Blessed Mary Ever Virgin?

 

But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”  Luke 1:30-33

 Mary: the woman, the myth, the legend… I can’t think of another person in history that has had more credited to her, other than Jesus. But it’s not her fault, she never asked to be elevated to near-godlike status. Over time, the church and other groups have attributed to her power and glory that, in my understanding, should never be due to a human. My mother-in-law is even an associate nun in an order called the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary (the SNJM).

 So how did all this come about, and why do people venerate and even worship Mary? Well, for one thing, in a paradoxical reality that would make Captain Janeway of the USS Voyager wince (IYKYK) – she gave birth to her creator. Following these lines, I’ve had it explained to me that being the mother of Jesus, some believe she has special power over Him, can tell Him what to do so to speak. I struggle with that idea as I see the minimal effect my words have on my adult children 😂.

 What truly confuses me, though, is how some call her the virgin Mary, or as I’ve seen it, the blessed Mary ever-Virgin. Perhaps this is akin to how people talk about the “baby Jesus” when He obviously grew into a man, but the ever-virgin one gives me quite the head tilt. We read in the New Testament that Jesus had at least four named brothers and presumably two or more unnamed sisters (Matthew 12:46-50, 13:55-56; Mark 3:31, 6:3; Luke 8:19; John 2:12, 7:3; Acts 1:14; 1 Cor. 9:5). There is no biblical reference to these children being born via immaculate conception, so Mary is definitely not still a virgin!

 Speaking of immaculate conception, I had always thought this doctrine referred to the conception and birth of Jesus, but no! I learned this year that it actually refers to the conception and birth of Mary herself. Evidently, in the mid-19^th century the Catholic church faced a doctrinal challenge when St. Augustine’s teaching on original sin conflicted with the concept of Jesus being sinless. Rather than amend the teaching, the then Pope, Pius IX, proposed the doctrine of Mary’s immaculate conception in his 1854 apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus (Ineffable God). So the Catholic church has taught for centuries that Mary was a sinless, immaculately conceived virgin, I would say to the death but they also teach that she was transported bodily to heaven. Some say this happened without her dying, and others say she died and was resurrected then “Assumed” into heaven. The difference between the teachings on Mary’s “Assumption” and Christ’s “Ascension” is that Jesus went up to heaven under His own power and Mary was brought up there by God. From what I can tell, the only basis of their teaching on Mary’s “Assumption” was that there are no cities that claim to house her bodily remains, unlike many of the other saints. That seems pretty poor evidence for such a radical claim without any biblical basis to me.

 In any case, there are clear teachings in the Bible about Mary and how God used her. She was both blessed and challenged by being the mother of the Messiah. She had to endure the stigma of a pregnancy outside of marriage and almost lost her future husband over it (Matthew 1:19). She was moved along and moved along until she ended up having to give birth in a stable because there was no room for her elsewhere (Luke 2:7). Shortly after Jesus was born, she and her young family had to pick up and flee to Egypt because the king was out to get her son (Matthew 2:13-23). When Jesus was 12, Mary and Joseph lost Him for THREE DAYS (Luke 2:41-52). Can you imagine their stress and worry? During Jesus’ earthly ministry, we read different bits and pieces about His relationship with His mother and how she didn’t quite seem to get what He was up to (John 2:1-11, Mark 3:31-35). Then she had to stand to the side and watch as her Son, God’s promised Messiah, was brutally murdered on a cross (John 19:26-27).

Here's the Thing: Was Mary near-godlike in status? I don’t think so, but she definitely went through a lot and we can learn quite a bit from her story. One of these lessons is that despite the many hardships I mentioned above, Mary herself claims that all generations will call her blessed (Luke 1:48). Most of us, if faced with as many challenges as Mary was, would think of ourselves as cursed, but not Mary. She saw the blessing of being Jesus’ mother as far surpassing any challenge. I can definitely learn from that!