Book suggestions on Mary and Joseph

[halleone]

I was recently reading a thread from Eastern Catholicism and came on one that fascinated me - I didn’t want to threadjack, but the posts from AlexanderRoman, numbers 7 and 16 made me want to read more about the life of St. Joseph, and the later life of Our Blessed Mother. Can anyone recommend a few good books on these subjects?

This was the thread I was reading.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=8309871#post8309871

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[Catholic1954]

Try “The Mystical City of God”, by Venerable Mary of Agreda.

 

[The_Old_Medic]

There is no book that actually tells anything about the life of Mary or of Joseph, other than the Gospels.

There are MANY books that purport to tell stories about them, but absolutely NONE of them have any actual validity.

Nobody knows where she lived after Jesus died, nobody knows how long she lived, and nobody actually knows who she lived with. EVERYTHING that is purported to be true about her is speculation, as there are NO records at all.

Did she live in Turkey? Nobody actually knows, although that is a strong tradition in the Eastern Churches. There is absolutely no evidence one way of another.

Did she live with St. John? Once again, there is no evidence one way or the other. He was given responsibility for her, but that does NOT automatically mean that she lived with him.

Was St. John a relative of hers? Once again, that’s what some tradition says, but there is absolutely NO proof at all.

For actual facts, you can only turn to the Bible, and that doesn’t say much about Mary, and even LESS about St. Joseph. He is presumed to have been dead before Jesus went out on his ministry. But ???

You want to be very careful about accepting myths as fact. Even myths that are spread through the church.

Ask the Vatican about what it knows about Mary, and it will be reduced to essentially these things: 1) she gave birth to the Lord 2) that she was a Virgin 3) that John was appointed by Jesus to be her son 4) that she was assumed into heaven body and soul and 5) that she was conceived without the stain of original sin.

All of those things, except for numbers 1 and 3 are revealed truths of the Church. Only 1 and 3 are actually mentioned in the Bible.

The Bible does NOT actually state that she remained a Virgin forever, it does not mention her assumption and it does not mention her being conceived wiithout original sin.

The Bible does very explicitly mentions that Jesus had brothers and sisters. It does not state whether those were from an earlier marriage of Joseph’s, or ?? It just says he had brothers and sisters. Many people believe that James was his brother (or half-brother), but this is NOT spelled out in the Bible.

These are SOME of the reasons why many Protestants reject the Catholic faith by the way. We have many revealed truths that are not in the Bible, and they do not accept those things as truths at all.

 

[Crumpy]

I do not follow the stories that are told about Mary, Joseph, and the Saints. On EWTN, there is a show called Super Saints. I wrote to complain even about the title of that show.

Apparently being designated a saint isn’t enough, now, these people have found another degree of sainthood that they label “super” sainthood. Where does it end?

regarding the previous post. It is no surprise that Protestants reject teachings and interpretations of the Catholic Church. That’s what Protestants “do” – oppose and reject any authority of the CC. That’s who Protestants are.

Unfortunately, such rejecting is overboard, because Jesus did establish a Church, did empower its leadership for all time, and promised to send the Paraclete – the Holy Spirit – to reveal all truth to them. The latter means that these people were a source of revelation independent of scripture and their teachings were passed on by what the Church calls Tradition.

I have a thread in the scripture forum about a book entitled Tradition and the Church, which explains Tradition from the standpoints of scripture and from the writings of the early church fathers, which gives testimony to the existence of and necessity of tradition.

Stories and beliefs can fall below the threshold of Tradition, if those stores and beliefs were not believed everywhere in the Church – that’s the kiss of death for something not being genuine Tradition.

I am uncomfortable about people trying to pass off what may be special revelations – messages intended for the recipient – as messages for everybody – general revelation. General revelation ended with the death of the last apostle. This is a sticky issue when it comes to the Church, on the subject of the development of doctrine. see the book.