Solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary

The Assumption

Today, August 15, is the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven. On this day, the universal Church celebrates what took place at the end of our Blessed Mother’s earthly life. “The Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” This dogma is the great antidote to materialism and the moral corruption that follows despair, because in Mary’s Assumption into heaven we see our own glorious destiny as fellow creatures like her, united to her Son. In her Assumption we see the eschatological finale awaiting the Church, of which she is the icon.

This doctrine was not formally defined as a dogma until 1950, when Pope Pius XII did so in an Apostolic Constitution titled Munificentissimus Deus. Although the Orthodox have not formally defined the doctrine as a dogma, this doctrine is not a point of dispute between Catholics and Orthodox, because the Feast of the Assumption has been celebrated in the universal Church (both East and West) on this same date (August 15) since the sixth and seventh centuries. However, this doctrine is not accepted by most Protestants, and is therefore an occasion of difficulty with respect to the reconciliation of Protestants and the Catholic Church.

Recently Peter Leithart responded to Christian Smith's claim that sola Scriptura is the belief that Christians have "the Bible alone and no other human tradition as authority." Leithart protested against this definition, claiming that the Reformed do acknowledge the authority of tradition, but hold Scripture to have final authority. My response to Leithart can be found here, where I argue (briefly) that to subject tradition to the test of one's own interpretation of Scripture is to deny the authority of tradition, and thus to vindicate Smith's claim. ...

(Continue reading)

Two Bad Arguments Against The Immaculate Conception

The Virgin Enthroned
c. 1120
Fresco
Maria zur Höhe, Soest, Germany

This past Tuesday (December 8) was the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day in which Catholics celebrate the conception of Mary without original sin, in the womb of her mother Anne. Over the past week I encountered two arguments against this doctrine.

The Orthodox Church in America recently stated this on on its website:

The Orthodox Church does not accept the teaching that the Mother of God was exempted from the consequences of ancestral sin (death, corruption, sin, etc.) at the moment of her conception by virtue of the future merits of Her Son. Only Christ was born perfectly holy and sinless, as St Ambrose of Milan teaches in Chapter Two of his Commentary on Luke. The Holy Virgin was like everyone else in Her mortality, and in being subject to temptation, although She committed no personal sins. She was not a deified creature removed from the rest of humanity. If this were the case, She would not have been truly human, and the nature that Christ took from Her would not have been truly human either. If Christ does not truly share our human nature, then the possibility of our salvation is in doubt.

Grace, in Catholic theology, is not merely divine favor, but is also a participation in the divine nature. (2 Peter 1:4) To receive sanctifying grace through baptism is to be granted a participation in God's own nature, and in that sense to be deified is to be granted to share by a divine gift in God's very nature. That participation in God's nature is in seed-form in this present life, and is perfected in the life to come, in the Beatific Vision, where we shall be like Him perfectly, because we will see Him just as He is. (1 John 3:2) Glory is the culmination of grace; grace is the seed of glory.

So this first argument against the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception runs like this:

(1) If Mary had been immaculately conceived, then during her life on earth she would have been deified.

(2) If Mary had been deified while on earth, she would not have been truly human, and the nature Christ took from her would not have been truly human.

(3) But Christ was truly human.

Therefore,

(4) Mary was not immaculately conceived.

What is wrong with this argument? The first premise is true, if we understand 'deified' in the Catholic sense I explained above. The third premise is also true. The second premise, however, is not true if we understand 'deified' in the Catholic sense. Deification, whether in this life, or in the life to come, does not detract from our humanity or make us non-human. The baptized infant does not cease to be human at the moment of baptism. Grace builds on nature; grace does not destroy or nullify nature. Even if Mary was given the preternatural gifts enjoyed by Adam and Eve prior to their Fall, this would not have made Mary non-human, because it did not make Adam and Eve non-human. Adam and Eve did not change species when they fell. They lost sanctifying grace and the preternatural gifts, but they remained human by nature. So the argument is not sound, because the second premise is false. In order to make the argument sound, we would have to use a definition of 'deified' that is contrary to Catholic theology. In other words, in order for the argument to be sound, we would have to construct a strawman of the Catholic position. That's the first argument.

I discovered the second argument when I was recently directed to a post titled "The Holy Tradition and the Veneration of Mary and other Saints in the Orthodox Church," written by Very Reverend John Morris, and posted on the "Self-Ruled Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America" site. He too offers an argument against the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. He writes:

The Orthodox Church calls Mary "immaculate," and "all pure," as a manifestation of the Orthodox understanding of salvation as deification. Orthodox Christians believe that through the grace of God Mary has been deified or made by grace what God is by nature or, as St. Paul wrote, "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another …" Vladimir Lossky wrote, " … the very heart of the Church, one of her most secret mysteries, her mystical center, her perfection already realized in a human person fully united to God, finding herself beyond the resurrection and the judgment. This person is Mary, the Mother of God." Thus salvation for Orthodox theology is more than the forgiveness of sins or justification, but is also the transformation of the believer by the grace of God to become a partaker of the Divine Nature. Orthodox Christians see the realization of salvation in the deification of Mary.

However, Orthodox Christians do not accept the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. On the contrary, Orthodox believe that the Blessed Virgin was born in ancestral sin just like any other person. This is important because if Mary had not been born in ancestral sin, God could not have assumed sinful human nature from her. As St. Gregory Nazianzen wrote, "For that which He has not assumed He has not healed." If God had not assumed sinful human nature from the Blessed Virgin, He could not have saved sinful human nature through the Incarnation of Christ. Indeed, a prayer addressed to the Virgin Mary from the service of Compline contains the beautiful words, “thy glorious birth-giving has united God the Word to man and joined the fallen nature of our race to heavenly things."

A Catholic can fully agree with everything in the first paragraph, but Rev. Morris' argument against the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is found in the second quoted paragraph. The argument goes like this.

(1) If Mary had not been born in ancestral sin, God could not have assumed sinful human nature from her.

(2) If God had not assumed sinful human nature from the Blessed Virgin, He could not have saved sinful human nature through the Incarnation of Christ.

(3) But God saved sinful human nature through the Incarnation of Christ.

Therefore,

(4) Mary must have been born in ancestral sin.

It is one thing to assume human nature from sinful humans. It is quite another to assume a sinful nature. There are not two human natures, because there are not two species within a genus 'human'; 'human' is a species, not a genus. There is human nature with sanctifying grace, and human nature without sanctifying grace. Human nature without sanctifying grace is human nature in a state of original sin. Human nature with sanctifying grace is human nature participating in the divine nature.

So the second premise of Rev. Morris' argument amounts to this: Unless Christ received a human nature lacking sanctifying grace, He could not redeem those lacking sanctifying grace. That is essentially saying that unless Christ had original sin, He could not save those in sin. But that is false. If Christ Himself had original sin, then as the Church Fathers teach, Christ too would have needed a Savior. So Christ did not need to lack sanctifying grace in order to redeem those lacking sanctifying grace. On the contrary, He needed to be free from original sin in order to redeem those under sin. So the second premise of this argument is false. Christ needed to receive our human nature in order to redeem us, but He did not need to receive sinful human nature (i.e. human nature in a state of sin) in order to redeem man from sin. And because the second premise is false, therefore the argument is unsound.

Moreover, because Christ did not need to receive sinful-human-nature (i..e human nature in a state of sin), He did not need to receive human nature from someone lacking sanctifying grace in order to redeem those lacking sanctifying grace. Otherwise, Mary would have had to be in a state of mortal sin when Christ was conceived. But no one in the history of the Church has ever believed such a thing, nor do the Orthodox believe such a thing.

So both of these Orthodox arguments against the Catholic doctrine of Mary's Immaculate Conception are unsound.

Immaculate Theotokos, bring all your children to unity in the truth. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Today, December 12, is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Many people do not know anything about this historical event, even though it is undoubtedly one of the most important events in the history of Christianity in the Americas. As a result of the miracle of Mary’s apparition to a native American peasant named Juan Diego and the appearance of her image on his tilma, over eight million native Americans were converted to Christianity in the seven years from 1531 to 1538. Prior to this event, the Aztecs were offering thousands of human sacrifices per year in central Mexico, including child sacrifice. The conversion of the Aztecs to Christianity ended the brutal practice of human sacrifice.

The image above is the image that miraculously appeared on the tilma of Juan Diego when he opened it before the bishop. The image shows Mary as a humble but royal maiden. Under her feet is the moon, which for the Aztecs represented the devil. In this image we see Mary as the woman described in Revelation 12. To read a fuller account of this miraculous event see here, here, and here. Or read Warren Carroll’s Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Conquest of Darkness (Christendom Press, Front Royal, Virginia, 2002).

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen..

(cross-posted at CTC)

The Early Church Fathers on Mary as the New Eve

Madonna and Child with Angels
Duccio di Buoninsegna (1300-1305)

Last night Professor Lawrence Feingold (Institute for Pastoral Theology, Ave Maria University) gave a lecture to the Association of Hebrew Catholics on the subject of the early Church Fathers on Mary as the New Eve. The full audio (and Q&A) of the lecture can be downloaded for free here.

First he spoke briefly about the Catholic conception of the development of doctrine, and how Mary herself provides the model for understanding the Church's ever-deepening understanding of the deposit of faith. Then he showed how Scripture itself points to Mary as the New Eve, and how the early Church Fathers recognized and developed this doctrine of Mary as the New Eve, all holding her to be without sin. He carefully explained how the developing understanding of Mary as the New Eve gradually unveiled the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

In the second part of his lecture he examined the later Church Fathers. From the sixth century on in the East, three Marian feasts were celebrated: the Annunciation on March 25, the Nativity of Our Lady on September 8, and the Dormition commemorating Mary's holy death on August 15. In this part of his lecture Professor Feingold presented a summary of the Mariology of the Eastern Fathers after Nicea. Then he discussed the theological debate concerning the Immaculate Conception in the Latin West, as that led into the time of the Scholastics. He explained why theologians such as St. Bernard, St. Thomas, and St. Bonaventure denied the Immaculate Conception, and how Bl. Duns Scotus resolved the problem. Eventually in 1477 the feast of the Immaculate Conception was made a feast for the universal Church, and in 1708 it became a holy day of obligation in the universal Church (though it had already been a holy day of obligation for centuries in the East). Then in 1854 Pope Pius IX defined it as dogma with the solemn bull, Ineffabilis Deus.

Since the Catholic doctrines concerning Mary remain one of the difficulties for Protestant-Catholic reconciliation, and since understanding Mary as the New Eve serves as the key, I think, to understanding the basis for the other Marian dogmas, considering together what the Church Fathers say about Mary as the New Eve is a very helpful way of resolving the Protestant-Catholic disagreements concerning Mary. Those disagreements can be seen clearly in the recent Evangelicals and Catholics Together document titled "Do Whatever He Tells You: The Blessed Virgin Mary in Christian Faith and Life." It presents both points of view (Catholic and Evangelical Protestant), as well as the common ground both sides share. Some of the Protestant concerns raised in the ECT document are addressed in Professor Feingold's lecture. (Click here to download the mp3 of Professor Feingold's lecture and the Q&A following it.) Or listen to them directly below:

Lecture


Q&A

The Internet Monk on Scott Hahn and Mary

Retractiones (a Protestant scholar sympathetic to Catholicism) has an interesting article (here) responding to Michael Spencer's (aka Internet Monk) post on Scott Hahn and Mary. I think it shows well how Protestants tend (quite understandably) to evaluate Catholic claims from within a Protestant paradigm. (H/T Chad Is Not Enough)

Please remember to pray for Michael and his wife, whether you are Protestant or Catholic. When one spouse moves from Protestant to Catholic, or vice versa, and the other spouse is not convinced, this can create a lot of marital friction/tension. I went through this as well, and it was very painful. In our case, I was the one who decided to become Catholic, and my wife was very unhappy about my decision. (That's putting it mildly.) I proposed (and I don't know if this was the right thing to do) a short-term compromise that required and showed mutual good-faith toward each other, and aimed at effecting unity in the long-run. My proposal was that I would wait to be received, if she would sincerely study the question. By waiting, I was trying to show her that I respected her, and the value of our spiritual unity (which was not in good condition anyway, by that point), and also that I trusted that she would sincerely and open-mindedly study the question. I was also trying to show her that I was seeking the truth, since I was giving her time to find whatever she could that would show me to be wrong. She agreed to the proposal. She went to the Anglican bishop and got a bunch of books arguing against Catholicism. We read these books, and she read some Catholic apologetic books. We also started reading together from the Church fathers.

Eight months later, she agreed to come to RCIA with me, only as an inquirer, just to listen and ask questions. And she did ask questions, lots of questions. Often during RCIA, when she asked these questions, I felt like I knew the answer even better than the person answering her question, but I just kept my mouth shut (both during RCIA and during the drive home), because I knew it would be harder for her to hear it from me. About a week ago she told me something I hadn't known, namely, that during the RCIA teaching on Mary, she actually got so upset that she had to leave the room, and pretend to go to the restroom, while in fact she was sitting on the stairs in the hallway for a while calming down, before she could come back into the RCIA room. This was a very hard process for her. We started reading together (out loud to each other) from Peter Kreeft's Catholic Christianity, reading a little bit each day. I can remember, as I finished reading out loud that last page of Kreeft's book, she was sitting across from me at the kitchen table. I closed the book, and she looked at me and said, "I think I am ready to become Catholic."

Mary, Monocausalism and Ecclesial Unity

"The Coronation of the Virgin"

Diego Rodriguez de Silva Velázquez 1599-1660

We sometimes forget how much Satan hates Mary. He is "enraged" [ὠργίσθη] with the woman. (Rev 12:17) We think we can be 'neutral' about Mary. But we cannot be 'neutral' about Mary. If we treat her like any other woman, we are performatively denying the deity of her Son. If her Son is divine, then she is what the Third Ecumenical Council (Ephesus, 431 AD) declared her to be, i.e. the Theotokos, "God-bearer", or "Mother of God":

"If anyone will not confess that the Emmanuel is very God, and that therefore the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God (Theotokos), inasmuch as in the flesh she bore the Word of God made flesh [as it is written, "The Word was made flesh"]: let him be anathema."

If we would treat a queen with great respect and honor, simply because she is the wife of a king, how much more should we treat the Mother of God with respect and honor? Satan wants us to treat Mary as any other woman, because Satan hates the incarnation. Belittling Mary is one of his ways of getting us implicitly to deny the incarnation by falling into some form of Nestorianism, as I explained in 2006 in my "What does the Catholic Church believe about Mary, and Why?"

In my conversations with Evangelicals, I find that many reject the term "Mother of God", and say that Mary was merely the mother of Jesus (which they then qualify as meaning the mother of his human nature). They do not realize that they have thereby fallen into a form of Nestorianism that denies that the One of whom she is the mother is none other than the Second Person of the Trinity, not merely a human nature.

I also frequently encounter among Evangelicals what I call a 'monocausal' way of thinking. Monocausalism, as I am using the term is the assumption that only one cause can be operative at a time in order to bring about an effect. We can see monocausalism in the assumption that if Jesus saves us, then we must contribute nothing to our salvation, and no one else can contribute to our salvation. Or if Jesus forgives us our sins, then there is no need for a priest to absolve us. And the same way of thinking views requesting the prayers of the departed saints as detracting from Christ's mediatorial role, and views honoring Mary or honoring a departed saint as detracting from Christ's honor, as though honor is a limited commodity. Persons operating within the monocausal paradigm have difficulty with Jesus' teaching that as we do it unto the least of these His brethren, we do it unto Him. They have difficulty with Jesus' question to Saul on the road to Damascus: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" (Acts 9:4) They have difficulty understanding how we are supposed to love our neighbor as ourselves, while obeying the command to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. They have difficulty understanding how the woman in Revelation 12 can refer to Mary *and* the Church *and* Israel. The antidote to monocausalism is a good education in philosophy, wherein we learn how multiple causes can act in different ways simultaneously to bring about an effect, without competition or overdetermination. One can love one's neighbor and in the very same act be loving God and oneself, for multiple ends can be pursued simultaneously in the very same act, when these ends are arranged hierarchically.

All that to say that so much of what worries Protestants about Catholic treatment of Mary is based on a philosophical monocausalism. For example, the Catholic hymn "Salve Regina" involves calling on Mary to pray for us and have mercy on us. In the Protestant mind, only God can receive prayer and show mercy. Therefore, in the Protestant mind, this hymn deifies Mary, and is thus blasphemy or idolatry. But the hymn only deifies Mary if one imports monocausalism into the picture. But monocausalism is something the Catholic Church rejects, as implying either deism or occasionalism. Similarly, in the Protestant mind, if Mary makes a promise regarding wearing the brown scapular and hell, then Mary is doing something only God can do, promise salvation. But again, this is based on a monocausal way of thinking, as though if Mary makes such a promise regarding salvation, then this is somehow in competition with salvation through Christ. But for Catholics, praying to saints is no more incompatible with Christ being "the one Mediator between God and men" than is asking your next-door neighbor to pray for you. Whatever Mary does, always is through her Son, and to her Son, just as whatever St. Paul (or any other saint) does is always for the sake of Christ.

Honoring Mary honors Christ, for it is only because of her Son that Mary is even known to history. Who is she? She is the Mother of God. That is why she is known. And so honoring her is a way of proclaiming the gospel that God became man. It is right to treat a thing according to what it is. So Mary deserves to receive the honor of a Queen Mother. But Mary is not divine, and therefore should not be treated as though she is divine. So, the notion that either we must choose between treating Mary as divine or treating her as any other woman, is a false dilemma. The middle position is the Catholic position; Mary is deserving of more honor than any other saint, but she is never to receive adoration, which is reserved exclusively for God. To read a good Catholic presentation of the Catholic understanding of Mary, see Scott Hahn's book Hail, Holy Queen.

Salve Regina!

Annunciation of the Lord

In the liturgical calendar, today is the feast day of the Annunciation of the Lord (Luke 1:26-38), when the angel Gabriel delivered the message to the virgin Mary at Nazareth, and she replied "be it done to me according to your word", and she conceived by the Holy Spirit. Today we celebrate Christ taking on our human nature.

Since this feast has to do with the virgin Mary, it seems like an appropriate time to offer some aid in understanding the Church's Marian dogmas. In January I mentioned that the Marian dogmas are one of the stumbling blocks to unity. Br. Jim Brent O.P., Ph.D., a friend whose dissertation defense I attended recently, wrote a very accessible paper explaining the basis for the Marian dogmas. That paper can be found here.

Regarding the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary, I addressed a related question last year regarding the perpetual virginity of Mary here. And Dr. Pitre recently offered some thoughts on this particular doctrine here in relation to chapter 30 of the book of Numbers. The encyclical Sacra Virginitas is also helpful in coming to understand the Church's general conception of consecrated virginity.

Two Stumbling Blocks to Unity

There are many stumbling blocks to unity. Here I will mention two. One is a deep distrust of the early church fathers. I have discussed it before under the description "ecclesial deism". I encountered this distrust of the fathers again recently in this comment, and in the comments in this thread. This distrust is a kind of negative or skeptical stance or attitude toward the fathers. Instead of reading and interpreting Scripture through the eyes of the fathers (i.e. through the perspective that they provide us -- see Pontificator's third law), a person who takes this distrusting attitude toward the fathers does something quite different; he subjects the teachings of the fathers to his own twenty-first century interpretation of Scripture, believing his own interpretation of Scripture to be neutral and objective. This distrustful attitude leads one who holds it to treat teachings of the fathers that he does not find in Scripture to be either corruptions of the gospel or additions to the gospel. He does not view them as developments of the gospel. That they are corruptions, and not developments, is assumed, not argued for. That is the paradigm in which he operates.

Implicit in this distrustful attitude toward the fathers are theological assumptions such as that Christ did not promise to protect the Church from doctrinal error, or did not keep this promise, or that if Christ did keep this promise, it applied to some unknown group (scattered or hidden) of Christians of which history has kept no record. All this too, comes out of a distrustful, skeptical attitude. In that attitude is an implicit theological separation between Christ and the Church, treating distrust of the Church as entirely distinct from distrust of Christ Himself. (I recently discussed here the error of theologically separating Christ and His Church.) It is for this reason that this distrusting stance is not fundamentally a doctrinal disagreement, although it has that as an implication. It is fundamentally a deficiency of faith. The heretics faced by the Church fathers attacked the Church in the very same way, by calling into question the reliability of the Church in preserving the deposit of faith entrusted once and for all to the Apostles. These heretics drew followers to themselves by planting doubt in the minds of others regarding the trustworthiness of the rightful successors of the Apostles. In actuality, the Church grows organically, like a tree. As I wrote here:

"When we think about the way a plant or animal grows, every movement is an unfolding of what was implicit in the previous stage. The organism cannot reject or throw out the fundamental moves it made in its earlier stages; it builds on them. It takes as a given what was laid down in all the previous stages, and continues the process of unfolding the full telos of the organism. That is the nature of organic development."

Because the Church is the Body of Christ, it develops as an organism. The organic conception of development provides an entirely different paradigm for viewing the fathers. In this (the Catholic paradigm) we understand our earliest stages through our intermediate stages. We do not try to reflect on our earliest stages from an abstract view from nowhere, or as if the intermediate stages were not organic developments of the earliest stages. We do not try to wipe the slate clean and start from scratch. Implicit in that is the ecclesial deism resulting from a deficiency in faith. Each successive stage helps us better understand what was implicit in the previous stages. Development further unveils the organism and unfurls the blossom, and allows us retrospectively then to see it more clearly and accurately in its earlier stages when its fullness is still in potentia. This is an implication of the head of the household bringing out of his treasure "things new and old". (Matthew 13:52). They are new, in that they are now explicit; they are old, in that they have been there implicitly from the beginning.

A difficulty for the distrusting stance toward the fathers is that even the New Testament canon is then subject to skepticism, for if the Church was corrupted at such an early period, then there is no ground for trusting that the NT canon is reliable. Some persons taking this distrustful stance attempt to get around this problem either by stipulating the canon or by claiming that the canon is self-attesting or by claiming that the canon is attested by the inward work of the Holy Spirit. All three options, however, are intrinsically individualistic; they make the contemporary individual the authority, not the Church fathers. When a person rejects the notion that Christ promised to protect the Church, guide her into all truth, not to let the gates of hell prevail against her, and to be with her until the end of the age, i.e. when a person rejects the notion that the Church grows organically like a tree, then anything goes. Ironically, even absolute novelties then become acceptable, as with James Jordan's notion that apostolic succession is reduced to baptism. The fathers clearly taught that apostolic succession concerns ordination, as I have showed here. The fathers do not teach anywhere that baptism gives us the charism that is given in ordination. By approaching the fathers as our fathers in the faith, to whom we owe filial piety and respect (a moral principle so fundamental that it is explicit in the Ten Commandments), we are able to see the Church as an organic development through time. And the notion of the organic development of the Church allows us to distinguish development from novelty. (One criterion for heresy is novelty: "a heretic is one who either devises or follows false and new opinions" -- St. Augustine.)

A second stumbling block for unity is the Marian doctrines. I recently discussed Mary as the "Queen of Peace" with respect to Church unity. I'm coming to believe more and more that typically underlying the stumbling block of the Marian doctrines is Christological confusion if not Christological error. It is not an accident that Mary's title as Theotokos was authoritatively defined in a General Council (Ephesus 431) that focused on Christology, and particularly on the heresy of Nestorianism. Mary's uniqueness rests on an orthodox understanding of the incarnation, as I discussed recently here. The more we understand why Nestorianism is false, the greater will be our capacity to recognize the truth of the Marian doctrines. This requires that our dispositional stance toward the Councils is one of openness, humility, and receptivity. It is generally those who distrust the Councils and the fathers (or who are unaware of them) who stumble over the Marian doctrines, and that is no accident. The attitude of faith is rewarded: "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." (Matthew 7:8) "For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him." (Matthew 13:12; 25:29) Those who approach the fathers and the Councils with distrust and skepticism, even what they have shall be taken away, for "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. (John 15:4) We need the stem and the roots of this vine which is the Body of Christ, and which extends through time to the incarnate Christ Himself. We have to come to Christ (and to the Church) like a child, with a childlike faith. If we come to the Church with a list of demands, or with a critical, skeptical, distrustful stance, we lack faith. "Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3-4)

Lord Jesus, please remove those stumbling blocks that stand in the way of the reunion of all Christians in full visible unity. Please give to us a childlike faith that is humble and receptive to You and your Church. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Mary, Queen of Peace

I wish to continue preparing for the Octave of Church Unity here by reflecting on Mary. At the third Ecumenical Council, in Ephesus in 431, the Church faced the heresy of Nestorianism. Nestorianism essentially includes the notion that Mary gave birth not to the divine Logos, but only to Christ (or Jesus). Nestorianism threatened to divide Christ into *two* persons (one, the human person Jesus, and the other, the divine Logos), reducing Mary to the mother of only the human person Jesus. The Catholic Church rejected Nestorianism as heretical, because Nestorianism opposes the truth of the incarnation (i.e. that God became man without ceasing to be God), and the incarnation is at the heart of the gospel. The Council taught that Christ was, is, and always will be only *one* divine Person, i.e. the eternal Logos. This fact, however, entailed that Mary is truly the mother of that one divine Person. The bishops, in response to the Nestorian heresy, all agreed that:

"If anyone will not confess that the Emmanuel is very God, and that therefore the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God (Theotokos), inasmuch as in the flesh she bore the Word of God made flesh [as it is written, "The Word was made flesh"]: let him be anathema."

To deny that Mary is the "Mother of God" is equivalent to denying either the deity of Christ, the humanity of Christ or the unity of the person of Christ. And all three of those denials are heresies, because all three of those denials undermine the incarnation, and thus undermine the gospel. The Church taught that because the Second Person of the Trinity is God, and since Mary is the mother of that Second Person of the Trinity, therefore, Mary is rightfully titled the "Mother of God". To deny that Mary is the "Mother of God" is thus to commit one of three possible heresies: (1) a form of Ebionism, i.e. denying that the child conceived within her and birthed by her was actually God, and/or (2) Docetism (or Gnostism), i.e. denying that God actually became human and was physically born, and/or (3) Nestorianism, i.e. denying that Christ is one divine person.

I have been in discussions with some Protestants who deny that Mary is the "Mother of God"; their reason for denying this is because this title is not in Scripture. They claim that calling Mary the "Mother of God" (and especially making it a dogma) is a Catholic addition to the gospel, something forbidden in Scripture (cf. Revelation 22:18), and 'corrupting' our minds "from the simplicity that is in Christ." (2 Corinthians 11:3) And this disagreement divides Catholics from those Protestants who make this claim (which, by the way, is not all Protestants). What is the underlying cause of this disagreement? It is, I think, a result of assuming that Scripture is an exhaustive and fully explicit revelation of the gospel; in other words, it is a result of holding one form of sola scriptura. In this way it fails to realize that the gospel can be attacked and undermined by denying propositions that are not explicitly found in Scripture. It also fails to realize that God gave an enduring magisterium to the Church by which to provide authoritative and binding pronouncements regarding such propositions, and in this way perpetually to preserve and clarify the gospel. (God always seems to use heresy to help the Church grow in her understanding of the gospel.)

There are three other Marian doctrines that are occasions for division between Christians. One is the perpetual virginity of Mary, which was affirmed at the fifth Ecumenical Council (553). Another is her immaculate conception (affirmed in 1854 by Pope Pius IX). And another is her assumption (affirmed in 1950 by Pope Pius XII). Many, if not most Protestants treat these doctrines just as some Protestants treat the title "Mother of God". (See, for example, my recent comments in this thread.) In order to overcome our disagreements about these doctrines, I think we have to step back from the doctrines themselves, if only briefly, and talk about the principled difference between a clarification (or development) on the one hand, and an addition on the other hand. Otherwise we will not know how to distinguish an addition from a genuine clarification. We also have to talk about who has the authority to determine such things. Is the third Ecumenical Council's statement about Mary being the "Mother of God" authoritative because it agrees with our own [or "my own"] interpretation of Scripture, or is it authoritative whether or not it agrees with our own interpretation of Scripture? (That is what I have called The Ecclesial Euthyphro.) If the latter, then on what grounds? Those who deny the existence of an enduring magisterial authority grounded in Apostolic succession through the successive laying on of hands have great difficulty with this question. They typically end up "painting a magisterial target around their interpretive arrow" (something that came up again recently here), rather than face and acknowledge the individualism intrinsic to a position that chooses one's authorities based on their agreement with oneself. (cf. 2 Timothy 4:3)

Since Mary is the Mother of God, and He is our Peace, it follows that Mary is the Mother of our Peace. This is in part why she is called the Queen of Peace, for He is also the Prince of Peace. Grace does not destroy nature, but builds upon it, and elevates it. Mary's biological relation to her Son as Mother (a relation which is also an ontological relation), is not diminished or laid aside, but enhanced and made perpetual by grace, just as the Logos taking on human nature does not diminish His humanity, but elevates it (and all humanity as well!). When Jesus said to John, "Behold, your mother", He was not speaking to John alone, but to all the Church. We are His Body, His brothers, and thus through our sacramental union with Christ she is also our sacramental Mother. (In another way, through our blood relation to Mary we are all blood relatives of Christ, for He received His humanity from her.)

But Jesus also said something to Mary. He said, "Woman, behold, your son." (John 19:26) Again, he was not merely commissioning Mary to care for John; He was commissioning Mary to care for the Mystical Body of her Son, i.e. the Church. She longs for and prays for the full visible unity of His Mystical Body, the Church. When Jesus said, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" (Acts 9:4), we see that in a way, the sword still pierces her soul. This too, in a way reveals the thoughts of many hearts. (Luke 2:35) How we relate to Mary can reveal whether we are rightly or wrongly conceiving Christ. Not only that, how we relate to Mary also changes the way we relate to Christ, just as the way we understand Mary reflects and changes how we understand Christ, as we saw above regarding Nestorianism. We cannot take Christ while rejecting His mother, or while belittling her or dishonoring her as though she were no better than ourselves. To love Christ is to love His mother for His sake, and honor her as our Mother. By reflecting on Mary as "Mother of God", and "Queen of Peace", we see that the unity and peace of the Church cannot be something that is achieved apart from her motherly love and compassion. How could the peace of the Body of Christ be achieved apart from the fiat of the Queen of Peace? Her fiat has been elevated into the heavenly realm, and forms the supplication to the Father by which Her Son our Peace, through the Church, is revealed to us, and thereby reveals the thoughts of many, to be either for her Son, or to be in opposition to Him (Matthew 12:30; Luke 11:23), for it is through the Church that the secrets of our hearts are laid bare (1 Corinthians 14:24). To achieve full visible unity, not only do we need to be united doctrinally about Mary, we need to be united in loving devotion to Mary.

Pray for us, Mary our mother, that our sad divisions may cease, and that we may be truly one, for the glory of your Son.