Mary, Mother of God

The Sacred Page ^ | December 29, 2015

[NYer]

January 1 is the Solemnity (Holy Day) of Mary, Mother of God.  To call Mary the “Mother of God” must not be understood as a claim for Mary’s motherhood of divinity itself, but in the sense that Mary was mother of Jesus, who is truly God.  The Council of Ephesus in 431—long before the schisms with the Eastern churches and the Protestants—proclaimed “Mother of God” a theologically correct title for Mary. 

So far from being a cause of division, the common confession of Mary as “Mother of God” should unite all Christians, and distinguish Christian orthodoxy from various confusions of it, such as Arianism (the denial that Jesus was God) or Nestorianism (in which Mary mothers only the human nature of Jesus but not his whole person).

Two themes are present in the Readings for this Solemnity: (1) the person of Mary, and (2) the name of Jesus.   Why the name of Jesus? Prior to the second Vatican Council, the octave day of Christmas was the Feast of the Holy Name, not Mary Mother of God.  The legacy of that tradition can be seen in the choice of Readings for this Solemnity.  (The Feast of the Holy Name was removed from the calendar after Vatican II; St. John Paul II restored it as an optional memorial on January 3.  This year it is not observed in the U.S., because Epiphany falls on January 3.)

1.  The First Reading is Numbers 6:22-27:

The LORD said to Moses:
“Speak to Aaron and his sons and tell them:
This is how you shall bless the Israelites.
Say to them:
The LORD bless you and keep you!
The LORD let his face shine upon
you, and be gracious to you!
The LORD look upon you kindly and
give you peace!
So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites,
and I will bless them.”

This Solemnity is one of the very few times that the Book of Numbers is read on a Lord’s Day or Feast Day.  Here’s a little background on the Book of Numbers:

The Book of Numbers is a little less neglected than Leviticus among modern Christian readers, if only because, unlike its predecessor, it combines its long lists of laws with a number of dramatic narratives about the rebellions of Israel against God in the wilderness, which create literary interest.  The name “Numbers” is, perhaps, already off-putting for the modern reader—it derives from the Septuagint name Arithmoi, “Numbers”, referring to the two numberings or censuses, one each of the first and second generations in the Wilderness, that form the pillars of the literary structure of the book in chs. 1 and 26.  The Hebrew name is bamidbar, “In the Wilderness,” which is an accurate description of the geographical and spiritual location of Israel throughout most of the narrative.

         The Book of Numbers has a strong literary relationship with its neighbors in the Pentateuch.  In many ways it corresponds with the Book of Exodus.  Exodus begins with the people staying in Egypt (Exodus 1-13), then describes their journey to through the desert (Exodus 14-19), and ends with them stationary at Sinai (20-36).  Numbers begins with the people staying at Sinai (Num 1-10), describes their journey through the desert (Num 11-25), and ends with them stationary on the Plains of Moab.  Sinai and the Plains of Moab correspond: at each location the people will receive a covenant (see below on Deuteronomy).  Furthermore, there are strong literary connections between the journeys through the Wilderness to and from Sinai (Ex 14-19; Num 11-25).  Both these sections are dominated by accounts of the people of Israel “murmuring” (Heb. lôn), “rebelling” (Heb. mārāh), or “striving” (Heb. rîb) against the LORD and/or Moses, together with Moses’ need for additional help to rule an unruly people (Ex 18; Num 11:16-39), and God’s miraculous provision for the people’s physical needs (Ex 15:22-17:7; Num 11:31-34; 20:1-13).  This is evidence of careful literary artistry: the central Sinai Narrative (Exod 20–Num 10) is surrounded by the unruly behavior of the people wandering in the desert.

         Numbers also has a close relationship with Leviticus.  If Leviticus established a sacred “constitution” for the life of Israel, exhibiting a logical, systematic order concluded, like a good covenant document, with a listing of blessings and curses (Lev 26), Numbers is more like a list of “amendments” to the “constitution,” together with accounts of the historical circumstances that led to their enactment.  And like the lists of amendments on many state and national constitutions, the laws have an ad hoc, circumstantial character, with little logical connection between successive “amendments.” 

         Finally, Numbers “sets the stage” for the Book of Deuteronomy, providing us the necessary information about Israel’s geographical and moral condition when they arrived at the “Plains of Moab opposite Jericho” in order to appreciate Moses’ extended homily and renewal of the covenant that he will deliver at this site in the final book of the Pentateuch.

The specific text we have in this First Reading is the famous Priestly Blessing of Numbers 6.  The formula for blessing given to the priests involves the invocation of the Divine Name (YHWH) three times over the people of Israel. 

A Brief Excursus on the Divine Name

“If they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say?” “God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” say … “I AM has sent me to you” (Ex 3:13-14).  The revelation of the divine Name to Moses (Ex 3:13-15) is one of the most theologically significant passages of the Old Testament.  By revealing himself as “I AM”, God distinguishes himself from the other gods of the nations, which “are not.”  He is the only God who truly is.  Furthermore, the name “I AM” stresses that God exists of himself; unlike all other beings he does not take his existence from some other cause.  Later philosophical language will describe God as the one necessary being.  While lacking technical philosophical language, the ancients did have the concept of self-existence: in Egyptian religion, the sun-god Amon-RÄ“ “came into being by himself” and all other beings took their existence from him.  However, God reveals to Moses that it is He, the LORD—not Amon-RÄ“ or any other Egyptian god—who is the ground of being and the source of existence. 

The actual word given to Israel to serve as the Name of God is spelled YHWH in the English equivalents of the Hebrew consonants. It is not the full phrase “I AM WHO I AM” but rather an archaic form of the Hebrew verb HYH, “to be,” with the meaning “HE IS.” Out of respect for the third commandment, Jews after the Babylonian exile (c. 597–537 BC) ceased to pronounce the divine name at all, but instead substituted the title “Lord,” in Hebrew adonai, in Greek kyrios.  Thus the God of Israel is called ho kyrios, “the Lord” in the New Testament.  This sheds light on the meaning of the phrase, “Jesus is Lord!” (Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 12:3).

The Hebrew language was written without vowels until around AD 700, when Jewish scribes developed a vowel-writing system.  The form YHWH, however, was written with the vowels for adonai, the word Jews actually pronounced.  The English translators of the King James Version did not understand this system, and in a few instances combined the Hebrew consonants of YHWH (called the tetragrammaton, lit. “the four letters”) with the Hebrew vowels of adonai to form the erroneous name “Jehovah.”  Catholic tradition addresses God with neither the mistaken form “Jehovah” nor the ancient pronunciation “Yahweh,” but uses “LORD” to refer to the God of Israel, in keeping with the practice of Jesus and the Apostles.  In most English Bibles, “LORD” in caps represents YHWH in the Hebrew text, while “Lord” in lower case represents the actual Hebrew word adonai.

The concept of “name” in Hebrew culture was of great significance.  The “name” represented the essence of the person, and invoking the name made the person mystically present.  Therefore, God will speak of the manifestation of his presence in the Temple as the “dwelling of his Name” in various places of the Old Testament.

The invocation of the Name of God over the people of Israel communicates God’s presence and Spirit to them at least a mediated way. 

In post-exilic Judaism, the Divine Name (YHWH) was seldom if ever pronounced, except on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), when the High Priest would make atonement for the whole nation in the Holy of Holies, and then exit the Temple in order to bless the assembled people in the Temple courts.  There, he would pronounce the blessing of Numbers 6, including the vocalization of the Divine Name.  Every time the people would hear the Name pronounced, they would drop prostrate on the ground.  This is recorded in Sirach:

Sir. 50:20 Then Simon came down, and lifted up his hands over the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, to pronounce the blessing of the Lord with his lips, and to glory in his name, and to glory in his name;  21 and they bowed down in worship a second time, to receive the blessing from the Most High.

Similar information is recorded in the Mishnah, the second-century AD collection of rabbinic tradition and teaching that become the basis of the legal system of modern Judaism.  So in the Mishnah, tractate Yoma 3:8 and 6:2:

And [when the people heard the four letter Name] they answer after [the High Priest]: “Blessed be the Name of His glorious Kingdom forever and ever”. (M. Yoma 3:8)

Then, the priests and the people standing in the courtyard, when they heard the explicit Name from the mouth of the High Priest, would bend their knees, bow down and fall on their faces, and they would say, "Blessed be the Honored Name of His Sovereignty forever!" (M. Yoma 6:2)

We read this passage of Scripture in today’s liturgy for a variety of reasons. 

First, we gather as God’s people around the world on this, the first day of the civil year, to ask from God his blessing upon us. 

Second, we commemorate (in the Gospel) the circumcision and naming of Jesus.  For us in the New Covenant, the Name of God continues to be a source of blessing and Divine Presence, but the name we are to use is no longer YHWH but “Jesus.”  Jesus is God’s Name, the source of salvation.  When Paul speaks to the Philippians about the Name of Jesus, he may have in mind the prostrations in the Temple at the Divine Name:

Phil. 2:10  At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth …

It has never been the Christian tradition to pronounce the holy name “YHWH.”  Jesus and the Apostles practiced the Jewish piety of substituting “Lord” (‘adonai, kyrios, dominus) for the pronunciation of the Name.  For this reason, under the pontificate of Benedict XVI, the pronounced name “Yahweh” was removed from contemporary worship resources.  The sect of the Jehovah’s Witnesses insist on the pronunciation of the Name, although their form of pronunciation is erroneous, and there is nothing in Christian tradition or the New Testament to encourage such a practice.  For us, the saving name is now “Jesus,” and although full prostration at the pronunciation of the name of Jesus is impractical, Catholic piety dictates a bow of the head at the mention of the Holy Name.

2.  The Second Reading is Galatians 4:4-7:

Brothers and sisters:

When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son,

born of a woman, born under the law,

to ransom those under the law,

so that we might receive adoption as sons.

As proof that you are sons,

God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,

crying out, “Abba, Father!”

So you are no longer a slave but a son,

and if a son then also an heir, through God.

This Reading has ties to the Gospel, which emphasizes Mary’s role in Christ’s birth (“born of a woman”) as well as Jesus and his family being obedient Jews, faithful to the Old Covenant in submitting to circumcision (“born under the law.”)

This Reading also reminds us that Jesus calls us to Divine sonship (or childhood, if gender neutrality is desired).  Let’s not forget that this is unique to the Christian faith.  Christianity—unlike Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Atheism—is a religion about becoming children of God.  In Judaism, Divine childhood is metaphorical; in Islam, it is blasphemy.  In Eastern religions, it is irrelevant, because God is not ultimately a personal being, but rather an impersonal force or essence that animates all or simply is All.  Christianity alone holds out the possibility of familial intimacy with Creator as a son or daughter to a Father.

Let us also notice the close connection between the gift of the Holy Spirit and divine sonship.  From a legal perspective, it is the New Covenant that makes us children of God; from an ontological perspective, it is the Spirit that makes us children.  The sending of the Spirit “into our hearts,” as St. Paul says, is parallel to the inbreathing of the “breath of life” into the nostrils of Adam, causing him to become “a living being.”  So we are revivified by the Holy Spirit, as Adam was brought to life at the dawn of time.  Adam was king of the universe, as it says: “Have dominion over the over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Gen 1:28).  The word “dominion” (Heb radah) evokes the context of kingly rule: later it will be used of Solomon’s imperial reign (1 Kings 4:24; Ps 72:8; 110:2; 2 Chr 8:10).  So the Holy Spirit makes us royalty in Christ: as St. Paul says, “no longer a slave but a son … also an heir, through God.”  No longer a slave to what?  Sin, death, and the devil.  If we live controlled by lusts, in fear of death, and swayed by the suggestions of Satan, than we are still slaves.  If we are free of these things, then we are walking in the Spirit, as children of God.  This is a theme in the First Epistle of John, which is read during daily mass all through the Christmas season.

4.  The Gospel is Luke 2:16-21:

The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph,

and the infant lying in the manger.

When they saw this,

they made known the message

that had been told them about this child.

All who heard it were amazed

by what had been told them by the shepherds.

And Mary kept all these things,

reflecting on them in her heart.

Then the shepherds returned,

glorifying and praising God

for all they had heard and seen,

just as it had been told to them.

When eight days were completed for his circumcision,

he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel

before he was conceived in the womb.

We note several things: Mary “kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”  This is not only an historical indication of where St. Luke is getting his information about these events (so John Paul II [in his Wednesday audience of Jan. 28, 1987] and the Catholic tradition generally), but also a model of the contemplative vocation to which all Christians are called.  Especially during this Christmas season, up until the Baptism (Jan 13), we should carve out some time for quiet prayer, to meditate on the incredible events we celebrate and allow their meaning to sink into our hearts. 

Then we see the shepherds “glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen …”  This, too, describes the Christian’s vocation.  Pope Francis in particular has been calling us to return to the aspect of praise and joy that characterizes the disciple of Jesus.  Our faith is experiential, it is not just a philosophy.  It is an encounter with a person.  All of us should know what it means to come into contact with Jesus, to “hear and see” him.  In his First Epistle (which we are reading right now in daily mass), St. John sounds much like the shepherds:

1John 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life —  2 the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us —  3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.  4 And we are writing this that our joy may be complete.

Observe the connection in this passage with “seeing” and “hearing” and the culmination in proclamation and joy.  This is what disciples of Jesus do: they experience Jesus and then proclaim in joy what they have encountered.

Finally, we see the naming of Jesus at his circumcision.  Christians no longer practice circumcision, because Baptism is the “circumcision of the heart” promised by Moses that surpasses physical circumcision (cf. Deut 10:16; 30:6; Acts 2:37; Col 2:11-12).  Yet at our Baptism, the “circumcision of our heart,” we still receive our Christian name.

The name given to Jesus is the Hebrew word y’shua, meaning “salvation.”  In the Old Testament, we are more familiar with the name under the form “Joshua,” who was an important type of Christ.  Just as Moses was unable to lead the people of Israel into the promised land, but Joshua did; so also Jesus is our New Joshua who takes us into the salvation to which Moses and his covenant could not lead us.

Salvation is now found in the Name of Jesus, because salvation means to enter into a relationship of childhood with God the Father.  It’s not that other great religious leaders (Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius etc.) claimed to be able to lead us into divine childhood, but couldn’t. It’s that they did not even claim to be able to do so.  Jesus is unique.  So Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6).  This is not arrogance.  Jesus is the only great religious founder in human history to proclaim that God is a Father and we can become his children.  This concept of divine filiation is at the heart of the Gospel.  In a sense, it can be said to be the heart of the Gospel. 

On this Solemnity, let us give thanks to God that he has, through Jesus, made a way for us to become his children and receive a new name which he has given us (see Rev 2:17).  This intimate, personal relationship with God has been made possible by the cooperation of Mary, who became the mother of the one whose Name is Salvation. 

[ebb tide]

So did Jesus Christ have only 1/3 of a Father?

The sooner you get your “problem” looked into, the better.

[ealgeone]

Mediator means ‘go-between’, ‘intercessor’. Jesus’ dying for us was mediation, but praying for someone is also a form of mediation. If you believe that we should pray for others, then you believe that there can be mediators between you and God. Not rising to the level of Jesus’ mediation, but still mediation.

Jesus is the only mediator who interceded with His death and resurrection to allow our salvation. There will never be another mediation of this nature. Nobody claims Mary did this, but she does mediate by praying for us, just as we mediate when we pray for each other. She also helped with the Great Mediation, because she carried and nurtured the Body that would be given up for us.

The Greek for mediator as used in 1 Timothy 2:5 is mesites. It means an arbirtrator guaranteeing the performance of all the terms stipulated in a covenant. HELPS Word-studies

There is only one person who fits this description in 1 Timothy 2:5: Jesus.

The word mesites is used six times in the NT in various forms. Gal 3:19, 20; i Tim 2:5; Heb 8:6, 9:15, 12:24. All point to either God or Jesus as the mediator.

The catholic again has to resort to redefining words apart from the Biblical meaning in a vain attempt to justify the false teachings regarding Mary being Helper, Mediatrix, Co-Redemtrix and Advocate.

Even catholics recognize they are on very thin ice using these titles.

In August 1996, a Mariological Congress was held in Czestochowa, Poland, where a commission was established in response to a request of the Holy See. The congress sought the opinion of scholars present there regarding the possibility of proposing a fifth Marian dogma on Mary as Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate. The commission unanimously declared that it was not opportune, voting 23-0 against the proposed dogma.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-Redemptrix#Arguments_in_opposition

Notice they did not reject the motion on Biblical grounds....they rejected the motion on political grounds.

There is no hint in the NT of any of these titles being remotely considered to be involving Mary.

Even in CCC 969 there are no references to the Word....only LG 62.

LG 62 does attempt to justify these titles with three passages but the appeal fails as these are totally out of context.

It is why Christians reject these false titles.

[terycarl]

Thank you for stating the truth. I have said this before but I went to many different churches as a kid. They all had one thing in common and that was they taught directly from the Bible.

And each one interpreted the bible differently....See, you are beginning to get the idea....there are not 30,000 different ways to interpret the Bible.

[terycarl]

I can see why these notions are alien to a religion which claims its priest have the power to bring Jesus down from the Throne room in Heaven at every Mass and sacrifice Him continuously on their altar, and give in a wafer the Body, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus to be eaten by its adherents. Blasphemous that

AMAZING, how ALL Christians for 1,600 years believed that, and now 1.3 BILLION Christians still do...........and luckily you come along to prove them all wrong........O.K., I guess.....sigh.

[terycarl]

They teach it in Catholic schools. What is it if someone kneels in front of a statue?

In your picture, the kneeler is also a statue....indicating that the real person was kneeling before another real person....see how easy common sense is??

[MHGinTN]

LoL, you’re at your best when you make inane comments. !

[terycarl]

...As if Roman Catholics would accept Scripture for anything!

Without them, you wouldn't have the faintest idea of what it said.

[BlueDragon]

I said spirit not Holy Spirit... try to keep up. The Holy spirit is the Third person of the Trinity.

Try to keep up? I'm not behind.

What you have previously said doesn't matter very much, not when excluding the Holy Spirit entirely from being among example of what "spirit" can conceptually be understood to be.

[terycarl]

Could be...And that's because I spend my time reading the scriptures instead of your Christological and Trinitarian dogmas...I have read enough of them tho to know they contradict the doctrines and gospel of the scriptures...

That NEVER happens

[MamaB]

No, they did not. I know because I had my Bble with me so try again. Bless your little heart.

[terycarl]

This may be news to you but the OT was written LONG before the Catholic church came into existence.

Old testament...you wouldn't be able to read it at all unless you zipped down to your local synagogue unless the Catholic church had taken the time to include it in the Catholic Bible which you rely on. Of course the old testament ws written before the Catholic church was instituted by Christ, but the e old testament books and the new testament books were compiled, written, edited, interpreted, copied (by hand)for 1,600 years before a Catholic invented the printing press and the word could be distributed to the public......most of which couldn't read.

[terycarl]

Bless your little heart. As far as I know, Jesus is not a man. No man can forgive sins. If you read the Bible, you know that

Yes, Jesus was a man...remember???

He said to His Apostles, whose sins that you shall for give, they are forgiven...

that was from second grade Catechism class....stay awake!!

[terycarl]

My brother and I always called our father, "Father." I never called him Dad or Pops or Pa or anything of that sort. Same as our mother, whom we called "Mother." Don't know why. No reason why. It was just our way.

I called my father daddy when young, dad later on, but ALWAYS referred to him as my father

[terycarl]

I hope you are comfortable with your belief system. It is totally different from mine. I think that both of us can't possibly be right. I am comfortable with that. I guess we will both think about this about 40 trillion years from now. Good luck.

I am...I decided to go along with Christ's church, which He founded, rather than a group, springing up in the 1930's which tried, somehow, to reinvent Christianity which had existed at that time for 1,930 years.....couldn't quite figure out how they knew the truth when BILLIONS of Christians had been mislead for all those centuries.......still don't.

[BlueDragon]

Mary, "Mother of God," emphasizes Jesus' divine nature.

Pretty simple.

I guess I wasn't clear enough previously.

Emphasizes Jesus's divine nature, you say?

Not that I am requesting that you do so here and now on the pages of this forum for me, so you need not go into digging out from the various proof texts and indications from the written Word that Jesus was (and is) God (for reason of being begotten Son of God, as much as anything else that *I* can think of, anyway);

From where His divine nature is revealed & established --- re-establish (by pointing towards THAT, not necessarily towards the person of Mary, herself) and broadcast that-- from there, rather than holding Mary out as Entitled "Mother of God", then in effect saying; "Jesus is God/shares with God Divine Nature = because Mary was/is the "Mother of God".

That's what I meant, what I was hoping to convey when I had mentioned the backwardness of it.

Maybe I could put it this way;

Mary's (herself in the physical sense, a relatively normal human being) relationship to Christ is defined in part by Christ's own humanity which He derived from her, His being born a son of God, though given birth by Mary into human form. I said defined, in part because going by what is written in Hebrew scriptures, Mary like all the rest of us born into human form, are the progeny of Adam, the 'first man' who was a created being, created in God's image, who then went on to father sons and daughters in his own [fallen] image.

The method (way of) conception of Christ within womb of Mary was defined(?) by the Eternal Divinity of the Father, God being who He is, the Great I Am. Mary herself had not a whole lot to do with the "divine" part of Christ's own nature, not as being the Source of that divinity --- other than herself having born the child of God (as compared to female human beings in earthly realm, since era of Adam & Eve, who otherwise having given birth to children, sons and daughters of men.)

In light of that kind of realization of just what human beings are; pointing to Mary, as allegedly pointing towards, or "emphasizing" Christ's divine nature is something of a non-starter, without other explanation of just what it is that makes Jesus divine.

Declaring Mary to be Mother of God --- when she was in somewhat more limited fashion [ahem] merely mother of His earthly Incarnation (which was Emmanuel, God with us) hints of her motherhood extending, or else be conceptually applicable to those times prior to Christ's Incarnation, suggesting also (when, or if there be no limiting explanation accompanying) that Mary be Mother of God the Father, and that other "person" of the Trinity also -- the Holy Spirit.

[MHGinTN]

How could God know me if I didn’t exist? Um, in your Bible you will read that God knows the end from the beginning. God's perspective is very different from yours or mine. Let me illustrate.

If you lived in 'Flatland', a place with only length and width, no height (a 2D realm as a plane), a person living in a coordinate system which included length, width, and height (a 3D realm as a volume) could see from a different vantage point 'above' the plane of Flatland what is on the other side of a Flatland barrier such as a line. The 3D being would see you on one side of the line and what is on the other side of the line, simultaneously.

What part of me exists independent of my body? My interpretation of this is that it is my soul. What do you think it means? Your soul and your spirit exist in a different coordinate system than your body. And they each have a different coordinate system. Just as the coordinate system of your soul has some intersection with the coordinate system of your physical body (yet is existing in a perhaps 'greater' coordinate system kind of like the 3D is more complex than the 2D), so also the coordinate system of your spirit intersects that of your soul, but is greater than that of your soul.

What do I think it means? I think the writer of the passages regarding God knowing us before we were even fashioned in our Mother's womb is telling us God has a greater dimensional eye to all of time. God created dimension Time, so He is greater than that dimension, even than all the variable expressions of Time.

Each of us comes into existence somewhere in the volume of Time, along a plane of events less broad than the volume, and our lifetime is a linear expression of a span. For the physical body, the span has a beginning and an end point. You might express that thought as 'your physical body follows a linear time, your soul exists in a planar time, and the spirit God created as you has a volumetric temporal reality.

You asked what I thought it means, there it is in as succinct a package as I can give it. Your body had a starting moment, your soul had a starting moment. Your body is in one spacetime coordinate, your soul is in a different but intersecting spacetime coordinate system. These different systems exist, as attested by the fifth chapter of Daniel, the Passage of The Christ out of the rock-hewn tomb without rolling a way the stone, etc.

It could be that your spirit has existed from the moment God created the volume of spacetime. I don't know. But I am convinced that the soul and spirit are grounded in different coordinate systems that can intersect such that the you reading this too long posting exist in spirit (with or without God's spark of Holy Spirit Life in it), in soul (your mind, emotions, and will), and physically with a fleshy vehicle destined to return tot eh dust from whence God fashioned you.

God uses the dust (atoms) to bring His process of gestation along, making a body for you to use with the soul of you which develops during your lifetime. When your spirit He created joins your soul is a momwent I have yet to apprehend. But I'm still asking about that one ...

[blackpacific]

No, you are just ignorant when reading the Scriptures.

James and Jude are listed by the Holy Spirit inspired Sacred Scriptures as the sons of Alpheus. Do you dare to disagree with the Holy Spirit on this matter?

Joseph and Simon the Zealot are close relatives of Jesus, there is no word in the original Aramaic to distinguish between a brother and a first or second male cousin. The English word “brethren” captures this very nicely.

But how many times do Catholics have to go over this same ground with certain strains of protestants, it is so ridiculous, like arguing with an insane person.

The perpetual vow of virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is no different than that taken by any Carmelite nun. They are called “Brides of Christ”, the Holy Spirit is their Spouse. She discussed this vow with the Archangel Gabriel at the moment prior to the Incarnation of God the Word, I can’t believe any honest person would miss it. Why is breaking that vow so important in the minds of certain protestants?

[blackpacific]

IsCool,

“Mary and the Holy Spirit did not have sexual relations...”

I never said that.

God Himself resided in the virginal womb for 9 months. It is neither true nor fitting that the Blessed Virgin Mary’s vow of perpetual virginity, which was honored by the Archangel Gabriel, and preserved by the miraculous birth of God the Word, should be violated by any man, and it is sad to see the honor of St. Joseph impugned by ignorant minds.

[MHGinTN]

Did the Angel tell Joseph to go ahead and take Mary as his wife? Did the Angel tell Joseph that what is conceived in her is Holy, implying, not of human origins where ALL descendants from Adam are born in sin? Does The Bible tell us that God The Father Almighty prepared a body for The Son because the blood of sheep and bulls could not redeem mankind?

BTW, would you be so kind as to point me to the Bible passage where the following can be found? ... The perpetual vow of virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

[blackpacific]

I already did. Reading comprehension. Hint: Gabriel.