What are some reasons that the Mary debate is so important?

[Oumashta]

I hope this is the right place to put it.

I’m doing the IB diploma, and all IB students have to write a 4,000 word essay on a topic of their choice, and I have chosen to do an essay in world religion, specifically a comparison between the role of the Blessed Virgin in the devotional life of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. I spoke with my supervisor, and she said that it would be a great topic to do, but I would need to come up with a good reason to investigate it.

I thought of one reason: Ecumenism
Because this is an issue that strongly divides these two branches of Christianity.

Are there any other logical and rational reasons for this investigation ? Thanks and God bless!

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

I hope this is the right place to put it.

I’m doing the IB diploma, and all IB students have to write a 4,000 word essay on a topic of their choice, and I have chosen to do an essay in world religion, specifically a comparison between the role of the Blessed Virgin in the devotional life of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. I spoke with my supervisor, and she said that it would be a great topic to do, but I would need to come up with a good reason to investigate it.

I thought of one reason: Ecumenism
Because this is an issue that strongly divides these two branches of Christianity.

Are there any other logical and rational reasons for this investigation ? Thanks and God bless!

It could be a good topic if you take a broader view.

1. Investigate the topic of the Yawist (Y) and Elohist (E) narration in the first chapters of the Bible.
2. Caracterize the Y and E view of the relation of God to Humankind.
3. You could do some research on Plato and Aristotle if you have time.
4. But better go this way: the Jewish and later on Islam religions are Transcendent (remember the Y an E difference) and do not use images of God (for a cause).
5. Catholics always used. but take a look at the iconoclasts history (for Constantinople was surrounded by Muslims). There is a church in Constantinople (Istambul) that bears no images: it is an example of the iconoclast view.
6. Now, the Protestant are not original. They are Puritans, Transcendent and come from cold countries. So, their one sided view was already in the first pages of Genesis.
7. So, the Mary problem and the problem of the saints is nothing new, thought they think that they are posing a new problem and a problem within the Catholic Church.
8. So as the Catholic Church takes a 2-sided view, the Protestant take a one sided and unbalanced one.
9. God is transcendent and imanent, as seen in the first pages of the Bible, and opting for one side only unbalances the whole view of God, takes the human and inner side out of it

 

[Oumashta]

I don’t know if I made myself clear in the first post, I’m asking if there are any other reasons for investigating this topic.

For example: This topic (the BVM in Christianity) is important to investigate because it is a major aspect in religious ecumenism because it is a topic of major division.

That’s just one reason I thought of, but are there any more reasonable purposes to investigate the role of the BVM in Christianity? Like secular purposes?
Thanks and God bless !

 

[Julian0404]

Because with Mary about to be declared “Mediatrix”, this will only further separate the Protestants from the Catholics.

 

[JDaniel]

I hope this is the right place to put it.

I’m doing the IB diploma, and all IB students have to write a 4,000 word essay on a topic of their choice, and I have chosen to do an essay in world religion, specifically a comparison between the role of the Blessed Virgin in the devotional life of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. I spoke with my supervisor, and she said that it would be a great topic to do, but I would need to come up with a good reason to investigate it.

I thought of one reason: Ecumenism
Because this is an issue that strongly divides these two branches of Christianity.

Are there any other logical and rational reasons for this investigation ? Thanks and God bless!

Oumashta:

One possibility might be an exploration of just exactly what it would, or might, mean to be the Mother of God in child form. Good moms are essentially the primary nurturers and protectors of their children for perhaps the first 4 - 6 years of their children’s lives. They feed them, bath them, burp them, put them down for naps and to sleep, and all of these are fraught with special problems. It could not have been any different for our Blessed Mother and Jesus. (From a mom’s POV.)

I mean this more from the angle of the care that had to be given to the child, rather then what it might have been like to be the mother of God Almighty. In other words, the more pragmatic side of care for a child along side of the incredible awe. That feat could hardly be considered a piece of cake! What must it have been like during all of those early years.

Relating Mary’s human challenges have to take any woman and mother aside. And that is something that is shared by all mothers! Bearing Jesus, raising Him, would seem to bring all mothers into one room, under one duplicative effort and experience, a commonality of experience. Then, top off the commonality of bearing and raising a child who also just happens to be our Lord, Omnipotent God. Why has this alone not brought mothers together under one roof? It’s hard to believe that it hasn’t. But, why hasn’t it?

God bless,
jd

 

[Trebor135]

Mary [is] about to be declared “Mediatrix”

Please give a source. I’m astonished.

To the OP: Unfortunately, I can’t think of any other good rationales than the one you’ve already mentioned. Best of luck and God bless!

 

[snarflemike]

Please give a source. I’m astonished.

As am I

To the OP, one thing that should be interesting to the secular world about Mary is that the supposedly patriarchal woman-oppressing Church holds up a young girl-woman as the most perfect human creature to ever have existed, and as the most exalted human creature in her pantheon of saints.

 

[Trebor135]

As am I

To the OP, one thing that should be interesting to the secular world about Mary is that the supposedly patriarchal woman-oppressing Church holds up a young girl-woman as the most perfect human creature to ever have existed, and as the most exalted human creature in her pantheon of saints.

Unfortunately, the secular world would most likely argue that the high regard for St. Mary in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches stems from the intrest of those purported chauvinists in maintaining a view of women as the segment of humankind that ought to remain “barefoot and pregnant”. Alternatively, we might hear something along these lines about devotion to the Blessed Theotokos (emphasis mine):

The most interesting post-defeat [in the 1967 Six Day War] social phenomenon [in Egypt] was the apparition of the Virgin Mary said to be hovering over a small church in a remote suburb of Cairo. The Virgin holds a special place in the hearts of all Egyptians, Christian or Muslim - perhaps as an atavistic throwback to the goddess Isis or simply because she is the symbol of motherhood. Those who saw the apparition claimed it was swathed in a blue light, others claimed to see the image of a woman wrapped in a mantle and carrying a baby. Thousands of Egyptians lined up outside the church every night until the small hours of the morning, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Virgin. Men and women who had lost sons, husbands and fathers during the war sought solace in the apparition.

[page break]

Miraculous cures were reported. The Socialist Union organized seating in front of the church and charged a fee so people could wait for the apparition in comfort. A wave of religious fervor swept the country. Coptic monasteries, which had been closing down for lack of candidates, now had waiting lists, and such long ones that they would only admit university students. Koran study groups mushroomed among all classes of society, who turned to religion for consolation. Even the rais explained the defeat as God’s will.

The message was clear. In spite of the defeat God was still on the side of the Egyptians and had sent the apparition as a consolation. At least that was the way in which the population interpreted the apparition. Religious reform, along with other reforms, was necessary, and there was a palpable return to the study of matters religious and a visible resurgence of religious groups.

(This excerpt comes from a textbook assigned for a course I took this semester on modern Egyptian history–Afaf Lutfi Al-Sayyid Marsot’s “A History of Egypt: From the Arab Conquest to the Present” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pages 149-150.)

Also, I’d like to suggest that we avoid the term “pantheon” when discussing the saints–it may reinforce the prejudice of Protestants reading this thread about such great exemplars of the Christian life being given the adoration due to God alone.