In Honor of Mary, Mother of God

One of the most difficult Catholic doctrines and practices we Catholics avoid to discuss is on Mary. On the solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, here is my attempt to shed light on what and how we as Catholics regard the Blessed Virgin Mary, especially the two Ex Cathedra, dogma on Mary – Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary’s body and soul into Heaven.

To begin, let me state two truths that the Church teaches most emphatically. First, God alone, the Supreme, Infinite Being, must be adored. To adore any creature, however exalted, would be to commit idolatry. It is simply absurd and also grossly unfair to say that Catholics adore Mary. Second, Jesus Christ alone is our Mediator of Redemption. He alone, by his supreme sacrifice, of infinite value, redeemed and ransomed mankind.

What Honor May be Shown to Mary? If God alone is to be adored and worshiped, may any honor be shown to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and, if so, what kind of honor?

There is an innate law engraved on the human heart that dictates that special honor should be shown to creatures who are clothed with a special dignity. Children must honor their parents, servants must respect their masters, soldiers must obey their officers, subjects must show loyalty to their rulers. God himself has, in fact, positively commanded, in his revelation to man, this honor as the natural law prescribes. It is clear as day that, besides the supreme honor that we give God, and which we term adoration, there is an inferior honor that we not only may but must show to all creatures who are clothed with special dignity.

The reason we moderns get confused about worship is that we’ve forgotten the principle of sacrifice so we don’t really know what worship is all about. From time immemorial worship was identified with a particular action: the action of sacrifice. Pagans worshipped their gods by making sacrifices to them. The Jews worshipped by making sacrifice to Yahweh. This is understandable from the point of view of Protestants because they got worried about the sacrifice thing 500 years ago and threw it out. What is most depressing is that most of us also don’t understand the “sacrifice is worship” idea either. We have heard that the Mass is all about “the family of God gathering around the table of fellowship to increase our mutual self esteem and discuss peace and justice issues.”

Because of this nonsense the majority of Catholics around the world don’t have a clue what the sacrifice business is all about, and therefore we don’t know what worship is supposed to be about either. Like the neo-Protestants, we have come to think that worship is all about hearing a sermon, singing some songs and praying. This is one of the reasons why many non- Catholic Christians think Catholics worship Mary. They think worship and prayer is the same thing. Therefore, if you are praying to Mary you must be worshipping Mary and when confronted by the same question, we readily concede. 

Well, let us think again. The Catholic faith has been around for a long time, and believe it or not, these questions have been asked before. I am sure you have heard that scripture uses the word Love, which has three Greek equivalent words, i.e, agape, philia and eros and to apply the equivalent Greek word in drawing out exegesis of the scriptural text, you will have to understand the context of the scripture writer. In the interest of time and space, I will not discuss that here. However, the word worship takes the same element: there are three categories of respect due in the realm of worship. They go by specific names: Latria, Dulia and Hyperdulia.

Latria is worship. It is the worship that is due only to God. This worship consists of offering God our lives, our souls, our minds and our bodies as a living sacrifice (Romans. 12. 1-2). As Catholics we do this pre-eminently through the sacrifice of the Mass.

Dulia is not worship. It is honor. We honor anyone who is eminent and accomplished. We honor them for their brains, their discipline, their wit, their achievement. We honor our parents and grandparents because we owe them that. We honor our loved ones. Part of this honor is that we ask them for things. We come to them with our needs. We look up to them. We respect them. They are our role models and mentors. We have a relationship to them of subservient honor. They are awesome to us. Dulia is also what we give to the saints and angels. We give them the honor that is due to them. As part of this we have a relationship with them. We ask them for things. This is called “praying to the saints.”

Hyperdulia is the honor we give to the Virgin Mary. We give her the highest honor because she is unique amongst all God’s creation. She is higher than the cherubim and seraphim. She is the only created being who was honored by God so greatly that his son took his flesh from her. She has totally unique place of honor in heaven and therefore also amongst all of God’s people on earth. The honor we give her, therefore, and the dulia we give her is higher than any other being. But it is not latria. We’re clear about that. We do not worship Mary. The sign of this is that we do not make sacrifice to her. You don’t find any Catholic priest offering a Mass to Mary. No. The sacrifice of the Mass is offered to God the Almighty Father.

This also should be understood clearly - the dulia and hyperdulia which we give to Mary and the saints is ultimately honor given to God. We honor the saints (including the Blessed Mother) not for who they are, but for who God made them to be. We honor in them the completed work of grace. We honor in them their faithful obedience, which itself is a gift from God. The Blessed Virgin says, “the Almighty has done great things for me!” We honor Mary and the saints because we are struck with delight and awe at the wonderful things God has done for them. As the moon reflects the sun, so the Virgin and saints reflect the light of Christ. Without him they are nothing. With him they have become divinized–sons and daughters of the Almighty Father.

Scripture Teaches Devotion to Mary. If we read carefully the first chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke, verse 26 to verse 55. It is very hard to understand how any Christian can study this passage and then refuse to honor Mary. Why? The "Hail Mary," which Catholics love to address to the Blessed Virgin, is explicitly given there; part of it was said by the angel Gabriel and part by Elizabeth.

The angel was inspired by God and Elizabeth "was filled with the Holy Ghost" (v. 41). Let us put together the words that the angel Gabriel and Elizabeth addressed to Mary: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed are thou among women" (v. 28). "Blessed are thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." Here we have the salutation that Catholics address to Mary. The only additions we have made are the two names, "Mary" and "Jesus." So that, in saying the Hail, Mary, Catholics are explicitly following the Bible.

You will notice, that Mary in that sublime canticle known as the Magnificat, which is recorded by the inspired writer from verse 46 to 55, declared: "Behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed" (v. 48). Who then fulfills this prophecy? Those who refuse to apply the adjective blessed to the Virgin Mary, or Catholics, who love to call Mary the Blessed Virgin? How much more biblical you may want to be?

The Name Says it All. And the angel Gabriel came to Mary and said, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!" But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God." (Luke 1:28-30).

Non Catholic bible commentators will insist this text to be little more than a common greeting of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary. "What does this have to do with Mary being without sin?" Yet, the truth is, according to Mary herself, this was no common greeting. The text reveals Mary to have been "greatly troubled at the saying and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be" (Luke 1:29).

What was it about this greeting that was so uncommon for Mary to react this way? We can consider at least two key aspects. First, according to Catholic biblical scholars, the angel did more than simply greet Mary. The angel actually communicated a new name or title to her. In Greek, the greeting was kaire, kekaritomene, or "Hail, full of grace." Generally speaking, when one greeted another with kaire, a name or title would be found in the immediate context. "Hail, king of the Jews" in John 19:3 is one biblical example of this.

The fact that the angel replaces Mary’s name in the greeting with "full of grace" was anything but common. This would be analogous to me speaking to one of our tech guys at work and saying, "Hello, he who fixes computers." In Hebrew culture, names and name changes tell us something permanent about the character and calling of the one named. Just recall the name changes of Abram to Abraham (from "father" to "father of the multitudes") in Genesis 17:5, Saray to Sarah ("my princess" to "princess") in Genesis 17:15 and Jacob to Israel ("supplanter" to "he who prevails with God") in Genesis 32:28. In each case, the names reveal something permanent about the one named. Abraham and Sarah transitioned from being a "father" and "princess" of one family to being "father" and "princess" or "mother" of the entire people of God (see Rom. 4:1-18; Is. 51:1-2). They become patriarch and matriarch of God’s people forever. Jacob/Israel becomes the patriarch whose name, "he who prevails with God," continues forever in the Church, which is called "the Israel of God" (Gal. 6:16). The People of God will forever "prevail with God" in the image of the patriarch Jacob.

What’s in a name? St. Luke uses the perfect passive participle, kekaritomene, as his "name" for Mary. This word literally means "she who has been graced" in a completed sense. This verbal adjective, "graced," is not just describing a simple past action. Greek has another tense for that. The perfect tense is used to indicate that an action has been completed in the past resulting in a present state of being.

"Full of grace" is Mary’s name. So what does it tell us about Mary? Well, the average Christian is not completed in grace and in a permanent sense (see Phil. 3:8-12). But according to the angel, Mary is. You and I sin because of a lack of grace, or a lack of our cooperation with grace, in our lives. This greeting of the angel is one clue into the unique character and calling of the Mother of God. Only Mary is given the name "full of grace" and in the perfect tense, indicating that this permanent state of Mary was completed.

The Immaculate Conception, from the documents of the Church herself.

"The Blessed Virgin Mary..." In the Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of 8 December, 1854, Pius IX pronounced and defined that the Blessed Virgin Mary "in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin." The subject of this immunity from original sin is the person of Mary at the moment of the creation of her soul and its infusion into her body.

"...in the first instance of her conception..." The term conception does not mean the active or generative conception by her parents. Her body was formed in the womb of the mother, and the father had the usual share in its formation. The question does not concern the immaculateness of the generative activity of her parents. Neither does it concern the passive conception absolutely and simply  which, according to the order of nature, precedes the infusion of the rational soul. The person is truly conceived when the soul is created and infused into the body. Mary was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin at the first moment of her animation, and sanctifying grace was given to her before sin could have taken effect in her soul.

"...was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin..." The formal active essence of original sin was not removed from her soul, as it is removed from others by baptism; it was excluded, it never was in her soul. Simultaneously with the exclusion of sin. The state of original sanctity, innocence, and justice, as opposed to original sin, was conferred upon her, by which gift every stain and fault, all depraved emotions, passions, and debilities, essentially pertaining to original sin, were excluded. But she was not made exempt from the temporal penalties of Adam — from sorrow, bodily infirmities, and death.

"...by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race." The immunity from original sin was given to Mary by a singular exemption from a universal law through the same merits of Christ, by which other men are cleansed from sin by baptism. Mary needed the redeeming Saviour to obtain this exemption, and to be delivered from the universal necessity and debt (debitum) of being subject to original sin. The person of Mary, in consequence of her origin from Adam, should have been subject to sin, but, being the new Eve who was to be the mother of the new Adam, she was, by the eternal counsel of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of original sin. Her redemption was the very masterpiece of Christ's redeeming wisdom. He is a greater redeemer who pays the debt that it may not be incurred than he who pays after it has fallen on the debtor.

The Assumption of Mary into Heaven

How did the “Assumption of Mary into Heaven theory” come about? It’s more than a theory. It’s an official dogma of the Catholic Church, and one of only two Ex Cathedra, infallible statements ever proclaimed by a Pope, throughout the history of the Church. There are a number of valid theological reasons for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as well as earlier scriptural precedents for it in the apparent bodily “translations” of Enoch, Elijah, and possibly even Moses.

It is known from scripture that Satan spared no effort trying to locate and claim the dead body of Moses, as some sort of a “trophy” … finally being frustrated by the concerted efforts and strong rebuke of Michael the Archangel. Knowing this, if you were Jesus, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, triumphantly returned to Heaven after your successfully completed mission, but knowing full well that Satan, while officially powerless, still remained a dangerous fugitive back on earth, how long would you permit Satan to have his way with your own mother?

Then there’s the traditional explanation. A number of the apostles witnessed Mary’s apparent death. Her body was placed in a tomb, and several days later, the tomb was found to be empty, her body seemingly replaced by a huge volume of flowers.

Sometime later, St. John received the Book of Revelation from Jesus Christ, and John correlated the images and events in the last part of chapter 11 and the first part of chapter 12 with the events surrounding the “dormition” of the Blessed Virgin. Based on this, the Catholic Church has always understood that God would not allow the sanctified flesh that was used to fashion Christ’s human body to see the corruption of the tomb. And since Mary, by special privilege of God, was necessarily sinless from conception, and further sanctified by some 34 years of dwelling in the immediate presence of Christ himself, there was absolutely no need for Mary to await the resurrection, since according to God’s grace, Mary had absolutely no sin that would warrant divine judgment … or death … for that matter.

The Church authoritatively and dogmatically explains all of this here, much better that I can in my own words. this short excerpt from the above document sums things up pretty well:

Hence the revered Mother of God, from all eternity joined in a hidden way with Jesus Christ in one and the same decree of predestination, immaculate in her conception, a most perfect virgin in her divine motherhood, the noble associate of the divine Redeemer who has won a complete triumph over sin and its consequences, finally obtained, as the supreme culmination of her privileges, that she should be preserved free from the corruption of the tomb and that, like her own Son, having overcome death, she might be taken up body and soul to the glory of heaven where, as Queen, she sits in splendor at the right hand of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages.

The Assumption: Definition - "Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death. [LG 59; cf. Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus (1950): DS 3903; cf. Rev 19:16.] "The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son's Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians:

Did Mary Die? It's an open question in Catholic theology (note how carefully the definition is phrased); but most theologians think she did, hence the ancient title of the feast of the Assumption, the "Feast of the Dormition", i.e., Mary's "falling asleep" in death).

Is the Assumption in Scripture? Ludwig Ott, author of the excellent book Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma candidly says, "Direct and express scriptural proofs are not to be had."  But there is plenty of indirect evidence, which we'll explore.

What about John 3:13, "No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man"? The name "Assumption" is important, and one should be careful not to mix expressions here; in Catholic terminology, the "Assumption" is something that God did to Mary in bringing her into heaven, over which she had no control, while "Ascension" is what Jesus, being divine, did under his own power.

When is the last time Mary is directly mentioned in Scripture? See Acts 1:14, and Gal 4:4. Why is she not mentioned much? It's not that surprising, because Mary was alive when most of the New Testament was being written, and her humble nature may well have led her to shun the limelight.  Her role was to bring the Messiah into the world and nurture and teach him, and the focus of much of the New Testament is primarily the life of Jesus and the apostolic ministry which followed his resurrection.

What happened to her after Pentecost? Mary the mother of Jesus was given into John's care (John 19:26-27), and John was a "pillar" of the Church in Jerusalem for some time (Gal 2:9), before living in Ephesus until his exile to Patmos.

Biblical Precedent: Who has been assumed into heaven? There is good Biblical precedent for someone who is close to God being assumed bodily into heaven. Elijah is a good example - he was assumed bodily into heaven by a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:11). Enoch, similarly, as Gen 5:24 says, Enoch "walked with God; and he was not, for God took him".  He "was taken up so that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God had taken him" (Heb 11:5; see also Sirach 44:16). Moses, Jude gives us a hint about what may have happened to Moses after his death, and refers to the Assumption of Moses (a non-canonical book, but one which obviously contained information important to Jude), in Jude 9 ("the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, disputed about the body of Moses").  It seems fair to speculate that Moses was taken up to heaven bodily, given that at the Transfiguration (Matt 17:1-8), Moses appeared with Elijah, who we are told explicitly was assumed into heaven.

Some Other Old Testament Saints? Matthew 27:52-53: "the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many".  There is no record of these Old Testament saints dying and having to be buried again.

Who will be assumed into heaven? At the Second Coming we know that "the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air" (1 Thes 4:16-17).  The Assumption can be thought of as an example of what will happen at "The Rapture". There are also the two witnesses of Revelation 11.  John prophesies that they will be assumed into heaven three and a half days after they are killed: "And in the sight of their foes they went up to heaven in a cloud" (Rev 11:12).

Historical evidence. In the early Church the relics of saints and martyrs were zealously sought after and prized, but no one ever claimed to have the bones of Mary.  In fact, St John Damascene tells us: "St. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, at the Council of Chalcedon [AD 451], made known to the Emperor Marcian and Pulcheria, who wished to possess the body of the Mother of God, that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but that her tomb, when opened, upon the request of St. Thomas, was found empty; wherefrom the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven" (St John of Damascus, in Migne's Patrologia Graeca Cursus Completus 96:1).

Many Christian apologists have pointed out that the First Century Jewish or Roman authorities could have quickly squashed the early Christian faith in Christ's resurrection by simply producing the body of Jesus; similar reasoning can be applied with respect to Mary's Assumption.  The fact that there is no hint in history of a claim to the possession of her relics is a good point in favor of the doctrine.

Why is the Assumption not much mentioned, compared with other doctrines? The very early Church was preoccupied with resolving Christological questions, particularly about Christ's incarnation and his divine and human natures and wills.  Once these more important doctrines were hammered out, the Church gradually was able to turn its attention to Mary and explore what it meant for a woman to be chosen as Theotokos, and in what ways it would have been fitting for God to honor her.

Mary is in many ways the "prototype" of the Church; what happened to her prefigures what will happen to Christians when we die and go to heaven, or at the Second Coming.  For example, she was preserved by God from sin, and in heaven we will not sin; her glorified body was caught up to heaven, and on the Last Day the glorified bodies of all the saints will be taken into heaven.

The doctrine of the Assumption is also based largely on the "fittingness" of the privilege given to her by God.  Grounds for this include the fact that she was chosen to be the Mother of God the Son, and her perfect obedience to God's will.  Since Jesus, who fulfilled the commandments perfectly, would have honored his mother perfectly, it is not unreasonable to conclude the Assumption as one of the ways in which she was honored by her son.  It is "fitting" then that she should be given the full effects of the Redemption, which is the glorification of the soul and body.  The doctrine of the Assumption points us toward the glorious promise that awaits us co-heirs of God's kingdom, and it illustrates and reinforces the dignity we have as sons and daughters of God.