Mary and RCIA

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robin_hood

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I have been asked to present some teaching on Mary the mother of God using material that another catechist has prepared.
In the material 3 facts are given about Mary which are not found in Scripture I wonder where they come from and can they be regarded as fact.
They are
  1. Mary was the daughter of St Joachim and St Ann.
  2. She was pledged to service in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem at an early age.
  3. In her early teens she was sent home by the Temple priests to betrothed to Joseph of Nazareth.
    As this teaching is being presented as fact in a RCIA class I want to be 100% correct in what I present.
    Can any one help:thumbsup:
    God bless
 
They are from the Protoevangelium of James, a non inspired work which dates back to the early Christian centuries.
  1. Since the church has given us the feast of St. Anne and St. Joachim in July, you can take that one as being an accepted pious tradition.
  2. Also a tradition. There is really no evidence that she was not consecrated (and in fact, her response to Gabriel, if she was in fact simply a betrothed Jewish maiden expecting a consummated marriage, would have been, “So, Joseph and I are going to have a boy, eh?” or some such.) For a woman expecting a consummated marriage to respond with, “how can this be since I am virgin” would indicate that Mary didn’t know ‘the birds and the bees’ or was lacking in intellect–neither of which makes good sense. You can of course indicate that the pious oral tradition was that she was consecrated. Again, there is no other tradition or evidence that she was not.
  3. She was certainly home awaiting her betrothal to Joseph, and since the tradition is that she was a consecrated virgin who would need the care of a spouse, that looks pretty correct.
Again, the overwhelming weight of tradition is on the side of all the above. Maybe the details are not 100%–maybe she was consecrated not at 3, but at 2 or 5 or whatever. Maybe her parent’s names were not the ones given.

Bottom line, the Church recognizes Mary’s parents with the pious tradition (and the giving of a feast day) of those names.

The Church recognizes that Mary was not just ‘any woman’ expecting a ‘full’ marriage, but a consecrated virgin–whatever the vows were, in exact form and under the exact circumstances, the tradition is that she was dedicated to God. And this would have involved in all likelihood a ceremony and not just words at home (otherwise her father could have released her from her vows at any time).

The Church recognizes that Joseph and Mary’s marriage would be an unconsummated one, and that this was a planned marriage because Mary was consecrated, and this is also pious tradition and is based as well on the oral tradition and the writings of the early church fathers.
 
robin_hood said:
I have been asked to present some teaching on Mary the mother of God using material that another catechist has prepared.
In the material 3 facts are given about Mary which are not found in Scripture I wonder where they come from and can they be regarded as fact.
They are
  1. Mary was the daughter of St Joachim and St Ann.
  2. She was pledged to service in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem at an early age.
  3. In her early teens she was sent home by the Temple priests to betrothed to Joseph of Nazareth.
    As this teaching is being presented as fact in a RCIA class I want to be 100% correct in what I present.
    Can any one help:thumbsup:
    God bless
Click to expand...
++ The only source for the three things is an imaginative fiction called the Protevangelium of James. It is historically worthless, apart from being an indicator of early interest in the BVM.

She must have had parents, of course, but nothing is known about them; the other two things are no more factual than “The Da Vinci Code”.

The Faith become laughable when such things is said to be doctrine; they are nothing of the kind.

Hope that helps 🙂
 
Gottle_of_Geer said:
++ The only source for the three things is an imaginative fiction called the Protevangelium of James. It is historically worthless, apart from being an indicator of early interest in the BVM.

She must have had parents, of course, but nothing is known about them; the other two things are no more factual than “The Da Vinci Code”.

The Faith become laughable when such things is said to be doctrine; they are nothing of the kind.

Hope that helps 🙂
Click to expand...
Helps what?

I looked at your post count which better then 4000 in a Catholic forum. Then read in your profile (after reading this response) how you classify your religion: "Barth-affirming TULIP-loving Archeoconservative CathoProt ".

Genuinely posed question for you, just how and who are you trying to “help”? Catholics? Or are you trying to expose Catholic weaknesses? Another poster expressed how the Church has given us the feast of St. Anne and St. Joachim in July. Wouldn’t it be disrespectfull for a Catholic to label this as equal to the Da Vinci Code?

If you are not Catholic, you sure are busy trying to straighten us out with over 4000 posts. :eek:
 
Given the actual church teachings which are to numerous to cover in your class why would you go outside the church for you resources? I would tell the preparer some of the information appears from a non-Catholic source.

You will cover these?
Immaculate Conception*
Ever Virgin
Assumption*
Saint who has returned to earth in apparitions
She receives prayers of intercession (not adoration)
  • only actual infallibility teaches from the Pope
 
robin_hood said:
…1) Mary was the daughter of St Joachim and St Ann.
Click to expand...
Tradition nevertheless, grounded on very old testimonies, very early hailed Saints Joachim and Anne as the father and mother of the Mother of God. True, this tradition seems to rest ultimately on the so-called “Gospel of James”, the “Gospel of the Nativity of the Blessed Mary”, and the Pseudo-Matthew, or “Book of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of the Childhood of the Saviour”; and this origin is likely to rouse well-founded suspicions. It should be borne in mind, however, that the apocryphal character of these writings, that is to say, their rejection from the canon,- newadvent.org/cathen/08406b.htm
  1. She was pledged to service in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem at an early age.
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Sound more like Asher who identified Jesus as an infant
  1. In her early teens she was sent home by the Temple priests to betrothed to Joseph of Nazareth…
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sorry I know nothing about this
 
robin_hood said:
I have been asked to present some teaching on Mary the mother of God using material that another catechist has prepared.
In the material 3 facts are given about Mary which are not found in Scripture I wonder where they come from and can they be regarded as fact.
They are
  1. Mary was the daughter of St Joachim and St Ann.
  2. She was pledged to service in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem at an early age.
  3. In her early teens she was sent home by the Temple priests to betrothed to Joseph of Nazareth.
    As this teaching is being presented as fact in a RCIA class I want to be 100% correct in what I present.
    Can any one help:thumbsup:
    God bless
Click to expand...
I would not use these “facts”.

I might mention that the Church recognizes Mary’s parents as St. Joachim and St. Anne based on early pious traditions. We cannot be certain that these were their names, but that is no more important that whether December 25 is actually the birthday of Jesus. Assigning names to Mary’s parents (since she obviously did hvae parents) is not problematic.

The other stories are problematic because they are really too much for RCIA people to grasp. Those types of stories are better left for persons with a good foundation in Catholicism.

I would instead focus on the primary teachings regarding Mary as found in the Catechism.
 
1Ke and Texas Roofer make some good points.

In any case, the items mentioned are not required when teaching the basics of Mary.

However, they could be brought up in the context of “some ancient traditions tell this story”. The fact that the Protoevangelium is not part of canon does not mean that it was inspected and rejected as untrue. For all we know, the “canon committee” never even saw the document. Or perhaps they saw it and deemed it not essential, but not necessarily wrong either.

So far as I know (and I freely admit to not knowing much), there’s nothing in the Protoevangelium that actually contradicts the Tradition of the Church. I haven’t read it lately, so perhaps I’m wrong.
 
The Feast of The Presentation of Mary, Nov.21.

“Hail, holy throne of God, divine sanctuary, house of glory, jewel most fair, chosen treasure house, and mercy seat for the whole world, heaven showing forth the glory of God. Purest Virgin, worthy of all praise, sanctuary dedicated to God and raised above all human condition, virgin soil, unplowed field, flourishing vine, fountain pouring out waters, virgin bearing a child, mother without knowing man, hidden treasure of innocence, ornament of sanctity, by your most acceptable prayers, strong with the authority of motherhood, to our Lord and God, Creator of all, your Son who was born of you without a father, steer the ship of the Church and bring it to a quiet harbor” (adapted from a homily by St. Germanus on the Presentation of the Mother of God).
 
I have taught the lesson on Mary several times to our RCIA classes and think that the three items you are concerned about though not scriptural or doctrinal, do help to put a human face on Mary for people of our times as they did for people in ages past. It is easy to put them in the context of pius supposition rather than fact. Also the doctrinal items about Mary, sinlessness, perpetual virginity, honored as Mother of God, the Theotokos and not just of the humanity of Jesus, etc. Although Pius IX and Pius XII did infallibly define Mary’s Immaculate Conception and Assumption late in the 19th Century and mid 20th Century these facts were believed by the majority of Catholics for many years before they were officially defined. Mary as Queen of Heaven has many fore-runners in the Queen Mothers of the Kings of Judea who were powerful women standing at the thrones of their sons. Jesus as the King of Heaven and the New Israel, the Church, has a Queen Mother who is an intercessor for her adopted children. Like those other Queen Mothers she is a powerful intercessor before the throne and deserves veneration and honor, but not Worship. The Hail Mary is a perfect prayer, the first half being scriptural and the second half being petition for Mary’s prayers for us. In my experience, most protestants in RCIA, once they understand what the Church actully teaches about Mary, do not have a problem with her; nor is she a stumbling block to their acceptance of the Catholic Faith. If you touch on the Rosary, keep in mind and let it be known, not as mere repetitous prayers but as a meditation, in the four sets of mysteries, of the complete story of the New Testament from the Annunciation to Pentecost to Mary’s Assumption and Crowning as Queen of heaven.
 
robin_hood said:
I have been asked to present some teaching on Mary the mother of God using material that another catechist has prepared.
In the material 3 facts are given about Mary which are not found in Scripture I wonder where they come from and can they be regarded as fact.
They are
  1. Mary was the daughter of St Joachim and St Ann.
  2. She was pledged to service in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem at an early age.
  3. In her early teens she was sent home by the Temple priests to betrothed to Joseph of Nazareth.
    As this teaching is being presented as fact in a RCIA class I want to be 100% correct in what I present.
    Can any one help:thumbsup:
    God bless
Click to expand...
All three are fine to present as acceptable Catholic tradition from the early Church.
 
robin_hood said:
I have been asked to present some teaching on Mary the mother of God using material that another catechist has prepared.
In the material 3 facts are given about Mary which are not found in Scripture I wonder where they come from and can they be regarded as fact.
They are
  1. Mary was the daughter of St Joachim and St Ann.
  2. She was pledged to service in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem at an early age.
  3. In her early teens she was sent home by the Temple priests to betrothed to Joseph of Nazareth.
    As this teaching is being presented as fact in a RCIA class I want to be 100% correct in what I present.
    Can any one help:thumbsup:
    God bless
Click to expand...
If you could get a copy of Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Dr. Ludwig Ott (check Church library) , book 3, part 4, "The Mother of the Redeemer ", is excellent source for instruction.
 
robin_hood said:
I have been asked to present some teaching on Mary the mother of God using material that another catechist has prepared.
In the material 3 facts are given about Mary which are not found in Scripture I wonder where they come from and can they be regarded as fact.
They are
  1. Mary was the daughter of St Joachim and St Ann.
  2. She was pledged to service in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem at an early age.
  3. In her early teens she was sent home by the Temple priests to betrothed to Joseph of Nazareth.
    As this teaching is being presented as fact in a RCIA class I want to be 100% correct in what I present.
    Can any one help:thumbsup:
    God bless
Click to expand...
The Protevangelium of James is truth with very many errors. Be very careful if you use this as a reference.

1) Mary was the daughter of St Joachim and St Ann
I agree with Tantum Ergo on this. Since the church has given us the feast of St. Anne and St. Joachim in July, you can take that one as being an accepted pious tradition. I pray to these Saints every once in a long while.

2) She was pledged to service in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem at an early age.
I have strong doubts about this pledge of service even though many Catholics believe this as true. It was possible for women to serve in the temple. See Exodus 38:8 *“Moreover, he made the laver of bronze with its base of bronze, from the mirrors of the serving women who served at the doorway of the tent of meeting.” *So it appears that women could serve in some capacity. If she was not pledged (rather not dedicated completely) to service in the temple, Mary’s education came mainly from St. Joachim and St. Anne. I favour this latter position.

3) In her early teens she was sent home by the Temple priests to betrothed to Joseph of Nazareth.
It is possible, but I don’t believe temple priests were in control of Mary. Rather I believe she was in a family setting whose parents were extremely religious and who had close access to the temple. That’s a big difference. I don’t think the Mother of God took a vow of virginity either hoping she is the Mother of God. That’s not humilty to me. I hold the position that it was the desire of both St. Joseph and St. Mary to have children, otherwise you denigrate the sacrament of marriage. Her vow of virginity happened only after the annunciation by Gabriel.

St. Thomas Aquinas could be wrong, but he says.
newadvent.org/summa/4028.htm
THIRD PART, QUESTION 28 ARTICLE 4
Whether the Mother of God took a vow of virginity?
As we have stated in the II-II, 88, 6, works of perfection are more praiseworthy when performed in fulfilment of a vow. Now it is clear that for reasons already given (1,2,3) virginity had a special place in the Mother of God. It was therefore fitting that her virginity should be consecrated to God by vow. Nevertheless because, while the Law was in force both men and women were bound to attend to the duty of begetting, since the worship of God was spread according to carnal origin, until Christ was born of that people; the Mother of God is not believed to have taken an absolute vow of virginity, before being espoused to Joseph, although she desired to do so, yet yielding her own will to God’s judgment. Afterwards, however, having taken a husband, according as the custom of the time required, together with him she took a vow of virginity.
 
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