Eleventh Saturday after Pentecost
Festival of St. Mary
Color: White
The question I have been raising around my church circles for several years now is, "What do we do with Mary?" I haven't gotten a satisfying answer yet. The Catholics know what to do with her. The Eastern Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, an Armenian Orthodox, Russian Orthodox all know what to do with her. They adore her. It's not quite the same as worshipping her, but pretty close. They believe a lot of things about her that we Protestants don't believe. It's like we know what not to do with Mary, but we don't know what to do with her.
I should note that Festival of St. Mary is our Protestant title for this feast day. The rest of the Christian world calls it the Feast of the Assumption. We don't believe in the Assumption, so we can't call it that. It is an important feast day for them. For us, I doubt if anyone other than Episcopalians even notices it.
If Catholics maximize Mary, we minimize her. When once in this blog I noted that we name our churches St. Paul's, St. John's, etc., but never name a United Methodist Church St. Mary's, One of you did then tracked down two UMC's in the USA named St. Mary's. In this case, I think the exception proves the cliche. The first thing my Catholic daughter-in-law noticed about University UMC is that there are no pictures of Mary in it.
Here are some things that the rest of Christianity believes about Mary, but we Protestants don't:
The Immaculate Conception
Most misunderstood of doctrines, most Protestants and even a lot of Catholics think it has to do with the conception of Jesus. It doesn't. It doesn't have anything to do with Jesus. It is the belief that Mary was conceived by her parents, Joachim and Anna, without original sin. It's not in the Bible, but the idea is found on some non-canonical early Christian writings, most notably, The Protevangelion of James. Like Jesus, Mary was sinless all her life.
The Perpetual Virginity
The phrase, "Blessed Mary, ever virgin," occurs frequently in Catholic liturgy. She is often abbreviated as the B.V.M. The doctrine is that Mary was virgin all her life. This doctrine is hard to square with what the Bible says. In Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:35 we read that Jesus had four brothers, James, Joses, Judas, and Simon and at least two sisters. There is no doctrine anywhere that these six or more children were conceived in any way other than sexually. Catholics will try to get around this by saying they were step-siblings of Jesus by a previous marriage of Joseph. The Bible mentions no such thing. James becomes a prominent leader in the early church and is called "the Lord's brother" in Acts and Paul letters. He may be the author of the NT book that bears his name. Judas, a.k.a. Jude, may be the author of that NT book.
The Assumption
The Bible has no record of the death of Mary. The Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, among others, believe that she went to sleep (the Dormition of Mary). While she was sleeping she was bodily taken up to heaven alive.
The Theotokos
Theotokos is the Greek word meaning "Mother of God." Mary is normally referred to with this word in Eastern Orthodoxy. The Greek Orthodox Church in Greensboro is named "Dormition of the Theotokos." Protestants don't use this word.
Odds and Ends"
- Catholics and Orthodox pray to Mary for her to intercede with God on their behalf. Protestants do not.
- "Notre Dame," which literally means "Our Lady," refers to Mary.
What we do believe about Mary:
Not much.
She was the mother of Jesus and several other children.
She was likely a teenager when Jesus was born.
She was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus, not when she gave birth to her other children.
She was a normal teenage Jewish girl from the hamlet of Nazareth, when God chose her to bear Jesus.
She stayed in Nazareth during most of Jesus' ministry. She was present at the Wedding Feast at Cana (John 2).
She went to Jerusalem during the last week of Jesus life and was present at his crucifixion. She was probably not one of the women at the empty tomb. She did see the resurrected Jesus during the 40 days he was on earth after the resurrection.
This blog is turning out to be a lot longer than I thought. I'm going to cut it here. Next Wednesday I'll make some concrete proposals about how we might honor Mary.
This is her day. Think about her. Give thanks to God for her.
Faithfully,
Christian
1 comment:
I find Mary inspiring and comforting. As such, I likely have a lot more reverence for Mary than most protestants. While I don't necessarily pray TO her, I sometimes meditate ON her. This difference may be as much a reaction to the anti-catholic admonitions I received as a child as opposed to a recognition of the difference in divinity between Mary and God.
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