Last night I led Bible study at a local parish and I was asked to give an informal talk beforehand on the Virgin Mary.
My talk was entitled “How I met your (Blessed) Mother” and in it I told a little bit of my story and explained how I overcame my deep-seated resistance concerning Mary and how I ultimately came to embrace the Catholic teaching concerning the Blessed Mother.
Some friends couldn’t make it last night and asked me to record the talk, so for anyone who would like to hear it, the audio is available below.
This should be the last Marian “Quick Apology” I’ll be doing for a while. After all, I have other things I want to write about! However, before we leave the subject of Mary, I wanted to address the claim that Catholics think that Mary is divine…
Objection
On this blog I’ve received comments like the following:
“Catholics basically think that Mary is divine. It’s like the Trinity has been replaced with a quartet – Father, Son, Spirit and Mary”
How might you respond?
Response
The simplest way to respond to an assertion like this is to ask for any official Church document which teaches this. Can the objector produce a reference in the Catechism, a Council or a Papal Encyclical? I can guarantee you they cannot.
When they are unable to provide the evidence you request, I would suggest that you then point them to the binding teaching of the Catechism:
488 “God sent forth his Son”, but to prepare a body for him, he wanted the free co-operation of a creature. For this, from all eternity God chose for the mother of his Son a daughter of Israel, a young Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee…
The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined mother, so that just as a woman had a share in the coming of death, so also should a woman contribute to the coming of life.*
[This is a beautiful teaching from the Early Church, where the Fathers referred to Mary as being a kind of “New Eve”]
489 Throughout the Old Covenant the mission of many holy women prepared for that of Mary…Eve…Sarah…Hannah…Deborah; Ruth; Judith and Esther….
Mary “stands out among the poor and humble of the Lord, who confidently hope for and receive salvation from him. After a long period of waiting the times are fulfilled in her, the exalted Daughter of Sion, and the new plan of salvation is established.”
