Can you answer still another Mary question?

[metpod1911]

My Question is for Fr. Serpa. I am a protestant who is dating a catholic and has always been interested in the Catholic religion but somethings do not sit right with my conscious, for example, Mary (surprise surprise). In a previous question Fr. Serpa answered a question about the incarnation of Jesus with this response:

“Are we to say that Jesus does not deserve a mother who is free from original sin or who remained a perpetual virgin or whose body was protected from the physical corruption of the grave?”

If Jesus deserved a mother who was free from sin and remained a perpetual virgin, why didn’t he also deserve to be born somewhere elegant and raised in a life of luxury? Now I obviously know why he didn’t (prophesies, to set an example, God’s plan ect) but I just don’t see how this is used as evidence for the importance of Mary. Isn’t the selection of Mary by God just as important as the calling of Moses or Daniel or David?

I’m not saying that Mary was not a holy person. I do believe she very much was. But a lot of the tradition we get about Mary comes from an unreliable document (the protoevangalism of James I think). I just don’t see how it can be certified that the history of Mary according to the above mentioned document or the difference in her status are true.

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi,

Again, Mary is all about Jesus. This and this alone is why we honor her. Work with me here. When did Jesus ever praise elegant living and luxury? Such things are the stuff of the worldly—not the saintly. He CHOSE to be born in poverty—not because He was limited by what the prophets said, but because we were designed for better than that. What He treasures is virtue and holiness. So He chose a sinless virgin to be the place in which He entered the human race.

A hymn we sing describes this well:

“All hail thou house of gold
of whom ancient prophets foretold.
Your royal praises we sing.
Your womb was the throne of our King!”

As valuable as it is, we don’t need the Protoevangelium to know this. All we need is logic and an awareness of what it means that Jesus is divine. Here-in lies the key to understanding Mary. The more we grasp of what it means that He is God, the more we understand her.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.