I would think that nine months in the womb is a pretty extensive go-between period.
The Word Incarnate taking flesh and bone from His mother was a pretty extensive go-between happening.
Thirty years in the house at Nazareth was a pretty extensive go-between period.
There isn’t any need to down-play or set aside the reality of Mary’s presence in the life of Christ.
And in the end, she was there at the Cross, and there in the Upper Room.
“Behold the handmaid of the Lord.”
“My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
Any woman graced by God to carry the Christ child to term would be exactly like Mary. She was interchangeable.
Christ is not. Christ is God. And Jesus Christ is the ONLY mediator between God and men.
Jesus is so lucky to have mary to tell Him what to do, He would not know how to be God without her huh?
Nobody is denying the role Mary played in Jesus’ life as His mother.
Once He started His ministry, she had no role in it, even to the point of HIM downplaying her maternal relationship to Him.
The only time that He acknowledges it is when He passes on the responsibility of her care to John.
Her being at the cross is what any mother would do, and she wasn’t the only one there. That doesn’t make her special enough to pray to and to *Adore* and label as *Advocate*, *Medidatrix*, or *Co-Redemptrix*.
That’s all blasphemy.
Jesus NEVER ONCE made reference to her as being part of His plan of salvation. Mary didn’t. Peter didn’t. It’s found NOWHERE in the NT. If Catholics have to appeal to tradition to justify a doctrine or teaching, they have strayed far from the truth.
RELATIVELY SPEAKING
those incidents and descriptions are
STILL
Very tiny splinters of toothpicks
on which to build an institutional foundation for an edifice the size of a matchbox—much less the size of the Vatican Marian Industries Inc etc.