The Problem With “Mary Did You Know” (The hymn that cancels Christmas)

Aletelia ^ | December 9, 2015 | FR ROBERT MCTEIGUE, SJ

[NYer]

Can a hymn cancel Christmas? Can the lyrics of a song, if true, make Christmas not true — that is to say, un-real? Oh, yes!

Now, it is a given that honorable people may disagree about which piece of music is more suitable to reverence the birth of Christ. (I myself prefer Handel’s Messiah to “The Little Drummer Boy.”) And while there are any number of “secular” Christmas songs that ignore Christ altogether, they are just distractions. What I have in mind is a song that, if taken seriously, makes impossible what Christians celebrate at Christmas. I might even call that song a “hymn” because I once heard it sung in a parish at Christmas Eve Mass. I am writing about it now for that reason, and also because I’ve heard so many Catholics speak so effusively about it, especially when it is sung at Christmas masses. I’m speaking of a song made popular by former American Idol star Clay Aiken: “Mary Did You Know?”

While the song has the merits of prompting its hearers to reflect on Mary beholding her Divine Son, lines from the very first stanza actually bring Christmas to a screeching halt. Here are the problematic lyrics:

“Did you know that your Baby Boy has come to make you new? This Child that you delivered will soon deliver you.”

Now, those lines make sense if Mary is another sinner just like us, who needs to be delivered from sin. You see, if Mary is a sinner who like us needs a savior, then the lyricist’s play on the word “deliver” (sense 1: “deliver” = “give birth”; sense 2: “deliver” = “liberate from sin”) is both clever and theologically sound. But if Mary is a sinner in need of a savior, then she cannot be the worthy vessel in whom the All-Holy God takes on human nature as the Word-Made-Flesh. In other words the lyrics depend upon the dogma of the Immaculate Conception being false. If Mary needs a Savior, then she cannot be the vessel of the Incarnation. And “No-Incarnation” = “No-Christmas.” How ironic that a song sung with so much gusto as a Christmas hymn logically precludes what it claims to celebrate!

Let’s take a look at the Apostolic Constitution, Ineffabilis Deus, promulgated by Pope Pius IX on December 8, 1854, which defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Pius begins by summarizing this ancient doctrine: “From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only begotten Son a mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world.” Mary was not, and could not have been, just any woman, just any sinner, selected by God to be the mother of His Only Begotten Son.

Pius reflects on the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in a way that shows that sound theology can be eloquent, even poetic:

The Virgin Mother of God would not be conceived by Anna before grace would bear its fruits; it was proper that she be conceived as the first-born, by whom ‘the first-born of every creature’ would be conceived. They testified too that the flesh of the Virgin, although derived from Adam, did not contract the stains of Adam, and that on this account the most Blessed Virgin was the tabernacle created by God himself and formed by the Holy Spirit … she is beautiful by nature and entirely free from all stain; that at her Immaculate Conception she came into the world all radiant like the dawn. For it was certainly not fitting that this vessel of election should be wounded by the common injuries, since she, differing so much from the others, had only nature in common with them, not sin. In fact, it was quite fitting that, as the Only Begotten has a Father in heaven, whom the Seraphim extol as thrice holy, so he should have a Mother on earth who would never be without the splendor of holiness.

How much more beautiful, sublime, and awe-inspiring is the Immaculate Conception as the prelude to Christmas — far more so than the well-intentioned but erroneous sentimentality of the lyrics of “Mary Did You Know?”

Pius sums up the dogma of the Immaculate Conception with this definition:

We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.

We are now in the second week of Advent. Prepared or not, we will soon find ourselves in the Christmas season. To find the truth of Christmas, to find the great gift of God which is the real “reason for the season,” we cannot avoid, forget or deny the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. No piece of music, not even Handel’s Messiah can express all of the wonder of Incarnation and the glory of Christmas. Silly, secular songs can distract us from Christmas. Some songs, like “Mary Did You Know,” even if very affecting in a sentimental way, actually preclude Christmas. This Christmas season, let’s give our family and friends the gift of Christmas truth. “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!”

[SpinnerWebb]

“Mary, Did You Know?” is a Christmas song with lyrics and music written by Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene. It was originally recorded by Christian recording artist, Michael English on his solo debut album in 1991 (English and Lowry were both members of the Gaither Vocal Band).

Lowry would record the song several times himself, most notably with the Gaither Vocal Band on their 1998 Christmas album.

[HiTech RedNeck]

At best we have a picky point here that seems to destroy all charity and grace in taking umbrage over it. She would have been a participant in sin prior to her own conception in the fall of mankind, if that were so.

In which case Mary needing the work of the Cross still stands as a fact. The Cross operates spanning all time and space. But it was to appear in Mary’s earthly time line as well as in Mary’s pre-conception past.

This is being all hypothetical about it. As a rascally Protestant I say this is special pleading and not needed to be a foundation of anything that Christendom (certainly the bible) validly honors.

If something could be counted on to put a Grinch in Christmas, these kinds of arguments are it.

[MEG33]

Oh dear..I don’t keep up with celebrity news well...I have always loved Kenny Rogers version.

[kinsman redeemer]

...not this again...

and again...
and again...
and again...
and again...

Yes, it's THIS again!

Let's try not to be "childish!"

(p.s. Mary was a sinner and needed a Savior)
(It's FUN to discover the 3 Easter Egg links in the text above. Try it!)

[Alberta's Child]

The very exhortation of the Angel Gabriel — “Hail, full of grace” — is absolutely an acknowledgement of the pure state of her soul. “Grace” is not a word that was thrown around casually back then — and describes a Divine gift for Mary that didn’t exist even for the greatest and most holy of the Old Testament figures until after Christ’s death and resurrection.

[editor-surveyor]

.
Christmas is unreal.

Yeshua was born in September of 3 BC.

December 25 does have significance though. It is the day that the babies born to the virgins that were raped by the sun god priests the Easter previous are placed in the arms of the bronze idol of Ashtor, in the center of the bonfire.
.

[Alberta's Child]

You beat me to it. I must have been typing my post as you were posting yours!

[Biggirl]

Got to remember that the song is for the general Christian community.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Well it just seems to me, that if we hypothetically embrace a model of this kind, then if, with the author, we take umbrage over a recognition that the cross work of Christ was to physically appear in Mary’s earthly future, however spiritually it might have reached back — well, it seems mighty petty to me.

It sounds like trying to defend the holy with the flesh. It isn’t necessary and in fact it is sadly presumptuous.

[Fhios]

Jimmy Durante has the best Christmas songs. When I want to go classical, I go Nutcracker Suite.

[Biggirl]

How do you know?

[HiTech RedNeck]

If someone prints $3 bills, are you going to refuse $2 and $5 bills?

Sometimes “Christians” can really get into an orgy of aspersion casting.

[TheZMan]

*facepalm*

[libertymaker]

The article is flat wrong in several places.

The most obvious is that Clay Aiken did not make this song famous. It was written and performed for years by Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene, both evangelical Christians. Lowry was a member of the Gaither Vocal Band at the time and still tours with them. Lowry’s original version as still the gold-standard for this very moving Christmas song.

[justlittleoleme]

There is only one who was tempted in every way that mankind could be yet lived without sin, and his name is JESUS.

2 Corinthians 5:20-21New International Version (NIV)

“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Nowhere in the bible does it say that Mary was without sin, or conceived while she was sinless.

[Larry Lucido]

Amazing Grace is heretical (Michael Voris):

http://www.cleansingfire.org/2010/05/amazing-grace-is-anti-catholic/

No it’s not (Mark Shea):

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2011/07/michael-voris-offers-unintelligent-and-destructive-cultural-commentary.html

What are you gonna do?

[editor-surveyor]

.
Grace is solely for confessed, repentant sinners.

No one else will ever receive any grace.

[Boogieman]

"Now, those lines make sense if Mary is another sinner just like us, who needs to be delivered from sin."

She was.

"But if Mary is a sinner in need of a savior, then she cannot be the worthy vessel in whom the All-Holy God takes on human nature as the Word-Made-Flesh."

Sure she can. God is incorruptible. He wasn't tainted by walking among us in a world full of sinful humans for 33 years, and he wouldn't have been tainted by spending 9 months in a sinner's womb either. Building doctrine on speculations of what God couldn't do is illogical and yields poor results.

[fwdude]

For the record, I really don't like this song, for various reasons. First, it is overplayed to a ridiculous point, like a guy repeating the punch line to a good joke over and over until you start hating the joke.

Another is that it is being embraced by all manner of unbelievers (Clay Aiken, for one) who have no intention of living by its intentions.

But this articles contentions are lame.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Oh yes she could — because sovereign Almighty GOD chose Mary, of sinful flesh like you and I, to aid in implementing His perfect Plan for our salvation."

Actually, she didn't have sinful flesh "like you and I."

She had sinless flesh "like Adam and Eve."

As Scripture says, Christ is the New Adam (1 Cor 15). Just as Adam received a perfect human nature, not a ruined one, so as "New Adam," Christ had a human nature which was also perfect.

Since Mary is Christ's ONLY human parent, they must have partaken of the same human nature, which is to say, one which was as "good" as human nature was originally, at the Creation.