Something About Mary

Of all the stumbling blocks for Protestants to accept Catholics as valid fellow-Christians, there may be none that causes more discomfort than the Catholic attitude and theology about the Virgin Mary.

I know that for me, over 25 years after joining the Catholic Church, my Protestant cultural background still makes me uncomfortable with some Marian aspects of Catholicism, even though I have come to intellectually accept them as valid.

This is no coincidence. As I've pondered the differences between my Protestant cultural upbringing and my experience of the Roman Catholic Church, I've become aware that many of those differences appear fully intentional as a way for Protestants to differentiate themselves from Catholics. Some of these are apparently harmless or even constructive, but some of them are what I call "throwing out the baby with the bathwater" (as already mentioned in another blog/chapter).

One simple example of this is a Sunday school song I learned growing up, which used the words of the 23rd Psalm to a tune, and the chorus was something like, "Always, always, I'll trust in Him always." As a Catholic, I encountered the same tune in the Catholic Church (likely drawn from an earlier Latin version, since it still had elements of Latin, including its chorus), but it was about Mary, and the chorus was, "Ave, ave, ave Maria." Notice the similarity of sounds between the two choruses? "Ave" is pronounced "a-vay" with the same cadence as "always" in the song.

So, what have I discovered about the Virgin Mary from a Catholic perspective during my journey?

First, that she's the mother of God, which is theologically consistent with everything that Protestants believe, because Jesus is fully human and fully God, two natures in one, and Mary is fully his mother. Any other view would be heretical according to all major branches of Christianity. Clearly, that doesn't mean that God didn't exist before Jesus was born. But it does mean that God chose her to be the mother of his consubstantial and only-begotten son.

Second, that Jesus demonstrated a clear willingness to heed her requests - for example, see John 2:1-11, when Mary's request prompts Jesus to perform his first miracle, turning water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana. And her request was prompted by the needs of others that were made known to her.

Third, consistent with the communion of the saints as described in another blog/chapter, that Saint Mary is in a position to pray for her fellow members of the Body of Christ, so, just like I might ask my mother to pray for me if I had a matter that I was struggling with and could use some divine help, I can also ask Jesus' mother to pray for me, knowing that Jesus has a very special place in his heart for her.

Fourth, and here's where Protestants get particularly uncomfortable, that Mary was kept sinless from her conception onwards - this is known as the doctrine of Immaculate Conception and is one of the very few things ever proclaimed by the pope invoking infallibility to close any further debate about it. (Did you know that the pope's infallibility is only in effect in matters of such "Ex Cathedra" pronouncements about Catholic doctrine, but that the pope is still allowed to be fallible in every other aspect of his life?)

Why did Mary need to be sinless from conception? To provide a perfect vessel for God to be conceived and born from. How could Mary be free from the stain of original sin? By a miraculous time-transcending act of Christ's saving self-sacrifice which gave her the grace of being redeemed from conception forwards.

To be honest, I may never get totally used to that, but I have no intellectual dissent with it, and the more I know about Catholic theology, the more perfectly it fits with everything else the Catholic Church teaches and professes to be true.

Fifth, and this one is easy to swallow by comparison, that, like Enoch (Genesis 5:22), Elijah (2 Kings 2:11) and possibly Moses (Deuteronomy 34:6, also suggested by the Transfiguration - see Mark 9:4), Mary was bodily taken up to heaven at the end of her life on Earth. This is known as "The Assumption of Mary" or just "The Assumption."

Interestingly, the only complaint I've heard from Protestants about this fifth belief is that the Bible doesn't say it happened, by which criteria nothing else has happened in Christianity since the end of the first century AD either. For that matter, John 20:30-31 and 21:25 make it clear that most of what happened during Jesus' ministry did not get written down, so it's entirely plausible that something occurring decades later would not be included in the New Testament.

The last of these things I've come to learn about the Catholic teaching is that Mary remained (and remains) a virgin, and never had carnal relation with Joseph.

Now, most Protestants are also uncomfortable with that assertion, even though I've never seen an "official Protestant position" on it, and the two Bible verses used most often to suggest that she actually wasn't a virgin, and even had more children, are Matthew 1:25 (ESV), "but [Joseph] knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus." and Matthew 12:24, which refers to his mother and brothers.

These don't negate the plausibility of the Catholic perspective because, in the first case, there are numerous references in the Bible where "until" does not mark a change in circumstance after the time specified, such as Philippians 1:3-5 which talks about a partnership with the Apostle Paul "from the first day until now." (ESV) In the second case, in Aramaic culture cousins were referred to as brothers and sisters as well - just like in some languages the word for "hand" and "arm" are the same (e.g. Polish), and in some languages the word for "blue" and "green" are the same (e.g. Stoney Nakoda).

On the other hand, one strong illustration suggesting that Mary had no other children than Jesus is John 19:27, when Jesus tells the disciple, "Behold your mother!" and the disciple consequently takes her into his house from then on, which would not be a likely circumstance if she had other children to look after her.

Now, if you reject any of the above points, then you would literally be unable to function as a Roman Catholic Christian, they are so deeply interwoven with Catholic beliefs and practices. But if you accept them, then some amazing things begin to emerge as valid beliefs and practices, the first and most well-known being the "Hail Mary" prayer.

Did I just call something addressed to someone other than God a prayer? Yes, for two reasons:

1) The linguistic history of the word "pray" in English is a request to another person. If you disagree with this assertion, pray do tell why.
2) In this case, it's about praying with Mary - asking her to join us in a prayer to Jesus - not merely focusing our prayer on Mary.

So, here's how it goes - I've broken it up into five parts:

1) Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.

- this is a direct quote from the Bible - it's the angel Gabriel's greeting in Luke 1:28; if you accept that you can address fellow saints who are no longer on Earth, then this is an acceptably respectful greeting to a human who did something more important than curing cancer, walking on the moon, or being President of the US, and who is the ultimate Queen Mother - she's God's mom!

- being full of grace, she was kept sinless from conception onwards and was worthily ready to be Jesus' mother as soon as she made the free will choice to accept this role.

- God was with her, as the angel Gabriel acknowledged, and now she is also with God, praying for us.

2) Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus!

- except for the last word, the above is a direct quote from Elizabeth, cousin of Mary and 6-month-pregnant mother of John the Baptist, when the two met and and the baby in Elizabeth's womb recognized the baby in Mary's womb (Luke 1:42). However, since he hadn't been born yet, Elizabeth didn't know his name was Jesus, but we do, so we include that name that is above every name (Phil. 2:9-10).

3) Holy Mary, Mother of God,

- now addressing her according to her unique role in the cosmos as the woman made holy by God's grace and given the role of giving birth to Jesus, God's son who is one of the three persons of God in the divine Trinity

4) pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death.

- here we ask Mary to join in sharing our burden of prayer, asking Jesus to bless us in response to our needs, most especially our ongoing need to be redeemed from our sinful nature and not be in a state of sin when we die.

5) Amen

- to quote the Beatles' famous song, this essentially means, "let it be" or "so be it" and is used throughout the Bible, right up to the last word of the book of Revelation. While we may tend to think of it as having a similar role to "the end" at the conclusion of a story, its actual purpose is to affirm and emphasize what is being said.

One last thing that needs to be said about the Catholic perspective on Mary is that, unlike Jesus whose second coming will mark the end of modern history and the beginning of the end times on Earth and his eternal kingdom of Heaven, Mary keeps returning and showing up in many ways that the Catholic Church has investigated and, when appropriate, approved as validly having occurred. As one who was bodily taken up to heaven, she often bodily returns to encourage Christians to pray and deepen their faith, and has even been documented as initiating, commissioning and even creating works of sacred art.

Again, that's such a leap for the average Protestant to believe that it seems fair to say it would be a mystery, or even a miracle, for most Protestants to accept this. But at the very least, if Protestants are going to understand their Catholic brothers and sisters, they need to understand this very important aspect of Catholic Christianity.

(Copyright (c) 2011, Reg Harbeck, all rights reserved)