This continues a series of posts (which will be filed under Belief), in which I attempt to address evangelical misunderstandings of Catholic doctrine, and to explain what the Catholic Church really believes. In the spirit of St. Justin, I "have come, not to flatter you by this writing, nor please you by our address, but to beg that you pass judgment, after an accurate and searching investigation," and that you would not be influenced by "evil rumours which have long been prevalent" (First Apology, II).

The Catholic doctrines on Mary have not been very large stumbling blocks in my conversion; in fact, Mary was one of the first of my stumbling blocks to crumble. Once the importance of Mary's role as Mother of God is firmly grasped, her Perpetual Virginity, Immaculate Conception, and Assumption into heaven follow fairly easily. I spent quite a bit of space on the Perpetual Virginity, mainly because I hear more objections to that particular doctrine than to the others. I rarely hear objections to Mary's Immaculate Conception and her Assumption so I have decided to combine these final two Marian dogmata into one essay.

The thing to keep in mind when discussing any particular Christian doctrine is that Christian doctrine in general has as its end a fuller knowledge of and closer relationship to Jesus Christ, God made man, fully human and fully divine yet one Person, namely the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the eternal Son of God. Therefore, Catholic beliefs about Mary can only be fully understood in light of what the Catholic Church believes about Jesus. "What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ" (Catechism, 487).

Part 3. Mary Immaculate

In preparation for her role as Mother of God, God preserved Mary from the stain of original sin from the moment of her conception. This belief is called the Immaculate Conception, but should not be confused with the conception of Christ by the Holy Spirit, and does not suggest that Mary was conceived by any extraordinary means or that she has any sort of divine nature. Mary had two very human parents; tradition tells us that they were called Joachim and Anna. It is doubtful that they had any idea that their daughter had been conceived free from sin.

Catholics believe that the seeds of the Immaculate Conception were given by the Apostles to the Church in the initial "deposit of faith" (in the words of the first Vatican Council), but became more fully understood over the course of the centuries. This is the same manner in which the nature of Christ and the nature of the Trinity were better understood over time and were only officially clarified in the fourth and fifth centuries. Pope Pius IX traces in detail the development of the Immaculate Conception in his apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus (I leave it to the reader who is interested to read those details for himself). In that document, given December 8, 1854, Pius IX carefully spelled out and promulgated as dogma Mary's Immaculate Conception. He wrote:

We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.

The key phrase to note is: "by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race." It is only because of her role in bringing the God-man into the world that God preserved his Mother from original sin.

That Mary was conceived without sin does not imply that she was not in need of a Savior. Had she not needed a Savior, God would not have had to intervene to preserve her from sin. Like any creature, Mary needed salvation; she was simply saved in advance, so to speak.

To better understand the Immaculate Conception, I like to think in terms of the Ark of the Covenant. This analogy is merely an aid, and certainly not dogma, so if the analogy helps the reader's understanding, then fine; if not, just forget it—my feelings will not be hurt.

At any rate, Exodus 25 describes the construction of the Ark and the other items to be placed in the Tabernacle's sanctuary. However, God makes it clear to Moses that the Ark has a very special role:

And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel (Ex. 25:22).

Thus the Ark was the place where the presence of God would reside among the Israelites. Moreover, he would meet them and commune with them from the Ark.

But before God's presence came into the Tabernacle and settled on the Ark, the Ark and all the other objects were consecrated; they were anointed with oil to set them apart for a very specific religious purpose (Ex. 30:23–29). Furthermore, God commanded that a special perfume be made and placed in front of the Ark to further set it apart from the other objects That perfume was to be used for no other purpose (Ex. 30:34–38).

In the person of Jesus Christ, God met the world in the womb of his mother Mary; she is truly the Ark of the New Covenant (cf. Rev. 11:19–12:5). In the same way that the objects of the Tabernacle were anointed with oil, so all God's faithful are anointed with his grace and set apart for a specific purpose. But the Ark was set apart in a very special way with a perfume that was not to be duplicated. So is the New Ark anointed with a "singular grace and privilege," conceived without sin that she might bring Emmanuel into the world.

Part 4. Making Assumptions

In November of 1950, Pope Pius XII wrote (from the editorial first-person plural perspective) that

we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory (Munificentissimus Deus, n. 44).

In declaring that Mary was taken into heaven at the end of her earthly life, Pius XII was not inventing a new doctrine—popes do not have the authority to do that. He was, rather, confirming that a centuries-old belief was, in fact, true. The Assumption of Mary into heaven can be found in at least two early manuscripts dating from the second and third centuries, The Passing of Mary and The Book of John Concerning the Falling Asleep of Mary. These writings, not having been recognized as doctrinally infallible by the Church when she formed the New Testament canon, carry no doctrinally authoritative force; however, they do serve as historical witness to the antiquity of belief in the Assumption.

Believing that Mary was taken body and soul into heaven at the end of her earthly life should not be too great a leap of faith. We do, after all, read about the taking to heaven of at least two Old Testament characters, Methuselah's father Enoch (Gen. 5:22) and the prophet Elijah (2 Kings 2:11). The taking of persons to heaven is nothing new for God so it should not be surprising that ancient Christians believed that God took his own mother to heaven.

That the Assumption is not a belief that is found explicitly in Scripture and was not defined until the 1950s is a typical objection. However, assumptions of other persons in general have precedent in Scripture (as noted above) and Mary's Assumption in no way violates what we read in Scripture. We can also note that, similarly, there is no explicit definition of the Trinity in Scripture though it is the foundation of Christian belief and was not clarified in writing for a few hundred years.

In support of his defining the Assumption as dogma, Pius XII did point out a most important relation to Scripture. He points out that Jesus, in taking his mother to heaven, was simply observing, "in the most perfect way, the divine commandment by which children are ordered to honor their parents" (Munificentissimus Deus, n. 35). In assuming his mother into heaven, Jesus had honored his Father and mother.

Part 5. Some Elementary Remarks on Papal Infallibility

In an earlier post, I described the Catholic doctrine of Papal Infallibility. These final two Marian dogmata I have discussed are the only two instances of the exercise of papal infallibility since that dogma was defined by the first Vatican Council. There are three very important points to note.

First, neither Pius IX nor Pius XII were inventing new doctrines. Both of them go to great length in their respective documents to detail the historical roots of both doctrines.

Second, they did not decide to define these dogma out of the blue. In both cases, the Popes had received petitions from the bishops and the faithful "begging and urging the Apostolic See that [these truths] be solemnly defined" (Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus, n 8).

Third, they did not define these dogma unilaterally; they consulted the bishops and the faithful throughout the world. Pius IX "established a special congregation of our venerable brethren, the cardinals of the holy Roman Church, illustrious for their piety, wisdom, and knowledge of the sacred scriptures" in order to determine the authenticity of the Immaculate Conception (Ineffabilius Deus, "Preparation for the Definition"). Likewise, Pius XII notes that "Many outstanding theologians eagerly and zealously carried out investigations on [the Assumption] either privately or in public ecclesiastical institutions" (Munificentissimus Deus, n. 8).

This continues a series of posts (which will be filed under Belief), in which I attempt to address evangelical misunderstandings of Catholic doctrine, and to explain what the Catholic Church really believes. In the spirit of St. Justin, I "have come, not to flatter you by this writing, nor please you by our address, but to beg that you pass judgment, after an accurate and searching investigation," and that you would not be influenced by "evil rumours which have long been prevalent" (First Apology, II).

Part 2. Blessed Mary, Ever Virgin

Belief that Jesus's mother Mary remained a virgin throughout her entire life, even after delivering Our Lord, is a belief which dates back to the inception of Christianity. However, since the Reformation Mary's perpetual virginity has been rejected by most Protestant groups. Why, exactly, Mary's perpetual virginity is rejected is something I have no real explanation for. I have a hunch, though, that the Protestant rejection has to do with both the modern attitude toward sex and the fundamentalist tendency to disbelieve that which is not explicitly defined in the Bible.

Despite the Protestant opposition, the Catholic Church still clings tightly to her belief in the perpetual virginity. She believes that the Blessed Virgin Mary freely and seriously accepted her role as the Mother of God, declaring herself to be the "handmaid of the Lord."[1] As the Lord's handmaid, Mary remained a virgin for her entire life in order to make an "undivided gift of herself to God's will."[2] Even the early reformers were not quick to dismiss Mary's virginity; Luther, Calvin and Zwingli all accepted it as divine revelation. And I'm not entirely sure that disbelief in the perpetual virginity was very quick to catch on even after the Reformation. John Wesley, probably the first real evangelical, wrote the following over 200 years after Luther tacked his 99 theses on the door at Wittenburg:

I believe that he [Jesus] was made man . . . being conceived by the singular operation of the Holy Ghost and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who, as well after as she brought him forth, continued a pure and unspotted virgin.[3]

Wesley and the reformers were not simply holding on to a dogma invented by the Church in the middle ages; even the earliest Christians believed in the perpetual virginity. The doctrine was widespread enough by A.D. 150, a little more than 50 years after St. John wrote down his Revelation, that there appeared a story about Mary's virginity which scholars these days call the Protoevangelium of James. The Protoevangelium, like the gospels, insists that Mary is a virgin when she conceives, but then goes on to embellish a few details. The story suggests that Mary was dedicated by her parents for lifelong service to the Lord and spent her early years in the temple, like Samuel of the Old Testament.[4] Because of laws for ritual cleanness, the temple priests could not have a menstruating woman hanging around so, when she turned 12, Mary was given to Joseph so that he could protect "the virgin of the Lord."[5] The priests expected Joseph to respect her virginity so they are furious when they find out she is with child.[6] Regarding Mary's continuing virginity the story describes, in somewhat indelicate language, an examination of Mary by a midwife and her companion. They verify that Mary is still very much a virgin even after having given birth.[7] Though the Protoevangelium is not scripture and is probably not an historical account of the lives of Mary and Joseph, it serves as clear evidence that the earliest Christians believed in Mary's lifelong dedication to God as a virgin and were interested in the details of her virginity long before the Middle Ages.

Why, then, would such a long-established belief be rejected by post-Reformation Protestants? I suppose that one reason might be that it sounds odd to our modern and postmodern ears that someone would voluntarily give up sex for life. The modern western world is, after all, saturated with sex. We encounter sex daily both explicitly if we choose, and more often implicitly. Porn is what made the Internet popular and for a time was the number one online activity (now surpassed by gambling). On one of the cable shopping channels one night I happened upon two women selling several models of women's self-pleasuring devices, some of which were quite expensive. Apparently these things are like cars or coffee makers—the more features you add, the higher the price goes. Different colors, shapes, sizes, textures, battery-powered, manual, etc. Thankfully there were no test drives or Ron Popeil-esque demonstrations. In a less explicit way we encounter sex on Viagra and Cialis commercials; these, of course, play on the assumption that not getting it up is the worse possible problem a man could have. In reality, the side effects are probably worse than the benefits.[8] Need I mention HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, soap operas, prime time television, every movie made since 1954, and top 40 radio? Finally, a Tab cola commercial from the 1980s comes to mind (yes, that is Elle MacPherson in the bikini and, yes, she is holding a can of Tab). And I have only mentioned the images of sex that we encounter; nevermind the prevailing moral attitude that any type of sex with anyone is okay because, after all, consent is the sole criterion of the good. With our being constantly bombarded by sexual advertising and the availability of explicit virtual sex and the cultural amorality of sex, it is no wonder that the idea of abstinence seems so foreign.

However, Jesus didn't think giving up sex to be so odd; he himself lived a celibate life and told us that there are those persons who "have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake."[9] Countless monks and nuns throughout the centuries have taken vows of celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Even St. Augustine, who fathered a child out of wedlock and never married the child's mother yet continued in a sexual relationship with her for many years, gave up sex and decided to live a celibate life upon his conversion to Christianity. And St. Paul, the most dramatic convert of any of us, remained celibate and suggested we do the same.[10] Even married persons may abstain for weeks, sometimes months, especially during the first trimester of pregnancy and for a time after childbirth. Given the great numbers of persons who have lived celibate lives and those who abstain for prolonged periods, Our Lord included, it should not be too outrageous to belive that the Mother of God also lived a celibate life, regardless of what the modern culture tells us.

Of course there have always been those persons who deny divine revelation, and today's Protestants are doing nothing new in rejecting the Perpetual Virginity. In the 4th century, around A.D. 383, St. Jerome published a pamphlet "Against Helvidius," answering Helvidius's denial of the perpetual virginity. Those opposed to the Perpetual Virginity typically argue along the same line laid down by Helvidius nearly 1,700 years ago: they posit that the Bible does not explicitly say that Mary remained a virgin and, moreover, the Bible explicitly denies Mary's continuation as a pure, unspotted virgin (to borrow Wesley's words). Helvidius's argument centers around two basic points:

1. Matthew's use of the phrases "before they [Mary and Joseph] came together" and "knew her not till she had brought forth a son" to describe the circumstances of Our Lord's conception forces the conclusion that Joseph eventually "knew" Mary at some later point in time.
2. Phrases such as "brothers of the Lord" and "first-born son" in the Gospels mean that Mary had other sons whom Joseph fathered.

Now, St. Jerome had very little respect for Helvidius, accusing him of "extreme ignorance," "neglect[ing] the whole range of Scripture," "set[ting] on fire the temple of the Lord's body," and "defil[ing] the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit from which you are determined to make a team of four brethren and a heap of sisters come forth."[11] Strong words, indeed. But we cannot accuse Jerome of the ad hominem fallacy and disregard his answer to Helvidius; Jerome answers, at length, all of Helvidius's objections and so we must judge his answers on their own merits and not against his attitude toward Helvidius.

I do not have the space to give all the details of Jerome's arguments—the English translation of his pamphlet is around 10,000 words long—but the reader should feel free to peruse the entire text when he has time. Those content with only the highlights may read on.

About Helvidius's suggestion that "'the Evangelist [Matthew] would never have applied the words, before they came together to persons who were not to come together,'" Jerome writes, "I know not whether to grieve or laugh. Shall I convict him of ignorance, or accuse him of rashness?" Jerome points out that words like before and until do not necessarily suggest absolute times. He gives the example of a man who says, "Before dining in harbour I sailed to Africa." It is unreasonable to assume that this man is now somehow bound to one day dine in harbour. Among the scriptural examples Jerome cites is St. Paul: "If I choose to say, 'the apostle Paul before he went to Spain was put in fetters at Rome . . .' must Paul on being released at once go to Spain . . . ?"[12]

Along those same lines, Jerome points out that the Bible's use of "first-born son" does not require us to believe that more sons were born later; the term simply describes the Jewish legal status of anything "that openeth the womb." Jerome's point is that "Every only begotten son is a first-born son, but not every first-born is an only begotten." Therefore, though Jesus is an only-begotten Son with no subsequent siblings, he is still a first-born. Jerome cites several Old Testament examples, the most dramatic of which is the Angel of Death's killing of the first-born children recorded in Exodus: Were children without siblings exempted? "You must either release the only begotten from the penalty, and in that case you become ridiculous: or, if you allow that they were slain, we gain our point . . . that only begotten sons also are called first-born."[13]

The most frequent argument I have heard from Protestants is another that is put forth by Helvidius: that the scriptures speak of the "brothers" of Jesus and therefore Mary must have borne siblings for Jesus. This obviously, in their view, directly contradicts Mary's perpetual virginity. But Jerome shows that throughout the Bible, the word brother is used in several different ways, not always referring to direct siblings:

1. By nature: "Instances of brethren by nature are Esau and Jacob, the twelve patriarchs, Andrew and Peter, James and John."
2. By race: "As to race, all Jews are called brethren of one another, as in Deuteronomy, 'If thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.' And in the same book, 'Thou shalt in anywise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee; thou mayest not put a foreigner over thee, which is not thy brother.' "
3. By kindred: "Moreover they are called brethren by kindred who are of one family . . . . In Genesis we read, 'And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we are brethren.'"
4. By love: There "are brethren by affection, and these again fall into two divisions, those of the spiritual and those of the general relationship. I say spiritual because all of us Christians are called brethren . . . . And in another psalm the Saviour says, 'I will declare thy name unto my brethren.'"[14]

With at least four possible readings of the word brothers, Jerome concludes that we must

adopt the previous explanation and understand [the brothers of the Lord] to be called brethren in virtue of the bond of kindred, not of love and sympathy, nor by prerogative of race, nor yet by nature. Just as Lot was called Abraham's brother, and Jacob Laban's, . . . just as Abraham himself had to wife Sarah his sister, for he says, 'She is indeed my sister, on the father's side, not on the mother's,' that is to say, she was the daughter of his brother, not of his sister. Otherwise, what are we to say of Abraham, a just man, taking to wife the daughter of his own father?[15]

By far Jerome's most convincing argument from scripture, it seems to me, is Jesus's gift of his mother to his disciple John from the cross. John's gospel records it this way:

Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.[16]

This passage suggests that Mary was without other sons. If Mary had had other sons, would they not have taken her into their homes rather than leaving her with John?

Scripture is at least ambiguous about whether Jesus had brothers, and in the case of John actually supports the orthodox belief that Mary had no children other than our Lord.

Having argued for Mary's perpetual virginity I must note that the dogma of her continuation as a pure, unspotted virgin (to borrow again from Wesley) is not taught in a vacuum. What the Catholic Church teaches about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illuminates its faith in Christ. Mary's perpetual virginity reflects the singular importance of Jesus of Nazareth who is the Word who dwelt among us, Emmanuel—God with us. If Jesus is truly God in the flesh, then his mother's womb is a terribly special place. St. Jerome called it "the temple of the Lord's body," and "the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit." That Mary remained a virgin for life emphasizes her singularly important role in salvation history, and the singular importance of her Son, the Word made flesh.

To add to Jerome's metaphors, we could think of Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant. In the Old Testament the Ark of the Covenant was where the presence of God rested when Israel was camping out in the desert. In the New Testament Jesus the Christ is the presence of God who lived for nine months inside the Blessed Virgin. But I cannot take credit for the Ark metaphor; one of the apostles beat me to it. St. John, Jesus's beloved disciple who took Mary into his home, wrote the following in his Revelation:

And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail. And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.[17]

In his vision John saw Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant, ready to deliver our Lord. Also in scripture we read that when Mary visits Elizabeth, Elizabeth recognizes Mary as the Ark and exclaims, "And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"[18] echoing King David's words as the Ark is being returned from the Philistines: "How shall the ark of the LORD come to me?"[19]

The Ark, being the dwelling place of God Almighty, is not something you mess with. Uzzah was struck dead by God for trying to keep the Ark from falling off an ox cart.[20] That being the case, we should be very careful before suggesting that the new Ark served any purpose other than the dwelling place of God in the flesh.

All scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Notes

1. Luke 1:38.
2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 506.
3. John Wesley, Letter to a Roman Catholic, July 18, 1749, no. 7 (my emphasis).
4. Protoevangelium of James, no. 4; cf. 1 Samuel, chapter 1.
5. Ibid., nos. 8–9; cf. Leviticus 15:19–20.
6. Ibid., no. 15
7. Ibid., nos. 19–20.
8. What I find ironic is the warning about vision problems. My mother never told me that taking a pill is what would make me go blind....
9. Matthew 19:12.
10. 1 Corinthians 7:1–9, esp. vs. 7
11. St. Jerome, Against Helvidius, A.D. 383, no. 18.
12. Ibid., no. 4.
13. Ibid., no. 12.
14. Ibid., nos. 16–17.
15. Ibid., no. 17.
16. Ibid., no. 14.
17. Revelation 11:19–12:2.
18. Luke 1:43.
19. 2 Samuel 6:9.
20. 2 Samuel 6:6–9.

In recent conversations about Catholic doctrine, it has become clear that evangelicals do not object to actual Catholic doctrine, but rather they object to what they misunderstand to be Catholic doctrine. Over the course of the next several posts (which will be filed under Belief), I will attempt to address these misunderstandings, misunderstandings that I myself held at one time, and will do my very best to explain what the Catholic Church really believes. In the spirit of Justin Martyr, I "have come, not to flatter you by this writing, nor please you by our address, but to beg that you pass judgment, after an accurate and searching investigation," and that you would not be influenced by "evil rumours which have long been prevalent" (First Apology, II).

Part 1. Mary the Mother of God

In a previous post I mentioned that Catholic beliefs about Mary seem to irritate non-Catholics more than any other Catholic belief. This claim is, of course, based only on experiential and anecdotal evidence and not on a survey of a scientifically-chosen random sample of the non-Catholic population. At any rate, the non-Catholic objection to Mary often reaches the point of accusation that Catholics worship her. A less polemical, more reasonable discussion might begin with this question, the one with which we will start: Why do Catholics make Mary so important? The answer is that they don't. It is God who made her important when He chose her as the woman through whom He would become incarnate and dwell among us. The Catholic Church does not worship Mary, but it does recognize that she has a singularly special role in salvation history. The Catholic understanding of Mary's role has become clearer over the centuries such that the Church recognizes four Marian dogmas (or dogmata if you want to be uppity and go with the Latin plural form):

1. Mary is the Mother of God.
2. Because of her special role as the Mother of God she remained a virgin throughout her life.
3. In preparation to be the Mother of God, God protected Mary from the stain of original sin from the moment of her conception.
4. At the end of her earthly life she was assumed body and soul into heaven.

To handle each of these topics in a single blog post would be overwhelming to the reader (and to the writer), so they will be addressed in four separate posts. In Part 1, we tackle the dogma of Mary the Mother of God.

A point worthy of note: the Marian dogmas (dogmata) are not about Mary alone. What they point to and illuminate is the nature of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church words it this way: "What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ" (CCC, 487).

That Mary is the Mother of God seems fairly straightforward to me. Mary is Jesus's mother. Jesus is God in the flesh. Therefore, Mary is the Mother of God. Simple, right? I think so. But the development of the theology behind the dogma is slightly more complex.

The belief that Jesus of Nazareth is God incarnate (from the Latin for "in the flesh") is evident from the earliest Christian writings in the New Testament. St. John is explicit when he writes that the Son, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the eternal Word who "was in the beginning with God . . . was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:2, 14). But in the 50s A.D., forty years earlier than John, St. Paul is more explicit when he writes that Jesus, "Who, being in the form of God . . . made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men" (Php 2:6–7, my emphasis). Paul's use of language here is important: In both instances of the word form, describing Jesus's relationship to God and his relationship to man, Paul uses the Greek morphe (μορφη) which suggests the shape or nature of something (Strong's Dictionary s.v. 3444). By using the same word to describe both relationships, Paul is effectively saying that both God's nature, his substance, and the nature of man are simultaneously present in the man Jesus Christ. Two natures, divine and human, in one person.¹

However, two or three hundred years after the New Testament was written, the Church was confronted with several popular heresies that misrepresented the nature of the man Jesus of Nazareth, and consequently what his mother should be called. Over the course of time, the Church convened several councils to defend orthodox Christian belief about Jesus. It has been the practice of the Church since the earliest times to convene councils to decide matters of faith (see Acts 15). But the councils have always been reactive; that is, the councils do not meet to invent new doctrines but rather to respond to attacks against the faith or to clear up confusion in doctrinal or disciplinary matters. So it isn't until A.D. 325 at the first ecumenical Council at Nicaea that the Church formally articulated in writing the doctrine of Jesus as true God in the flesh. Against the claims of an heretical bishop named Arius, the Council professed that Jesus is

the Son of God, the only-begotten of his Father, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father. By whom all things were made, both which be in heaven and in earth. Who for us men and for our salvation came down [from heaven] and was incarnate and was made man (Nicaea, Creed).

A century later, Nestorius also claimed that Jesus was not true God. He then went one step further than Arius and anathematized anyone who would call Mary the Mother of God, a logical conclusion of his belief that Jesus was not God. It was then that the ecumenical Council at Ephesus in A.D. 431 upheld the orthodox belief in the union of Jesus's two natures, citing John's gospel (3:34):

Confessing the Word to be made one with the flesh according to substance, we adore one Son and Lord Jesus Christ: we do not divide the God from the man, nor separate him into parts, as though the two natures were mutually united in him only through a sharing of dignity and authority (for that is a novelty and nothing else), neither do we give separately to the Word of God the name Christ and the same name separately to a different one born of a woman; but we know only one Christ, the Word from God the Father with his own Flesh. For as man he was anointed with us, although it is he himself who gives the Spirit to those who are worthy and not in measure, according to the saying of the blessed Evangelist John (Ephesus, Epistle to Nestorius ["Cum salvator noster"]).

To describe the union of Christ's divine and human natures, the bishops at Ephesus used the Greek word hypostasis (υποστασις), but it is far easier to assign a label to this doctrine than to actually understand it. In fact, the union of Christ's natures is beyond human comprehension. To describe what little we do understand, however, we can say that Jesus is a divine person who has taken on a human nature, and that he remains fully human and fully divine, and yet he remains one person. His two natures are not separate, but neither are they confused, i.e. Jesus is not two persons but one, but he is also not an admixture of divine and human. We can not say that the divine nature simply indwells a human body; Jesus's humanity was not simply a vehicle for his divinity.² Both Christ's divine and human qualities are fully present simultaneously in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

Having established Christ's hypostatic union, the Council answered Nestorius's claim that Mary should not be called Mother of God. The bishops professed that "since the holy Virgin brought forth corporally God made one with flesh according to nature, for this reason we also call her Mother of God" (Ephesus, Epistle to Nestorius ["Cum salvator noster"]). Returning anathema for anathema, and again citing John (1:14), the Council declared that "If anyone will not confess that the Emmanuel is very God, and that therefore the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God, inasmuch as in the flesh she bore the Word of God made flesh [as it is written, 'The Word was made flesh'] let him be anathema" (Ephesus, Anathema 1). In other words, because Mary bore God in the flesh, she is the Mother of God and you'd better believe it.³

Notice that the Council at length defended the divinity of Christ against Nestorius, and only then, basing their argument on the divinity of Christ, defended Mary as Mother of God. It is only because of belief in Christ that Mary's title is defended, and Mary is given her title in order to defend belief in Christ. This is a concrete example of what the Church means when it says, "What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ" (CCC, 487).

What does Mary's title Mother of God illuminate about Christ? The obvious answer is that it defends the orthodox belief that Jesus is truly Emmanuel, God with us (Mat 1:23). But the image of Mary as the Mother of God is also evocative of Jesus's humanity, something I think we too often overlook. It is important that Jesus is human as well as divine. If Jesus is not divine it would seem that man could save himself and we could all be Buddhists. If he is not human then he did not truly suffer for the sins of humanity. Yet God, the Creator and Lord of the universe, became human and entrusted himself to the care of a young Jewish peasant girl. He became an embryo in her womb, nursed at her breast, and had his diapers changed by her. Being a mother, Mary gave birth to, suckled, nurtured, and raised God-with-us. In caring for the Word made flesh, the Blessed Virgin Mary did more than simply give God a human nature. She raised a divine person who walked the earth, faced the same temptations as us, got hungry, thirsty, and yet became the ultimate, effective atonement for the giant debt that man owes to his fellows and to God. Our one Lord Jesus Christ came down from heaven and became man, and for our sake was crucified, died, and was buried. On the third day, he rose again in fulfillment of the scriptures, ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. But though he is the ultimate judge and will reign forever, Jesus, the eternal Word made flesh, is still truly his mother's Son, and his mother is the Mother of God.

All scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Notes

1. Although not material to the discussion, I find it fascinating that Paul here reverses the language of Genesis 1:26. In Genesis, God created man in his image and likeness and according to St. Paul, God made himself in the likeness of men.
2. "If anyone shall dare to say that the Christ is a Theophorus [that is, God-bearing] man and not rather that he is very God, as an only Son through nature, because 'the Word was made flesh,' and 'has a share in flesh and blood as we do:' let him be anathema" (Ephesus, Anathema 5).
3. Also worthy of note is that the Council did not invent the title Mother of God. The fact that the bishops defended Mary's title against Nestorius presupposes that the title was already in accepted use at the time it was attacked, and therefore it was the Church's doctrine long before the Council was convoked.

In recent conversations about Catholic doctrine, it has become clear that evangelicals do not object to actual Catholic doctrine, but rather they object to what they misunderstand to be Catholic doctrine. Over the course of the next several posts, I will attempt to address these misunderstandings, misunderstandings that I myself held at one time, and will do my very best to explain what the Catholic Church really believes. In the spirit of Justin Martyr, I "have come, not to flatter you by this writing, nor please you by our address, but to beg that you pass judgment, after an accurate and searching investigation," and that you would not be influenced by "evil rumours which have long been prevalent" (First Apology, II).

One of the first objections raised against Catholics is, "But they pray to Mary!" The Blessed Virgin seems to irritate non-Catholics more than almost any other Catholic doctrine, and I'm not sure why. After all, she brought the God-man Jesus Christ into our world and for this, if for no other reason, she deserves our honor and respect. In future posts I will deal with the Marian dogmata, but presently I want to address the specific objection of "praying to Mary."

Catholics don't pray to Mary in the sense that they worship her. If anyone worships Mary they aren't being a very good Catholic; worship of anything other than God is idolatry, a grave sin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church words it this way:

Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc. . . . Many martyrs died for not adoring "the Beast" refusing even to simulate such worship. Idolatry rejects the unique Lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God (CCC, no. 2113).

These are pretty strong words against idolatry and, make no mistake, the Catholic Church follows its own proscription; it does not divinize Mary or honor her in place of God. She is a creature, a very special creature to be sure, but a creature nonetheless. So how do they get away with praying to her? To put it in evangelical terms, they make prayer requests and not prayers of supplication. And to be clear, Catholics don't ask Mary to perform miracles like parting the Red Sea, changing Coke into Pepsi, or even helping them find their car keys. They make prayer requests—they ask Mary to pray for them.

The best example of this idea is the most common Marian prayer, the Hail Mary, one which evangelicals seem most offended by. The first part greets Mary in the same way as the angel Gabriel and her kinswoman Elizabeth and comes straight out of the Bible: "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus" (cf. Luke 1:28 and 1:42)¹. The second part is the prayer request: "Holy Mary, Mother of God,² pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen." Clearly, Mary is not worshipped; she is greeted in the same way that angels and relatives greet her, then she is asked to pray for us.

Before moving on, we should pause for a moment to consider the word "pray." For many, "pray" means directly addressing God in an act of worship, but there are other uses for the word. The Catholic Church was in England long before Protestantism and so, when talking about Mary, Catholics use it in the old English sense of the word, which is to simply ask something of someone. This is the sense that the US Supreme Court uses when they write in their opinions things like, "that court was of opinion that the law under which the prosecution was had was constitutional, and denied the relief prayed for by the petitioner;" and "Whereupon petitioner prayed for a writ of error from this court. . ." (Plessy v. Ferguson). "Pray" was especially popular in Elizabethan English. Shakespeare has Hamlet say to the players, "Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you" (Hamlet, Act III, Scene 2). And contemporary to Shakespeare is the King James Bible which quotes St. Paul as saying, "we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God" (2 Cor. 5:20). Catholics don't worship Mary when they pray to her in the same way that the petitioner doesn't worship Supreme Court justices, Hamlet didn't worship his actors, and St. Paul didn't worship the church at Corinth.

And that is the doctrine in a nutshell. Prayer in the old English sense of the word. Prayer requests, not worship. 'Tis very simple. However, something that divides Christianity deserves a fuller explanation, and I would be remiss in my duty indeed if I explained this in anything less than 3,000 words.

The first step in my fuller explanation is to point out what most non-Catholics may not realize—their objection to praying to Mary is too narrow in scope; the practice follows from a doctrine called the Communion of Saints and thus applies to all the saints and angels in heaven. The Communion of Saints is a belief that, by virtue of our being members of the Church, the Body of Christ as St. Paul described it, Christians are united together in such a way that not even death can separate us. If we are indeed members of the one Body of Christ, then we cannot be separated—a body is no longer a whole body if it loses an arm or a leg. A body requires all its members to function fully (see Rom. 12:4ff.). At Archdale Wesleyan, we professed a belief in the Communion of Saints at least once or twice a year when we would recite the Apostles' Creed from the back of our hymnals. The last clause in the Creed says, "I believe in the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." (Of course, we would always replace "the holy catholic church" with "the holy universal church of Jesus Christ" or something similar because "catholic," which means "universal," sounded too Catholic.) Unfortunately, evangelicals too often reduce the word "communion" to mean "fellowship" and, oddly, have tended to make "fellowship" into a verb synonymous with "eating pot luck dinners together." They have even built "fellowship halls" for this very purpose. In reducing the Communion of Saints to fellowship among those of us on earth, we lose sight of the bigger picture of the Church that includes not only those of us who are on earth but also our communion in Christ with those who have gone before us. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us in the faith (Heb. 12:1; see ch. 11 for context). It is only because of our communion with them in Christ that it makes any sense to ask Mary and all the angels and saints to pray for us.

A concise example of prayer requests made in the Communion of Saints can be found in the penitential rite at the beginning of every Mass: "I confess to Almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned. . . . And I ask Blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God. The faithful ask for the prayers of their brothers and sisters on earth who are in their immediate physical presence, but also for the prayers of Mary, the angels, and the saints who are in heaven.

Prayers to the saints in heaven are limited to prayer requests, but it may not seem intuitive to the modern mind to ask them to pray for us. It is intuitive for us that we would ask the aspiring saints here on earth to pray for us. I ask my mother, father, wife, pastor to pray for me and they do. Likewise, they ask me to pray for them and I do. But science and empiricism are so ingrained in us that we cannot fathom how exactly we can talk to Mary and the saints to ask them to pray for us. They're dead, right? Well, if we truly believe Christian doctrine, we don't believe that those persons in heaven are dead—in fact, we believe that they are more alive than any of us here on earth simply because they are in heaven and in the direct presence of God Almighty. Furthermore, we have a share with them in the Communion of Saints through Jesus Christ our Lord. If we consider that we are addressing living persons through Christ, it isn't a huge stretch to ask them to pray for us. They are alive and we are in communion with them.

One question that often arises is that the saints are in heaven, in the presence of God, and are blissfully happy for all eternity—why would they care what is happening on earth? For that matter, do they even know what is happening on earth? Well, the Bible reveals to us that the saints in heaven are well aware of what is happening to the saints on earth and that they care:

And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? (Rev. 6:9–10).

Here we see that the souls of the martyrs in heaven are quite aware of what is happening on earth and that they pray to God to bring about specific ends on the earth. If they were not aware of earthly events, they would not know that God had not already avenged their blood and consequently would not bother to ask for vengeance. Moreover, those in heaven are quite aware of the prayers of the saints on earth, and in fact carry those prayers to the throne of God:

And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints (Rev. 5:8).

And even the angels get involved:

And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand (Rev. 8:3–4).

Clearly, the inspired written Word of God tells us that the angels and saints in heaven know and care about what is happening on earth, and that they take the prayers of the saints on earth to God—they intercede on our behalf.

But the idea that saints and angels deliver our prayers to God raises another common objection: that we have but one mediator between God and man and therefore we don't need to ask for the intercession of the saints. True, there is "one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time" (1 Tim. 2:5), but this objection seems to imply that because Jesus is our one Mediator that we have no need for the prayers of anyone else. That doesn't quite follow. I could tell my mother, "Don't pray for me! I already have a mediator!" but I would sound stupid. On the contrary, James tells us that we should "pray for one another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (Jas. 5:16). James's instruction to pray for each other requires that one intercede on behalf of another; in doing so we become mediators between our brothers and God. St. Paul throughout his letters tells his churches that he is praying for them, for instance 2 Cor. 13:7, Php. 1:9, Col. 1:9, 1 Thess. 5:23, etc. He also asks for their prayers: "Brethren, pray for us" (1 Thess. 5:25). Paul, like the rest of us, intercedes for his brothers and sisters and requests that they do the same for him. Why? Because the Church is a "holy priesthood" with a duty "to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ" (2 Pet. 2:5). The duty of the priest is mediation between God and the people. Because we are a "royal priesthood" (2 Pet. 2:9) we have the duty and privilege to mediate on behalf of our brothers and the entire world. The letter to the Hebrews tells us that Christ is our High Priest, but "high priest" implies that there are lesser priests. In the Old Testament, the high priest would would offer the sacrifice of atonement on Yom Kippur and enter into the Most Holy Place in the temple, but all the lesser priests offered sacrifices and prayers on behalf of the people throughout the year. So it is with us; Christ has offered himself as the Sacrifice of Atonement and has ascended into heaven, but we the lesser priests still offer prayers and sacrifices on behalf of our brothers and sisters. By interceding for each other we in no way diminish Christ's mediation, we simply become participants with Him. The same is true for the saints in heaven who intercede on our behalf; they have as much a share in the royal priesthood as does any of the faithful on earth. Furthermore, James says that the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. I ask: which of us is more righteous than those saints in heaven whom God has purified and made righteous?

Another typical objection to the intercession of the saints is that communication with the dead is strictly forbidden by the Bible. For the moment, let's ignore the point I made earlier about the saints in heaven not being dead and take a careful look at what the Bible says. There are numerous commandments against occult practices such as conjuring the dead, sorcery, witchcraft, divination, familiars, reading entrails, etc. Here are a few (source):

• Leviticus 19:26 . . . neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times.
• Leviticus 19:31 Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.
• Leviticus 20:6 And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.
• Leviticus 20:27 A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.
• Deuteronomy 18:10–11 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
• Deuteronomy 18:14 For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the LORD thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.

The most famous example of the kind of occult practice forbidden by God is recorded in 1 Samuel 28:5ff. King Saul was terrified of what the Philistine army might do to his kindgom. Saul asked God what would happen, but God had turned away from Saul because of his disobedience and did not answer. So Saul has his servants bring him a woman with a familiar spirit; they deliver to him a woman from Endor (not the moon where the Ewoks live) whom he asks to call forth Samuel, the prophet who had anointed him king and was now dead. Samuel, of course, is upset from having been awakened at such an ungodly hour but Saul is terrified and wants to know what he should do. Samuel tells Saul that because he had disobeyed God, God had already ordered his punishment and would give the kingdom to David. The woman was worried because she knew she had violated the law, even though she had done so at Saul's command; Saul apparently had a reputation for having "cut off those that have familiar spirits" (vs. 9). Finally, Saul, not having eaten for a few days because of his distress, gives into the woman and his servants and eats, then they all go away. To sum up, Saul a) used a woman with a familiar spirit to b) conjure the dead in order to c) know the future so he could decide what he should do. He violated three very specific commandments: a) using familiars, b) necromancy, and c) divination, all three found in Deut. 18:10. (If we want to be picky, he also violated Lev. 20:27 because he protected the woman and did not put her to death.)

Fortunately, asking the saints for prayers in no way resembles Saul's little incident, any of the occult practices forbidden in the Bible, or any occult practice not specifically mentioned in the Bible. To ask a saint for his prayers does not involve whoring with familiars (wording like that is why I love the KJV!), wizardry, enchantment, astrology, necromancy, divination, etc. When participating in the Communion of Saints, Catholics do not seek to know the future through occult practices but instead rely on the intercession of their brothers and sisters on earth, those in heaven, and most importantly the intercession of Jesus Christ our Lord, all of whom ultimately pray for the mercy of God Almighty.

The Catechism, quoting the document Lumen Gentium from the Second Vatican Council, sums up far more eloquently than can I the Communion of Saints and the point in asking for their prayers:

It is not merely by the title of example that we cherish the memory of those in heaven; we seek, rather, that by this devotion to the exercise of fraternal charity the union of the whole Church in the Spirit may be strengthened. Exactly as Christian communion among our fellow pilgrims brings us closer to Christ, so our communion with the saints joins us to Christ, from whom as from its fountain and head issues all grace, and the life of the People of God itself (CCC, no. 957).

If we can fully understand the actual Catholic teaching on the Communion of Saints, a doctrine that even evangelicals profess, we can all make the prayer of the Church our own:

May [Christ] make us an everlasting gift to you [Father] and enable us to share in the inheritance of your saints, with Mary the virgin Mother of God; with the apostles, the martyrs, and all your saints on whose constant intercession we rely for help (Eucharistic Prayer III).

All scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Notes

1. Most English translations render "full of grace" in Luke 1:28 as "highly favoured." However, the original Greek word used is kecharitomene (κεχαριτωμενη), the root of which is charis (χαρις) which means "grace," and it is especially hard to translate well. Greek grammar is rich and can thus express complicated ideas in fewer words than English. Kecharitomene is one such complex word which suggests a permanent condition of having grace. In context it implies that Mary received grace from God at some time in the past, presently has God's grace, and will have it in the future. There is no good equivalent for kecharitomene in English or in most other languages. The best St. Jerome could do in the 4th century with his Latin translation was gratia plena, literally "full of grace." The first English Bibles were translated from Jerome's Latin and thus "full of grace" stuck. This word is found in very little Greek literature outside of the New Testament, and is found nowhere else in the Bible; it applies singularly to Mary.
2. Mother of God is a title given to Mary by the fathers of the early Church and is a dogma I will address in an upcoming post. In Greek the fathers called her theotokos (θεοτοκος), literally the "God-bearer." Personally, I think "Mother of God" works better in English; it's more poetic and provides a fuller sense of her duty in raising and caring for God in the flesh.