Posted on 12/16/2007 4:05:55 PM PST by NYer
God has a mother and she was chosen before the beginning of time.
This is an amazing belief, one that is sometimes mocked and often misunderstood, and misrepresented, sometimes even by Catholics. Yet this truth is at the heart of Advent and Christmas–as well as at the heart of the entire Christian Faith.
This belief is also captured in a short phrase in the Hail Mary: "Holy Mary, Mother of God." They are just five simple words, but words bursting with mystery and meaning. They tell us many things about Mary and about the Triune God and His loving plan of salvation for mankind, in which Mary has such a significant place.
Mary is holy. To be holy is to be set apart, to be pure, and to be filled with the life of God. The call to holiness, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, is summarized in Jesus' words: "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt 5:48; CCC 2013). Mary's holiness comes from the same source as the holiness that fills all who are baptized and are in a state of race. But Mary's relationship with the Triune God is unique, as Luke makes evident in his description of Gabriel appearing to Mary:
And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God" (Lk 1:35)
Possessing perfect faith, itself a gift from God, Mary was overshadowed by God the Father, anointed by the Holy Spirit, and filled by the Son. She was chosen by God to bear the God-man, the One in whom the "whole fullness of deity" would dwell (CCC 484). Completely filled by God, she is completely holy. Chosen by God, she is saved. Called to share intimately and eternally in the life of her Son, she was, the Catechism explains, "redeemed from the moment of her conception" (CCC 49) and "preserved from the stain of original sin" (CCC 508).
The Pentateuch contains the account of how God chose a small, nondescript nomadic tribe, the Hebrews, to be His "holy people" for "His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth" (Deut 7:6). Many years later, in the fullness of time, God chose a young Jewish woman from a place of little consequence to be the Mother of God. This, in turn, would result in the birth of the Church, which Peter describes as a "chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession" (1 Pet 2:9).
Mary, faithful and holy, is chosen so that others can also be chosen and made holy, transformed by her Son into the sons and daughters of God and joined to the Body of Christ. Mary "is the Virgo fidelis, the faithful virgin, who was never anything but faithful," writes Fr. Jean Daniélou, "whose fidelity was the perfect answer to the fidelity of God; she was always entirely consecrated to the one true God."
It has been said many ways and in many places but bears repeating that "Mother of God" is the greatest and most sublime title that Mary can ever be given. It sums up all that she is, all that she does, and all that she desires. The title of Theotokos ("God-bearer", or "Mother of God"), far from being some late addition to Church teaching, is rooted in Scripture and the Advent story. The Catechism explains that Mary was "called in the Gospels 'the mother of Jesus'" and that she "is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her son, as 'the mother of my Lord'" (CCC 495).
Mary, the Mother of God, is also the first disciple of her Son, the God-man. She is also the New Eve, whose obedience and gift of her entire being overturns the sin and rebellion of the first Eve. Her Son is the New Adam, who comes to give everlasting, supernatural life and heal the mortal wound inflicted by the sin of the first Adam (cf. 1 Cor 15:45).
The lives and the love of the New Adam and the New Eve fill the season of Advent. Mary quietly and patiently calls all men to Bethlehem to see and worship the Christ Child. Jesus waits for mankind to recognize Him as Lord and Savior. But He doesn't just wait for us; He comes to us. But His coming awaits completion, both in our individual lives and in the life of the world. Which is why James, in today's epistle, writes, " Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord. . . . . You too must be patient. Make your hearts firm,because the coming of the Lord is at hand" (Jas 5:7-10).
Fr. Daniélou explains beautifully this paradox of Advent, of Jesus having come already and yet coming still:
"We live always during Advent, we are always waiting for the Messiah to come. He has come, but is not yet fully manifest. He is not fully manifest in each of our souls; He is not fully manifest in mankind as a whole; that is to say, that just as Christ was born according to the flesh in Bethlehem of Judea so must He be born according to the spirit in each of our souls."
Although young, poor, and faced with incredible challenges, Mary waited patiently on the promises and the coming of her Lord and Son. The Catechism says that because Mary "gives us Jesus, her son, Mary is Mother of God and our mother; we can entrust all our cares and petitions to her: she prays for us as she prayed for herself: 'Let it be to me according to your word.' By entrusting ourselves to her prayer, we abandon ourselves to the will of God together with her: 'Thy will be done.'" (CCC 2677). That is indeed the perfect prayer, from the perfect woman and mother, for Advent: "Thy will be done."
God’s grace redeems the Virgin
The Church recently celebrated the great Feast of the Immaculate Conception, situated to draw Catholics more deeply into the mystery of God's grace, Mary's faith, and the plan of salvation. Although not formally defined as a doctrine of the Catholic Church until 1854 by Pope Pius IX, belief in Mary's sinlessness goes back to the earliest centuries of the Church and is rooted in Scripture, especially the first chapter of Luke's Gospel.
In the encyclical Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX formally stated the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception:
The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin. [135 Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus (1854); CCC 491]
Although the Eastern Orthodox recognize and celebrate Mary's sinlessness, many Protestants do not. Some, in fact, take great offense with this belief, insisting that it makes light of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, and that it implies that Mary is more than a creature, perhaps even equal to her Son.
But the Church makes very clear that Mary's Immaculate Conception is a gift of God. After all, Mary was "redeemed from the moment of her conception," making it difficult for her redemption to be her own work. And Pope Pius IX's definition strongly states that the Immaculate Conception was "by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God" and by the work and merits of Mary's Son. Sadly, some Christians not only reject this truth, they even resort of saying that Mary "not special" or "not worthy of praise"–even though Mary, inspired by the Holy Spirit, declared that "from this time on all generations will count me blessed" (Lk 1:48).
John Cardinal Newman once noted that Catholic beliefs about Jesus and His Mother are intimately connected and cannot be torn apart from one another. "Catholics who have honoured the Mother, still worship the Son," he wrote, "while Protestants, who now have ceased to confess the Son, began . . . by scoffing at the Mother." It is a cautionary statement that all Christians, including Catholics, should take to heart during the Advent season.
No, it is not because they have ‘done the impossible’,but because they have taken the host UNWORTHILY, and as scripture says, are ‘guilty of the body and blood’.
Those who KNOWINGLY take communion in a state of mortal sin are making a mockery of the Christ in the eucharist.
I agree.
right, ok, we agree, so, if i may ask, what was the point of all your replies back and forth with me on this subject?
On the point you just made, yes.
what was the point of all your replies back and forth with me on this subject?
The portion of my previous post that you ignored. This part:
Is it because they’ve done the impossible (”you can not have the perfect, sinless, God-man, inside the body stained with sin”) or is it because they have taken the perfect, sinless, God-man, into a sin stained body?
me: but that portion is irrelavent. because is isnt the idea of ingestion of the eucharist. if one just takes the host and doesnt consume, and does whatever with it, and again, you are not in a state of grace, you are also guilty of the body and blood as well.
you dont have to consume it, it is the state you are in, when you receive it.
YOU:
The portion of my previous post that you ignored. This part:
Is it because they’ve done the impossible (”you can not have the perfect, sinless, God-man, inside the body stained with sin”) or is it because they have taken the perfect, sinless, God-man, into a sin stained body?
And one” cannot “have the tablets of the Law inside an imperfect ark, which is to say an ark not made in accordance with the commands of God. The references to Mary as “the ark” are not just poetic. The Word of God is carried in a “body” made by the hand of man (Yokum and Anna) but whose dimensions are in perfect accord with His Word. One can touch it, one can violate it. but it is death to do so, though perhaps not immediate or physical death.
Right, men shouldn't, as it would bring down the wrath of God. We're talking about men's obedience to God here, aren't we? Think God could have put the tablets of the Law where ever He wanted to put them?
And he could have chosen any woman in the world, but chose her. Her purity is inseparable from her chosenness. Each of us is chosen; the mystery is why some of us are children of darkness and others children of light. The Scriptures reveal some of what is behind the veil: she is a daughter of Eve, and daughter of Zion. He is the Word incarnate; she the, ark in which he rests, and not just for the 9 months of pregnancy.
I was in agreement with everything you said until, "and not just for the 9 months of pregnancy", which made me go what? What do you mean by that?
Is anything more helpless than an infant child. The middle ages, which are not so prudish or puerile as we, showed the bables suckling his moter’;s breast. Joseph and she carried him through the desert into Egypt and back, and into “hiding,” She taught him his prayers, and the meaning of Torah. In short she raised him as a child of Israel. And all through this time she carried secrets in her heart to which not even Joseph was privy. One reason why the Passion so resonates with Catholics—not liberal Catholics btw—is the wonderful intimacy between “ Mary” and “Jesus,” the scene where she sees him falling under the weight of the cross which is cut with the flashback of the child stumbling, and her escape from her fears as she rushes to embrce him. No Queen of Heaven here; just a mother and her child and hell iself cannot keep them apart.
You just described the very real & very human Mary that I think any Christian would recognize.
Oops, that should have been:
I heard Carl Olson speak recently. Very good.
The Perfect Faith of the Blessed Virgin "The Blessed Mother and Advent", Part 2 of 4
Theotokos sums up all that Mary is: "The Blessed Mother and Advent", Part 3 of 4
Holy Mary and the Death of Sin - "The Blessed Mother and Advent", Part 4 of 4
More correctly, this is the sort of hatred one encounters when correcting the errors that have gone before Christ.
Not to fear, the World hated Him first.
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