What do you believe about Mary?

When I first heard about Protestants, the big thing was that they didn’t believe in Mary. I was wrong. They do believe in Mary, but they don’t believe anything that wasn’t revealed in Scripture about her. So, as a non-Catholic, I just believe what the Bible says about Mary. I don’t accept the beliefs based on traditions and theological speculations. Here are some key developments relating to Mary

• Justin Martyr in 165 AD compared Eve to Mary.
• The first known picture of Mary was found in the Priscilla catacomb in Rome and dates from the second century.
• Irenaeus, who died in 202 AD says disobedience of the virgin Eve was atoned for by the virgin Mary. 
• The first mention of a legend about Mary is found in the so-called Proto-evangelism of James near the end of the second century, which states that she remained a virgin all her life.
• Tertullian, who died in 222 AD raised his voice against the legend concerning Mary’s birth. He also held that after the birth of Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived a normal married life.
• Veneration up to fourth century was given only to saints and only martyrs counted as saints. Later, the ascetics came to be acknowledged as among the saints. That was the opening wedge for the sainthood of Mary.
• In the fourth century, there arose a legend that Mary had been assumed into heaven like Enoch and Elijah in the Old Testament. During the early Middle Ages, it came to be generally believed.
• After Constantine, when huge numbers of pagans came into the church, Greek and Roman religion exercised a greater influence on Christianity. Worship of female goddesses, such as Isis, Ishtar, Diana, Athena, Artemis, and Aphrodite was transferred to Mary.
• One of the more recent examples of the influence of paganism on devotion to Mary is the Virgin of Guadalupe, a goddess worshipped by the Indians in Mexico.
• Chrysostom who died in 407 resisted the movement of Mary wholeheartedly but his opposition had little effect in stemming the movement.
• In 610 Pope Boniface 4th suggested the celebration of an All Saints Festival and ordered the Pantheon, a pagan temple in Rome, be converted to a Christian church and the relics of the saints placed therein. He then dedicated the church to the blessed virgin and all the saints.

Francis O’Sullivan, an American Catholic theologian and a Jesuit priest, wrote in Magisterium:

“No-one nowadays claims these doctrines (Immaculate Conception and Assumption) have always been explicit objects of the Christian faith. They are not clearly taught in Scripture, nor is it easy to show that they necessarily follow from Scriptural evidence. It is highly, indeed extremely improbable, that there was any explicit oral tradition about either of these doctrines during the first centuries of the Christian era….Over the centuries, the conviction grew that Mary could never have been alienated from God by original sin, and that she must already share, body and soul, in the glory of the resurrection which is his….they are seen to be contained in the total mystery of Christ, by a kind of intuition, rather than by a process of logical deduction.”

Let’s look at some New Testament verses that mention Mary.

Luke 1:28
The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.

This is where the first line of the Hail Mary comes from. There’s nothing much in the Hail Mary that I disagree with. The last mention of Mary in the New Testament is in Acts 1.

Acts 1:14
They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

If I had been among these early disciples, I could have spoken to Mary in terms of the Hail Mary. Let me paraphrase it as if I met Mary at the time:

“Hi Mary. It’s a great privilege to speak to someone so favored! The Lord is clearly with you. What other woman in history is so blessed by God. It’s amazing that you are the mother of God the Son! Because you’re such a godly woman, I would think that your prayers are particularly effective. Please pray for me.”

I could say that to Mary then, but not as a prayer now. When the disciples asked Jesus how they should pray, the example he gave was a prayer to God the Father. God is all powerful and all knowing. You can communicate with him anytime. He is always just a prayer away. But, when a human dies, we have no reason to believe that we can communicate with them in any way. In fact, attempted communication with the dead (spiritism) is forbidden in the Old Testament. It’s not even mentioned in the New Testament. It’s a practice that begun in the centuries that followed. It should have been nipped in the bud, but it was accepted until the reformation.

Matt 1:24-25
When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. This verse implies that she lived a normal married life after this. Throughout the New Testament, we read that Jesus had brothers and sisters. See Matt 12:48-50, Matt 13:55, Mark 3:20, 21 Mark 3:31-35, Luke 8:19, John 2:12.

The Catholic Church does argue against this (sometimes saying that they might have been cousins), but there’s nothing intrinsically evil about sex. A virgin isn’t necessarily purer than someone who isn’t a virgin. I have heard someone ask why Jesus asked John to take care of his mother as he died on the cross if Mary had other children. The Bible doesn’t tell us, but clearly John was present when so many others had scattered. He may well have been much more godly and much closer to Jesus than the family members at that stage. Elsewhere in the gospels, Jesus shifts focus from his natural family to his spiritual family. Take a look at these verses:

Matt 12:46-50
While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Luke 11:27-28
As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

Many years ago, I remember a man telling me about Mary’s advice and Mary’s example. Mary’s advice came from the miracle of Cana.

John 2:4-5
Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Mary’s advice is to do what Jesus says. Sometimes, people use this occasion to argue that just as Mary got Jesus to do the miracle, if we ask her, she can get him to answer our prayers. Well, firstly, as I said, we can’t communicate with Mary. And secondly, the Father himself loves us. If we come to him with the right attitude, in Jesus’ name, we can expect him to hear and respond in a way that’s in our best interest. More on this later. 

Of course, God does want humans praying for each other, and the prayers of Godly people can be more effective. So, as I mentioned earlier, if I had met Mary on the day of Pentecost, I’d have been happy to ask her to pray for me. But if I want humans to pray for me, I’ll ask humans who are currently living on earth to pray for me.

I don’t believe that Mary ever appeared to anyone after her death, but if she did appear, I believe she would point to Jesus, and it’s in the Bible that we can read about Jesus. In the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, the rich man asked that Lazarus be sent to warn his brothers about hell. Abraham refused on the grounds that they had “Moses and the Prophets”, which was the Bible, to warn them. God reveals himself to us through the Scriptures, not through apparitions. I obviously believe appearances of angels or the Lord himself if it’s recorded in the Scriptures.

So that’s Mary’s advice. Next, let’s get to Mary’s example.

Luke 1:46-47
And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” 

Like all of us, Mary needed a Saviour. There’s no reason to believe that Mary was sinless. Some theologians speculated that in order to have a perfect Son, Mary needed to be perfect herself, so she had to be conceived without sin. But this is pure speculation. Why would God need to work under such contraints? The only perfect person is Jesus. Mary was clearly a very Godly woman. She is in heaven now, not because of her own merits, but because she trusted in the Saviour and we should follow her example and rejoice in God our Saviour.