5th Marian Dogma and Potential Convert

[Lief_Erikson]

First of all, it is not necessary to believe we should have a 5th Marian Dogma.

That said, the beliefs proposed for dogmatization are (when properly understood) fully a part of Church Tradition, and we should believe them if we are Catholic.

Now please, don’t get all emotional and defensive. I like the Catholic church. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. But even from this perspective, I am having a hard time understanding it rationally.

I would be very, very glad to help explain this!

As a potential convert, like many others I am quite confused about the necessity of many beliefs surrounding the virgin Mary.

Have you read about Mary’s scripturally affirmed identity as Ark of the New Covenant? If not, read it. Then it’s highly valuable to consider the great reverence and honor with which the Jews treated the Ark of the Old Covenant, which is only an imperfect representation of the Ark of the New Covenant.

Part of the reverence Catholics show Mary is given her because she is our spiritual Mother, and the Law calls on us all to “honor your father and mother.” Protestants should be able to understand how she is our Mother. It follows necessarily from two scriptural points:

1. Mary is Mother of Jesus.

and

1. Our lives are consumed in the life of Jesus.

Paul puts this last point this way, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” Our goal is to cease to have any division remaining between us and Christ, to be fully conformed to His will. This doesn’t abolish the differences between personalities, but it does abolish all separation from virtue, and all virtue is in Christ. Christ’s Life truly consumes our own so that we act as He would act, think as He would think, speak as He would speak. We love with His love, act according to His Wisdom, etc.

Mary is Jesus’ Mother. Therefore when Christ comes into our lives and fills us so that we no longer live, but Christ lives in us, when Mary looks at us, she sees her Son. We become her children because her one Child is Christ and we have become part of Him, His very Body.

An alternative way to think about it this is:

1. Mary gave birth to all of her Son, Jesus Christ, in Whom there is no division.
2. We are Christ’s Body.
3. Mary gave birth to us.

It is interesting that it is at the Passion that Jesus tells Mary, “Woman, behold your Son.” She would have looked at John then and seen Christ in his eyes, because Jesus’ life was flowing into John through His anguish on the Cross. She would have seen that her Son was coming forth in many souls. She would have seen her one Child in all the faithful. This makes us all her children. As Jesus said, everyone is His brother or sister – we all share the same Father, God, and the same Mother, Mary.

Mary’s role as Queen also shouldn’t be too hard for Protestants to understand and accept, if they’d think about the typology of the Kingdom of David and some of the descriptions of Mary in the New Testament. Luke 1 says that Jesus would be the King of the Kingdom of David.

What role did the mother of the king have in the Kingdom of David?

The Scripture says that the Mother of the King sits at right hand, second only to him in power and authority. She was so revered that the king himself gets off of his throne and does her homage when she enters the room (1 Kings 2:19). She has a very important role as intercessor in the kingdom (1 Kings 2:13-18). The king promises not to refuse his mother anything she asks (1 Kings 2:17, 20) – in the first Kingdom of David, this promise is not fully honored, but in Christ’s Kingdom of David, it is fully honored (John 2:3-7).

Other passages also show the enormous power and prominence of the Old Testament Queen Mother in the Kingdom of David, such as 1 Kings 15:13, 2 Chron. 22:10, Jer. 13:18, and Neh. 2:6.

Jesus was the perfect monarch of the Kingdom of David. He did not do less for his Mother in His Heavenly Kingdom than the Old Testament kings had done for theirs in their earthly kingdoms. He elevated her to authority over all His Kingdom, second only to His own, just as His fathers had done. He really is a King of the House of David, and the Kingdom of David really does have no end.

The New Testament confirms this. In Luke 1:43, Elizabeth cries out when Mary comes to visit her, “And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

She considered it an incredible honor that Mary should come to her. The term she uses for Mary, “Mother of my Lord,” is a term that was only used in the East in that time period to refer to the Gebirah, the Queen Mother of the royal court. Elizabeth explicitly referred to Mary as Queen Mother in her Son’s Kingdom.

Revelation 12:1 also describes Mary wearing a crown of twelve stars. She is crowned and glorified in the Kingdom of her Son, above all of Israel – Israel is a crown around her head.

These scriptural references from the Old and New Testaments, showing Mary as our Queen Mother, deserving honor not only as our mother but also as our royal queen, should help to make some of this clearer. Though I understand Protestants certainly aren’t used to thinking about it that way. I doubt that many of them have done scriptural studies on the Old Testament to look carefully at how the types of Mary are presented in the Bible.

 

[Lief_Erikson]

Protestants aren’t accustomed to thinking about our participation in the life of our family in Heaven. But this family is one (John 17:22), and the saints in Heaven are alive (Mark 12:27) and actively intervening in events on Earth (Rev. 2:26-27). The saints and angels in Heaven receive our prayers and pass them on to God (Rev. 5:8, 8:3-4 ). Death is not a division between us and Jesus, even though He is in Heaven. Neither is it a division between us on Earth and Jesus’ Body in Heaven (Matt. 17:1-3, Rev. 7:13-17), which is part of Him, for we are all one in Him. The Scripture finds no problem with praising the saints who dwell in Heaven (Heb. 11), and neither do we.

On to other matters . . .

Mary’s role as Mediatrix does not make her equal to Jesus’ role as Mediator. Jesus is the one Mediator between us and God the Father. His Passion is what opened the door between us and Heaven. Mary’s role as Mediatrix is more similar to that of ours when we interceed. When we pray for souls, God blesses them through us. Mary’s role as Mediatrix is like this, a mediation of intercession, whereas Jesus’ mediation is one of redemption. We can only interceed effectively through Christ. He, living in us, inspires us to pray, and He prays through us, and He answers our prayers. Truly, He is the world’s one Intercessor and Mediator, interceding and mediating through both His own Person (the Head) and through His Body, but all is Him and comes back to Him – none of us, including Mary, could ever be anything without Him or do anything useful except through Him.

The same is true of Mary’s Co-Redemption. She is not the Redeemer, she never could or would want to replace Jesus in any way (Luke 1:46), yet she has a very important role in the redemption mystery, like we do, in bringing Christ to souls and thus bringing them into salvation. Part of this role was revealed at the Annunciation, when Gabriel offered her the role of becoming Mother of Jesus. She could have said “no.” Through her “yes,” Christ came to all souls, just as through Eve’s “no,” all souls left Christ. Also, at the Passion, we believe Mary offered her Son to God in faith, like Abraham offered Isaac. This act of faith on her part, this offering, was prophesied in 2 Maccabees 7. Through offering her Son for the world, she received her Son in all souls that seek union with Him.

I hope this clears away any misconceptions on these teachings.

Mary’s Co-Redemption and her Mediation are all in Christ and through Christ, and lead to Christ, and nothing is apart from Christ. Any glory she receives, she offers immediately to Christ as well, for she desires only the glory of God. But bringing glory to her does glorify God, as is clear from at least these two facts:

1. The fact that we are His Body. If only the Head of the Body of Christ is glorious, Christ looks a miserable servant of God indeed. Glorifying His Body glorifies Him, just as raising David to great power and authority showed His own majesty and power, and just as making Esther a great intercessor showed the majesty of God through His works in her. Etc. He loves to glorify Himself in people, and whenever He does this, it always glorifies His Name in turn, for only through Him could any of these wonderful things have happened. In fact, the more He glorifies His children, the more He is glorified.
2. The fact that we know He glorifies His servants in Heaven, mounting them on thrones, crowning them, and causing them to rule over nations (Revelation 2:26-27). God would not do this for His servants if it did not glorify Him.

Now more on this . . .

Mary’s role of Mediatrix shouldn’t be that hard for Protestants to understand if they focus on the theology, though I agree it’s not at all how they’re used to thinking about things.

Mary’s role as Mediatrix basically takes what Protestants accept happened in a linear way and puts this into an eternal reference frame. The first crucial point to accept is that all grace is in Jesus and none exists apart from Him. The second crucial point is that Mary is the Mother of Jesus. The necessary consequence of this is that Mary brought forth all grace into the world, at least once, when she gave birth to Jesus.

It is through her divine maternity that we Catholics say she continues to be Mediatrix – she continues to bring forth Jesus, but now in souls.

Protestants, believing that Mary, in giving birth to Jesus, brought forth all grace into the world once, would have to say Mary is a “historical Mediatrix.” To Protestants, she would be have to be a Mediatrix who has brought forth all of Christ once, and yet she doesn’t do that anymore.

Catholics believe in Mary as an “eternal Mediatrix,” her role flowing from her identities as Mother of Jesus, Mother of Jesus’ Body, Queen Mother over Jesus’ Kingdom, and Ark of the New Covenant. We also believe God doesn’t give people a great and unfathomable glory on Earth and then, when his servant is faithful to Him to the end, proceed give them less great a glory when they enter Heaven. What can beat bringing forth all grace, though? We believe she brings forth all grace eternally. Truly, as Elizabeth said of Mary, she is the most blessed of all women (Luke 1:42).

 

[Lief_Erikson]

The term “Co-Redemptrix,” is another way of expressing the ancient Tradition that Mary is the “New Eve.” I’m having trouble finding a site that really covers effectively the scriptures showing that Mary is the “New Eve.” Here’s a good article on the Early Church evidence concerning it. The Early Church Fathers were genuinely convinced that this was a true apostolic teaching. The apostles at least gave it orally, but it’s also in the Bible, especially in John 1-2 and Rev. 12.

Scott Hahn’s book, “Hail, Holy Queen,” covers effectively the large quantity of Biblical evidence showing that Mary is the “New Eve.” I’ve been writing for a long time, though, now, so I’m not all that interested at the moment in preparing a presentation on this as well.

All of the Church’s teachings about Mary are very important, for the same reasons Eve was important in Genesis, the Queen Mother was important in the Kingdom of David, and the Ark of the Covenant was important in Israel’s spiritual and devotional life.

We should know these teachings and the reasons for them, and then do what they call on us to do – honor our mother, even to the extent Elizabeth does, declaring with her, “How have I deserved that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?” As Elizabeth understood, we don’t deserve to be in Mary’s gracious presence, yet she comes very quickly (Luke 1:39) to take care of us in our time of need, just as she traveled to take care of the pregnant and elderly Elizabeth. We need to be careful not to reject that aid, like Peter rejected Jesus’ offer to was his feet. Peter said, “You shall never wash my feet!” We need to be careful not to react the same way to Mary, through whom Christ desires to serve us.

The Marian teachings reveal the glory of God. They raise several questions. For instance, if God did so much in Mary to prepare her to carry His Son in her womb, how much more is Christ’s glory and beauty than we can comprehend? And how good God must be, to lavish such blessings upon souls!

And how blessed we are, to have so beautiful and powerful a handmaiden of God interacting in our lives for the sole purpose of drawing us closer to her Son!

Regardless of your stance, you should be aware that passage of this dogma will inspire even greater disdain for the Catholic religion within mainstream Protestantism and will be considered further proof of the Catholic church Mary-worshiping.

I understand this, and ecumenism is the chief argument against making this a dogma. These teachings already are infallible Church Tradition, but the dogma would make it clearer to everyone that this is Church teaching. I expect it would increase awareness of Marian theology among Catholics and increase confusion among non-Catholics.

I would love to see the dogma made one day, but ecumenism comes first, in my view.

 

[KephasAugustine]

i dont think he meant that we dont care, just that its not that simple, if something is true and infallibly so it would do the church no benefit to hide that dogma from the world

Exactly; thank you.

Of COURSE the Church should care that we have pedophile priests, etc. That isn’t remotely related to what we are discussing here.

Better phrasing may have been: the Church will never deny the Truth to satisfy those who don’t like it. As John Paul II once said, “the Church loves you too much to lie to you.” Amen, Alleluia.

 

[freerf]

I understand why people think this could be harmful to ecumenism, but, speaking for myself, the reason that some people think such a declaration of dogma could “create a peace, stop fighting, improve the Church in some way or some such” is that it could provide Catholics with a beautiful and comprehensive articulation of our relationship with Mary that we can point to and say “See, we do not worship Mary. This is how we define our relationship with her and this is why.” Obviously, this will not magically remove the accusations of Mary worship, but those people who are so entrenched in their misconceptions already believe we worship Mary. A dogmatic definition would be beneficial for those men and women of good will who are honest and open to what the Church has to say about her teachings.

Catholics are free to disagree with the prudence and/or articulation of this proposed dogma, but the doctrinal teaching of Mary’s maternal relationship with us is part of Church teaching.

This is a good justification for the basis of the “create a peace, stop fighting, etc” question. Thanks.