Jesus's view on Mary

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Luke 11:27While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.” (NASB)

-Luke here seems to present a perfect opportunity to convey the perfection of Mary and her extremely elevated status. Yet he does the exact opposite:

Luke 11:28But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” (NASB)

-If Mary is as the RCC teaches us, why does Jesus not take this opportunity to reply to the woman: “Yes she the Queen of Heaven, and you only get to me through her, and you must make little statues of her, and pray to her and not to the father as I instructed at the beginning of this chapter.”

Thanks,
Tim

For the same reason as He nowhere says the family is a wonderful thing - in comparison with obedience to the Will of His Father, nothing else matters; & nothing whatever can be permitted to divide our hearts by competing with it for our love. In comparison with that, all else was chicken-feed:​

• Mary
• family ties
• danger of death
• burial of the dead
• wealth
• bodily integrity

• nothing, absolutely nothing, was allowed to get in the way of His obedience to His Father: it was totally & utterly uncompromising & equally self-sacrificial. He was not “a good family man”, not at all. His practice, & His teaching, require of & promise to His followers nothing that is not required of Him.

All those other things, however good they may be in their measure, can divide our hearts with God: that is not good enough. God must have everything, no matter how crucifying that may be, for Jesus - or for His followers; but only God is Good.

So Mary has her place - but it is one that is subordinate to what God Wills, which is the coming of His Kingdom on earth; as preached by & present in Jesus, & as taught in prayer by Him. By no manner of means can devotion to Mary, or to anything else, be permitted to get in the way of that. This is not the same as saying that devotion to Mary is bad or wrong or sinful; it is none of these - far from it; it has good Biblical foundations. But it, like other things around us, must never compete for our hearts with God’s Kingdom & Will as interpreted in & by Christ. Otherwise these things become deceits & idols.

 

[christcnection1]

Jesus seems to view John the Baptist as His greatest follower:
Matthew 11:11"Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! (NASB)

My brother in Christ, you didn’t even add the final part of verse 11

“yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

This could very well be Mary. It could be St. Paul. It could be you. Jesus is not saying that no one after John the Baptist won’t be greater. Quite the contrary; He’s affirming that one can be greater if they are least in the kingdom of heaven. He’s not saying it can’t happen, nor that no one living at His time will live this manner.

I do believe overly emphasizing any one mortal throw’s off the mission of spreading Christ.

If you live a more dedicated life as St. Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, St. Pio, and thousands of others who had a profound devotion to the mother of God, your words will carry more weight. Their devotion to her enabled them to abide in Christ deeper than others enabling them to lead others be open to the gospel, both in word and deed.

If you try to compare these people with any Protestant heroes (as fantastic as they were), they simply don’t compare. Marian devotion leads to unparalelled holiness traveling on the straight road, directly to our Lord’s heart.

This is simply because God has given more graces to the Catholic Church (which, unfortunately are abused or neglected). However, that being said, this does not mean my separated brethren don’t desire to do the same things. The graces of the Sacrament among other things is simply not there.

To go beyond my OP, Jesus seems to divert away from Mary everytime His family is brought up:

If this is all Jesus said in His message with others concerning Mary, I would see how you could embrace that message. There other passages of scripture which strongly suggest otherwise, particularly as His ministry (His time) was coming to a close.

Jesus very clearly avoids every opportunity to hint at any of the RCC particulars on Mary, and all of the synoptic writers (guided by the Holy Spirit) saw this as an important story to record.

On a superficial I can accept your perspective, particularly because I once held these views. As I looked deeper into typography, multiple new passages of the Bible, and as viewed through those who helped affirm which books belonged in the Bible, it became obvious to me that my former viewpoints were severely watered-down.

Or “full of grace” means something different.

Kudos on the private interpretation part. If God didn’t ensure that an infallible authority could accurately interpret His holy word, we can be assured that we can have no absolute assurance on how it’s meant to be interpreted. In other words, God chose to leave us in the shadows, with merely glimmers of light.

If Protestants were united on what the Bible means, I would jump on board. The disunity on so many central issues of faith is staggering. Ideas have consequences.

This reasoning makes really does make sense to me. The words of Jesus just seem to disagree.

The reasoning is in fact, quite reasonable, as you rightly say.

Jesus wasn’t pushing His mother at the time. That was not His goal. His goal was the Jews and secondarily the gentiles. His mission was the road to Calvary. His aspiration was to establish a visible Church. Mary’s time was coming, just not at that particular moment. She had an important support role that she faithfully lived out…

I have heard this before, can you please post it?

I believe someone did already, but if not, let me know and I’ll find sources for you.

God Bless,

JB

 

[SPH1]

Jesus very clearly avoids every opportunity to hint at any of the RCC particulars on Mary, and all of the synoptic writers (guided by the Holy Spirit) saw this as an important story to record.

Tim

I kind of agree with you, but not for your reasons. Look at another very similar passage:

And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. (Mark 10:18 )

Here, one could say that Christ was downplaying himself, just as with Mary in the other passage.

Now, the catch-22 is that Christ was God, just as Mary was blessed. Mary was blessed for two reasons: 1, She heard the word of God and obeyed (Luke 11:28) and 2, She was singularly blessed because of the Incarnation (Luke 1:48), just as the woman in the crowd stated (although the woman did not really know why).

You stated in your first post, “Luke here seems to present a perfect opportunity to convey the perfection of Mary and her extremely elevated status. Yet he does the exact opposite:”

No, what Christ did was to DEFLECT from having to reveal his true identity: God, the Second Person of the Trinity. Christ deflected in both passages, the one dealing with his mother and the one dealing with Christ being good. Christ deflected to talking about God the Father rather than himself as God the Son.

Explaining to the woman in the crowd why his mother was blessed for being his mother would involve revealing Christ’s identity. In all cases, it was not the right time for revelation of the Trinity (and I’m not certain that Christ ever did really sit anyone down and reveal the Trinity and him being the second person.)

Other reasons and explanations have been offered, this is my take on another reason.

PS: the Eastern Orthodox and such have very similar views on Mary.