Lesson #1

Growing up I knew there was something about Mary but what I exactly did not know. I did not understand why we Catholics put so much emphasis on Mary. I learned in the seminary that Mary was more important to understanding our Catholic faith than what I was giving her credit for. Part of the reason why I had such trouble with Mary was that I was under the impression that people who were highly devoted to Mary were way too emotional and not very logical. As I learned more and more about our Catholic faith the more I have come to understand that the Catholic Church’s teaching including her teaching on Mary is grounded in sound logic and not emotions.

In my opinion the first and most important title of our Blessed Mother is “Theotokos.” The word “Theotokos” means God bearer or as more popularly translated “Mother of God.” It may be hard for us to believe that there was actually debate in the early Church about to whether or not we could apply the title “Theotokos” to Mary. The debate though was not so much about the role of Mary in the Incarnation but rather what exactly was the “Incarnation” how and to what extent did God and man become one? There were some early in the Church who were led by a bishop named Nestorius who believed that there was no unity between “God part” of Jesus and the “human part” of Jesus. Therefore according to Nestorius you could say that the “human part” of Jesus was born of Mary but not the “God part” of Jesus. The Church rejected this disunity in Jesus because it would mean that God was using the “human part” of Jesus in a sense fake his own death for the “God part” of Jesus according to the Nestorian way of thinking would be unable to suffer and die. The Church affirming that Mary was both the mother of the “God part” of Jesus and the “human part” of Jesus by declaring her the “Theotokos” proclaimed that God really did join with man in such a way that it allowed God to die for us. I hope that the above paragraph made some sense to you. I know I could write for months on this subject and never explain it clearly. The main point I was hoping you got from the preceding is that Marian titles help us come to a better understanding of who Jesus Christ is.

Marian doctrine (what the Church teaches about Mary) because it helps us understand the mystery of the Incarnation must therefore be grounded in solid theology. Scott Hahn in his book Hail Holy Queen: The Mother of God in the Word of God goes one step more and declares that Marian doctrine helps us understand the mystery of the Trinity itself.

All Mariology, all Marian devotion, must begin with solid theology and firm credal faith. For all that Mary does, and all that she is, flows from her relationship with God and her correspondence to His divine plan. She is His mother. She is His spouse. She is His daughter. She is His handmaid. We cannot begin to know her if we do not, first have clear notions about Him—about God, His providence, and His dealings with His people.

Mary had a unique relationship with God but it is one that we should imitate. Now none of us can be exactly like Mary but we should look up to her in a similar way that children look up and try to imitate Albert Pujols. For a kid today considers Albert Pujols the best in the game and desires to be just like him and we Christians should desire to be like Mary the best ever in the game of salvation (except for Jesus).

Mary was first of all the daughter of God the Father. She was a creature like you and me. She had free will like you and me but she chose not to seek any glory other that of being a child of God. Her humbleness and childlike trust is something each one of us should imitate in our relationship with our Creator with our Heavenly Father. She was the mother of Jesus, she brought God literally to others. We are called to bring Christ to others. Mary was the spouse of the Holy Spirit in a way since it was through the Holy Spirit that she conceived the Son of God. We are called to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to bring life into the world. While it will not be as miraculous as Mary the more we open up to the Spirit the more life we will have within us.

Discussion Questions
1. What are some of your feelings about the Blessed Virgin Mary and her role in the Church?
2. What are some of the things that you have heard people say abut the Blessed Virgin Mary's role in the Church? Both good and bad
3. What connection is there between the titles of Mary and what they tell us about Jesus?
4. What do you think of Mary's title of being "Theotokos?
5. What does Mary teach us about the Holy Trinity?

Lesson #2

Welcome back to Mariology 101. One of the problems that people of good faith have when it comes to Mary is that there is not much material in the Bible concerning her directly. There seems to be only a few places where she is mentioned at all. The truth of the matter is though that the Bible is filled with information about Mary if one only knows where and how to look.

As Catholics when we read the Bible we do so on at least two levels. We read it first on the historical/literal level to see what the passage says directly but we also read it on a spiritual level. What does this passage tells us about Jesus Christ? In praying the Scripture it is good for example to see how God worked in the story of Joseph being sold into slavery only to rise to a high place in the Egyptian government and save people from famine, it is good to see how God delivered His people from physical slavery in Egypt, and to listen to the prophets tell the people about a better time to come after their exile is over with. On the other hand there is much more to these passages. We see in the story of Joseph a foreshadowing of Jesus being sold by Judas only to be elevated to not to a new position of human power but rather eternal life. We see in Moses a foretaste of Jesus saving us not from physical slavery but from our slavery to sin. We see in the story of the prophets a glimpse of the better life in heaven that Jesus won for us after our earthly exile is over with.

We refer to the Old Testament figures and events that foreshadow something in the New Testament “types”. These types never 100% foreshadow the future event completely for we believe that these Old Testament types are fulfilled in the New Testament events. We also believe that just as there are Old Testament types for Jesus that there are Old Testament Types for Mary.

We refer to Mary in our Church as the “New Eve,” because like Eve Mary was kind of a new beginning. Also like Eve, we believe Mary was sinless. This is important for us to consider because it is a reminder to us that Mary could have said “no.” We sometimes think that because Mary was sinless she had to say “yes” to God and this is simply not true. Like Eve, Mary’s decision had an effect on the whole world.

One of the most interesting types of Mary is the woman Jael from the Book of Judges. When Mary meets Elizabeth, Elizabeth greets her with the words “Blessed are you among women,” but Mary is not the first woman in the Bible to be referred to as “blessed among women”. In the Book of Judges, a woman named Jael (Judges 5&6) is called “blessed among women”. What did Jael do to earn such a title? Would you believe it was because she took a tent stake and ran it through a guy’s head? Well, that is what the Book of Judges tells us. When reading the Book of Judges, we must remember to read it in the spiritual sense, because I am pretty sure that God does not want us running tent stakes through people’s heads. Each of the evil kings (and kingdoms) in the Old Testament represent to us sin and so in a spiritual sense we celebrate Jael because she undeniably defeated evil, crushing it and in a similar way we believe that Mary’s “yes” was the definitive end to evil because her “yes” brought forth our savior. She made it possible for God and man to be reunited again. Often Mary is pictured as stomping on the head of a serpent to show that she through her “yes” to God crushed evil. When we give a complete “yes” to God, when we drive a tent stake through the sin in our life we to crush evil. (No compromise).

I hope that you are able to see how much the Old Testament helps us understand the New Testament. I also hope you can begin to also see where the Church gets a lot of their information about Mary from and that it is Scripturally sound. If you are interested in learning more about the types of Mary in the Old Testament, I recommend you stay tune and/or check out Scott Hahn’s Book Hail Holy Queen: The Mother of God in the Word of God.

Discussion Questions
1. Can you give some other examples of Old Testament types for Jesus?
2. How do you feel about the idea of "typology" when reading the Bible?
3. What do you think about Jael being called "Blessed Among Women?"
4. How does Mary compare with Eve?
5. Do you have any other thoughts on the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament?

Lesson #3

Continuing with our crash course in Mariology, I want to begin with addressing the issue of Jesus’ brothers and sisters and then move onto two more important types of Mary from the Old Testament. The Catholic Church 100% believes that Jesus had no brothers and sisters from Mary. Did he after step-brothers or step-sisters through Joseph? Maybe, but I personally do not believe so. I think that it is more likely that Jesus’ so called brothers and sisters were really his cousins. I think Scott Hahn explains it very well:

This is virtually a non-issue for anyone who has a glancing familiarity with Hebrew customs. The Hebrew word for “brother” is a more inclusive term, applying to cousins as well. In fact, in ancient Hebrew there is no word for cousin. To a Jew of Jesus’ time, one’s cousin was one’s brother. This familial principle applied in other Semitic languages as well, such Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke. Furthermore, precisely because Jesus was an only child, His cousins would even assume the legal status of siblings for Him, as they were His nearest relatives. Finally, the word “first born” raises no real difficulty, because it was a legal term in ancient Israel that applied to the child who “opened the womb,” whether or not the mother bore more children after-wards.

Moving on, one of my least favorite titles of Mary growing up was Mary “Queen of Heaven.” I grew up with the idea that if Mary was made queen by God that she was now somewhat His equal. From my studies in school and from reading books by Scott Hahn and Fulton Sheen, I have learned that my idea of what a “queen” was wrong. I had a very medieval European idea of what a queen was, what I needed was a Jewish sense of what a queen was. In Medieval Europe the queen was the wife of the king but in ancient Israel the king had many wives. For example King Solomon had over 100 wives (poor man), but he only had one mother. Therefore the true queen in the Jewish sense was not the wife of the king but rather his mother. Mary therefore is not queen because she was equal to God the Father but because she was the mother of the Son of God. Another key to Mary’s title is that in ancient Israel, when one needed a pardon, one would go to the queen mother and ask her to intercede on your behalf to the king. Can you imagine yourself as an ancient Israelite convicted of a crime asking the queen mother to intercede on your behalf even up to the moment of your execution? Does this not bring the closing of the Hail Mary into a more dramatic focus? Pray for us sinners (intercede for us guilty people) now and at the hour of death.

One of my most favorite images of Mary is that she is the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant was a special box designed by God that the Israelites carried around through the dessert as a symbol of God’s presence. Inside the Ark of the Covenant was the 10 Commandments, a jar or manna, and Moses’ shepherd staff. Mary carried within her womb Jesus who is the New Law of Love, the Bread of Live, and the Good Shepherd leading us into freedom. Once again Mary tells us more about who Jesus is.

I will finish today with one last thought. With all the effort that God put into choosing t time and place that He would be born, do you think that He would not have put such effort into choosing His mother?

Discussion Questions
1. What are your thoughts about the question of Jesus having biological brothers and sisters?
2. What are your feelings in referring to Mary as the Queen of Heaven before you read this lesson and now afterwards?
3. Why do we as Catholics pray to Mary?
4. How is Mary like the Old Testament Ark of the Covenant?
5. How much planning do you think God put into the Incarnation?

Lesson #4

As we conclude our crash course in Mariology, I want to focus on two Marian dogmas that for some reason seem to give all Catholics trouble despite the fact that we celebrate them as Holy Days of Obligation.

The first one is the Marian dogma of the Immaculate Conception. If you would ask 100 Catholics what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was, I would bet that 90% or higher would say that it was the moment that Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit conceived Jesus in her womb and they would be wrong. The Immaculate Conception states that Mary herself was conceived without original sin.

First and foremost, let me state that Mary, was human like all of us, and was in need of redemption just like you and me. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception in no way declares that Mary was in no need of a redeemer. What the doctrine teaches us was that Jesus took the grace of redemption – the grace of the paschal mystery, and applied it to Mary at the moment of her conception and not at the moment of Jesus’ resurrection. I hope this image helps. A few years ago my brothers and sisters wanted to get my mom an oven for Christmas but we did not know how to gift wrap it. Honestly, we wanted her to pick it out so instead we bought my mom gift cards. My mom therefore received the gift of the oven before it was paid for. Mary received the gift of salvation before Christ paid the price for it on the cross. How could He do it? He could because He is God and time has no value or constraint on Him. We believe that Mary was kept clean of original sin so that she could be the proper home for the Lord. This should inspire us to keep our souls clean as we receive the Lord each week in the Eucharist.

The second teaching is that Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven. I want to make it clear that the Church does not say one way or the other as to whether this happened before or after a physical death. One theologian said in a pod cast that the early Church referred to Mary as simply falling asleep and awakening to new life. Since there was no sin in her, there was no separation for her from God and so she simple moved past this world into the next. Physical proof for this early doctrine of the Church is that no one ever claimed to have a relic of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We can’t go to Rome and see her finger; we can’t go to the holy land and see her body. For a culture that was as excited over relics as people are over artifacts from celebrities it is amazing that if Mary had not been assumed into heaven body and soul that not one church claimed to have Mary’s body. Mary’s assumption reminds each of us that we believe in the resurrection of the body and so we have an obligation to take care of our body just as much as our soul. The Assumption also reminds us that we are all called to something higher.

Discussion Questions
1. What is the Immaculate Conception?
2. What are your thoughts about Mary being sinless? Does this mean that she could not have sinned or just chose not to?
3. What is the assumption?
4. Why do you think the Church celebrates the Feast of the Assumption?
5. What are you going to do to learn more about the Blessed Virgin Mary?