We are
Brothers, Sisters and we have a Mother in Faith.
Today
I am going to discuss Mary and the Saints. To understand Mary and our view
of her place in salvation history, you need to first have a handle on the
saints, what a saint is, who is a saint and how many of them there are.
You need to have to understand a little bit of how we see ourselves as a Church
family. So the title of this session really should be The Saints
and Mary.
There
is no such thing as a former Catholic only Catholics that have run away from
home. Once you are a Catholic you are one forever. The Church sees
herself and the Bible shows her as a continuing family of believers consisting
of the Church on earth, the Church militant, the Church in heaven, the Church
Triumphant and the Church in Purgatory, the Church Penitent. So your membership
in the Church does not end when your earthly life ends, it continues
afterwards. This is completely consistent with the church’s view of
eternity which we can see in 1st Corinthians Chapter 15 verses 51-55
Lo! I
tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in
a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will
sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53
For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature
must put on immortality. 54* When the perishable puts on the
imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the
saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." 55* “O
death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?"
So for Christians, the grave is not an end,
it is but a portal, a door into the state of being that God has intended for
his friends from the beginning. We leave one existence and immediately
take up another. If we leave this existence in God’s friendship, if our heart
is totally turned to Him and He is our sole desire, we will immediately enter
heaven to be with Him forever. If we left earth without turning our
hearts completely to God and we have minor sins on our conscience we will
choose to go to Purgatory, a place where we can resolve these issues and turn
our soul and heart over to God. I believe that we ourselves will
make this choice because our soul, our real true selves, know the absolute
goodness of God and knows that it could not bear to be in His presence before
it is ready. Finally, at the last moment, if we hated God, did not
repent, did not use the graces He sent us and continued to sin, He will grant
our request to be outside of his presence forever and we will choose to go to
the place we call hell, a Catholic in hell has to be the saddest thing in the
universe because of all the advantages he or she threw away. Of the
last group, we have to say that there is no hope. Every person in hell
has committed only one sin, the sin against the Holy Spirit, and a complete
rejection of God and there is no hope for these souls. The souls in
purgatory are suffering, and this too is consistent with the Bible in 1st
Corinthians 3: 12-15.
12 If
anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay,
or straw, 13 the work of each will come to light, for the Day will disclose it.
It will be revealed with fire, and the fire (itself) will test the quality of
each one's work. 14 If the work stands that someone built upon the foundation,
that person will receive a wage.15 but if someone's work is burned up, that one
will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire.
The
souls in Purgatory, therefore, are absolutely assured of their place in Heaven.
So, we now see the three distinct families if you will of the Church. The
Church consists of those of us on earth, those in purgatory and those in
heaven. Our membership in the Catholic Church stretches through time and
our membership lasts forever. The Church therefore consists of a large
family of members from the beginning of time of those who are already in heaven
and those who on earth and those in purgatory that will sometime in the future
will be in heaven. It is this extended family that we call the Communion
of Saints and you as a Catholic Christian are part of that family. One of
the things we do routinely here on earth almost without grasping the
significance of it is to pray for one another. For example, Dave asks Gertrude
to pray that the medical tests come back negative. Janice asks Father John to
pray for her for a private reason, Jack asks Arden to pray for him for such and
such. These are normal things and we do them without thinking
anything about them. Our Protestant brothers and sisters do the same.
They pray for one another and this is considered a good thing, and it is
because the Bible tells us to pray for one another. In 1st Thessalonians Chapter 5 verse 25 Paul asks
his readers to pray for him, and there are a lot of other examples where we are
told to pray for one another. But is it possible to ask someone who has died to
pray for us? Because the church is a family not ultimately bound by time
or space and our family members are in heaven, we can ask them to pray for
us. But doesn’t the Bible say that there is one mediator between God and
man and that is Jesus? Yes it does say that there is one mediator between
God and Man. 1st Timothy Chapter 2: 5-6 is used to put
Catholics in their place.
For
there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ
Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony to which was borne
at the proper time.
Who can disagree with this Biblical
principle? I certainly cannot disagree with it.
Christ
IS our mediator and that is a fact.
If we
take the first Timothy verse as written then we create a grave issue that
extends not only in the Catholic Church but in the denominations as well.
When Dave asked Gertrude to pray for him, he was asking Gertrude to mediate
between him and God. When we ask for someone to pray for us or we pray
for another is the role we are taking on the role of Jesus? Do our
prayers constitute a sinful act? To pray for another is not a sinful act of
course. Our praying for them is not in any way sinful even though we are
acting as a mediator. Our prayers for them are directed to God. We
are actually praying to God for them, because remember Jesus is God and God is
Jesus and the love of God the Father for God the Son is God the Holy Spirit so
no matter which person of the Trinity we direct our prayer to, it is heard by
all three in their unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Is the principle
of the Trinity hard to understand? The concept of the Trinity can never
be fully explained or understood, at least here on earthly level. Will we
fully understand the Trinity in heaven? I seriously doubt it but who knows,
maybe that is part of the marvel of heaven, the special gift of understanding
the ultimate goodness and unity of God in the Trinity. The point here is
that when we pray for another it is not a sin. When we direct our prayer
to a saint in heaven, it is the same as asking someone on earth to pray for us,
there is no sin, and it does not diminish the role of Christ as the one
mediator in the slightest. Our family, the Communion of Saints, reaches through
time and space. The problem as I see it with Protestant understanding of prayer
to the saints is that they do not understand the concept of our Church family.
They limit themselves to what they can see, hear, taste and touch. This
becomes evident when a Protestant asks with a smug smile on their face asks how
a popular saint, let’s say for example Saint Anthony, is deluged with prayers
in a never ending stream from thousands or even millions of believers in a
hundred or two hundred different tongues all at the same time, how could he pay
attention and take care of all of these requests? Wow, good question
indeed, quite well framed and certainly deserving of an answer. The
answer is that the saints in heaven have received gifts well beyond our
understanding in the glory of heaven that they enjoy. They, like God in
whose presence they dwell, are not limited by the constraints of time or space
and while we can hardly take care of one thing at a time here on earth, they
have the abilities of a glorified soul, which we cannot really understand now,
but we will when we too claim our reward. How many saints are in heaven
and is there a complete list available? The answer is yes, kind of and
no. There are many books that offer lists of saints. One of the
most exhaustive is “Butler’s Lives of the Saints” which in its last edition
published in 1956 listed 2,565 named saints. Another edition is being prepared
and I am sure that the number of names will exceed three thousand. But this
number is absolutely meaningless. Everyone in heaven is a saint. You,
yourself are a saint, if a provisional one, because you believe and are a
member of the Church. In your present condition you still can cast off the
title by rejecting God, but you are in fact a saint right here and right now
even if you are a work in progress. So in heaven, there are thousands of
millions of saints, your brothers and sisters in the Household of God, the vast
majority of them unknown and uncelebrated but just as happy in the presence of
God as those officially recognized in the Canon of the Church. I am not
going to touch on how a saint is canonized, I will be passing out a handout
after the talk that will give you all of the technical details of how the
Church decides who to elevate to sainthood. But remember, for every saint
in the canon of the Church, there are thousands upon thousands of ordinary
people who also practiced extraordinary virtue on earth that we don’t
know. For the majority of the members of the Household of God, our Feast
day is November 1, the Feast of All Saints. With a basic
understanding of what and who a saint is, let us now speak to about one of the
greatest stumbling blocks our Protestant brothers and sisters have with the Catholic
Church and that is how we honor the Mother of All Saints, the Mother of God,
Mary Most Holy.
Mary was the first Christian and is certainly
the greatest Saint.
What
do we know about Mary? What makes her so special to the Christian Community?
What is the Immaculate Conception? Is Mary worthy of and do Catholics worship
Mary? What is the Assumption of Mary? Did Mary really appear in Guadalupe,
Fatima, in Lourdes – do we have to believe in these appearances? Can we
pray to Mary?
All of
these questions are worthy of attention and in the time we have left we
will take each one in turn and hopefully by the time we are done, Mary will be
more of a friend and less of a mystery to you. I can only scratch the
surface on these subjects and would urge you to take advantage of the written
and online resources are available to the searcher of truth.
Mary is the Mother of God. That
title does not make sense at all does it? How can Mary, a creature, be
the mother of the God who made her? Actually if we add the word earthly
into the mix, it becomes a bit less confusing. The point is Mary is the
mother of Jesus, who is God. In Genesis we are promised a redeemer to
come from not Adam the man but Eve the woman as we see in Genesis 3:15.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head,
while you strike at his heel."
So
when the time was right, Mary becomes the new Eve, chosen by God to be the
Mother of Jesus, the Son of God.
The Origin of Mary
Mary
was born in the furnace of human passion in the normal way. Her mother was Anne
and her father was Joachim. It is said by some scholars that Mary was conceived
while her parents were older, “late in life.” Joachim was of the royal
family of David and it is thought that Anne was of the priestly family of
Aaron. So Mary comes from both a priestly and a royal family. Her offspring
would share this and therefore Jesus sprang from both a royal and priestly
family. Mary lived her life in Nazareth and as was the custom of the
time, her eventual marriage was arranged by her family to a man named Joseph.
Betrothal
in this time conveyed all the rights of marriage on the couple. Betrothal
generally lasted about a year and during that time the husband would prepare a
home for the bride. Even though the couple had rights, the custom of the
time was not to use them but to wait for marriage. Mary one day was
visited by the Angel Gabriel who brought her word from God. She was to be the
mother of the messiah, the one the Jewish world had been waiting so long for.
She said yes to the angel, “Let it be done unto me according to thy
word.” Thus she became pregnant and right after this she went to visit
Elizabeth and stayed with her for three months. When she returned home she was
three months pregnant. This was a bit of a problem for her because she did not
have relations with Joseph; she went away for three months and came back three
months pregnant. Joseph could have denounced her to the authorities and then
the only recourse for the authorities would be a quick trial and a sentence of
death to the adulterer by stoning. Joseph had decided to “put her away
quietly.” He would have paid to send her somewhere to have her child and
he would be done with her. But, Joseph heard from God in a dream what had
happened. He heard and he believed and he took her into his house. Some time
passed and the emperor decided his treasure was looking a bit thin, so he
ordered a census of all the people, to check the tax rolls and to make sure
every penny in taxes would make it to his treasury. So since Joseph was
an ancestor of David, they traveled to Bethlehem, a name which means House of
Bread to register. Mary had her child there and they eventually returned to
Nazareth. King Herod a thoroughly evil man decided that he did not want
the competition and dispatched murderers to the region to kill the babies. Joseph
was warned in a dream and he immediately fled with the Jesus and Mary into
Egypt. Once Herod died, they came back and Jesus grew to manhood and
Joseph died. The rest of the story is in the Bible and I suggest you take time
to read it. I want to go back in time now to the birth of Mary, the
Mother of God. Mary’s birth brings us to the first bone of contention that
Protestants have with Catholics and our reverence for her. Mary was born
without the taint of original sin. This was done by God as a favor to her at
the moment of her natural conception in anticipation of the sacrificial death
and resurrection of Jesus. Remember, God does not live in, nor is he
limited by the dimensions of time and space. God is All in All.
Scriptural evidence can be found in the angel’s greeting to Mary when she was
asked to be the Mother of God: “Hail Mary, Full of Grace…” was the greeting the
angel used. How could she be full of grace, as Christ had not
yet suffered, died and rose? Again, nothing in Scripture is there without
purpose. The angel called her full of grace simply because she was full of
grace. He was not delivering the grace to her. She had within her God’s
sanctifying grace from the very start of her existence when her father’s sperm
met her mother’s egg and she began life. (What a testimony as to when
life begins, God would not have bestowed this favor on a non living soul.) This
favor of God is called the Immaculate Conception. The angel was not
delivering the gift of grace to Mary because she had had the gift since her
conception in the womb.
But what about Romans 3:23
“…all have sinned and are deprived of the
glory of God… “
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says
(emphasis added):
Through the centuries the Church has become
ever more aware that Mary, "full of grace" through God, was redeemed
from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854:
The
most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty
God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ,
Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.
The "splendor of an entirely unique
holiness" by which Mary is "enriched from the first instant of her
conception" comes wholly from Christ: she is "redeemed, in a more
exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son". The Father blessed
Mary more than any other created person "in Christ with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places" and chose her "in Christ before the
foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in
love". The soul of Mary from the very instant of her creation was
preserved from original sin. She therefore was in a state of grace and although
she had free will, her will was turned toward God at all times. Her “yes”
to the angel could just as easily been a “no.” Mary occupies a most
special place in the history of salvation. She was the one who said “yes”
to nullify the “no” of Adam and Eve. She was preserved from original sin
and the effects of it.
So, what Protestant thought about Mary is
that she was a sinner. Their thought processes places limits on what God can
and cannot do. The Catholic position makes so much more sense and follows the
Biblical pattern precisely. The early reformers did not have a
problem with the Immaculate Conception; Luther himself believed in it and had a
reverence for Mary himself. But Catholics are accused of worshiping Mary. Catholics do NOT worship Mary. We simply have
the reverence for the Mother of Christ. But is this reverence for
Mary a recent invention? Actually the first person known to have
reverence for Mary was a man named Jesus who in accordance with the
Commandments of God honored his Mother and Father. Catholics therefore
are simply continuing the tradition begun by Christ. We honor Mary as our
spiritual mother and the mother of the Church. That Christ loved his
mother can be seen in scripture. At the wedding feast at Cana, Jesus was not
quite ready to begin His public ministry. Yet he started it at her request by
changing water into the finest wine. Mary ALWAYS points to Jesus and never to herself. In the
Cana example she says some of the wisest words ever recorded in Scripture (John
2:5)
His mother said to the servers, "Do
whatever he tells you."
The Virgin Birth is another feature of Mary.
The Holy Spirit overshadowed her and the child she bore was very special
indeed. Mary remained a virgin after the birth of Jesus as she was before. Mary
had no relations with Joseph or any other man. In the scriptures where
the “brothers of Jesus” are mentioned these people are not brothers in the
sense that they were sons of Mary and Joseph. The word brother in Aramaic
could mean blood brother but it was also used for cousins and other male
relatives. We can look to Scripture for other examples:
In Genesis 14:13 Lot is called Abrahams
brother even though he was the son of Haran, Abraham’s brother. He would
actually be Abraham’s nephew. Jacob was called the brother of Laban in
Genesis 29:15. The reason for this is that there is no real word in
Aramaic for the word cousin except for a very clumsy word which translated
would read “son of my uncle.” So the word brother would be substituted.
But besides these word games there is strong
New Testament Scriptural evidence available to us as well that Mary had no
children other then Jesus. Remember that in the time of Christ there were no
social service programs or social security. A woman alone and on her own
with no family was in desperate straits indeed. When the end was near
Jesus made provision for his mother from the Cross.
Standing by the cross of Jesus were his
mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala.
26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to
his mother, "Woman, behold, your son." 27 Then he said to the
disciple, "Behold, your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into
his home.
If Mary had any children to take care of her
after he was gone, Jesus would not have made the effort to place her in the
care of the Apostle John. There would have been no point to it. It required
supreme effort to speak from the cross and Jesus was near the end of his all
too human energy. So he took the time to place his mother into the care
of his trusted friend. But what Jesus is saying from the Cross is much more
than just a request for John to take care of His mother. Jesus was also
giving His mother to us as well. Remember that we are the adopted children of
God, members of His household. This makes Mary our mother too. She
is the Queen of All Saints and premier member or the Communion of Saints so it
is proper and just that we ask her to pray to Jesus for us. Her
intersession takes nothing away from the role of Christ as mediator.
What Christ did from the Cross was to
continue to honor His mother by making sure that she was going to be taken care
of. We are called to follow Christ and so we are called to continue what
he started, we are to honor His mother for again in a very real way she is our
mother too.
Mary was declared the Immaculate Conception
in 1854 by Pope Pius IX. This leads some Protestants to believe that the
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was of recent origin. However, it
was the belief of the early church from the most ancient of times that Mary was
conceived without original sin. The Council only formalized what was already
believed by the Church and her faithful sons and daughters.
The
assumption of Mary is a promise of things to come.
As a result of her Immaculate Conception,
Mary received another benefit that all of the faithful will eventually
receive. After her earthly life was over she was assumed body and soul
into heaven. It is important to remember that unlike Christ, she did not
rise into heaven, but rather was brought to heaven through the power of
God. This mystery is not found in the Bible. But there is very strong
circumstantial evidence for it nonetheless.
In the early Church much reverence was given
to the deceased among the faithful. Churches revered the bones of martyrs
for example and preserved them as relics for the benefit of the faithful. The
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was said in the catacombs where the martyrs were
buried. You might argue mass was held there as a matter of self preservation as
the Roman soldiers were not allowed to molest people visiting the underground
burial sites. This rule applied not only to the Christians, but to other
citizens of Rome as well. For example the followers of Bacchus, a religion
dedicated to debauchery met in the underground caves. But even in times where
Christians were left alone Mass was celebrated in the presence of the bones of
the martyrs. If the body of an “ordinary martyr” was honored
by the Church, how much more would have the body of Mary been honored?
The fact no one ever claimed that they had the body of Mary or her tomb is
quite telling. As the mother of Jesus, her tomb would have been a place
that would have been preserved forever for the faithful because of her position
in salvation history. The place where her bones would be interred does
not exist because she was assumed into heaven. This is only fitting
and right because since she was conceived without original sin she would not
suffer corruption of the body which is a consequence of sin. Do you find this
an odd belief? Well, you have to understand that Mary has received what
we will receive. Her assumption into heaven anticipates what will happen to
us. At the end of time we will rise from the dead and be assumed body and
soul into heaven. It only makes sense that the first believer in Christ,
the first tabernacle that held the precious body, blood soul and divinity of
Christ would receive this honor as all of us will someday.
Has
Mary appeared in various places at various times?
It is said that Mary has appeared on earth at
various times and at various places. Why would she do that? Did she actually
appear? What should I believe? These are valid questions and worthy of a
thoughtful response. The Church through the local bishop investigates so
called appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Far more appearances are
not approved then are approved. There are some very famous, approved
appearances.
1830- Guadalupe Mexico, Mary appeared to Juan
Diego – she appeared four times to him and her image was placed into his
mantle. Scientists were given an opportunity to look at the mantle and
microscopic examination of the eyes of the virgin reveal an image of Juan Diego
in them.
1858-Lourdes France, Mary appeared to young
Bernadette Soubirous under the title of the Immaculate Conception. She called
for prayer and the conversion of sinners.
1917- Fatima, Portugal, Mary appeared to
three children telling them that we should pray the rosary for the conversion
of sinners and that Russia should be dedicated to her immaculate heart.
There are a lot more that have been
approved. Of late, starting 1981 Mary is said to be appearing at a small
town in Yugoslavia called Medjugorje, where it is said she gives a message on the
25th of every month. She says that this will
be the last time she appears on Earth and that she brings important messages.
This appearance has not been approved by the Church yet, but the messages she
brings do ring true, and point to Jesus, for example the message for September 25, 2009;
“Dear children, with joy, persistently
work on your conversion. Offer all your joys and sorrows to my Immaculate Heart
that I may lead you all to my most beloved Son, so that you may find joy in His
Heart. I am with you to instruct you and to lead you towards eternity. Thank
you for having responded to my call."
I believe that Mary appears to her children
on earth. I believe that she comes at times where she sees we need help to find
our way to Jesus. That being said, the appearances of Mary, both approved by
the church and not approved, fall under the category of private revelation. The
approved appearances do not have a place in the depository of faith, so you are
free to believe or disbelieve even the approved appearances. They are not
matters of faith, they are private revelations.
We have to be very careful that we are not
led away from the truth of the Church. A true appearance of Mary will not point
to herself, but rather to her Son, Jesus. When dealing with Mary you will
have no problem keeping your eyes on Jesus. If the image of Jesus begins to
fade, then you are dealing with an aberration and you should backtrack and see
where you went wrong. If this happens you should seek the guidance of a priest
or deacon, trained professionals who will be able to help you see where you
went wrong and get you back on to the right path. It is a case of trusting the
Church and humbling yourself.
Mary
is our mother and Jesus is our Brother.
Catholics do not worship Mary. As the Mother
of Jesus she occupies a very special place in every Catholic’s heart. As
the Mother of Jesus, she has a special place in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We
ask her to intercede for us with Jesus her Son. But Catholics do not
worship Mary. Catholics realize that she is but a created creature just like
us. She was redeemed in a special way; she was spared the stain of
original sin by anticipation of the sacrificial death of Jesus her Son on the
Cross. She was there at the foot of the Cross and watched her only Son
die for the sins of all. She is worthy of our deepest love, our deepest respect
but never our worship. We can pray to her as we can pray to any saint.
Does she have more “power” if we can use this word? Her Son was moved to
action at Cana when many scholars say that he wasn’t really ready to begin his
public ministry. I think that says it all. If you let Mary take you
by the hand, she will inevitably place your hand into the hand of Jesus.
She, like a good mother, wants what is best for you. She does not want
worship from you.
The Catholic Church honors Mary because
Christ does. We pray for her intersession because she is the First among the
Saints in heaven. She was the first Christian and was during the nine months
she carried Jesus a living tabernacle, a living Arc of the New Covenant.
She is worthy of honor as the Mother of God. Praying to her (or any of
the saints) in no way lessens the glory of God or Christ’s status as mediator
between God and man for we ask for their help and they direct their prayers and
ours to Jesus. Those of us still on our pilgrimage on earth can call on
Mary and the saints and be sure that our prayers are heard:
3 Another angel came and stood at the altar,
holding a gold censer. He was given a great quantity of incense to offer, along
with the prayers of all the holy ones, on the gold altar that was before the
throne. (Rev 8:3)
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