Stumped on proper response to Mary as our Blessed Mother

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My parents are not Catholic and recently while visiting them on vacation the topic of Mary came up and the place she holds in the Catholic Church. The question on the table is why does the Catholic Church believe that Blessed Mary is the spiritual mother of all the Church? My response was that Jesus gave her to us at Calvary in John 19:26-27. Dad said, “No, He gave her to one of his disciples to take care of not as a Mother to the Church.” I stated that John as his disciple present at Calvary represented all of us believers, but he didn’t agree.

What would be a good response to bring back to him?

Thanks very much!
 
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CONVERT:
My parents are not Catholic and recently while visiting them on vacation the topic of Mary came up and the place she holds in the Catholic Church. The question on the table is why does the Catholic Church believe that Blessed Mary is the spiritual mother of all the Church? My response was that Jesus gave her to us at Calvary in John 19:26-27. Dad said, “No, He gave her to one of his disciples to take care of not as a Mother to the Church.” I stated that John as his disciple present at Calvary represented all of us believers, but he didn’t agree.
What would be a good response to bring back to him?
Thanks very much!
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The mother of the King is called… the Queen.
(See Solomon and his mother.)

Now in Revelation when John sees the Ark of the covenant in heaven, he sees a woman wearing a crown.

Ask your father
"Who is this woman that is compared with the Ark of the covenenant?

The Ark held 3 things:
1.the stone tablets: the words of God
2. manna
3. the Rod of Aaron, the High Priest

Mary, while pregnant housed:
  1. the Word Himself
  2. the bread from heaven
  3. The High Priest Himself
 
There are several routes to take:
  1. If Jesus is our brother then in some sense Mary is our Mother.
  2. One of the Psalms says “I am your servant Lord, the son of your handmaid”. Mary is the handmaid of the Lord. Ergo all servants of the Lord are sons of His handmaid.
  3. Don’t give up so easily on the verses from John. The Fathers saw John as representing all of Jesus’ disciples. It is not a new exegesis of the passage, but a very old and venerable one.
 
Also, Mary is the spouse of the Holy Spirit, since He overshadowed her and caused Jesus to be conceived within her.
 
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KennySe:
The mother of the King is called… the Queen.
(See Solomon and his mother.)

Now in Revelation when John sees the Ark of the covenant in heaven, he sees a woman wearing a crown.

Ask your father
"Who is this woman that is compared with the Ark of the covenenant?

The Ark held 3 things:
1.the stone tablets: the words of God
2. manna
3. the Rod of Aaron, the High Priest

Mary, while pregnant housed:
  1. the Word Himself
  2. the bread from heaven
  3. The High Priest Himself
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Yes, I love this…Since coming back home I’ve been reading a book by Scott Hahn Hail Holy Queen and he has made the same points… I love them and will present these to him*.* Thanks.
 
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jpusateri:
Also, Mary is the spouse of the Holy Spirit, since He overshadowed her and caused Jesus to be conceived within her.
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Oh yes, that’s good too. Thanks.
 
Wait I got another. In direct answer to your father, I’d say that the Church is the Body of Christ of which Christ Himself is the head. If Mary is the mother of Christ, then she is the Mother of the Church.

I KNEW there was a direct relationship!

God bless and may Mary give you and your parents the graces needed to explain and understand!
 
CONVERT,

Catholics, Orthodox, and even Protestant scholars have asserted that Mary is the Mother of all Christians. Unless he thinks his interpretation of Scripture is infallible, perhaps he might consider that this interpretation transcends denominational boundaries for a reason, and perhaps he ought to re-think his views.

From a Protestant source, Martin Luther:
“It is the consolation and the superabundant goodness of God, that man is able to exult in such a treasure. Mary is his true Mother, Christ is his brother, God is his father.” (Sermon, Christmas, 1522)

"Mary is the Mother of Jesus and the Mother of all of us even though it was Christ alone who reposed on her knees . . . If he is ours, we ought to be in his situation; there where he is, we ought also to be and all that he has ought to be ours, and** his mother is also our mother**. (Sermon, Christmas, 1529)
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From a Ukrainian Orthodox source:
unicorne.org/orthodoxy/articles/articles_b/weeping(sept24).htm
The reality of Christ’s Humanity and Salvation is made manifest in His having a Mother whom He actually shares with us, calling us His brothers and sisters!
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From a Catholic source, Pope Pius XII:
“When the little maid of Nazareth uttered her fiat to the message of the angel…she became not only the Mother of God in the physical order of nature, but also in the supernatural order of grace she became the Mother of all who…would be made one under the Headship of her divine Son. The Mother of the Head would be the Mother of the members. The Mother of the vine would be the Mother of the branches.” (Message sent to the Marian Congress of Ottawa Canada, June 19, 1947)
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From Frank Chacon and Jim Burnam of San Juan Catholic Seminars …
Mary as the NT Queen Mother

The OT kings clearly prefigured Jesus Christ, the NT King of kings (Rev 19:16). Jesus, in his humanity, descended from King David. Therefore, the kings of Judah, who were from David’s line, especially prefigure Jesus’ kingship. Luke 1:32 says, “the Lord God will give him [Jesus] the throne of David his father.”

Interestingly, the wife of the king of Judah was not the queen. The queen was the king’s mother. She was known as the Queen Mother. She had great honor and authority in the kingdom (see 1 Kings 2:19-20). The Queen Mother had an official position; she had to be deposed in order to be removed (1 Kings 15:13).

The OT Queen Mother prefigures or foreshadows the NT Queen Mother. Jesus, the NT King of kings, does not have a wife. His mother would be the NT queen. This is exactly what Revelation 12 describes. Mary gives birth to a son who will “rule all nations” (the NT King of kings), and she is the mother of the followers of Jesus (Rev 12:17). She is queen–she is wearing a crown of twelve stars. Rev 12 depicts Mary as the NT Queen Mother.

By studying the great honor and dignity queen mothers had in the OT, we can appreciate the profound role God has given Mary, Queen Mother of all Christians.

In Jn 19:27, Jesus said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold your mother.” **Jesus only spoke seven times from the cross. Here, He is doing more than just making domestic arrangements. **The Church has always understood that Jesus was revealing to all of us, represented by John, that Mary is our mother. Jesus’ words indicate He is giving an important revelation. Recall the words of John the Baptist: “Behold the Lamb of God” (Jn 1:29). Just as John is indicating something profound about Jesus, so is Jesus about Mary.
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CONVERT:
My parents are not Catholic and recently while visiting them on vacation the topic of Mary came up and the place she holds in the Catholic Church. The question on the table is why does the Catholic Church believe that Blessed Mary is the spiritual mother of all the Church? My response was that Jesus gave her to us at Calvary in John 19:26-27. Dad said, “No, He gave her to one of his disciples to take care of not as a Mother to the Church.” I stated that John as his disciple present at Calvary represented all of us believers, but he didn’t agree.

What would be a good response to bring back to him?

Thanks very much!
Click to expand...
A charitable one, after all God expects him to honor Our Mother, just as you and I are expected to honor our mothers.

You might review some of the obvious (to scholars) stuff. He couldn’t dishonor his mother or any natural or adoptive brothers by not giving her to them.

The author of Revelation clearly saw Mary in heaven. We presume that was John, but in any event we KNOW that she was the one who gave birth to the child who would rule all nations with an iron rod.

Your dad may not buy it, but the facts are that Biblical notation came after hundreds of years. The author fairly clearly intended the ark in 11:19 to be related to the woman with the sun, the moon and the stars in 12:1 (for all the reasons given by the excellents responses so far).

I’m terrible at charity so I don’t know how to bring up the Protestant tradition that Mary was some random person, practically raped by God, and that if she didn’t agree to bear God’s child that God would have just gone out and grabbed some other gal. That is way overstating it for for most Protestants, but you can see the tendency in many of their teachings.

They tend to absolutely ignore the Visitation where John the Babtizer lept before the new Ark of the New Covenant (just as David did before the Ark of the Covenant). They ignore the revelation to Elizabeth that Mary was the mother of her Lord. They ignore the Canticle of Mary. They ignore that Luke sought witnesses to all the events he reported.

(Where might we guess that Luke got those stories of the visitation, canticles, the nativity, the Magi, the flight to Egypt, and all events of Jesus’s life from conception to age 12, and even the wedding at Cana? Pretty clearly, by the time Luke was writing this stuff, only Mary had all that information.)
 
You can always point out the majority view is the Catholic one. It is only a smaller number who deny devotion to Mary. History is on our side.
 
If Jesus is our brohter then Mary is our mother. If we are the Body of Christ Mary is our Mother.
 
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