There’s something about Mary… (Part 1 of 3)
A few days ago I had a comment appear on my old blog by someone named Kelley. This comment was on the post I wrote some time ago in which I spoke of Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant. I have since transferred that comment over to this blog. Here’s what was said:
“‘My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.’ If Mary were sinless, why did she need a Savior? Wouldn’t she be lying?
Did she realize Romans 3:23 All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God? When she compared herself to the law of a holy God, had she realized she had formerly, lied, coveted, dishonored her parents by not always obeying them, etc. and like every single person needs a Savior? There are none good, no not one (Romans 3), except Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5:21 For He (God the Father) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Also see Romans 11:6. Thank you Jesus, my Savior.”
In this post I’m going to address some of the points raised here…but let’s first begin with a joke to lighten the mood 🙂
Jesus came upon a small crowd who had surrounded a young woman whom they believed to be an adulteress. They were preparing to stone her. Jesus said: “Whoever is without sin among you, let them cast the first stone.”
Suddenly a rock came whistling past from the back of the crowd. Jesus turned and said: “Mother, you’re not helping! I’m trying to make a point here…”
Aren’t theology jokes brilliant? 😉
My original intent
I began my original blog entry with the following comment:
“In this post I will not attempt to try and convince any non-Catholics of the veracity of [the doctrine of] Mary’s Immaculate Conception, her Assumption or any of the other particularly Catholic Marian doctrines. I would simply like to show you a scriptural perspective on Mary of which you may be unaware. My aim is that after reading this post you would be awed at the cohesiveness of God’s master plan and declare that Mary truly is ‘blessed’ (Lk 1:48-49)”
I don’t know whether or not I achieved this with Kelley as the comment that was left didn’t refer to anything within the article itself. I do plan, at some point in the future, to address the various Marian dogmas, but in that article I was simply trying to raise appreciation for Mary’s role in Salvation History since, in my experience, she is rarely even mentioned in most non-Catholic churches.
Before I begin to examine Kelley’s comment, it is also worth noting that Kelley’s arguments undoubtedly come from a Sola Scriptura (“Scripture Alone”) supposition. I’m not going to address Sola Scriptura here as I’m planning to write a few posts later this month on that topic.
I need a hero
Kelley’s comment began thus:
“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” If Mary were sinless, why did she need a Savior? Wouldn’t she be lying?
What does the Catholic Church teach concerning how Mary’s sinlessness came about?
“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‘…” – Catechism of the Catholic Church, #492
So did she need a savour? Absolutely! This paragraph from the Catechism makes it clear, in no uncertain terms, that Mary’s holiness came from Christ.
“You will become like Gods…”
When I myself held views similar to that of Kelley, I feared that, in saying that Mary was sinless, it would make her equal to God. This fear, although understandable, is not justified.
Were our first parents created without sin? Yes. Where they equal to God? No!
What about angels? Did Gabriel ever sin? Not as far as we can tell… Does that make him equal to God? No!
So, if we’re comfortable with the fact that some angels are without sin and that our first parents were, at one time, without sin, we can see that the fear described above has no real legitimacy.
It is not sin that makes us human. In fact, sin does the complete opposite – it makes us less human, twisting and distorting the “image and likeness” in which we were made. Did Mary have to be sinless? No, but it’s clear to see that it would be something fitting for the lady who gave birth to the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.
Excited Anticipation
I think the issue that Kelley is having comes from the belief that someone can only be saved after they fall.
I work in software development and I’ve been on many projects which have only succeeded because we had someone join the project who managed to snatch success from the jaws of failure. Afterwards, everyone on the team would say that this person saved the project, and saved it before it had a chance to fail.
Allow me to use a variation of St. Jerome’s explanation… Imagine that there is a man, let’s call him “Adam”, walking down the road. As he’s walking he falls into a muddy pit. Another man, let’s call him “Joshua”, comes along and pulls him out. We can say with absolute certainty that Joshua saved Adam.
Now let’s imagine that there’s a woman, whom we shall call “Mary”. She’s walking down the same road and approaches the same pit. She’s just about to fall in when Joshua turns up (a little earlier this time) and grabs her before she can fall. Has Mary not also been saved by Joshua? The only difference between Adam and Mary is that Mary was saved in anticipation.
I think that’ll do for today. There’ll be more tomorrow…
