Fundamentals of Catholicism by Father Robert Altier Lesson 8: Mary (Part 2)

It should also be noted that no one who is known as a brother or a sister of the Lord is ever called the son or daughter of Mary, which would have been a fairly common thing. And Saint Elizabeth is not Our Lady’s cousin, in case someone is thinking along those lines. For Elizabeth, the word that is used in Scripture is kinswoman. That implies a distant relative rather than a close relative.

In the New Testament, the Holy Family is always shown as being just three persons. Perhaps the clearest point is that if Mary would have had another son, Jesus would never have entrusted her to the care of the beloved disciple. Jewish law required that when the father died the eldest son would take over the responsibilities of the father, which would involve care for the mother and the other children. If the eldest son died, the second-oldest son would take over the care of his mother and the other children.

Fundamentals of Catholicism by Father Robert Altier

Lesson 8: Mary (Part 2)

At the end of the previous lesson, we were asking the questions about the brothers and sisters of Jesus, Jesus being Our Lady’s firstborn son, and Joseph not having any relations with Our Lady until she had borne a son, and so on. There are a couple of things to understand here. First of all, in Aramaic, which is the spoken form of Hebrew, there are no words for “cousin.” Even today in the Middle East, brothers and sisters are anyone who is a close family relation. You go over there and talk to them and you think they come from a family of about 20 kids, when in fact they are talking about all their cousins. It should also be noted that no one who is known as a brother or a sister of the Lord is ever called the son or daughter of Mary, which would have been a fairly common thing. And Saint Elizabeth is not Our Lady’s cousin, in case someone is thinking along those lines. For Elizabeth, the word that is used in Scripture is kinswoman. That implies a distant relative rather than a close relative. In the New Testament, the Holy Family is always shown as being just three persons. Perhaps the clearest point is that if Mary would have had another son, Jesus would never have entrusted her to the care of the beloved disciple. Jewish law required that when the father died the eldest son would take over the responsibilities of the father, which would involve care for the mother and the other children. If the eldest son died, the second-oldest son would take over the care of his mother and the other children. When Jesus died, if Our Lady would have had another son, by law that other son would have taken over the care of his mother. And Saint John, the son of Zebedee (who never was married to Our Lady), was not the blood brother of Jesus, even though He is called a brother of the Lord. Perhaps the easiest place to see it in Scripture is in Saint Mark’s Gospel because we hear about some of the people who are called the brothers of the Lord. If I recall correctly, I think it is in Chapter 3 and then again in Chapter 16.

They are called the brothers of the Lord, and then we are told who their mother is when they are called the sons of Salome. Again, you see very clearly that these are not sons and daughters of our Blessed Lady.

With regard to the point of Our Lord being Our Lady’s firstborn son, the firstborn son in Hebrew culture had special privileges and responsibilities. Therefore, the term firstborn is a technical term in Sacred Scripture, not a relative term. With regard to the passage from Saint Matthew about Saint Joseph not having relations with Our Lady until after she had borne a son, it is an argument from silence either way. It says nothing about what happened after the birth of Jesus. The word that is used there is in a tense in Greek called the aorist tense; we do not have that in English. What it means is “up to and including this moment” but saying nothing about what happened afterward. In English, we would have to use a whole sentence or more to be able to describe what that one word is saying. They would normally use the word until. In the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, in the passage about David (I believe it is in 2 Samuel) when he is dancing before the ark and his wife Michal is embarrassed because all he has on is a loin cloth and she upbraids him, he says to her, “You will have no children.” Then later on it says, “And she had no children until the day she died.” Now are we going to suggest that she had children after the day she died? Clearly not. The word is in the aorist tense – “up to and including this moment” – and not saying anything about what happened afterward. The passage in Saint Matthew 1:25 is that way also.

There are some Fathers of the Church who were trying to deal with this and said, “Well, maybe Saint Joseph was an elderly man and he had children from another marriage. His wife died, so he was a widower, and then he married our Blessed Lady.” That takes away all of the virtue from Saint Joseph. If you are married to the most wonderful, beautiful woman on the face of the earth, and you do not have the capacity to act on anything, there is no virtue in that. If Saint Joseph is a young man who is completely in love with his wife and is a virtuous man (which he was; he is called “a righteous man” in Scripture) that is where we see his virtue shining forth. The idea that maybe he was a widower with children, well, that is a nice idea for getting around the problem, but it really does not solve the problem; it does not deal with it, and it brings up other problems.

The easiest thing is to see it as it is, that Our Lady had no other children. She is a perpetual virgin. You can see that very clearly when the angel comes to Our Lady and tells her, “You are going to bear a son,” and she says, “How can this be since I know not man?” In Galilee at the time of Jesus, marriage was a two-step thing. We are told that Joseph was betrothed to Mary. Betrothal was marriage, but there was a six-month betrothal period. You would make your marriage vows, but you did not live together for six months. Then you would move in together. Mary was betrothed to Joseph; they were already married. That is why it says that Joseph was going to divorce her. It was not just being engaged. You can break off engagements and say, “Give me back the ring,” but that was not the case. He would have had to divorce her. They were married. If you were to say to a young woman, even in her engagement, “You’re going to have a child,” is she going to say, “How is that going to happen?” It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out how a woman is going to have a baby. She is engaged to be married, and she is going to have a baby. It is obvious how it is going to happen. Our Lady was betrothed, and she is saying to the angel, “How can this be?” The angel did not say, “Well, you’re married already. You’re going to move in with Joseph pretty soon. What do you think is going to happen?” No, because they had a virginal marriage, which was known at that time among the Essenes. It was not something unheard of in Jewish culture at that time. In fact, there are contracts that have been found by archaeologists where the father had drawn up the contract that his daughter would be married to a particular man but that she had made a vow of virginity and she would maintain that virginity. The man understood that, so they were married, but it was a non-consummated marriage. That is the way it would have been with Our Lady and Saint Joseph. You have it right there in Scripture very clearly that not only was she a virgin but their marriage was going to be a virginal marriage.

Throughout these lessons we have referred to Mary as “Our Lady” or “our mother” and terms like that, so we ask ourselves: How is she our mother? Mary is our mother because she gave birth to Jesus Christ and we have been incorporated into Jesus Christ through faith and baptism; as such, we are members of the Mystical Body of Christ. He is the head and we are the members, as Saint Paul tells us. Since we are members of Christ and Mary is the mother of Christ, it obviously makes sense that she is our mother. We are members of the Mystical Person of Christ; therefore, her maternity is on the spiritual order, not on the physical order. We all know that, but we are looking at this to be able to understand. If we can call God our Father because we are members of Jesus Christ and God is the Father of Jesus Christ, then who are we going to call mother? If there is a spiritual rebirth that takes place at baptism, birth requires a mother and a father. It is not enough just to be able to call God our Father, there has to be a mother in here somewhere. Jesus called God Father, so we can call God our Father through the power of the Holy Spirit, Saint Paul says. And who is the spouse of the Holy Spirit? Our Lady. So who did Jesus call mother? Our Lady. If we can call God our Father because Jesus did, then we can call Mary our mother because Jesus did. It is a very simple proposition. We are members of Jesus Christ. He has a mother and a Father, and so do we, spiritually speaking.

Our Lady’s maternity is rooted in two events: her fiat at the Annunciation and her fiat at the foot of the Cross. The word fiat means “let it be,” as when she said, Let it be done unto me according to thy word. How does that work? The Fathers of the Church tell us that Our Lady had to conceive in her heart before she conceived in her womb. When she conceived in her heart, she conceived the fullness of Christ. When she conceived in her womb, she conceived the physical person of Christ; in her heart, she carried the mystical Christ, which is each one of us who are baptized into Jesus Christ. And so she carried us in her heart. Then you ask: Where did she give birth? Well, when you look at Scripture, you see in Revelation 12 the woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars, and she wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. We have already seen that there was no pain in the birth of Jesus. It was a miraculous birth. There was not the normal opening of the birth canal, and there was no pain. This passage from Revelation is obviously talking about Our Lady because she gave birth to a Son who was to rule the world with an iron rod and Satan was right in front of her waiting to devour her Son – it goes all the way back to Genesis 3:15, you see it all right there. But there was no pain in the birth of Christ, so where was she wailing aloud in pain? At the foot of the Cross. And what does Saint Luke tell us that Simeon told her? A sword of sorrow will pierce your heart. So how were we born? Her heart was mystically opened by a sword of sorrow so that we could be born. She conceived us mystically and she gave birth to us mystically. That is the thing that happens in Our Lady. She is our spiritual mother, and we were born at the foot of the Cross so that we could be baptized. We are born from Our Lady’s heart and we are baptized with the water that comes from Our Lord’s heart and flows down His side, and we receive Holy Communion, the blood which flows from His heart. You see the incorporation into Christ, and it is all right there at the foot of the Cross.

What we see, then, is that without Our Lady’s faith and obedience, there would be no Redeemer, there would be no salvation, and there would be no Church, at least not as we know them. In this sense, it is true to say that Mary is the source of our life of grace, of our spiritual life; therefore, she is our spiritual mother. We also need to understand that she is not separate from the Mystical Body. If Jesus is the head and we are the members, then the question is: Where does Mary fit in here? The Fathers of the Church said that she is like the neck that holds the head and the members together. Everything flows through the neck, so she is the one that connects us. She is that Mediatrix, that channel of all grace, if you will. We will talk about that next.

Saint Paul tells us that Jesus is the sole mediator between God and man because He alone has reconciled humanity with God. We saw that in a previous lesson. The mediator is someone with a foot in both camps. He is God and He is man, so He can mediate on behalf of both. If He is the sole mediator between God and man, is it possible for there to be any other kind of mediation? The answer is “yes.” There is a secondary type of mediation which is completely subordinated to that of Christ, dependent upon the mediation of Christ, and subordinated to the mediation of Christ. This is what the Church is referring to when she calls Mary the Mediatrix. Mary is the Mediatrix of All Graces. The trix ending means it is feminine. Jesus is the Mediator and Our Lady is the Mediatrix. This title is given to Our Lady for three reasons. First of all, she occupies a middle position between God and creatures. Due to her divine maternity and fullness of grace, she is the closest human person to God, yet she is one of us. Jesus is the perfect mediator; He is God. Our Lady is the closest human person to God, but she is not God, of course. Secondly, during her earthly life, she contributed by her holiness to the reconciliation between God and humanity, which was brought about by her Son. She gave her entire life over to the service of the Redeemer. Thirdly, by her powerful intercession in heaven, she obtains for us, her spiritual children, all of the graces that God desires to bestow upon us.

Now when somebody complains about the idea that Our Lady can intercede or mediate for us, all you have to do is say, “Can you mediate? Can you pray to God for me? If I ask you to pray to God for me, can you do that?” Of course they can. So you say, “Then you are mediating. Why can you mediate but Our Lady can’t? It is the same thing.” Some people ask, “Why do you pray to dead people?” First of all, Jesus said that God is the God of the living, not the God of the dead. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob died a long time before Our Lady did. God is the God of the living. It is usually the fundamentalists and the evangelicals who pull that stuff, so I say, “Where are you going to go when you die?” They usually answer, “Oh, I’m going straight to heaven because Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior.” “That’s nice. So you are going to be alive with God, right?” “That’s right!” “But Our Lady isn’t? Why do you think that you can be alive with God, but Mary is dead? She is His mother. If you think that you’re going straight to heaven and that you’re going to be alive with God, wouldn’t it make far more sense that Our Lady went straight to heaven and that she’s alive with God?” That is what the Church teaches. Just use their arguments against them because it does not make any sense.

Anyway, when we look upon this idea of Mary’s mediation, we have to understand that it is substantially different from the mediation of Christ.

The mediation of Jesus is primary and it is absolutely necessary for our salvation. Without the mediation of Christ, there is no salvation. Our Lord had to first redeem Mary and He had to mediate for her before she would be able to mediate for us. The only reason any of us can pray for one another is because we have been redeemed in Christ. We are incorporated into Christ, and now as members of Christ we can pray for one another because we are in Christ. Our Lady needed to be redeemed and she needed to be mediated for before she would be able to mediate for us. Her mediation, then, is secondary and it is totally dependent on Christ’s mediation, but it is still very important. Mediatrix is a term used to describe the unique role of the mother of Jesus in her Son’s mission as the mediator. She receives the title because of her closeness to God, meaning that she is closer than any other creature because she was chosen by God to be His mother, and she is close to us because she is one of us in every way except sin. It is that double proximity that sets her as a go-between. There is a sense of mediation that is there with her.

Another title given to Our Lady is that of Co-redemptrix. The word co-redemptrix means “a co-redeemer.” The prefix co in this case is not to be understood in the English sense of what that means. When we say that somebody is a co-chairman or something like that, it means two people who are equal. In Latin, that is not what it means. The word means “with.” It is to be a redeemer with, not to be equal to the Redeemer. She is given this title both because the incarnation of Christ and the redemption of the human race were dependent on her free assent. If she had not said “yes,” it would not have happened. The title is not in any way intended to equate her efficacy with the redemptive activity of Jesus. Jesus is the sole Redeemer of humanity. We recall that Mary needed to be redeemed by Christ. She could not merit the grace of redemption for others because she needed to be redeemed herself. Her cooperation in the objective redemption of Christ is indirect and subordinate. In essence, what the title means is that she voluntarily gave her whole life to the service of the Redeemer and under the Cross she suffered and she sacrificed with Him. However, Jesus alone offered the sacrifice of atonement on the Cross.

How can Our Lady be Co-redemptrix? How can she be a co-redeemer? How can she redeem with Jesus? In case you have a problem with this idea, you can be a co-redeemer too. One of my favorite passages in Scripture is Colossians 1:24. It says very simply: I make up in my body for what is lacking in the suffering of Christ for the sake of His body, the Church. What is lacking in the suffering of Christ? Nothing. However, why would Saint Paul say this? Because what he is doing is uniting his suffering to the suffering of Jesus. Jesus allowed us to share in His work of redemption. He suffered and sacrificed so that we could be saved, but in His mercy He has allowed for the members of His Mystical Body to share in the suffering that He endured on the Cross. That means we can take the suffering which is inherent in human life and unite it with His. In other words, on the Cross, He did everything that He knew we could not, which is probably about 99.98%, and then He left the other 0.02% for all of us combined to be able to do. What that means is that He left a little bit undone so that we can pray for others, so that we can offer up our sufferings for others.

We will talk more about this when we talk about the Eucharist, but the point you have to understand is that the sacrifice of Jesus continues and the suffering has to continue. Suffering and sacrifice cannot be separated. A sacrifice with no suffering does not mean a thing. But there is no suffering in the Blessed Sacrament, so where does the suffering take place? In the Blessed Sacrament, as we will talk about in a future lesson, we have the mystical re-presentation of the sacrifice of Christ. It is a mystical sacrifice. So where does the suffering come from? From the Mystical Body of Christ, from us. What that means is that your suffering literally becomes the suffering of Christ. Your human suffering becomes divine when you are willing to give it to Jesus for the sake of others. What is His suffering for? So that people can be converted and be saved. It is the single most important work in the entire world, and God in His love and mercy for us actually has allowed us to share in that work, to suffer with Him, to redeem with Him, to make up in our body for what is lacking in the suffering of Christ, to be co-redeemers. There is not a problem with Our Lady having the title if all of us can have the title because she did it more perfectly than any of us will ever be able to. There is nothing to be scandalized by in Our Lady having such a title because it does not mean she is equal to Jesus in the work of redemption; what it means is that she is doing this with Him, just as all of us can do this with Him.

By the way, if you are going through a lot of suffering, recognize that this is a gift from God. It is a privilege, not a fun one, but a great privilege and honor because you have the opportunity to share in the work of redemption, to offer that to God. What is the difference between human suffering and the suffering of an animal? If you do not offer it to God, there is no difference. Then it is just useless, wasted suffering. But because it is human, that suffering can become an act of love. You can use your mind and your will to make it into something that is good. You can unite it with the suffering of Jesus, and you can have a share in the work of redemption. That is the dignity we have when we suffer. That is why the saints all tell us that we should pray for suffering. When was the last time you did that? Most of us think that sounds pretty crazy. It is going to come anyway. Isn’t it interesting that the more ways the doctors find to make sure that we do not have to suffer, the more new diseases pop up that they cannot deal with? We are always going to have something because we need it. Suffering is necessary for us if we are going to be able to grow in holiness and virtue. It is only in suffering that virtue is proven.

Think about it. When everything is going really well, you are probably the nicest person on the face of the earth. The minute things do not go so well, you might not be so nice anymore, huh? So how does virtue grow? By having to practice it when it is more difficult, to have a smile on your face, to be kind, to be gentle in the midst of the suffering. That is not easy. But if anybody knows someone who has suffered terribly, you will find a softness and a gentleness that you will not find in someone who has not suffered. You see how the suffering tempers us. It is a great, great blessing. The word compassionate means “to suffer with.” The only person who is able to be compassionate is somebody who has suffered because they understand it. Do you want to know how many friends you have? Suffer and you will find out real quickly: very few. You have lots of money and an easy life? Oh, boy, you have friends all over the place. Not any real ones, but all kinds of people who will be hanging around because they want your money and they want your life. But enter into suffering and you find out who your real friends are because they are the ones who will stick with you throughout the whole thing. That is the real friend. That is the one who is compassionate.

Suffering is very important for us. We do everything we can as Americans to avoid suffering, but we cannot because it is necessary. God knows that, so in His love for us – not in His anger and hatred for us – He gives us a share in His own suffering. He came down here and He suffered terribly for us. If you have not watched the movie The Passion of the Christ, do so and you will see an idea of what He suffered for us. I remember standing someplace and there were these kids talking about the movie. One kid said, “All these scourges, all these beatings, there’s no way a human person could ever have endured that!” Bingo, kid; get a clue. He was not just human. But the kid did not get it. He rejected it because no human being could endure that, so therefore it could not have happened. He is God, and He came down and suffered. What does Saint Peter say? Jesus left you an example of suffering so that you could follow in His footsteps. He did not say, “Jesus did it all for you so you don’t have to.” Nowhere does Scripture even hint at the idea! But we have all kinds of people who think, “Jesus did all the suffering, so I don’t have to do any.” The gospel of health and wealth, it is all over. Turn on the TV, you will see it all the time. And who is the one with all the wealth? “Hey, send me your money.” That is not what the Gospel is all about. The Gospel is about the work of redemption, and redemption comes about only through suffering. All of us have a share in that. It is being offered to all of us, and Our Lady simply shows us the way.

I mentioned earlier that one of the titles of Our Lady is Mediatrix of All Graces. She has this title by reason of her intercession before the heavenly throne. This means that Mary not only cooperated fully with Jesus in bringing about our redemption, but she also works with Him in the application of grace to each individual. This mediation of Mary is universal in that it implies the granting of every single grace without exception. In other words, every single grace that God gives to humanity comes through Mary. Some people have ideas that this cannot be. Think about it objectively. Jesus Christ is the grace of God. We can all accept that, right? That means every single grace that God ever had or ever would give to the world He gave in the person of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ came into this world through Mary, meaning every single grace that God would ever give to the world came through Mary in the person of Christ. It should not be a surprise to us that even in heaven every grace that God gives is given through Mary because every grace that He ever gave He has already given through her. So it is not a problem. We have to understand that Our Lady does not pick and choose where it goes. God does that. He simply gives it through her. It is God’s choice where it goes. Mary’s will and God’s Will are united.

She discharges this office of Mediatrix of All Graces through her intercession. This intercession can be in one of two ways, either by interceding expressly by asking God for a particular grace for an individual person, or by praying for all of us and offering her previous merits on our behalf. She is our mother, and she loves all of her children. When I said that Our Lady never sinned, imagine watching your son die on the cross and not having one single bad thought about the people who did it, not to be angry at them, not to want vengeance, not to even think about what jerks they were. We are the ones who did it to Him. It was not just the Romans at Calvary; we did it, and we are her children. In my family, if the kids would get into a fight, Mom would get angry at the other kids too. But this mother does not. Her children put her Son to death, and she did not get upset. She loves her children. Of course, she understood the reason for all of this. She knew that Jesus was going to die. She knew that right from the beginning, and He did not begin His public work until she gave her approval. It is a fascinating passage in John 2 at the wedding at Cana. He would not work that miracle until Our Lady said “yes” because she knew this would be the beginning and everything that was going to follow. Without her saying “yes,” He would not do it. Again, you see that she was cooperating. Some of the spiritual writers say that if the soldiers had not nailed Jesus to the Cross, Our Lady would have simply because she knew that it needed to happen for us. It was out of love that she did this. Imagine going through your life without ever once being impatient, without ever once thinking a negative thought about somebody. That is what Our Lady did, not one single sin ever. It is amazing. She is the most astounding lady ever. Women are amazing, but she is even more amazing than all of them.

The idea of all graces coming through the intercession of Mary does not mean that we are obliged to go to Mary for all graces, or even that Mary’s intercession is necessary for the bestowal of grace. Rather it means that according to God’s Will, the saving grace of Jesus Christ is conferred on no one without the actual cooperation of Mary. All of this is based on the fact that Mary desires only God’s Will. There is no distinction in that. As I said earlier, she will do only what God tells her to do. He is not going to say, “Give this grace to this person,” and then she says, “I’ll sneak it over here instead because this person needs it.” (She is not able to fool God anyway.) Her will is perfectly united with the Will of God. He chooses where it is going to go, and she dispenses it.

Every year on August 15 we celebrate the Feast of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven. What exactly does that mean? It means that when Mary had completed her life on earth, she was taken body and soul directly to heaven. This means that she already shares in the glorified state and that she enjoys fully the Beatific Vision. We need to be careful about the way we word what happened at the end of her life. There is no specific tradition about where, when, or how Mary died. This is a place where you can be Catholic and believe either way. Did Mary die? If you do not want to believe that she did, that is okay. If you want to believe that she did, that is perfectly fine too. There are actually two tombs of Mary, one in Jerusalem and one in Ephesus. It is humorous because some of the scholars say, “The one in Ephesus, that is so foolish. Mary would never have been buried there!” Then you read other scholars and they say, “This tomb in Jerusalem, that is a goofy thing. There is no way Mary would ever have been buried there!” So where was it? She lived in Ephesus, so it would make sense that she would be buried there. The one in Jerusalem is just off the Mount of Olives near the Garden of Gethsemane. It is more of a devotional place. If you cannot go to Ephesus and you are in the Holy Land at least you can stop by and make a visit to this place where Our Lady may have been.

However, you might ask why there would even be a question. Well, if Mary is a daughter of Adam then she must have died because all Adam’s children die. But Mary did not have original sin, and death is one of the punishments due to original sin. Therefore, maybe she did not die. Being that there is nothing in Scripture or tradition that is specific, we just do not know. You can believe either way. The oldest tradition and the one that I would hold to (it is my own opinion, though) is that Our Lady died; the reason is that, number one, she had a mortal nature which she received from Adam – even though she never had original sin, remember that Adam and Eve never ate from the tree of life, so they did not have that to pass on – secondly, Mary resembled her Son as closely as possible. Her Son did not have original sin and He died. So why would we assume that Our Lady did not? If she wanted to be like her Son in all things, it would make perfect sense that she would die. It would also mean that since she has her body she already shares in the resurrection, as well as in the glorification in heaven.

The word assumption means to be taken into heaven, not by one’s own power, but by the power of another – and that is God. When we talked about the Ascension of Jesus, we said that He ascended into heaven by His own power. He is God, so by His own power He went to heaven. Our Lady is not God, so she had to be taken to heaven. That is what will happen for all of us. Assuming we die in the state of grace, we will go to heaven, we will be assumed into heaven, we will be taken up by the power of God into heaven. Since Mary was sinless, her soul went to God at the moment of her death. The doctrine implies the assumption of her body into heaven after being reanimated by her glorified soul. The oldest tradition is that she died in January and was assumed on August 15. That goes way, way back into the 3rd or 4th century. But we do not know for sure. Regardless of the circumstances, she already shares in the resurrection, she already shares in the fullness of heavenly glory. This is a special privilege that is granted to her because of her unique role in salvation history.

We can see in these three major doctrines regarding Our Lady that in a purely human person Satan has been defeated. What, again, are the consequences of Adam’s disobedience? Sin, concupiscence, and death. In the Immaculate Conception, we see that Mary is not affected by sin. In the Virginal Birth of Christ, we see that she has overcome concupiscence. And in the Assumption, she participates fully in the victory over sin and death. She also then stands as the proof of God’s promise that we too will enter one day into the fullness of heaven. When we look at Jesus, we say, “Of course His body went to heaven because He’s God.” Our Lady is not. Jesus promised us that this would happen for us. We can see now in one of us, in a fully and merely human person, that this has already taken place. Then there is the hope that we would have for ourselves. Not just looking at Jesus and saying, “Well, He’s God and we expect it with Him,” but we can say now that we expect it with us. He has promised us that this will be the case, He has demonstrated it in Our Lady, and He will fulfill it in all of us.

We also say that Our Lady is the Queen of Heaven. This comes from two principles. First of all, she is the queen because she is the mother of the King of kings. Secondly, she is the queen because of her share in redemption. Jesus is the King. He is the King because He is the Redeemer, not because He is God, and Our Lady is the Queen because of her share in the work of redemption. Mary exercises her queenship through intercession, not through domination. When we were talking about the threefold office of Christ – Priest, Prophet, and King – we said that the royal office is an office of service. Not the one being served, but the one who serves. It is an office of love. Love, remember, is a reciprocal, benevolent relationship. Jesus loves us and He serves us. We in turn love Him and serve Him. That is what married couples are supposed to do. The vow you made on the day you got married is that you would love one another, that is, to serve the other, to seek only the good of the other. Jesus is not up there saying, “I’m the King. You need to bow down before Me.” Rather we look at it and say, “You are the King, and out of reverence and love I will bow down before You.” He is not up there demanding it; we are the ones who have to demand it of ourselves because of Who He is. He serves us, and now in turn we serve Him. It is the nature of what love is all about: two people both looking out for the good of the other. That is what Our Lady does. She is the Queen. She is our mother.

If you look in the Old Testament in Israel starting with Solomon, you read that one day Solomon’s mother, Bathsheba, came into the royal throne room. Nobody was allowed into the royal throne room unless the king gave the okay, and by law the person who walked into the royal throne room was supposed to kneel down and give honor to the king. Instead we see that Solomon got up from his throne, got down on the floor, and bowed down before his mother. Then he ordered that a second throne would be brought in and set right next to his. From that moment through the rest of the monarchy in Israel, there was a queen mother. She sat at the right hand of the throne of the king. Her job was to intercede for the people. If the king was going to give a harsh judgment, the queen had a mother’s heart. She was the mother of all of the people. When they would come before the king, she would intercede for them. She is the one who would plead with her son for clemency for the people. That is what Our Lady does. She is seated at the right hand of the King of kings. She is the Queen Mother, and she is right there interceding for her children because she is the mother of all of us. She is praying for mercy. Obviously, Jesus is infinitely merciful, but Our Lady is praying for us. Thanks be to God, because we need it rather desperately.

People ask: Why go to Mary? Why not pray to Jesus by yourself? You can do that, why don’t you? Why go through Mary? Yes, you can pray to Jesus all by yourself; there is not a problem with that. But think about what your prayer looks like. If you could quantify it, what would it look like? Probably a little nugget of some pretty good stuff and a whole lot of dirt, because our prayers are very imperfect. We get confused and distracted and we throw all this other stuff in there that is really a bunch of fluff. It is really not necessary. If you go to Jesus through Mary, she will take that prayer, clean it all up, add hers to it, and give it to her Son. What He gets then is the perfect part of the prayer we offered plus all of hers added to it, and so it is something that gives God great honor and glory. Not that our own would not, but our own gets up there and it is just one little nugget of something that is good. Well, He gets that plus hers when we ask her to pray for us. She is a mom, and I suspect most of us have probably all experienced that when you are in trouble you should go to Mom because she will talk to Dad, and then Dad will be a little more lenient. We all know that is the way it usually works. Why would it be any different in heaven, except that He is absolutely merciful? Nonetheless, we have a mother who is interceding for her children. Thanks be to God.

Veneration of Mary is one of the traditional areas of disagreement between Catholics and Protestants. It is a very interesting point because Martin Luther actually had a profound devotion to Our Lady. But the claim by the fundamentalists is that Catholics worship Mary. This, of course, is simply not true. Worship or adoration implies the complete submission of one’s self to a superior personal being. Such an honor is given only to God. We adore Jesus and we worship Him as the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Since God alone deserves worship and adoration, it is completely excluded from our relationship with Mary. God, however, showered His most abundant blessings upon her, so it is fitting that we should show her some kind of special reverence. That reverence is known as veneration. We worship and we adore God. We venerate the saints, and Mary is among the saints, the highest among the saints. We give her proper veneration.

We are often accused of worshiping Mary because we are seen praying before a picture, or before a statue, and some people would call that idol worship. The Church condemns idol worship. The fact of the matter is that a picture or a statue is there to remind us of who the person is, to lift our hearts and minds. If you are praying to the picture or to the statue thinking that somehow the picture or statue is going to answer your prayers, that is idol worship. The statue is a piece of wood or metal or fiberglass or marble or whatever the statue is made out of, and the statue is not going to do a thing for you. But the statue reminds you of who the person is, and that lifts the mind and the heart. We all understand how that works. If someone tries to challenge that, I always say, “Do you have a picture of your wife or your children in your wallet?” They say, “Oh, yes!” They pull it out and I say, “Idol worship!” “No, it’s not idol worship.” “It’s an image, isn’t it? Why do you have that picture there?” “It’s my wife and kids.” “Is that your wife and kids, or is that a picture of your wife and kids?” “It’s a picture of my wife and kids.” “Therefore, it’s not actually your wife and kids, is it? Neither is the picture of Mary or the picture of Jesus or the pictures and statues of the saints the actual person.” They are pictures, images of the saints. God does not forbid that. God forbids making anything on earth or in the heavens or in the sea to bow down before and worship. That is idol worship. That is making graven images. That is what is forbidden in the First Commandment. If God completely forbade the carving of images, then you have to ask yourself why He ordered them to be made. God is the one who ordered that the two cherubim would be placed upon the propitiatory, the mercy seat, right on top of the Ark of the Covenant. God is the one who commanded that the serpent would be made by Moses and be put up on the pole in the desert. These are all images of things on earth. God is the one who commanded that pomegranates and bells and so on would be made for the temple. God does not forbid the making of images; He forbids the worshiping of images. He forbids making an image to bow down and worship. That would be idol worship.

As I said, if you actually believe that the statue is going to answer your prayers or that the statue is the person, that is idol worship. But if the picture or statue is simply there to lift up your mind and heart to remind you of who the person is so that you can pray to or through the person, as the case may be, it is not idol worship. I should point out with regard to Our Lady’s intercession that we do not pray to Mary. Mary does not answer our prayers – God does. We pray through Mary. In our semantic way, we would say that we pray to Mary, or we pray to the saints, or we pray to the angels; and we do, we are addressing them. But just as I can ask you to pray for me, by asking you to pray for me did I pray to you? I better not have because that would be idol worship. But what you did was to turn around and pray to God on my behalf. So I was praying through you, and that is what we do with Our Lady and the saints. They are with God. They are looking at Him face to face. We send our prayer up, and we are asking them to pray to God for us. That is what they do. We can pray to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit or to the Father directly, but we can pray through Our Lady or the angels or the saints. Semantically, you could say, “I prayed to Mary and asked her to pray.” That is all we are doing. She does not answer the prayer, God does. Nothing ever stops with Our Lady. She does not block anything. She perfects it and hands it on to her Son. No one can go to the Father except through the Son, and the most perfect way to get to the Son is through His mother. It is a very simple process. We do not claim that the statue is Mary. We do not claim that Mary is a goddess. We do not bow down before her in worship. We simply recognize the reverence that is due to her because Jesus is the One Who gave her the reverence first, so we do the same.

Marian devotion is based on the Communion of Saints. We recognize that she holds a special place as Mother of God and Mother of the Church. If the saints can intercede for us, how much more effective is Our Lady’s intercession going to be? She is the most powerful intercessor and she is our mother. You can talk to anybody to try to get help, but the one who would be the most solicitous for helping you is your mother. Our Lady is our mother. She is also Our Lord’s mother. It is not a bad deal. If you can have your mother positioned in the highest spot to intercede with the president, or someone like that, it is pretty good. She is right in there and she is going to intercede for you if you need help. That is what Our Lady does for us. She intercedes for us. She is the Mother of the Church. What we are going to talk about next is the Church. It is a very important topic.

The Lord be with you. May the blessing of Almighty God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, descend upon you and remain with you forever. Amen.

[End of Lesson 8]

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