3. Marian dogmas: why and what?
Concerning your questions about devotion to Mary, about the
Immaculate Conception, Mary's Assumption, and her perpetual
virginity. These questions are related to the larger issue
of how God speaks to human beings.
The idea that God's supernatural revelation is transmitted in
two ways, through sacred Scripture and through sacred Tradition,
has always been accepted by the Catholic Church. It is rejected
by many other churches, especially those which interpret the Bible
in a fundamentalist way. Often, people who belong to such churches
attack Catholics because we believe "things that are not found
in the Bible." They state that we can believe "only what the
Bible says."
Why do Catholics believe that God has revealed truths which are
to be "handed on" through sacred Tradition? There are many reasons.
The first is that we believe in the sacramental principle! We
believe that God is constantly interacting with people. God did
not simply drop a Bible from the sky and then stop communicating
with people. God continues to speak to us through the Word, Jesus
Christ (John 1:1), who continues to speak through his Church.
Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to lead the Church to the
truth: "I have much more to tell you....But when he comes, the
Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth" (John 16:13). God's
word, then, is addressed to the world through the teaching of the
apostles and their successors, guided by the Holy Spirit.
Second, the Church existed for a long time without the Bible as we
know it. No New Testament works existed until at least twenty years
after Christ's resurrection, and the last book of the New Testament
was written about one hundred years after the resurrection. If all
revelation had to be found in the Bible, the early Church would have
had little to teach.
Third, Church councils made the decisions about which books should
be accepted into the Bible. Without the living teaching authority of
the Church, without sacred Tradition, there would be no Bible, for
there would have been no way to determine which books belonged in
the Bible and which did not. This is another way of saying that the
Church produced the Bible. The Bible did not produce the Church.
Ask the question, "What is the pillar and foundation of truth?" Many
Christians will answer, "The Bible, of course." But that's not what
the Bible says! The Bible states that the Church is the "pillar
and foundation of truth" (1 Timothy 3:15).
Fourth, the Bible makes it clear that all of God's truth is not
found in sacred Scripture. John's Gospel closes with the statement:
"There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were
to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would
contain the books that would be written" (John 21:25).
Fifth, the Bible itself indicates that God's truth would be "handed
on" by preaching as well as by the written word. Jesus said to
his disciples, "Whoever listens to you listens to me" (Luke 10:16),
thus showing that God's revelation would be brought to the world
through the teaching of the apostles. The New Testament reports
this mandate of Paul to Timothy: "And what you have heard from me
through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will have
the ability to teach others" (2 Timothy 2:2).
Sixth, Scripture explicitly acknowledges traditions passed on by
the leaders of the Church and not found in the Bible. Saint Paul
wrote to the Thessalonians, and to us: "...stand firm and hold fast
to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement
or by a letter of ours" (2 Thessalonians 2:15).
Finally, there is no passage in the Bible which says that the Bible is
the only source of divine revelation. Therefore, anyone who asserts
that the Bible is the only source of revelation is claiming something
that is not in the Bible. Anyone who says we must believe only what
we find in the Bible is asking us to believe something that is not
in the Bible!
Concerning the Immaculate Conception: The Church believes that it
has been guided by the Holy Spirit toward belief in the Immaculate
Conception, and that this doctrine is consistent with the New
Testament, though not found explicitly in the New Testament. The
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception also contains the belief that
Mary was free of all personal sin: we trust that we have been guided
to this belief by the Holy Spirit.
Our Catholic belief in the Immaculate Conception means that she
was preserved from some of the effects of original sin (theologians
would argue about how this was done), but she had to cooperate with
God's grace. As she grew up, she could have sinned when she was
tempted, but she did not. Mary is the one who shows forth the
goodness of God more than any other human being, except Jesus. Jesus
is truly God, and is uniquely holy. Mary is the Mother of Jesus, who
is truly God, and she is holy by the grace and merits of her Son
(God is not limited by time, and theologians say that Mary was
preserved free from sin by the "anticipated" benefits of Christ's
life, death and resurrection), and by her cooperation with God's grace.
With regard to Mary's assumption: The official doctrine of the Church
does not decide the issue of whether Mary died or not. Most
theologians today seem to feel that she died, as her Son Jesus did.
The Church does teach that by the Assumption Mary shares bodily
in the resurrection and experiences complete union with Jesus.
I understand the doctrine to mean that Jesus caused her physical
body, after death, to be transformed into the spiritual body we
will all have in heaven (see 1 Cor. 15:42-44). The difference is
that our physical body is subject to corruption, and we are
"transformed" into the spiritual body, whereas Mary's physical body
was not subject to corruption. Why? Because Mary's body was the
"ark" which bore the body of Jesus for nine months. Because
Mary was Jesus' Mother, and as such, would have been welcomed into
heaven by her Son with all the grace and power Jesus could have shared
with his beloved Mother. (Would we do any less for our own mother
if we were in Jesus' place?)
Another way of looking at the Assumption is to compare it with
the phenomenon described in 1 Thess 4:16-17. Some teachers and
theologians describe Mary's Assumption in these very terms. They
say that Mary has already experienced fully what we will experience
fully only at the end of time.
The Assumption seems to have been taken for granted by Catholics as
far back as the historical records go. We Catholics believe that
our doctrines must be congruent with the Bible, but not necessarily
expressed explicitly in the Bible. We believe that the Church,
guided by the Holy Spirit, can come to the knowledge of truths that
are related to our spiritual benefit, and the Immaculate Conception
and Assumption are such truths.
The Bible speaks of "brothers and sisters" of Jesus (Mt 13:56-57).
But the Catholic Church teaches that Jesus had no blood brothers or
sisters and that his Mother Mary always remained a virgin. These
truths have been arrived at from the Bible and from tradition.
Even today "brothers and sisters" may be used in many ways. When we
hear speakers address audiences as "brothers and sisters," we assume
that the words refer not to blood relatives, but to friends or to
members of a particular nation, group, or race. In the Old Testament,
"brothers and sisters" might refer to members of the same tribe
(Dt 15:12) or race (Dt 23:7), or to nephews (Gn 13:8), cousins
(Lv 10:4), or relatives in general (2 Kgs 10:13).
In the New Testament, two of those who are called brothers of Jesus,
namely James and Joseph (Mt 13:56-57), are later identified as sons
of another woman (Mt 27:56). The word "brothers" is often used for
the followers of Jesus. For example, the risen Jesus asked Mary
Magdalene to "go to my brothers." Mary "went and announced to
the disciples, 'I have seen the Lord'" (Jn 20:17-18). Jesus said that
those who do the will of his Father are his brothers (Lk 8:21), and in
the New Testament, believers are called "brothers" more than 100 times.
The New Testament never speaks of other children of Mary or Joseph,
so it is impossible to prove from the Bible that Jesus actually had
blood brothers or sisters. If there had been such blood brothers, it
is difficult to explain why Jesus, as he hung on the cross, would
have given Mary into the care of the beloved disciple. "When Jesus
saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his
mother, 'Woman, behold, your Son.' Then he said to the disciple,
'Behold, your mother.' And from that hour the disciple took her
into his home" (Jn 19:26-27). If Mary had other children, it seems
that they would have cared for her.
Further, if Jesus actually had blood brothers and sisters, it would
be difficult to explain why the Church would have denied their
existence. The most plausible reason why the Church has always held
that Jesus was an only child is that he actually was an only child!
With regard to the phrase that Joseph "had no relations with her until
(or before) she bore a Son, and he named him Jesus," the word "until"
(or before) in English suggests that Joseph did have relations with
Mary after the birth of Jesus. But the Semitic expression behind the
Greek does not suggest either that he did or that he didn't. It
focuses only on the time up to the birth of Jesus and says nothing
about what happened after. There is a similar expression in
2 Samuel 6:23 where it is said that Michol was "childless to the day
of her death"...Some translations use "to" instead of "until," but
the Semitic expression behind both phrases is the same: and obviously
Michol did not have children after her death. What this means is that
the Bible doesn't give definite proof for the opinion that Mary had
other children or for the opinion that she didn't.
Early Christian writers agreed that Jesus had no blood brothers and
sisters and that Mary remained a virgin. St. Jerome (345-420) wrote
that "Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr and all the other
learned men going back to apostolic times" testified to the perpetual
virginity of Mary. Our Catholic belief, therefore, goes back to the
earliest days of the Church and has been a constant belief for almost
2,000 years. Since the Holy Spirit guides the Church, we can believe
that the Holy Spirit led believers to the fact of Mary's perpetual
virginity.
This fact points to the uniqueness of Jesus as the only Son of God.
The Bible states that Mary was a virgin when she conceived Christ by
the power of the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:31-35). The tradition of the
Church teaches that Mary remained a virgin. Why? Because she and
Joseph witnessed the miracle of Jesus' conception and birth. They
realized that God had entrusted them with the greatest treasure in
the history of the world, God's only Son. They understood that their
task in life was to nurture and protect the Savior of the human race.
Many years later, Jesus would speak of those who renounced marriage
"for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 19:12). It cannot
be surprising that Mary and Joseph would have wanted to renounce
their right to have other children in order to dedicate their lives to
the care of God's Son.
The Church's belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary is
significant because of what it says about Jesus and about us. The
fact that Jesus was Mary's only child underlines his uniqueness as the
only Son of God. The fact that Jesus was Mary's only child results in
a special relationship between Mary and us. Since we are the Body
of Christ (1 Cor 12:27), Mary is our Mother, and she has the same
Mother's love for us that she has for Jesus. Jesus says to us as
beloved disciples, "Behold, your mother."
These facts, rooted in the Bible and clarified by the Church's
tradition, help us to see Christ in the clearest possible light. They
help us to know Mary as the Virgin Mother of Jesus and as our
Virgin Mother. These beliefs, old as the New Testament and new as
today, have enriched the lives of countless generations of Catholics.
I hope that this information is helpful to you. The real key is that
the Catholic Church believes that the Holy Spirit continues, as
Jesus promised, to guide the Church to a better understanding of
God's Word.
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