Then I would say that your biblical education was sorely lacking and very little effort was placed on apologetics.
Sadly, Christians (meaning both Catholic and Protestant) often neglect this important area of scripture, tending only to feed “milk of the word” to gain new believers. And for want of attention, the “meat of the word” gets neglected. Until someone else comes along with some new “insight” and sways those not ground in their faith, biblical understanding, and historical facts.
I responded that she was one of a handful of people whose existence was foretold in the Bible, which made her very special.
BTW, neither one of us were Catholics ~ but the evening before I'd been reading Isaiah in The New American Bible (the authorized Catholic edition) and the exact same thought occurred to me then ~ that Mary was not just special, but very special.
His response was along the lines of "Did you notice that all the prophesies of a Messiah could as easily have applied to Mary as to Jesus"?
Which has been a question I've pondered for a very long time.
The Crucifix appears to be required as well ~ but I belong to a church that doesn't bother with belltowers and steeples, so we'll get to that one way down the road eh!