Disobedient woman - Obedient woman

[grannymh]

Here is the text in the link for your interest :

MARY, THE NEW EVE, FREELY OBEYED GOD
Pope John Paul II

Before the great mystery of the Incarnation, Mary spoke her ‘yes’ and expressed her complete acceptance of God’s saving plan for mankind
“In stating her total ‘yes’ to the divine plan, Mary is completely free before God. At the same time, she feels personally responsible for humanity, whose future was linked with her reply”, the Holy Father said at the General Audience of Wednesday, 18 September, as he examined the significance of Mary as the New Eve. Here is a translation of the Pope’s catechesis, which was given in Italian and was the 33rd in the series on the Blessed Mother.

1. Commenting on the episode of the Annunciation, the Second Vatican Council gives special emphasis to the value of Mary’s assent to the divine messenger’s words. Unlike what occurs in similar biblical accounts, it is expressly awaited by the angel: “The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined mother, so that just as a woman had a share in bringing about death, so also a woman should contribute to life” (Lumen gentium, n. 56).

Lumen gentium recalls the contrast between Eve’s behaviour and that of Mary, described by St Irenaeus: “Just as the former—that is, Eve—was seduced by the words of an angel so that she turned away from God by disobeying his word, so the latter—Mary—received the good news from an angel’s announcement in such a way as to give birth to God by obeying his word; and as the former was seduced so that she disobeyed God, the latter let herself be convinced to obey God, and so the Virgin Mary became the advocate of the virgin Eve. And as the human race was subjected to death by a virgin, it was liberated by a Virgin; a virgin’s disobedience was thus counterbalanced by a Virgin’s obedience…” (Adv. Haer., V, 19, 1).

Thank you.

 

[laylow]

God was bored and wanted an interesting movie?

(Obviously a joke)

 

[grannymh]

Thinking on Mary being described as the new Eve, I need to question why God would choose to create the disobedient woman (Eve) rather than the obedient woman (Mary).

Both had freewill, so it’s not like creating Mary as the first woman who chose to obey God and keep all of humanity in relationship with God would have taken anyone’s freewill away, just as Eve disobeying does not take away freewill, but it would have avoided a lot of pain and suffering we humans experience due to not being in full relationship with God.

God knew that his first human creatures would turn from him, but he also knew there was one woman who would not.
God is difficult to understand…

Thoughts?

If we are talking about the first woman on earth, then the question should be – why wasn’t the first woman not obedient? To my simple mind, that is totally a different approach from describing Mary as the New Eve.

 

[simpleas]

If we are talking about the first woman on earth, then the question should be – why wasn’t the first woman not obedient? To my simple mind, that is totally a different approach from describing Mary as the New Eve.

You can ask that question.

Well the most accepted answer seems to be that the woman and man did not fully trust in God’s words and fell to the temptation of gaining knowledge that was forbidden.
It’s strange because that’s what humans do in order to learn and grow in wisdom, if one does not make some sort of mistakes/sins and learn from it they do not grow.

 

[grannymh]

I don’t fully understand it either, just as Jesus being described as the new Adam. Jesus is Divine, Adam was not Divine.

I have read a few writings and in some ways it makes a little sense, Eve is the mother of all living, and we say Mary is our Mother (spiritually speaking).

My free speech guess is that the personal sin of Eve is simply a free will personal sin. Eve is human.

Mary is unique. The first human woman Eve is a normal human.
I doubt if any good can come out of trying to change Eve into Mary. That is my personal guess.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

Ok some more thoughts. Following the that we grow in character theme.

Now Eve and Adam were booted out of their home after the incident with fruit, and their free will to sin. I guess at that stage it was disobedience to God, with whom they were amazingly fortunate enough to hang out with there in the Garden. God walked with them.

The punishment as well as death was hard work for Adam, in undesireable weedy farming land, and labour pain for Eve.
Eve experienced hardship and loss in losing her home.
Probably she experienced hunger, cold, fear also.
Really, Adam and Eve became the first pilgrims trying to find their way home to God. We all follow in their footsteps.

Eve experienced loss when Cain murdered Abel, and was then banished himself. She lost 2 sons simultaneously.

Now here I see a situation set up where all human souls born are tested and forged in the fire. Will our trials bring us to be loyal to God, be His people? Did Adam and Eve turn back to God. How long did that take, what trials did they go through? Fire, flood famine

I imagine Adam fighting off predators, Eve losing infants to rigours of life. All the challenges.

Angels got to decide loyalties immediately. We , because of our humanity get 100 years or so, in theory.

So our soul has to be forged and learn and test its loyalty to its Creator, God.

Mary, the new Eve, was born with no sin. Her soul was already forged and sorted and spotless. But, apart from Jesus, she has been the only human born perfect. We all need to get onto our pilgrimage home.

Perhaps at the point Adam and Eve disobeyed God, God decided we would all need forging because of our human fraility. If it all stopped with Mary , this would not meet God’s plan.?

 

[simpleas]

Thanks for the replies.

My basic thought is like this :

Knowing what would happen to mankind due to not being in relationship with God, Our creator could have created Mary to be the first woman who would have obeyed the words not to eat from the forbidden tree, thus saving herself, Adam and humanity from sin.
Mary thousand of years from the garden is able to do what it seems Eve should have done, God didn’t give Mary any special treatment I don’t think, it was her own will, faith and belief in what the Angel had told her, and she put her trust in that.

There must have been some doubt in Mary’s mind, or else she did have some special gift no other human has, Eve obviously doubted, and then fell to the lies of the angel.
So most all of us can identify with Eve and Adam, knowing doubt can cause fear and mistrust, yet I have still to understand how a non sinful human can have a want that is sinful (choosing self over God)

This is a good question :

Perhaps at the point Adam and Eve disobeyed God, God decided we would all need forging because of our human fraility. If it all stopped with Mary , this would not meet God’s plan.?

God’s plan was for his human creatures to join him in the supernatural eternity, I’m unsure if God’s plan was for humans to suffer in the way we do. God made the decision to create the first two humans who would fall, if Mary had been created with Adam, the plan may have come together without death and suffering.

Yes I know, I can dream…

 

[Roseeurekacross]

Thanks for the replies.

My basic thought is like this :

Knowing what would happen to mankind due to not being in relationship with God, Our creator could have created Mary to be the first woman who would have obeyed the words not to eat from the forbidden tree, thus saving herself, Adam and humanity from sin.
Mary thousand of years from the garden is able to do what it seems Eve should have done, God didn’t give Mary any special treatment I don’t think, it was her own will, faith and belief in what the Angel had told her, and she put her trust in that.

There must have been some doubt in Mary’s mind, or else she did have some special gift no other human has, Eve obviously doubted, and then fell to the lies of the angel.
So most all of us can identify with Eve and Adam, knowing doubt can cause fear and mistrust, yet I have still to understand how a non sinful human can have a want that is sinful (choosing self over God)

This is a good question :

Perhaps at the point Adam and Eve disobeyed God, God decided we would all need forging because of our human fraility. If it all stopped with Mary , this would not meet God’s plan.?

God’s plan was for his human creatures to join him in the supernatural eternity, I’m unsure if God’s plan was for humans to suffer in the way we do. God made the decision to create the first two humans who would fall, if Mary had been created with Adam, the plan may have come together without death and suffering.

Yes I know, I can dream…

Mary is the Immaculate Conception. In that way Mary was already set aside as perfect before her conception. Mary was born without the stain of the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, as was Jesus.
This meant, I have read, that neither Mary, nor Jesus as the Son of Man, could be affected to sin, to be successfully tempted. That’s a gift no other human has.

God wants everyone to accept Him,and be saved. I am sure.

That’s really as much as I know

But I have been thinking about similarities in the lives of Eve and Mary

They both had sons murdered
They both saw suffering and sorrow. Although Mary’s is really unmatchable.
But they both had a difficult journey through life.
They both had wonderful hard working husbands
They were both God’s creations in a way different to us normal women - Eve from the rib of Adam to be his companion, Mary as the Immaculate Conception.
They are both our mother, Eve as the mother of all , Mary as the spiritual mother of us .

 

[CHRISTINE77]

Thinking on Mary being described as the new Eve, I need to question why God would choose to create the disobedient woman (Eve) rather than the obedient woman (Mary).

Both had freewill, so it’s not like creating Mary as the first woman who chose to obey God and keep all of humanity in relationship with God would have taken anyone’s freewill away, just as Eve disobeying does not take away freewill, but it would have avoided a lot of pain and suffering we humans experience due to not being in full relationship with God.

God knew that his first human creatures would turn from him, but he also knew there was one woman who would not.
God is difficult to understand…

Thoughts?

I think Eve and Mary are the female counterparts of Adam and Jesus.

 

[simpleas]

Mary is the Immaculate Conception. In that way Mary was already set aside as perfect before her conception. Mary was born without the stain of the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, as was Jesus.
This meant, I have read, that neither Mary, nor Jesus as the Son of Man, could be affected to sin, to be successfully tempted. That’s a gift no other human has.

God wants everyone to accept Him,and be saved. I am sure.

That’s really as much as I know

But I have been thinking about similarities in the lives of Eve and Mary

They both had sons murdered
They both saw suffering and sorrow. Although Mary’s is really unmatchable.
But they both had a difficult journey through life.
They both had wonderful hard working husbands
They were both God’s creations in a way different to us normal women - Eve from the rib of Adam to be his companion, Mary as the Immaculate Conception.
They are both our mother, Eve as the mother of all , Mary as the spiritual mother of us .

Thanks for your thoughts.

The creator can make anything happen, he just chose to allow the events to happen as they did, and we just have to deal with it I suppose.