They did not.
You are a very kind person, I can tell from your soft and almost endearing remarks. Please do not take my severe remarks as directed in any way toward you. It is this veneration of Mary, which I (and many others) find absent in the Scriptures but ubiquitous in the Catholic organization. It is both unwarranted and dangerous. You may view us as disrespectful (or worse, attackers), but at least several here are concerned for the safety of those who pay inordinate attention to a human.
That being said, the great majority of the information posited by Roman Catholics (not just here at FR) claims Mary is a "Co-Redemptrix", a Queen of Heaven, the Mother of God, a Woman who is sinless. This is all patently incorrect. Nowhere does she assist in salvation, but Roman Catholics claim she does. These claims provide a framework wherein one is encouraged to view some humans above others, an error Paul and David debunk as untrue. There is none who are good, no not one. There is none righteous. There is none who understand (their true plight and God's real holiness). There is none who seek God. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3)
If Mary was made righteous in the "womb" (a claim which is not mentioned in the Scriptures), then so was Jacob (Rom. 9). And, pre-dating Mary, he ought to earn a higher rank than her. But, Jesus put Mary in a very utilitarian perspective, noting that the crowd to which He spoke was more His mother than Mary, at that moment. Actually, according to Jesus, anyone who did His will was his mother (Matt. 12:46ff). How then does the Romanist organization claim that this woman demands extraordinary veneration ("hyperdulia") as "the most exalted of creatures"? Even under their own rules John the Baptist, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Jacob deserve equal veneration. This is all nonsense. Isaiah was man of unclean lips living among a people of unclean lips (Is. 6). Sinless because he was a prophet selected before birth? What happened along the way?
And, further, when called on this error, Catholics sort of, "Aw shucks, we don't really mean that she is all that. She is just all that, but not really all that." It's like trying to nail jello to a tree. Is she venerated as a Co-Redemptrix, the Co-Savior of the world, or is she "just a woman"? Because, yes, all the glory must go, and only go, to Jesus Christ the Messiah from Israel, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Great I Am, Yahweh, El-Shaddai, the Blessed Hope of Israel. There is no other...no other...no other.
What an extraordinary denial--- are you saying that the texts do not show the Holy Spirit preparing them prenatally for their role? Or are you saying they rejected the Hoily Spirit and did not receive Him?
(Jeremiah) "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."And this next one is wonderful, a regular cascade of the Holy Spirit in Luke 1!!(Isaiah) "The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother's womb he named me."
(John the Baptist) When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,
the baby leaped in her womb,
and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
In a loud voice she exclaimed:
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!
But why am I so favored,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears,
the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”
Look at what's happening here! Mary is carrying Christ the Lord God, Elizabeth calls her "mother of my Lord" (SHE knew Mary was the mother, and she knew Jesus was God!) John the Fetus does his first prophetic work, dancing before the Lord --- the Holy Spirit is caroming through this whole scene -- and eventually even Zechariah's overwhelmed:
" His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied..."It's absolutely wonderful. The first chapter of Luke is like a mini-Gospel of the Holy Spirit in itself. Just exquisite.And the child grew and became strong in Spirit; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.
And later Paul explains (Romans 8:30)
"And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified."That applies to all these wonderful gift of grace, but pre-eminently to Mary, since her SOUL magnifies the Lord.
Who does this setting apart of human beings and appointing them prophets? Is it not the Holy Spirit?
I nowhere said that they ALL remained free from sin. You say, "Isaiah was man of unclean lips living among a people of unclean lips (Is. 6). Sinless because he was a prophet selected before birth? What happened along the way?"
Well, yes he was a man of unclean lips. What happened to him was, he chose to commit personal sin. The same thing that happened when Adam and Eve, though at first sinless, chose to commit sin. Just because a person is without sin ab initio, (like Adam and Eve) does not in itself mean they remained sinless forever. Isaiah was a sinner because he sinned.
You say,
"Jesus put Mary in a very utilitarian perspective, noting that the crowd to which He spoke was more His mother than Mary, at that moment. Actually, according to Jesus, anyone who did His will was his mother (Matt. 12:46ff)."
That is a wonderful passage from Matthew, but it is the furthest thing from "utilitarian" that it could possibly be. It's the exact opposite. He says that His mother is whoever will hear with word of God and keep it. And Mary was the first to do that: a spiritual act, even before the physical conception. (Didn't the Angel call her by that revealed, unique name, Kecharitomene, before she even conceived her Divine Son?) SHE heard the word of God. SHE kept it. She got pregnant!
Mary was the first disciple, because she was the first to accept Jesus Christ as her personal Savior (Luke 1:47.)
Good enough for me.
Excellent explanation of my own feelings.