Four Doctrines on Mary
By Mike Lambrecht
As many of you know, the month of May is dedicated to Mary. The Church teaches four defined doctrines on Mary. As Catholics, it is very important that we understand these doctrines. Failure to do so has caused many protestants to have misconceptions about the Church and many Catholics to stumble when they try to explain the Church’s teaching on Mary to their protestant neighbors.
The first defined doctrine is that Mary is the Mother of God. This seems pretty straight forward but there are those who would dispute this. From a logical standpoint, if we believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he was born of the Virgin Mary (as we profess in the creed that we say at Mass) then it should make sense that Mary is the Mother of God. For further evidence, we can look at Elizabeth’s greeting to Mary, “And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”1 If Mary were not the Mother of God then it would be incorrect to call her the “mother of my Lord.”
Next we will look at her Perpetual Virginity. The Church teaches that Mary was a virgin before, during, and forever after the birth of Jesus. This means that she never had other children and never had relations with Joseph or any other man. There are many objections that non-Catholics raise regarding this. They claim that the Bible talks about Jesus’ brothers. “Is not his mother named Mary and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?”2 They also like to point out that the Bible states that Joseph “had no relations with her until she bore a son.”3
In answer to these objections, we need to understand the problem with language. In ancient times, the same word which means brothers could also mean a close relative, friend or associate. We can see that the same brothers mentioned in Matthew 13 are later mentioned as sons of a different Mary.4 Furthermore, in the book of Genesis we can read about Lot being the brother of Abraham but we know that Lot was, in fact, Abraham’s nephew.5 As you can see, ancient biblical language was not always as precise as our modern day language.
In regards to the objection that scripture uses the word “until” when referring to Joseph and Mary’s relations, we also run into a problem with a difference in language. In our society, the word until implies that something happened afterwards. This was not true in ancient times. We can prove this by looking at the story of the man born blind. In it, we once again have the word “until.” In the Gospel of John we can read, “Now the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and gained his sight until they summoned the parents of the one who had gained his sight.”6 We could easily read this passage and assume that they believed the man after they talked to his parents, but if we continue to read, we can clearly see that this is not the case. In fact, they grew so angry at the man that they “threw him out”7 after questioning his parents and him again. Clearly we have the same word “until” found in reference to Mary and yet the Pharisees did not believe even after questioning the man and his parents. From this example, it is clear that we can make no implications or assumptions with regard to the word “until” in the Bible.
Thus far we have examined the two of the Church’s doctrines on Mary and covered common protestant objections to them. In reading, I hope that you have learned a little more about Mary and have gained a better understanding of your faith. Next week, we will examine the Church’s doctrines of the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
1 Luke 1:43
2 Matthew 13:55
3 Matthew 1:25
4 see Mark 15:40 and Matthew 27:56
5 see Genesis 14:14 and Genesis 11:26-28
6 John 9:18
7 John 9:34