Veneration of Mary in Luke 11:27-28

August 15, 2013 | Annalex

[annalex]

Once a woman in the crowd surrounding Christ and His disciples cries out to Him:

Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee suck. (Luke 11:27)

What is it? We have, clearly, an act of venerating Mary. Note that the Blessed Virgin is venerated properly: not on her own but as the mother of Christ. Yet the reason for venerating is indeed concerning: it is her physiological and physiologically unique relationship with Jesus that is emphasized. That is not yet paganism with its crude theories of gods giving birth to other gods, but it is lacking proper focus and Jesus corrects it:

Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it. (Luke 11:28)

The Virgin with the Child on her knees and a prophet pointing at the star. Catacomb of Priscilla, late 2nd c. Source

Note that there is no condemnation here, not even asking the woman to stop; the "yea rather" (μενουνγε) is not a negation. It is used other times in the New Testament without a hint of negation. In Philippians 3:8 "αλλα μενουνγε και ηγουμαι παντα ζημιαν ειναι", "Furthermore I count all things to be but loss" (Textus Receptus 1550/1894, Byzantine/Majority Text 2000 has here "αλλα μεν ουν και ηγουμαι…" which is the same word morphology spelled separately and colliding affirmative "γε" with the following "και"). Romans 9:20 "μενουνγε ω ανθρωπε συ τις ει ο ανταποκρινομενος τω θεω" and Romans 10:18 "μενουνγε εις πασαν την γην εξηλθεν ο φθογγος αυτων" use the word reinforcing the subsequent statement. Some translations obscure this linguistic fact: in King James for example, the same word is rendered correctly, "yea rather" in Luke 11:28, wholly incongruously, "nay but" in Romans 9:20, but in Romans 10:18 the translation is again correct, "Yes verily". NRSV has both correct and elegant translations for all three. (See The Holy Mother and the "ΜΕΝΟΥΝΓΕ")

Having gotten past this linguistic hurdle, we can understand clearly what this passage, Luke 11:27-28, does: it establishes veneration of saints based not on their blood relation to Christ but on their obedience to God. It is in that sense that we venerate Our Lady: given that Christ is the Word of God personified, she heard and kept both Him in person as her Child and His teaching, figuratively. In Mary the essence of sainthood is seen in the flesh as well as in the mind. We could say that by the late second century at the latest, when we find evidence of the veneration of both the prophets and the Mother of God in the catacombs, the two reasons to venerate a saint: his martyrdom as in the case of Polycarp, or his obedience to the Word, as in Mary, -- unite into a single practice.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “Then what they good for?” <<

.
Telling him what to do, and changing his hearing aid battery.

[metmom]

And then they wonder why I like to protect my anonymity.

[metmom]

Work at it long enough, become a god (reincarnation helps on this)

Hmmm. You shall be like God. Wonder where I heard that before....

Thinking......

Thinking.......

[editor-surveyor]

Ve haff veys uff findink you.

[Elsie]

Me???

Got something WRONG???

Oh the huge manatee!

How many Hail Marys do I need to repeat???

[Elsie]

Or MormonISM...

[Elsie]

Alexis said he heard voices; too...

[smvoice]

Oh, you're WAY past Hail Marys, dude. You've enter into...self-flaggelation. Now, ON YOUR KNEES and give me 800 yards.

;)

[CynicalBear]

>> Work at it long enough, become a god (reincarnation helps on this)<<

You think you’re kidding or just thinking they do? Here is from their CCC.

CCC 460 The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature":78 "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God."79 "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."80 "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."81

[editor-surveyor]

Then he had better hearing than God!

God needs ‘saints’ to tell him what’s up.

[CynicalBear]

I thought they put that in them smoking balls they swing around. I think those are called holy smoking balls.

[CynicalBear]

No hail Mary’s but you could get some holy soda crackers. They are good for the stomack ya know.

[CynicalBear]

Sheesh! Yer tuff!

[smvoice]

LOL!! I’m not gonna say more, ‘cause SOMEONE is watching me like a vulture, but LOL!!!

[smvoice]

Hey, somebody’s gotta be. Everyone knows that Hail Marys don’t work, it’s the flagging that God wants to see...

[editor-surveyor]

Why do yuou think only men can be pagan priests?

[smvoice]

And *smile*! God loves a cheerful flaggler :)

[smvoice]

Because womens have to be in the kitchen, baking the pagan cakes?

[editor-surveyor]

Nice excape! :o)

[CynicalBear]

ROFLOL!! I ain’t even gonna say what I was thinking.