On The Blessed Virgin Mary The Blessed Virgin Mary has been loved and honoured by Christians from the foundation of the church, from the time that our Lord gave us His Mother from the cross: “Behold your Mother!” (John 19:27) They have called upon Mary for her prayers, knowing that there is no one closer to Jesus in heaven than she is, no one who can plead for their cause more effectively than she. Evidence of this can be found in the catacombs of Rome where the early Martyrs of the church were buried, and later, where pilgrims would go to pray, asking for their intercession. Images of Jesus, ‘The Good Shepherd’ stand along side those of the Prophets and Mary. Mary is shown either with the Christ Child in her womb or upon her lap (the Mercy Seat); there are close to a hundred images of Mary – a sign of the early church’s deep reverence for their Mother. The other evidence of early Marion devotion is to be found in the writings of the Early Church Fathers, of which the following pages contains just a few. But first a few words on the Churches teachings on Mary: The New Eve: St Paul tells us, “The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” (1 Cor 15:45) The early Christians knew that if Jesus was the ‘New Adam’ then Mary is the ‘New Eve.’ In the Gospel of St. John there are two occasions where Jesus calls His mother ‘Woman,’ a title denoting respect. The first is at the wedding at Cana where we see Mary’s first act of intercession. (John 2:1-11) The second occasion was from the cross (John 19:26). In calling Mary ‘Woman’ many of the Early Fathers see a clear allusion to Genesis 3:15. God tells the devil “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heal.” The Early Fathers called this verse the ‘protoevangelium’ (the first Gospel) as it expresses how the devil would strike the heel of the Christ (upon the cross) and how the Christ would crush the serpents head, defeating him (from the cross). The Fathers would also see the ‘woman’ as their ‘Queen of Heaven’ described in (Rev Ch 12), ‘and a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.’ The chapter goes on to describe ‘the woman’ giving birth to a ‘male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.’ (Rev 12:5) This is the Christ Child (See also Isa 66:7 and Ps 2:9). Perpetual Virginity: There was never any question of Mary having further children after Jesus, she was the Spouse of the Holy Sprit, the immaculate temple of God. Early writings tell us that the “brethren” mentioned in scripture were children brought to the marriage by St Joseph, whether these children were his own, or again, just part of a wider family group is unclear (the word, “brethren” in the language of that day encapsulated a wider family circle i.e. cousins etc.) Early Christians called Mary “The Window of Heaven” because through her God poured the “True Light” upon the world..
Posted on: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 11:32:55 +0000
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