The Blessed Evangelical Mary

[Pilgrim]

It is a tough issue for Protestants... Given their Birth Mother, against Whom they kicked their way into independence... They just seem to need to prove Rome wrong on everything, and in the process, because of their focus, they tend to lose track of things like the Mother of our Lore and Savior Jesus Christ... Christians have been calling her blessed since the beginnings... And it's about time that some Protestant picked up the slack and took an honest look at her place in the history of creation...

Christ Himself ENTERED His creation through HER...
The Ark and the Covenant were the Holy Vessels of Israel...
God Himself moved in them in creation as Spirit...
A false touch to the Ark caused death...
Yet the Ark was but a Type of HER...
She is the holiest person EVER to walk the earth...
She is the Woman of Revelation persecuted by the Serpent...
That persecuted Woman is a figure of the Church...
The Church BIRTHS CHRIST IN US in the Mystery of Baptism
In the very Laver of Regeneration...
She is a fervent intercessor for all Christians to Christ
Who is our only intermediary to the Father...

Because Christ came to us through Her
We go to Him through Her...

Spiritual Mysteries abound in all this...
And She is best approached in silence...
She is the mother of us all,
For we in Christ are all brethren...

I am just gladdened that at least one Protestant author is taking at least some of the blinders off...
And is taking a fresh look at the Blessed Virgin through Biblical and Christian eyes...
Her treatment at the hands of some protestants,
And especially here on T-Web,
Has been shameful...

She was not just some available Jewish womb and birth canal...
And THAT is how so many here have treated Her...

Arsenios

The bit where you say "she was the holiest person "EVER" to walk the earth." This I'm not sure I understand. If someone asked me I would have said Jesus of Nazereth was the holiest person to ever walk the earth. Mary is a primary example to me of faith. The only one in scripture who responded immediately and with out reservation. She asks for clarification but she never doubts it's from God. What an incredible faith. A faith I pray that I can live up to as well. But the holiest person ever? That seems a stretch to me.

[RBerman]

Yet the Ark was but a Type of HER...

Scripture never makes this connection explicitly, so it would be unwise to build much theology on top of it.

She is the holiest person EVER to walk the earth...

Depends on what you mean by "holy." And I'm sure you meant to say "holiest person besides Jesus." But this is exactly the problem that Protestants see: Kneejerk superlatives which have the effect of setting her up as a rival to Christ instead of a humble instrument which God used in the life of Christ. It's apparently not enough to say that she was holy and blessed. She has to be most holy, most blessed, most everything.

She is a fervent intercessor for all Christians to Christ

Perhaps. But the Bible never says such a thing and never encourages Christians to talk to someone who talks to Jesus who talks to the Father. Rather, the Bible instructs Christians to "boldly approach the throne of grace" ourselves; we come directly to the Father by the power of the Spirit, in the name of the Son. Who talks to the chamberlain when he has a phone line directly to the boss? This is another way that Mariolatry sets up Mary as a rival to Jesus instead of a subordinate.

Because Christ came to us through Her
We go to Him through Her...

Non sequitur, and blasphemous. That's like saying, "Because the meteor came to earth through the stratosphere, I must go through the stratosphere to see the meteor." No; the meteor is already here on earth, and if I go into the stratosphere, I'm actually getting further from the meteor now. Jesus' physical descent from Mary is historically true. But here and now, Christ is already in me. I don't need to go through Mary to get to Jesus. That's why the Bible never once instructs us to get to Jesus (or the Father) through Mary. More rivalry from the cult of the virgin.

She is the mother of us all,
For we in Christ are all brethren...

She is one of the brethren. She is not my mother in the sense that God is my father and thus Christ is my brother.

Her treatment at the hands of some protestants,
And especially here on T-Web,
Has been shameful...

When Mary looks down from heaven at how she's worshiped here on earth, she must shake her head in embarassment. Michaelangelo's statue of David is made of marble which came from a mountain. We admire the craftsman who made something great. And we admire the finished product. But to admire the mountain? That misses the point, and detracts from the art and the artist.

[Sparko]

She is the holiest person EVER to walk the earth...

Mary was holier than Jesus????

It's statements like those that cause some protestants to claim that you guys worship Mary and put her above even Christ.

[psif]

I would say Mary had a secondary role in preparing for the Incarnation. That's a little bit more than the roles of other people in the bible except maybe Joseph or Paul.

[Maxentius]

Depends on what you mean by "holy." And I'm sure you meant to say "holiest person besides Jesus." But this is exactly the problem that Protestants see: Kneejerk superlatives which have the effect of setting her up as a rival to Christ instead of a humble instrument which God used in the life of Christ. It's apparently not enough to say that she was holy and blessed. She has to be most holy, most blessed, most everything.

I agree, but to be fair, the opposite reaction--such as the woman described in this thread as having to exert her will to not hate Mary--is equally problematic.

[Rdr. Arsenios]

Anyway, so Mary is Jesus' wife.
That would be the effect of your analogy, wouldn't it?
I mean, WHERE is the new Adam's WIFE?
Who picked up Eve's wifely office?

As the figure of the Church,
which by Baptism births Christ into us.,
just as the Blessed Virgin birthed Christ into creation
She us not the wife, but the BRIDE of Christ,
Come down out of Heaven,
The New Jerusalem...

Persecuted by the Dragon on earth,
Adorned in virtues in Heaven,
A body pure and radiant of the Saints...
A heavenly Bride of the Paschal Lamb...

Arsenios

[Maxentius]

As the figure of the Church,
which by Baptism births Christ into us.,
just as the Blessed Virgin birthed Christ into creation
She us not the wife, but the BRIDE of Christ,
Come down out of Heaven,
The New Jerusalem...

Persecuted by the Dragon on earth,
Adorned in virtues in Heaven,
A body pure and radiant of the Saints...
A heavenly Bride of the Paschal Lamb...

Arsenios

So is it safe to say you will not follow all the implications? I certainly hope not, in all sincerity. But that also means that just because there is an implication amenable to you, I am not bound to follow it.

I am however, bound by revelation.

[Rdr. Arsenios]

Mary was holier than Jesus????

It's statements like those that cause some protestants to claim that you guys worship Mary and put her above even Christ.

Well, Jesus is the God-man, and Mary is a human-only person...

No other person in the entire history of creation has ever carried God in her womb...

He could ONLY have been carried by a Virgin...

Why do you think that is??

Arsenios

[RBerman]

I agree, but to be fair, the opposite reaction--such as the woman described in this thread as having to exert her will to not hate Mary--is equally problematic.

True. Overreactions are like that.

[Sparko]

Well, Jesus is the God-man, and Mary is a human-only person...

No other person in the entire history of creation has ever carried God in her womb...

He could ONLY have been carried by a Virgin...

Why do you think that is??

Arsenios

First, there is nothing in the bible that says Mary was sinless, before or after Jesus' birth.
Second, Jesus is not half man, half God. He is fully man and fully God. and was the only sinless person ever to walk upon the earth. So I think that makes him the holiest person ever. Not Mary.

Mary was a godly woman, who was obedient and chosen by God. That makes her the most special and blessed woman to have ever lived. But she was still a woman, still a sinner, and not worthy of worship. Only God is worthy of worship.

[Bill the Cat]

It is a tough issue for Protestants... Given their Birth Mother, against Whom they kicked their way into independence...

They just seem to need to prove Rome wrong on everything,

I think you are wrong in this.

and in the process, because of their focus, they tend to lose track of things like the Mother of our Lore and Savior Jesus Christ...

No we don't.

Christians have been calling her blessed since the beginnings...

And we continue to do so. Just as we say that Enoch pleased God. Just like we say Abraham is God's friend. Just as we say David is the apple of God's eye.

And it's about time that some Protestant picked up the slack and took an honest look at her place in the history of creation...

Sure. I'm game.

Christ Himself ENTERED His creation through HER...

A blessing FOR her.

The Ark and the Covenant were the Holy Vessels of Israel...

As types of Christ.

God Himself moved in them in creation as Spirit...

Among other things, like the burning bush.

A false touch to the Ark caused death...

What has that to do with Mary?

Yet the Ark was but a Type of HER...

No it wasn't. It was a type of Jesus Christ. It is the container and guarantee of the Old Covenant. Jesus Christ is the container and guarantee of the New Covenant.

She is the holiest person EVER to walk the earth...

Jesus was.

She is the Woman of Revelation persecuted by the Serpent...

She isn't persecuted in Revelation until after the Ascension.

That persecuted Woman is a figure of the Church...

Yes.

The Church BIRTHS CHRIST IN US in the Mystery of Baptism

No. We become one with the church by our faith, which "births Christ in us"

In the very Laver of Regeneration...

Regeneration is wrought by repentance.

She is a fervent intercessor for all Christians to Christ

As are all who have died in faith.

Who is our only intermediary to the Father...

And our only redeemer

Because Christ came to us through Her
We go to Him through Her...

No. We go to Him directly as our High Priest.

Hebrews 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 7:25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

Hebrews 10:19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;

Spiritual Mysteries abound in all this...

As do later additions and speculations.

And She is best approached in silence...

Why?

She is the mother of us all,

She is the mother of Jesus. The Father has no spouse. Therefore, we have no mother.

For we in Christ are all brethren...

By adoption to the Father. Not to Mary as our mother. Our adoption is as sons of God, not sons of flesh.

I am just gladdened that at least one Protestant author is taking at least some of the blinders off...
And is taking a fresh look at the Blessed Virgin through Biblical and Christian eyes...
Her treatment at the hands of some protestants,
And especially here on T-Web,
Has been shameful...

She was not just some available Jewish womb and birth canal...
And THAT is how so many here have treated Her...

Arsenios

Nor is she "the holiest person EVER to walk the earth", "co-redemptrix", "mediatrix of all graces" and other later added titles. The extreme you list and the extreme I list are both wrong views of Mary. A correct view of Mary is one that gives her a place of prominence with other great heroes of the faith, as an example of how to respond to God while realizing she is no less in need of saving than anyone else in history.

[Bill the Cat]

In Orthodox Theology, She is understood hesychastically...

She questioned the Angel at the Annunciation on only one point: "How can this be, since I am not knowing a man?"

IF you "backwards engineer" that question, you will find a young woman of 14 or so who has utterly and totally given her life to God, and for the rest of her life... She was required upon puberty to depart from the Temple where she had been raised, and to marry, but she had vowed chastity, and this is why the elderly Joseph, who was a widower, had agreed to the marriage, for he had sons, and had no need of more, and he knew her desire to live as a virgin in prayer and labors... This is why the Angel did not rebuke or punish her for her question, as happened with ALL others who questioned his message to them... But NOT the Blessed Virgin... Her concern, you see, was NOT for the "how to do it", but for the fact that she was committed to the LIFE of prayer, fasting, and virginity... Her concern was for her virginity... If God had for some unimaginable reason NOT incarnated in her, she would STILL have remained ever-virgin... Because by 14 [puberty], she was already committed with God to serving Him alone as virgin... And in this, as the Angel said to her, she was "grace filled"... And to this day, in Orthodox Christian monasteries, it is the hesychasts, the neptic Fathers, who are the God-seers... And She is their Mother - Indeed, she is the Mother of monastics, and is quick to hear ANY supplication in need...

Arsenios

Where did you get this stuff from? None of this is from the biblical record, Jewish practices, or from the earliest church documents. There is no such Jewish requirement for a 13 year old to marry upon puberty. There is no evidence that Joseph was married with children prior to his marriage to Mary. In fact, being a poor carpenter (one of the lowest paid professions a Jew of the time could obtain) would be strong evidence of why Joseph waited until he was older to marry, as he had to save up for the dowery. I'm just dumfounded at this post of extrabiblical additions and things that are not Jewish.

[Rdr. Arsenios]

So is it safe to say you will not follow all the implications?
I certainly hope not, in all sincerity.
But that also means that just because there is an implication amenable to you, I am not bound to follow it.

The difference for us, Max, is that for me, it is the received witness of the Church that I follow, and that witness is catholic, and not limited to Scripture and implication [eg rationalistic human interpretation.] You are bound by what is written, and in that, apparently, [eg from your comment above] not bound by implication from the written, or at least not by ALL the implications...

I am however, bound by revelation.

Does that mean the Book of Revelation? Or the Books of the Bible? Or simply generic revelation?

If the last, then whose?
For not all that is revealed is revealed to me,
And most of what is revealed to me is revealed by demons seeking my vanity and delusion...

And if the Revelation of God, then how to discern which is which? [For delusion is the rule in most revelations, which is in part the ground for the need of askesis...]

The role of the Blessed Virgin in the Body of Christ is historically universal for the first thousand years of Christianity, worldwide, and to this present day in all Churches except those descended from Rome in the West... [and maybe the Anabaptists?] This is the catholic witness of the Body of Christ... So that even if apostatic Rome has gone somewhat overboard in her Mariology, that does not give warrant to anyone to toss out the baby in the bathwater... Veneration of the Blessed Virgin is universal in the Body of Christ from Apostolic times...

And even Biblically, Christ from the Cross said to John, the Beloved Disciple: "Behold, your Mother..." (He did not say this to Iakovos [James], the Brother of the Lord, did He?) And if John is our Brother in Christ, and the Blessed Virgin is his Mother, then is not his Mother our Mother?

You see, the great Mystery of the Blessed Virgin is her silence and her obedience and her utter virginity... These are the vehicles of Grace of which she excelled all... And it is this which is shown in the iconography of the Church, where every mouth is small and closed... And the saints have no intercourse with sin... This is the one place in the Bible where it is her very silence that "speaks", you see... For she lived in the language of the age to come, which is silence... In that language she is an orator to shame Virgil... It is the Treasury of Noetic Prayer that She disciples, and for that, She is a part of every mention of Jesus in the services of the Church...

God bless you, Max...

Arsenios

[Rdr. Arsenios]

Where did you get this stuff from? None of this is from the biblical record, Jewish practices, or from the earliest church documents. There is no such Jewish requirement for a 13 year old to marry upon puberty. There is no evidence that Joseph was married with children prior to his marriage to Mary. In fact, being a poor carpenter (one of the lowest paid professions a Jew of the time could obtain) would be strong evidence of why Joseph waited until he was older to marry, as he had to save up for the dowery. I'm just dumfounded at this post of extrabiblical additions and things that are not Jewish.

Her parents were very old when she was born, and they had promised God to consecrate her to His service, which they did - From the age of three, she was raised in the Temple... It is the Temple practice to not allow women to serve in the temple who have reached puberty. She had by then attained the great Grace which the Angel acknowledged in the Annunciation, and had committed herself to a life of virginity and prayer... Because of this, Joseph, who was old and a widower with children, agreed to take her as a wife so that she could live outside the Temple without violating her vows of virginity... And this he agreed to do, to have her as a celibate wife... And then she showed up pregnant, and in his compassion, he sought to privately annul the betrothal, but the Angel came to him, and told him what to do...

What you need to ask yourself is this:

Why is it that every one of those who question the Angel of God revealing something to them are "punished" as a sign to make them believe?
Yet NOT Mary???
And the ONLY possible answer is that HER questioning of the Angel was RIGHT...

SO....

HOW is it that HERS was RIGHT and ALL OTHERS were WRONG?

THAT, you see, is what I called "backward-engineering" of that scripture...

And the ONLY answer, and it is the Church's universal answer for 2000 years, around the world, is that she had vowed to God to keep virginity till death...
Her question was: "How can this be, since I am not knowing a man?"
"Not knowing a man" was her ONLY concern...
There is NO OTHER in Scripture...
Not knowing a man was her life commitment to God...

Truth is indeed dumbfounding...

It has been dumbfounding me for many years now...

God Bless You, BTC!

Arsenios

[Bill the Cat]

Her parents were very old when she was born, and they had promised God to consecrate her to His service, which they did - From the age of three, she was raised in the Temple... It is the Temple practice to not allow women to serve in the temple who have reached puberty. She had by then attained the great Grace which the Angel acknowledged in the Annunciation, and had committed herself to a life of virginity and prayer... Because of this, Joseph, who was old and a widower with children, agreed to take her as a wife so that she could live outside the Temple without violating her vows of virginity... And this he agreed to do, to have her as a celibate wife... And then she showed up pregnant, and in his compassion, he sought to privately annul the betrothal, but the Angel came to him, and told him what to do...

All of this comes from the Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal document written over 100 years after Jesus' death where the auther was completely unfamiliar with Jewish life and customs.

What you need to ask yourself is this:

Why is it that every one of those who question the Angel of God revealing something to them are "punished" as a sign to make them believe?

Judges 6

12And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him, and said unto him, The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.

13And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? but now the LORD hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.

14And the LORD looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?

15And he said unto him, Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.

16And the LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man.

17And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, then shew me a sign that thou talkest with me.

18Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come again.

19And Gideon went in, and made ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an ephah of flour: the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out unto him under the oak, and presented it.

20And the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he did so.

21Then the angel of the LORD put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the LORD departed out of his sight.

Gideon questioned the Angel of the Lord Himself, yet we see no "punishment"

Yet NOT Mary???
And the ONLY possible answer is that HER questioning of the Angel was RIGHT...

SO....

HOW is it that HERS was RIGHT and ALL OTHERS were WRONG?

Gideon's wasn't wrong.

THAT, you see, is what I called "backward-engineering" of that scripture...

And Biblically inaccurate.

And the ONLY answer, and it is the Church's universal answer for 2000 years, around the world, is that she had vowed to God to keep virginity till death...
Her question was: "How can this be, since I am not knowing a man?"
"Not knowing a man" was her ONLY concern...
There is NO OTHER in Scripture...
Not knowing a man was her life commitment to God...

No George. She knew the punishment under Torah for having a child that was not her betrothed's. THAT was her concern.

Truth is indeed dumbfounding...

It has been dumbfounding me for many years now...

God Bless You, BTC!

Arsenios

Perhaps you should talk some to a Messianic congregation to get a better handle on just how Jews behaved and believed. It has opened up the scriptures to me like little else I have learned.

God bless you as well George.