"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
To sceptics who objected, “How can a woman give birth to God?”, Proclus responded:
“I am not telling you that a woman could give birth to God, but that the incarnate God could have been borne by a woman. For to God all things are possible”
Proclus of Constantinople (AD 446)
It is a common misconception that, when people convert or revert to the Catholic Church that they only do so when they fully understand all of the Church’s doctrine. This certainly was not true for me. I had come to the point of recognizing that Sola Scriptura made little sense and that Christ founded a visible Church. However, there were many of the Catholic Church’s teachings I didn’t really understand. For me, most of these difficulties surrounded the person of Mary. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the Catholic fascination with the mother of Jesus…
All this started to change when I discovered Biblical Typology and started to see Mary pre-figured in the Old Testament. I have written before about how Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant and how this helped me to understand Mary’s Holiness. I have also written about how Mary is the Queen Mother and how this aided my understanding of her as intercessor. Today I would like to write about another very important parallel which I discuss in the talk Mary & The Early Church. Once I began to see Mary as the New Eve I began to see the significance of Mary in the story of Salvation History…
Read more
I saw in a Facebook discussion group a little while ago a Protestant post the above picture as definitive proof that Catholics worship Mary. The problem is that “worship” here doesn’t mean the kind of worship you give to God. Even today in the Church of England wedding vows, husband and wife will say “…with my body, I thee worship…”.
Speaking personally, I don’t like this elaborate poetic language in Marian devotion for just this reason – it’s too easy for non-Catholics to misunderstand what we believe.
I’ve just received the video from a talk I gave earlier this week at Theology Uncorked on Our Lady. The video is available on Vimeo:
…and it’s also available on YouTube:
If you would like an audio version, I recorded an MP3 of this talk last year when I spoke in Los Angeles.
Okay, these are pretty terrible, even by my standards…
At this point, I’ve given a few talks on the subject of the Blessed Mother (e.g. Mary and the Early Church). However, I’ve never had a chance to speak about one of the more interesting aspects of the Annunciation, the words used in greeting by the Angel Gabriel.
Gabriel greets Mary with “Hail, full of grace!”. The Greek word used here is Kecharitomene (κεχαριτωμένη) and its significance should not be underestimated. Here’s Renee from RebornPure to explain…