.
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I don’t really see the Orthodox as much of a “middle-ground” between Protestants and Catholics. They don’t believe in the Immaculate Conception, but that’s because they don’t hold the same idea of Original Sin that Western Christianity does, which really shouldn’t be much of a comfort to Protestant minds. They haven’t dogmatically proclaimed the Assumption/Dormition, but that really is a technicality, as the article Confused links shows. The Orthodox writer even says Mary is the Church! Don’t look East if what you want is a more Evangelical idea of Mary, because that’s not what you shall find.
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I’m not promoting a Marian debate with this post, so let’s get the brakes on please.
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[Mod edited.
HUG: I really had something more elevated in mind for this thread. Sorry.]
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Look beyond the concept of “Original Sin,” which really is just a concept. No one really experiences it as such. I don’t have to work on recovering from Adam and Eve’s dysfunction. And, believe it or not, the troubles you inherit from previous generations don’t end at baptism, no matter what the Catholic Church or any church, teaches. While theologians found it necessary to deal with the ideology of the Immaculate Conception — which, again, evolved bottom up — in terms of the Fall and Original Sin, it’s import is found in the terminology now coming to the fore, i.e., Original Wound. It is our woundedness that puts us in need of God’s grace, but the young Hebrew Virgin was identified by the Angel Gabriel at the outset as being “Full of Grace.” Whatever dysfunction affected previous generations, the wounds were not passed on to this Virgin Daughter in the line of David. David himself was an adulterer and a murderer, and Solomon, a forefather of Mary, was a product of the union that came out of those grievous acts. She was born with special graces that separated her from the effects of the misdeeds and wounds of her genealogical forebears to “prepare the way for the Lord.”
You have a problem with “Mother of God”…? Did your earthly mother create you? She did not — but she did mother you from the time of your conception until even now. Alive or dead, she is your mother. You came into the world out of her. Do you think that the Son of God looks at His own Mother in any other way. Do you think Him to not feel Himself blessed in that? Do you not see the immense significance of the Mystery involved here?
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Myriddin…..interesting…most translations I have read refer to a male figure–“he” and “his” in that passage.
I wonder what causes the different interpretation/translation.
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Maybe Father Ernesto could comment further, but I think the differences between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic take on Mary are interesting (for instance, the Dormition (EO) versus the Assumption (RC)). Although the EO take Marian devotion further than many Protestants would be comfortable with, I think they perhaps offer a good “middle ground” between the RC and typical Protestant takes.
From “WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ORTHODOXY AND ROMAN CATHOLICISM?” by Father Michael Azkoul:
The Mother of God
“The doctrine of the place and person of the Virgin Mary in the Church is called “mariology.” Both Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism believe she is “Mother of God” (Theotokos, Deipare) and “the Ever-Virgin Mary.”
However, the Orthodox reject the Roman Catholic “dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary,” which was defined as “of the faith” by Pope Pius IX, on the 8th of December 1854. This dogma holds that from the first instant of her conception, the Blessed Virgin Mary was, by a most singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the human race, preserved from all stain of Original Sin. It is a doctrine revealed by God, and therefore to be firmly and steadfastly believed by all the faithful (from the Bull Ineffabilis Deus).
Such a theory has no basis in the Scriptures nor the Fathers. It contains many ideas (such as “the merits of Christ”) likewise without apostolic foundation. The idea that the Lord and His Saints produced more grace than necessary. This excess may be applied to others, even those in purgatory (see below).
But to return: the Church does not accept the idea that the Mother of God was born with the (inherited) guilt of Adam; no one is. She did, however, inherit the mortality which comes to all on account of Adam’s Fall.
Therefore, there is no need to do what Latin theologians have done. There is no reason to invent a theory to support the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. There is no need to teach that, on account of “the merits of Christ,” the Holy Spirit was able to prevent her from inheriting the guilt of Adam.
In fact, she was born like every other human being. The Holy Spirit prepared the Virgin Mary for her role as the Mother of God. She was filled with the Uncreated Energy of the Holy Spirit of God in order that she might be a worthy vessel for the birth of Christ. Nevertheless, several of the Fathers observed that before the Resurrection of her Son, she had sinned. St. John Chrysostom mentions the Wedding at Cana where she presumed to instruct Him (John 2:3-4). Here was proof of her mortality.
Receiving the Holy Spirit once more at Pentecost, she was able to die without sin. Because of her special role in the Divine Plan (“economy” or “dispensation”), she was taken into the heavens, body and soul. She now sits at the foot of her Son, making intercession for all those who implore her mercy. The Orthodox Church honors the miracle of her “assumption” with a feast on 15 August; likewise, the followers of the Pope.
Both also believe in the intercessions of the Virgin Mary and all the Saints. Such intercessions reflect the unity of the Church in heaven and the Church on earth.
Both also believe that there is a sense in which the Mother of God is the Church. The Church is the Body of Christ. Those who belong to the Church are identified with Him. But He is also our “brother” (Rom. 8:29). If Christ is our brother, then, the Virgin Mary is our mother. But the Church is our mother through Baptism. Therefore, the Virgin Mary is the Church.”
http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/ortho_cath.html
Forgive me if this is too much cut-and-paste. I didn’t have a way to link to that specific section of the article.
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If it helps any, Bob, one traditional Catholic formulation of Mary’s relationship to the Trinity is “daughter of the Father, spouse of the Spirit, mother of the Son.”
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Sure, we can AFFIRM Mother of God together, as a theological principle. But where do we go from there? Just smile because we “technically” agree on doctrine?
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Bob, you certainly ask the interesting questions 🙂
I see your difficulty, but I would say that, in general, as soon as (even with the best intentions) questions about the status of Mary (fear that she is being given too much honour, to the detriment of Christ) arise, it becomes very easy to slide into questioning the status of Christ Himself.
I am not saying that’s what you’re doing because I know you are not saying Christ was merely human, but I’ve seen some comment that takes my breath away. By which I mean the ‘human incubator’ model of Mary’s maternity – it’s almost as if she’s an embarrassment: “And when the Lord God decided the time for our redemption had come, He sent His Son into the world, who took on our nature and *mumblemumblewasbornofsomechicknamedMarybutshedoesn’tcountmumblemumble*”.
Funnily enough, when I saw comments on a previous post about the treatment of women in evangelicalism, this is the kind of thing that popped into my head; the attitude that Mary had nothing whatsoever to do with her Son, that indeed, she had no choice but to be the mother (couldn’t have said no, which Catholics insist she had a free choice and that her obedience was the counterbalance to Eve’s disobedience, but I’ve seen one comment to the effect that the Annunciation was the announcenment of a fait accompli and Gabriel was only informing Mary that she was already pregnant – her consent wasn’t required and her obedience to God’s will was no more to be resisted than Paul’s conversion when he was struck on the road to Damascus).
That bit about how, after the Finding in the Temple, Jesus went home with His parents and was obedient to them must have been left out of your Bibles, huh? 😉
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Bob:
In order to really understand the Christological issues of Mary as “the Mother of God” you have to at least back to the Third Ecumenical Council. It’a a matter of how one deals with the dual natures in Christ.
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Terri:
Interestingly, here is Genesis 3:15 in the ESV:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman,and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
In the King James:
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
And in the Douay-Rheims:
I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.
It all goes back to Jerome … long story.
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The way Catholic doctrine evolves is not the same as in Protestantism. Catholic dogma is by and large “bottom up.” The so-called “extra Scriptural” teachings about Mary and the Saints, etc., got added to the Canon after centuries of the laity all over Christendom believing and practicing devotions in these things. And before anything gets to the point of the Pope announcing it “infallibly” it gets looked at and intensively investigated from every angle, not the least of which is the Scriptural. And then the scholars write it out in the theological Canon Law language, which is not necessarily how we of the lowly Catholic laity look at it in detail. So, analyzing Mary devotion by reading the theological treatises will not necessarily inform you on what Catholics really believe and experience.
Mary is our Mother. She certainly was Jesus’s Mother — He has Her sweet love and nurturing care in His human experience — which (He being the Word through whom all things, including Mary and her loving heart, came into being) is an unfathomable mystery in itself. He now lives in me as my Friend and Brother, sharing everything of His Incarnate Self with Me, including His Mother. What a blessing!
The idea of having a queen — or a king for that matter — is something that I don’t believe most moderns and especially Americans can grasp. In ancient times everyone had a king and/or a queen and everything in daily life for everyone turned on the personalty and temperament of the monarchy. To have the sweet loving Mother of God as your Queen was a benefit that hardly any ancient believer would question. But, intrinsically speaking, the import of the concept escapes my Constitutionally free psyche. But — OK — you are my Queen, sweet, Mary.
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I certainly don’t mean to be obstreperous or disrespectful here, but I have great difficulty with calling Mary “the mother of God.” Yes, she was the mother of Jesus as pertains to his human incarnation. And Jesus is God. I believe that. But God is not Jesus. Or perhaps I mean God is not just Jesus. God, if I understand correctly, is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a Trinity, a mystery. Mary is not mother of the Father. or mother of the Holy Spirit. She is the mother of the second person of the Trinity who was Jesus Christ the Lord in human flesh. “Queen of Heaven” is another matter altogether. I can’t get past “mother of God” (not “Mother of God,” please note).
Am I missing something? Or am I just being thoroughly an evangelical Protestant?
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oops “about”
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just one nitpick….the picture is touching, and the symmetrical opposition of Eve and Mary has great artistic and narrative effect….but it wasn’t Mary who crushed the serpent’s head…it was Jesus.
I’d like it much better if a toddler Jesus was standing next to Mary crushing the serpent’s head. Eve could see the fulfillment of God’s promise in the child.
I know, I know….I’m such a killjoy.
I won’t comment any more aboput it.
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And I’ve always found the whole co-redemptrix thing is so tied into Catholic ecclesiology and the Roman Catholic Church’s understanding of her own mediating role as to make it really difficult for Protestants or Eastern Orthodox Christians to enter the conversation on Roman terms.
But, like you said, there is basic Christology at stake (at least historically) in the term “Mother of God.”
A little niggling question, though, for Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox — one I don’t know if I have a good answer to.
I note that iMonk added the adjective ‘human’ to ‘mother’ and ‘incarnate’ to ‘God’ in his formulation: “the human mother of the incarnate God.” This is not something Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox do. But would this be a good idea for ecumenical dialogue? In at least one sense it’s quite obviously true, but does it give too much away or lead to any confusions?
I can see some problems with the adjectives …
Gosh darn it … you get into this very far and you just start having to do the first four centuries of Christology all over again, don’t you?
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Mother of God is the most important title anyway. It’s hard to imagine anything greater for any creature. It’s more evidence of Christ’s humility that He would be made subject to honor a women as His Mother. It also reminds us of the great condescension of God associated with the Incarnation.
I think a good rule of thumb for all things Marian is that when they point back to Jesus or enhance our sense of gratitude for His sacrifice they are worth your time. It is always been her role to say: “do whatever He tells you”. Otherwise exercise caution and skepticism. The Catholic Church has vetted hundreds of claimed Marian visions, but only a very few are deemed “worthy of belief”.
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I understand them. Last year, I was really hacked off about this emphasis. It just takes time. Protestants like myself see the Marian emphases in ways that are as uch psychological as theological. But “Mother of God” is scriptural, necessary and very appropriate, esp in these times of radical Jesus revisionism.
A lot of Protestants, by the way, have some legit questions about the place of Mary in Catholicism as practiced in central and South America. ANd much of the RC doctrine of Mary is related to other RC matters- development of doctrine, traditions not explicitly in scripture and disagreements in the history of the RCC itself.
Protestants interested in this subject should read Scot McKnight’s book on Mary and this Marian Debate.
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You know, you would think we could all unite around that. But I’ve had more than one intense argument with Protestant friends who basically refuse to even acknowledge the “Mother of God” title, even when confronted with the theological underpinnings behind it regarding the human/divine natures of Christ.
But great poem and illustration. Thanks for sharing that.
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