Please Help: How do we know Mary was sinless?

[LittleSoldier]

Hello forum,

I am having a number of difficulties this-evening, particularly with accepting the dogmas of Mary.

My main contention goes like this:

How do we know that Mary was sinless?
How would the Apostles have known?
How could anybody have known?

How do we know that Our Lady was assumed into Heavenly Glory?
There is no evidence for this.
The fact that her body was never found does not prove that she was assumed into Heavenly Glory.

I am feeling as though I accept a number of things as a Catholic that I don’t understand, or even feel makes any rational sense. Why should we simply accept these things because Tradition holds them (i.e., lots of other people believe them).

Please pray for me/ help.

X

We know that Mary was immaculately conceived and assumed into heaven because this is infallible dogma (at least one is ex cathedra).

The Church encourages us to question, and to not accept dogma or doctrine is common. If you do your best to study, meditate, and pray about these issues then you may come to understand them. If you still do not, you might want to check the NewAdvent site for “Invincible Ignorance.” Nobody can be forced to accept something that, to him, absolutely makes no sense at all. God understands this as He knows us better than we know ourselves.

There are some Church teachings with which I have problems but then I remember that the Doctors of the Church and people with advanced degrees in theology, ancient languages, etc. are much more knowledgeable than I am. So I defer to them - usually.

If we can accept Church teachings with faith we are blessed. If we can’t then we need to do our absolute best to understand.

I will pray for you. Please pray for me.

 

[TimothyH]

We know that Mary was immaculately conceived and assumed into heaven because this is infallible dogma (at least one is ex cathedra).

The Church encourages us to question, and to not accept dogma or doctrine is common. If you do your best to study, meditate, and pray about these issues then you may come to understand them. If you still do not, you might want to check the NewAdvent site for “Invincible Ignorance.” Nobody can be forced to accept something that, to him, absolutely makes no sense at all. God understands this as He knows us better than we know ourselves.

There are some Church teachings with which I have problems but then I remember that the Doctors of the Church and people with advanced degrees in theology, ancient languages, etc. are much more knowledgeable than I am. So I defer to them - usually.

If we can accept Church teachings with faith we are blessed. If we can’t then we need to do our absolute best to understand.

I will pray for you. Please pray for me.

Faith comes first. Dogma requires the assent of faith because dogma is nothing more than revealed truth.

We accept dogma and make a concious decision to believe it in spite of our lack of understanding simply because it is revealed truth. God has revealed this dogma - this truth - to us through his Holy Church. This dogma was handed down from the apostles who got the truth from Jesus Christ himsef. Dogma is nothing more than the truth revealed to us by God.

Faith is one of the three theological virtues.

*CCC 1814
Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself. *

So we believe dogma because Truth Himself revealed it to us. We make a concious decision to believe, and then later we will recieve light and understanding. But the but the assent of faith comes first.

Yes, Mary was held free from the stain of sin from the moment of her conception. That is revealed truth, and the fact that we don’t undersand it or don’t believe it does not change that it is reveled truth. We need to give it the assent of faith, to make a concious decision to believe in spite of our lack of understanding because it is revealed truth. Once we do that, God will help us to understand.

-Tim-

 

[pismopal]

“Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

I don’t suppose Scripture details the faults and failings of every single creature yet we know that all have sinned… Nowhere does it say that Christ shall be born of a sinless woman. What you rely upon for this is conjecture, “metaphor, simile”. Is that it? It’s nice to know that this Holy Faith is built upon little more than conjecture and metaphor and simile.

I do happen to believe but don’t tell me that because there is no account of Mary’s faults that consequently it’s rational to believe she led a sinless life. I do happen to think that we can know this from the Archangel Gabriel’s greeting and bending our minds to what is implied in his greeting…but your rudeness and expectation that it is rational is nonsense.

Romans 3:23 is an often cherrry picked verse used by non Catholics mainly to contest Catholic dogma. For the millionth time…at least…that verse you have used out of context in order to have the meaning that “all” literally means all with no exclusions. This is not what the verse or indeed what Romans 3 is trying to say. The point is that Greeks are no worse than Jews and vice versa when it comes to sin. If you are going to be strictly literal about that verse without putting it into the context you are going to work your way off the track…if you are not already. Hard to tell.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Faith comes first. Dogma requires the assent of faith because dogma is nothing more than revealed truth.

But faith is a gift and sometimes it is very difficult to accept something that is taught as truth by the Church. I do believe that everything the Church teaches is truth and that any problems in understanding that truth are on my side. I try to accept the truth and then try to figure out why I am having those problems. Lately I’ve been praying for faith. I’m afraid I’m pretty much a Doubting Thomas. But since I’ve been praying for faith I’ve noticed that I don’t feel so unsure about the one doctrine with which I am having problems accepting (BTW, I fully accept the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary as truth).

We accept dogma and make a concious decision to believe it in spite of our lack of understanding simply because it is revealed truth. God has revealed this dogma - this truth - to us through his Holy Church. This dogma was handed down from the apostles who got the truth from Jesus Christ himsef. Dogma is nothing more than the truth revealed to us by God.

This is where the problem can lie. I wish I could accept all dogma with the faith of a child. I really do. But my mind sometimes tells me that what I’m being told can’t be true and no matter how hard I try to believe and how hard I want to believe, I just don’t believe. I know what dogma is. I know what doctrine is.

Faith is one of the three theological virtues.

CCC 1814
Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself.

So we believe dogma because Truth Himself revealed it to us. We make a concious decision to believe, and then later we will recieve light and understanding. But the but the assent of faith comes first.

Do you understand how difficult it can be to accept something that just makes absolutely no sense whatsoever? Perhaps it is not difficult for a person who has faith to accept. But I can’t make a conscious decision to believe the one doctrine I am having problems accepting (it has nothing to do with Mary). All I am able to do is make a conscious decision to *want *to believe and pray that God helps me obtain faith. That is why I say faith is a gift.

Yes, Mary was held free from the stain of sin from the moment of her conception. That is revealed truth, and the fact that we don’t undersand it or don’t believe it does not change that it is reveled truth. We need to give it the assent of faith, to make a concious decision to believe in spite of our lack of understanding because it is revealed truth. Once we do that, God will help us to understand.

-Tim-

I think we must be talking past each other. I have always accepted the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption as truth. The Immaculate Conception was not only revealed to the Church but revealed twice (when Mary announced that she was the Immaculate Conception). It is fitting that she be conceived without Original Sin but even if it weren’t fitting it would still be true. I understand why Mary was conceived immaculately. I have no problem with this. But I can see where somebody else might.

And that is where invincible ignorance comes in.

 

[TimothyH]

“All have sinned and fallen short”.
If ‘all’ means all, then JESUS sinned.
Jesus is God AND man.

This is exactly correct. Paul is using the quote “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” in the context of the statement he made just previous, almost in the same breath. “All” refers to what Paul had just written in the line immediately previous…

***…for we have already brought the charge against Jews and Greeks alike *that they are all under the domination of sin, as it is written:
“There is no one just, not one,
there is no one who understands,
there is no one who seeks God.
All have gone astray;
(Romans 3:9-11)

Jews and Greeks… that’s the whole point of Paul’s letter to the Romans. That is the whole reason why Paul was writing to the Romans. Jews in Rome who had realized that Christ was the Messiah and that Christ was the fullfillment of all Old Testament prophecy were insisting that Gentile converts - Greeks and Romans - that they had to observe Jewish dietary restrictions, participate in ritual washings, and that they had to be circumcised in order to be saved.

Paul had to go through this reasoning several times and explains it more than once in the epistles, that though Jews were under the Mosaic Law, that this law is not what makes them holy and righteous before God and that the Greeks and Romans should not be forced to adhere to the laws of the old covenant.

He addresses the issue to the Galatians…

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

Paul speaks about this in beautiful language in his letter to the Ephesians.

***He came and preached peace to you who were far off *and peace to those who were near, for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; (Ephesians 2:17-21)

Those who “were far off” were the Gentiles. “Those who were near” were the Jews. Paul uses the imagery of the body of Christ as a sacred temple to burn into the minds of the Jews to whom he is writing that the Gentiles are fellow members of Christ’s body.

To say that “All have fallen short” is Paul talking about every person on the planet having sinned is to entirely miss the reason why Paul is writing these letters in the first place. He has to address the Gentiles participation in the saving work of Jesus Christ apart from the law of Moses over and over and over.

-Tim-

 

[kepha1]

Where did this idea that Mary was a sinner come from? Not from the so called reformers. Not one of them believed Mary was a sinner. So when was this idea invented? And who was the first Protestant to invent such garbage?

It’s rooted in pride and rebellion to God’s authority He gave to the Church. That’s where it comes from. Reformists reforming the former reformists. Rebels rebelling against rebels. It’s ridiculous.

 

[Isla]

First of all I totally understand you - this is exactly what bothered me some time ago and now I kind of get the point. Hope it helps

Yes no where in the Bible ever say that Mary’s mom was called Ann and the immaculate conception stuff. But there might be someone who knew Ann in person and passed her story orally to other people - The Holy Tradition. Yes we cannot find some historical documents saying that was the thing, but on the other hand we still cannot prove it’s not true. But try to think about this outside of history. Some logic might be helpful at this time.

I don’t know if you are a female or not… Just assume you are a woman. If one day in the dream an Angel came and told you that you would bear a son… Would you say Yes let it be or “woo so scary I’m not worthy.”? As for me, I would probably be the latter. My point is Mother of God is not something that everyone will accept. right? Especially at that time that bearing a child before getting married was not acceptable and would be stoned to death. Like it is now in some Islamic nations. But May said LET IT BE, which showed her best obedience to God. She is not just one of us. She is not just the virgin that God randomly picked one day. She was chosen to be Theotokos (God’s bearer) the minute or shortly after God came up with that Messiah plan. In order to be worthy to give birth to our Lord Jesus the Christ, she was created without original sin. She was the perfect bearer and protector of our Lord. It’s kind of like our Lord died for us. Mary also knew his vocation that none of us would ever try. Jesus is God, Mary is Mother of God. Die for some sinners? Bear a son from no where? No we cannot do that. Jesus IS God. Mary IS special.

 

[m134e5]

Evil, of even the slightest quantity, would not be able to bear and nurture and give succour to such a child.

That makes sense. Evil in any amount would not sustain life that is opposed to it in every way imaginable- life that is perfect truth and perfect love incarnate.

 

[LittleSoldier]

“All have sinned and fallen short”.
If ‘all’ means all, then JESUS sinned.
Jesus is God AND man.

Very good point. And all babies have sinned, too. And every person who doesn’t even know the difference between right and wrong because of mental deficiency. Absolutely everyone.

It can’t be.

 

[Sean_O_L]

It is all to do with the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception - and the effects thereof. There is much about this and MUCH more in the following file by Dr Leslie Rumble, MSC (of “Radio Replies” fame) and Fr Mortimer Carty"

Virgin and Statue Worship Quizzes to a Street Preacher at

http://jloughnan.tripod.com/quizvirgin.htm

 

[Mintaka]

There are a lot of Old Testament images which are traditionally associated with Mary as not just having an immaculate conception, but of remaining sinless throughout her life.

From the earliest times, we find the parallel image of Mary as the “new Eve” to Jesus’ “New Adam”, the one who listened to a good angel instead of a bad and whose obedience helped untie the knots of sin tied by Eve’s disobedience. St. Irenaeus goes on about this. Other Fathers of the Church prefer the image of her as pure, virgin, sinless earth (as a parallel to the story about God making humans out of clay), and so on.

The Ark of the Covenant, which was made of “pure gold”. Mary’s sinlessness is associated with this, just as the Ark’s being death to touch was associated with her perpetual virginity.

The Temple gate in Ezekiel 44: 1-3 has always been applied to her; it’s why she’s called “Porta Coeli”, the Gate of Heaven.

“And he brought me back to the way of the gate of the outward sanctuary, which looked towards the east: and it was shut. And the Lord said to me, 'This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it: because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it, and it shall be shut. For the Prince, the Prince himself, shall sit in it to eat bread before the Lord: He shall enter in by the way of the porch of the gate, and shall go out by the same way.” The Prince was always taken to be Jesus; He was nourished by Mary’s body and then went out again.

The sin offering of “a ewe without blemish” [Lev. 4:32] (an immaculate ewe – macula means spot or blemish in Latin) has always been taken as referring to Mary’s free gift of herself to God’s purposes, in parallel to the more common offering of “a lamb without blemish” referring to Jesus and His sinlessness.

There are tons and tons more. “My love, thou art all fair and there is no spot in thee,” from Song of Songs, for instance. If you want to find texts foreshadowing her sinlessness, just read the texts of the old Marian motets that the great composers came up with. They will teach you a lot about Marian doctrine’s biblicalness in a very painless way.

 

[Mintaka]

The most important thing to understand about Mary’s perpetual virginity is that:

1. Her true Spouse and the Father of her Son was essentially God the Holy Spirit, the shekhinah glory Who “overshadowed” her and caused her to become pregnant. Granted, this wasn’t much like earthly marriage and didn’t include sex; but for covenant purposes, it was oh so much a marriage. More than normal a marriage, because Mary was also representing all of Israel and all of the human race. It was the most intimate covenant act between God and Humans up to that point, until Jesus was born and Jesus died.

Unless her Spouse were to die or divorce her, she could not have sex with any other man in the entire world without cheating on Him, breaking the Covenant, and calling down all the covenant curses upon herself, Israel, and the human race. (So that this would not necessarily happen, God gave her parents the gift of a daughter conceived without sin, who was able to resist sin if she wished, exactly as Adam and Eve had been able but had not wished.)

Joseph could “take her into his house” and call her his wife, just as he called Jesus his son – for earthly legal purposes, as a sort of adoption. That didn’t mean He could ask Mary to cheat on God, any more than a Temple priest would want to turn the Holy of Holies into a very nice dining room with comfy couches. (Or call down even more horrible covenant curses than Israel and the human race had already managed for itself.) Joseph is described as a “righteous man” for a reason – because he also wanted to do God’s will, and loved His Law and all the people. He was the sort of man who could stand between Israel and God’s wrath, just by being such a good, trustworthy, righteous man.

1. This doesn’t imply that sex is bad, any more than the Holy of Holies not including a dining room set means that dining rooms and eating are bad. The Holy Family was doing another important thing. What they were doing was not less than being a normal family; it was being a normal human family plus becoming part of the Divine family, mirroring the Holy Trinity on earth, and all kinds of other mindboggling stuff. Mary and Joseph were kinda busy with this.
2. On the scale of “going out to the desert to eat locusts”, “having everything taken away and everybody except your complaining wife killed as a demonstration that humans can be good for good’s sake”, “being commanded by God to make, bake, and eat manure-flavored bread”, and “being sent far away from home, never to return, to worship a god nobody’s ever heard of”, Mary and Joseph being asked to live together like brother and sister while raising God is not exactly hard duty.

There are plenty of people who don’t ever have sex, without having any kind of compensation of having the Messiah around the house. Not having sex may be voluntary or involuntary, but it won’t kill you.

 

[Mintaka]

However, it is fair to say that Mary’s perpetual virginity was looked upon as a special sign meant to astonish the pagan world, and to underline the fact that Jesus was God as well as Man. Any time Christ’s diviinity was attacked, Mary’s virginity is also attacked. So any time Christians don’t proclaim Mary as “ever-virgin”, they are usually giving ground to “Jesus was some nice teacher guy, but not actually God.” (Or these days, to Muslims claiming that Jesus is just a prophet and Mary is just a woman God liked.)

 

[panevino]

The woman in rev12 is protected from the dragon at various points, as she is in Mat 1&2.
Demonstrating the emnity foretold in gen3:15.
The emnity between her and the serpent revolves around sin and the power of it.

 

[inkaneer]

“Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

I don’t suppose Scripture details the faults and failings of every single creature yet we know that all have sinned… Nowhere does it say that Christ shall be born of a sinless woman. What you rely upon for this is conjecture, “metaphor, simile”. Is that it? It’s nice to know that this Holy Faith is built upon little more than conjecture and metaphor and simile.

I do happen to believe but don’t tell me that because there is no account of Mary’s faults that consequently it’s rational to believe she led a sinless life. I do happen to think that we can know this from the Archangel Gabriel’s greeting and bending our minds to what is implied in his greeting…but your rudeness and expectation that it is rational is nonsense.

You lifted that verse right out of its context and made it a pretext for your position. You are using the therm “all” in “all have sinned…” to be all inclusive with no exclusions. Each and every human being has sinned. So tell me, if, as you claim “all have sinned…” then that includes those born with severe mental retardation who by their very nature cannot know right from wrong. It also includes aborted babies who never had a chance to live let alone sin. Then how about Jesus? He had a human nature. Your problem is that you are relying on a false interpretation of the Greek word pas which is translated as “all”. But check with any Greek lexicon and it will tell you that pas does not mean each and every one. Furthermore the answer to your original question of how do we know Mary is sinless is very simple. The Church has proclaimed it and has formally and infallibly defined it as dogma. Since it has thus been infallibly bound as dogma we know it is true and everyone is thus bound to believe or they are not Catholic.

I discern that you are not as Catholoic as you would like us to believe. If you were you would not be asking for proof about something that has been infallibly bound.

 

[snarflemike]

“Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

How do you know THIS is true? Why do you automatically accept scripture (which is some parts of Sacred Tradition written down) but not accept Sacred Tradition?

And regarding your verse, what sin has an aborted baby committed?