Meaning of the Marian Dogmas and their Relevancy
Introduction
A True understanding and meaning of
the Marian Dogmas can be realized only after making a sincere effort to know
what the Dogmas say and how meaningful they are to us towards growing in Christian
Faith. To get a clear picture about the
place and role of Mary in our salvation history, we need to make an analysis of
what the Sacred Scriptures, tradition and the Church teach about the person of
Mary.
This also will help us to deepen our
love for Mary the mother of God and grow closer and closer to the Father,
realizing His Will in our lives. The
following summary presents in gist what the Church say about Mary and how the
Marian Dogmas are relevant today for all the youth to grow in faith.
The
Person Of Mary
To
answer to some of the basic questions faced by students today - like who is
Mary? To what extent is she the mother of God?
People call her virgin mother of God?
Is it possible? To what degree is she free from sin? How was she prepared to be the mother of God?
- will make us understand the true person of Mary.
The
scripture presents very little on Mary, but still gives the basis for her
inevitable role in the history of salvation of man. The understanding of Mary
gradually grows in the scriptures. Paul
presents her as “Women”, Mark highlights her primacy of discipleship, Matthew
focuses on Mary as the Mother of God and Luke treats her as the first disciple
and finally John presents her as the Mother of the Disciple – “Women, behold your
son … Son behold your mother”.
Tradition
clarifies the person of Mary in clear terms as Church defines the true person
of Mary upholding her role in the salvific plan of God and answers through
dogmas to the various heresies that cropped up in relation to the person of
Mary.
The
personhood of Mary is very much related to the personhood of the Saviour Jesus
Christ. It is the pre-destined plan of
God that Mary be preserved from original sin.
God has preserved her by sanctifying grace, which was mentioned at the
annunciation by Gabriel in words “Hail Full Of Grace”. The freedom from loss of Virginity at
conception, at the birth of Jesus and freedom from decay of her body and death
are the privileges of Mary being the mother of God.
The Dogma of Mary the Mother Of God
Motherhood
is the relationship between persons. Hence Before we try to understand the
Motherhood of Mary we need to focus our attention on the mystery of Christ as
God and Man. Jesus is the Second person
in the Trinity and has Divine nature.
And it is to this Divine PERSON Mary gave birth and added human
nature. The Person of Jesus has two
natures and two wills as He is God and Man born of Mary. The priority must be
given to the Person who took initiative and not the nature, which is a
by-product. We must make a clear
distinction between Person and nature.
The person of Jesus is what he is from all eternity and here he has
divine nature. The same Person of Jesus
existing from all eternity takes the human nature in Mary. And it is to this Person that Mary gives
birth and not just to his human nature, when she accepted to be the mother of
God at the Annunciation. Hence Mary is
the mother of the divine person, Jesus, thus truly the mother of God.
When we
compare with our ordinary life parents give the child a body, a human nature
but the soul is created by God and joined to the body to make it a human
Person. Here in this case we do not call
mother as the mother of the body, which is in human nature but we rather call
the mother of the person. In the same way Mary also gave only the (body) human
nature to Jesus but still she gave birth to Jesus the Son of God. Hence in
reality she is the mother of the person of Jesus. In the year 431 the council of Ephesus
declared Mary to be Teotokos, Mother of God.
The
foundation of all the privileges of Mary, the freedom from loss of Virginity at
conception, at the birth of Jesus and freedom from decay of her body and death
are from her divine motherhood.
The Dogma of Immaculate Conception
“The
virgin was preserved from all stains of original sin” Vat (2,59).
The dogma of Immaculate Conception can only be
properly understood in the light of God’s initiative to select Mary form the
very beginning to be the mother of the Word and had taken infinite care to
bring her to a life endowed with all graces, thus making her free from original
sin. God who takes the human form cannot
be born of a women with stain of sin. “Sin and God cannot dwell in the same
person at the same time”. As salvation
was necessary for Mary also, God uses the merits of the future messiah and
created a soul for Mary who was conceived in the ordinary way of nature by the
union of her father and mother, and fulfilled it with Grace and freed,
preserved her from original sin, as original sin is the result of lack of grace
in the soul. Thus Mary was filled with
supernatural life from the very moment of her existence in the womb. Mary was prepared to be the dwelling place of
His Son.
John Scott explains it as a preventive method
of God to free and preserve Mary from Original sin. by giving her a soul filled
with grace, as without grace she would be in original sin. He says what is
future for us is present for God, hence He could by the merits of the death of
Jesus frees his mother even from original sin, although his son was not yet
born nor even conceived. God has the
power and he did it in preventing Mary from original sin.
The Main point of the dogma as declared by
Pope Pius IX in 1854 can be stated as “At the very moment of the conception of
Mary because of the merits of Jesus Christ, she was free from every stain of
original sin and her soul was filled with special grace of God”
The
Dogma On Virginity of Mary
The mystery of Virginity has to be
understood at three levels namely, the Virginity of the body, Virginity of the
mind and Virginity of the heart. Since Mary was freed form original sin there
were no disturbances to her sexual appetite or disorder in her bodily organs as
is in the heritage of any one born in original sin. The virginity of her mind is clearly
expressed in her response to the angel “ How will this happen to me”. The virginity of the heart is to be free from
inordinate desires for pleasures. Only Mary could have this virginity of heart
in its fullness as her heart beats together with the heart of God the Father,
in her divine son and in the eternal love of the Spirit as she found the
fullness of love in perpetuity.
The only aim of Mary in life was to
be a loving mother to her son, she kept her virginity to the end. The very idea of virginity and celibacy in
the church came from Mary. Its ultimate
motive is to live for Christ. The controversies
about the virginity of Mary are mainly due to the improper knowledge and
understanding of the expressions in Hebrew language. On the perpetual virginity of Mary, through
the Lateran Council in 649 the church teaches that Mary remained a virgin
before her conception, during conception and after conception. Hence her virginity was preserved at the
birth of Jesus as well as after the birth of Jesus. Therefore she was truly a virgin and truly a
mother and remained always a virgin.
The
Dogma of the Assumption of Mary
As Mary was preserved from
original sin she was free from all punishments. The Church believes that "The
immaculate virgin, preserved from all stain of original sin was taken up body
and soul into heavenly glory, when her earthly life was over and exulted by the
lord as queen over all things that she might be the more fully conformed to her
son, the Lord of Lords and conqueror of sin and death."
The privileges of Mary being the
Mother of God also cover the aspect of Mary being freed from death, and freedom
from the decay of he body which definitely support the dogma of the Assumption
of Mary as she was prevented from original sin,
would certainly prove that her body was preserved. Pope Pius XII in munificentiss pmus Dues(most
benevolent God) in1950 declares that
“Mary, when she finished her earthly course was taken up to heaven both in body
and soul…”.
Conclusion
To draw a conclusion to the
understanding of all the dogmas and their relevancy in the light of the
discipleship of Mary, we can say that they present Mary as the perfect model of
for a disciple to present Christ to the World, - which she did at incarnation-
to be sinless, to be with the Lord and to be committed to the Lord and thus to
imitate Mary the Type of the disciple and the Church.
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