04/29/2015 12 questions answered about Mary Dive deeper into the Church’s teachings on the Blessed Mother through these frequently asked questions (Part 2)
Dr. Robert Fastiggi
https://www.osv.com/TheChurch/Mary/Article/TabId/660/ArtMID/13700/ArticleID/17405/11-questions-answered-about-Mary.aspx https://www.osv.com/TheChurch/Mary/Article/TabId/660/PID/13700/authorid/1410/Default.aspx?AuthorName=Dr.RobertFastiggi 7. Q: How old was Mary when she gave birth to Jesus?
A: We really don’t know for sure.
The great Jesuit, Francisco Suárez (1548-1617), who is considered the father of systematic Mariology, provides a survey of the Church Fathers and theologians on this issue in his 1592 treatise, “On the Mysteries of the Life of Christ.”
Suárez reports the consensus to be that Mary was around 14 when she conceived Jesus.
He mentions that the Dominican theologian Cajetan believed Mary to be 19 to 24 when she conceived Jesus, but Suárez describes this as mere conjecture.
8. Q: If the New Testament speaks of the brothers and sisters of Jesus, why do Catholics believe Mary remained ever-virgin?
A: Nowhere in the New Testament does it ever identify the “brothers and sisters” of Jesus as the sons or daughters of Mary, his mother.
According to Old Testament usage, close relatives could also be referred to as “brothers or sisters.”
This is spelled out well in paragraph 500 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
When Matthew 1:25 tells us that Joseph had no relations with Mary “until she bore a son,” this does not mean that Mary and Joseph had marital relations after Jesus’ birth.
In 2 Samuel 6:23 we read how “Saul’s daughter Michal was childless until her death.”
This does not mean she had children after her death!
The Fathers of the Church also found evidence of Mary’s perpetual virginity in the New Testament.
Mary’s reply to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?”
(Lk 1:34) suggests a resolve to remain a virgin.
When our Lord entrusts the care of Mary to the beloved disciple (Jn 19:26-27), it implies that Mary had no other children to whom she could be entrusted.
9. Q: Why do Catholics pray to Mary when we can appeal directly to God?
A: Catholics, of course, can pray directly to God, the Holy Trinity.
Vatican II, though, recognized the “close and indissoluble tie” that unites Mary to her divine son.
Lumen Gentium, No. 53
Mary is intimately united to her divine son, and she is “our mother in the order of grace.”
Lumen Gentium, No. 61
Prayers to Mary are especially effective in uniting us more closely to Jesus.
As St. Louis de Montfort teaches in “True Devotion to Mary,” Mary is “the safest, easiest, shortest, and most perfect way of approaching Jesus.”
Jesuit Father Francisco Suárez explained that we should pray to Mary “so that the dignity of the intercessor may make up for our deficiency.”
10. Q: If Mary is so important, why does the Bible say so little about her?
A: Mary’s importance is not to be measured by the mere number of biblical citations but her central role in biblical revelation.
In his 1987 encyclical, Redemptoris Mater (“Mother of the Redeemer”), St. John Paul II points to “the mystery of that ‘woman’ who, from the first chapters of the Book of Genesis until the Book of Revelation, accompanies the revelation of God’s salvific plan for humanity.”
Likewise, in his 1988 apostolic letter, Mulieris Dignitatem (“On the Dignity and Vocation of Women”), John Paul II notes that, because the Incarnation “constitutes the culminating and definitive point of God’s self-revelation to humanity ... a woman is to be found at the center of this salvific event.”
Mary, the mother of the Incarnate Word, is essential to God’s plan of salvation because Jesus is the culmination of salvation history.
The Church Fathers found many foreshadowings or prefigurements of Mary in the Old Testament.
They saw her as the woman at enmity with the serpent.
(Gn 3:15)
The “New Eve” who will be “the mother of all the living.”
(Gn 3:20);
“The daughter Zion”
(Zec 2:14)
And “the Ark of the Covenant”
(Ex 40; cf. Rv 11:19)
In 2 Samuel 6:9, David says: “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?”
In a very similar way in Luke 1:43, Elizabeth exclaims: “And how does this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
David dances with joy before the ark of the Lord.
(2 Sm 6:14-15)
Just as John the Baptist leaps for joy in the womb of St. Elizabeth when Mary, carrying the child Jesus in her womb, approaches.
(Lk 1:41)
Mary is also foreshadowed as the king’s mother in 1 Kings 2:19; as the “closed gate” of perpetual virginity in Ezekiel 44:1-2; and as the Virgin Mother of Emmanuel in.
Isaiah 7:14 (cf. Mt 1:23)
In the New Testament, Mary plays a central role because she is the mother of Christ, the redeemer.
St. Paul alludes to Mary in Galatians 4:4-5, and all four Gospels speak of her.
Mary is shown as the Virgin Mother of Emmanuel (Mt 1:22–23) who flees to Egypt with Jesus and Joseph.
(Mt 2:13-21)
In the Gospel of Luke, Mary is prominent at the Annunciation (1:26-38) and the Visitation.
(1:39-45)
Also in Luke, she prays the Magnificat (1:46-56), gives birth to Jesus (2:1-7), presents him in the Temple (2:22-38) and later finds him in the Temple preaching among the teachers of the law.
(2:41-52)
In John’s Gospel, Mary appeals to Jesus at the wedding feast of Cana to perform his first miracle (2:1-12)
she’s also present at the foot of the cross where Our Lord gives her as mother to John and (by extension) to all Christians (19:25-27)
Mary is present with the apostles in the upper room praying for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
(Acts 1:14)
In Revelation 12, Mary is seen as the woman clothed with the sun, about to give birth. She is opposed by the dragon who wishes to devour her son.
11. Q: How long did Mary live before her death and assumption into heaven?
A: When Pius XII defined the dogma of Mary’s assumption in 1950, he
deliberately left open the question of whether or not she died before her assumption into heaven.
If Mary did die, however, it was not due to original sin.
As to how long Mary lived following the ascension of our Lord, opinions vary.
St. Bridget of Sweden believed it was for 14 years, Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich held to 13 years, and María of Ágreda thought it was for 21 years.
12. Q: Is it true some Catholics consider Mary to be a “co-redeemer” or “co-redemptrix” with Christ?
A: The title of Mary as co-redemptrix has been used by many Catholic saints since the 14th century, including St. Bridget of Sweden, St. Veronica Giuliani and St. Maximillian Kolbe.
The Holy Office in 1914, under St. Pius X, approved an indulgence for a prayer invoking Mary as “co-redemptrix of the human race.”
Pope Pius XI referred to Mary as co-redemptrix three times in public addresses during his pontificate, and Pope St. John Paul II used the term or its cognate at least six times while pope.
What, though, does it mean to speak of Mary as co-redemptrix?
Basically, it means that, by the will of God, Mary cooperated in a unique and singular manner in the work of redemption, with and under her divine Son. Lumen Gentium, citing St. Irenaeus, notes that Mary, by her obedience to God’s plan “became the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race.”
(No. 56)
Moreover, at the foot of the cross, suffering in a profound way with her only-begotten Son, Mary “uniting herself with a maternal heart with his sacrifice,” and lovingly consented “to the immolation of this victim which she herself had brought forth.”
(Lumen Gentium, No. 58)
There are a number of approved religious communities, associations and centers that use the term co-redemptrix in reference to Mary.
Some of these were founded before Vatican II and others after the council. Titles attributed to Mary, such as co-redemptrix or mediatrix, must be understood in a way that “neither takes away from nor adds anything to the dignity and efficaciousness of Christ the one mediator.”
(Lumen Gentium, No. 62)
(End Part 2)