Mary - Mariology
The Roman catholic view of Mary, mother of Yeshua, has been an area of conflict even within the Roman catholic church. Most of Rome's definitions for Mary didn't come around until 1854 and then again 1950. However, she's been a preoccupation with Rome for much longer.
Manifestations of the "Mary cultus" are easy to find within the catholic church... schools and churches named after her, paintings, apparitions, music (Ave Maria and Hail Mary for example), shrines, etc.. At the Vatican itself is a huge fresco of the Madonna, highly exalted, with Yeshua and the Father seated on either side of her.
I mentioned in another post that it was Pius IX who promulgated the doctrine of the immaculate conception. Celebrations in her honor are held regularly within the church. Make no mistake, she is a major figure in the faith of Roman catholicism.
"Hail Mary, full of grace" is echoed repeatedly as an aspect of Rome's veneration for Mary. The "hail Mary" is at the heart of the rosary. It's traditional wording is as follows:
"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen."
The first part of the above is taken from a combination of two passages:
[Luk 1:28 LSB] And coming in, he said to her [Mary], “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”
[Luk 1:42 LSB] And she [Elizabeth] cried out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you [Mary] among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!
There's no argument from me on the first part. However, "Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death" presents a major problem for me.
All Christians are set apart and holy in the same sense that Mary is holy. This does not indicate that we are to worship another human though.
What about "mother of God"? She is Yeshua's earthly mother.
The council of Ephesus gave her the Greek title of Theotokos which literally means "God-bearer" or "the one who gives birth to God". Taken less literally it is usually rendered as "mother of God".
At Ephesus it meant exactly what I stated... she gave birth to Yeshua in His human form/nature with no attributes of deity attached to it. She was simply the mother of the One who was God incarnate. The one who gives birth to the One who is God. As long as we stick to the original intent and proper definitions, as I just outlined, we're still ok, right?
What about the next part "pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death"? Here, I have problem attributing intercessory work for Mary. There is ONE Mediator between God and man and that is Yeshua.
[1Ti 2:5 LSB] For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Yeshua,
[Rom 8:26 LSB] And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;
Let's go back to Pius IX who promulgated the doctrine of the immaculate conception. Most would think this has to do with the conception of Yeshua, right? Wrong.
The doctrine of the immaculate conception is dealing with Mary's own conception. It is the belief that Mary was not "infected" with original sin at her conception so she lived a sinless life.
Theoretically, according to this belief, Mary had no need for a Redeemer and she, herself, could have been our champion of redemption to some degree. Mary is known within the catholic church our "Co-Redemptrix" as in - she participated in the redemptive process. This hasn't been "officially sanctioned" in Rome, but it is a wide held belief within their church.
We already know that Mary didn't believe this of herself:
[Luk 1:46-47 LSB] And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord, [47] And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
She knew that she was a sinner in need of a Savior.
[Rom 3:23 LSB] for ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Mary offered the purification sacrifice required for women after childbirth (Leviticus 12:6–8). This was a sin offering.
[Luk 2:22-24 LSB] And when the days for their cleansing according to the Law of Moses were fulfilled, they brought Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord [23] (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “EVERY firstborn MALE THAT OPENS THE WOMB SHALL BE CALLED HOLY TO THE LORD”), [24] and to offer a sacrifice according to what was said in the Law of the Lord, “A PAIR OF TURTLEDOVES OR TWO YOUNG PIGEONS.”
So where did this belief come from? More below, but first:
Thomas Aquinas, Rome's supreme theologian, brought this passage (above) to Rome's attention sparking embarrassment on their part. How did Rome respond?
First, Rome noted that Thomas was speaking before the doctrine had been officially defined. They claimed that Thomas was not infallible and if he had seen how they had defined this doctrine, he would have surely agreed with them on the basis of a fide implicitum - implicit faith in whatever the church declares.
Then they suggested that Thomas may have been wrong. Roman exegetes pointed out that Savior doesn't always mean one who saves from sin. Their claim is that salvation can be understood in a much broader sense, that a person can be saved from other things, as an experience of benefits from the hands of God. Indeed, Mary did receive benefits from God - He blessed her with blessings no other human has received in giving birth to Yeshua.
In 1943, Pius XII declared:
"Venerable Brethren, may the Virgin Mother of God hear the prayers of Our paternal heart — which are yours also — and obtain for all a true love of the Church, she whose sinless soul was filled with the divine spirit of Jesus Christ above all other created souls, who “in the name of the whole human race” gave her consent “for a spiritual marriage between the Son of God and human nature.”
May she, then, the most holy Mother of all the members of Christ, to whose Immaculate Heart We have trustfully consecrated all mankind, and who now reigns in heaven with her Son, her body and soul refulgent with heavenly glory — may she never cease to beg from Him that copious streams of grace may flow from its exalted Head into all the members of the Mystical Body."
This is the key passage in which Pius XII strongly encourages devotion and veneration to Mary’s Immaculate Heart as a means of obtaining graces for the church.
It gets even worse:
“It was she, the second Eve, who, free from all sin, original or personal, and always more intimately united with her Son, offered Him on Golgotha to the Eternal Father together with the holocaust of His blood, for all the children of Adam, sin-stained by that unhappy fall; and thus she, who was the Mother of our Head according to the flesh, became by a new title of motherhood the spiritual Mother of all His members.”
Rome may play this off as a bad choice of words but it's pretty clear what Pius XII was declaring. Not only was it Mary who approved of Yeshua's sacrifice but she was also mother of the catholic church. I thought Yeshua alone was the head of the Church?
Mary is also the second Eve, paralleling the comparison of Yeshua to Adam.
[Rom 5:18-19 LSB] So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. [19] For as through the one man’s [Adam] disobedience the many were appointed sinners, even so through the obedience of the One [Yeshua] the many will be appointed righteous.
So, just as through one woman came sin, so through another - the second Eve - came redemption. That's what Pius XII is saying.
Pius XII added:
"She it was through who her powerful prayers obtained that the Spirit of our Divine Redeemer, already given on the cross, should be bestowed, accompanied by miraculous gifts, on the newly founded Church at Pentecost."
Do I really need to ask Who was responsible for outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost? It wasn't Mary's powerful prayers.
In 1950, Pius XII defined the doctrine of the bodily assumption of Mary into Heaven. She was taken to Heaven bodily and participates fully in the resurrection of the body that we are all looking forward to. In 1954 he instituted the feast "Queenship of Mary" establishing Mary as the queen of Heaven ruling alongside her son, Yeshua.
There is no Biblical basis for the assumption of Mary. There is no verse in Scripture that says Mary was assumed bodily into heaven. Scripture records assumptions for Enoch (Genesis 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11), but never for Mary. Such a major event would almost certainly have been recorded, especially since the assumption is considered a dogma necessary for salvation in Catholic teaching.
Pius XII's statements just go on and on praising Mary's contribution as Co-Redemptrix. He also compares her to the woman of Revelation 12. If you've read my eschatology posts we know who the woman of Revelation 12 is... it's not Mary. He also draws parallels with Abraham as the father of our faith - Mary being the mother of our faith.
Not to mention Mary's fiat - her command to allow redemption. I can't cut and paste them all here in this post. The point is that Rome elevates Mary to the supernatural unnecessarily. This is a short, but clear, portrait of Roman catholic veneration of Mary to an un-Scriptural level.
In contemporary catholicism there are two Mariological parties the maximalists and the minimalists. The disagreements between the two had a significant bearing on Vatican II. John XXIII didn't want to define doctrine so this issue was kind of swept under the rug.
The basic disagreement was found in that the maximalists wanted explicit emphasis on Mary's cooperation, via her fiat (command) and the offering of her Son, as absolutely necessary for redemption making her Co-Redemptrix. Without her fiat, there would be no redemption.
The minimalists did not want to view her as Co-Redemptrix but rather the supreme ecclesiastical model of Christian faith. Of which, I have no problem with at all. She IS a supreme model of faith in my book! That's as far as I'll go with the catholic minimalists though. They still believe in her immaculate conception, bodily assumption, and coronation. They're still out of line Scripturally.
The real question is: Has the catholic church created an idol out of Mary? To worship any human, other than Yeshua, is idolatry. Officially, Rome does not "sanction" any worship of Mary. Rome insists that Mary is given dulia, not latria. This is definition between worship and service that they came up with during the Reformation to justify bowing down and praying in front of statues. Mary is given dulia - she is venerated, but not worshipped.
I'm pretty sure that I know plenty of catholics that worship Mary regardless of the loopholes created at the vatican. They believe they're doing exactly what the church calls them to do. Where do they still get these ideas? Scroll through the catechism and look at the statements made concerning Mary.
Yeshua, Himself, corrected excessive focus on Mary:
[Luk 11:27-28 LSB] Now it happened that while Yeshua was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.” [28] But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.”
Mary was a highly favored and blessed woman (Luke 1:28, 42), but she was still a sinner who needed a Savior. Scripture presents her as an example of faith and obedience, not as a co-redeemer, mediator, or object of veneration. All honor, mediation, and intercession belong to Christ alone.
