Download Mary as the second Ark of the Covenant Ark of the Covenant

 Mary as the second Ark of the Covenant
Both Luke and John make several allusions to signify that Mary is the
second Ark of the Covenant:
• Overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. When Luke records the
story of the Annunciation and the visit to Elizabeth, he is
aiming to dramatically drive the point home to his audience
that Mary is not just some girl. Mary is the New Ark of the
Covenant—the extremely holy earthly focal point of the New
Covenant, just as the Ark was the extremely holy earthly focal
point of the Old Covenant! That’s why he records the words of
the Archangel that the Holy Spirit will “overshadow” Mary
using the same Greek word—episkiasei—that is used in the
Greek version of the Old Testament to describe how the glory of
God overshadowed the Tabernacle and Temple where the Ark was kept.
Luke 1; Exodus 40:35; 1 Kings 8:10
• How can the Lord come to me? Luke notes that both David and
Elizabeth use the same language to greet the Old and New Arks:
• And David was afraid of the Lord that day; and he said,
“How can the ark of the Lord come to me?” (2 Samuel 6:9).
• And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord
should come to me? (Luke 1:43).
• The significance of three months. In 2 Samuel, the Ark of the
Covenant is recorded as having remained for three months in the hill
country after its return from the land of the Philistines. We are told,
“David arose and went” to the hill country of Judah “to bring up from
there the ark of God” (2 Samuel 6:2) and the ark of the Lord remained
in the house of Obededom the Gittite for three months, and the Lord
blessed Obededom and his whole house. Not accidentally, Luke notes
that Mary “arose and went to the hill country of Judah” (Luke 1:39)
where she remained with Elizabeth for “three months.”
2 Samuel 6:11
Luke 1:56
Ark of the Covenant
I
N Exodus 25:8–22, God gave specific instructions
to Moses about how he wanted the Israelites to
make a special sanctuary for him so that he could
dwell in their midst. He gave specific instructions
on how he wanted the Ark of the Covenant, the
tabernacle, and other furnishings to be constructed.
The Ark of the Covenant was the holiest object in
ancient Israel because it contained the tablets of the
Ten Commandments, a relic of the manna from
the desert, and Aaron’s rod, which was the symbol
of his priestly office. The Ark was a visible sign of
God’s presence and protection, and presided over
all the journeys of the Israelites during their wandering life in the wilderness.
3
attacks by “that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan”
(Revelation 12:9), and notes that after failing to destroy the Child:
. . . the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off
to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who
keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to
Jesus. (Revelation 12:17)
That offspring would be you and me and anybody else who is baptized
into Jesus. How does John know this? Because Jesus told him so with
his dying breath when he gave Mary to John, and to us, as our Mother.
John 19:26–27
Mary as the Mother of the Church and the Second Eve
Jesus gives us Mary as our Mother.
John carefully preserves this scene from the crucifixion:
Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s
sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When
Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing
near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then
he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that
hour the disciple took her to his own home. (John 19:25–27)
John is not simply interested in chatting about first-century Palestinian
domestic arrangements for widows. As with all the details from his Gospel,
this scene also is written down for a theological purpose: “that you may
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you
may have life in his name” (John 20:31). The purpose is pretty clear here. Just
as Jesus is the parallel of Adam, so Mary is the parallel of Eve (whose name
means “mother of the living”).
1 Corinthians 15:45
Church Father’s agreed that Mary was the New Eve. Irenaeus, who was a disciple of
Polycarp, who had heard the Apostle John with his own ears, tells us that Mary:
being obedient, was made the cause of salvation for herself and for the
whole human race. . . . Thus, the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed
by the obedience of Mary. What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief,
the Virgin Mary loosed through faith.
—Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, 3, 22, 4 (A.D. 189)
The Fall and Redemption involved both man and woman.
In short, as the Fall was a social sin that involved both man and woman, so the
redemption is social as well. As Jesus is the second Adam for the writers of the
New Testament, so Mary is linked with Eve as the one who was graced to undo
woman’s contribution to the Fall. For as Irenaeus notes, she chose the opposite
of Eve: She chose to say yes to God. In so doing, Mary became the true
“Mother of all the living” in union with the second Adam, in contrast to Eve
who became the “Mother of all the dying” in union with the first Adam.
CCC 410–11
5
The Five Key Things the Church
Says About Mary
The Catholic Church points out five key facts about Mary as particularly important:
•
•
•
•
Mary was a virgin when she conceived Jesus.
Mary remained a virgin all her life.
Mary is the Mother of God.
Mary was Immaculately Conceived and remained sinless,
by the grace of Christ.
• Mary was assumed into heaven.
It is worth asking, “Since there are so many things that might be said
about Mary, why are these things emphasized by the Church?”
The answer is that these truths about the Blessed Virgin serve to highlight
particularly important truths about God and about our relationship to him.
In other words, the paradox of the Church’s teaching about Mary is that it
is not really about Mary. It is always about Jesus and/or us.
Mary was a virgin when she conceived Jesus.
The virgin birth was not a sort of divine stunt.
The reality is that the virginity of Mary was a sign, not a stunt. Stunts
merely draw attention, but do little beyond “Hey!” Yet, Jesus’ Virgin Birth
drew no attention at the time it took place. But signs—and especially
divine signs—are filled with meaning. That is, signs signify. So the question
becomes, “What did the virginity of Mary signify?” And the answer of the
Catholic Tradition is that it signifies crucial things, both about the “person
of Christ and his redemptive mission,” and about “the welcome Mary gave
that mission on behalf of all men.” And since this sign goes on signifying long
after the birth of Jesus, it is appropriate, fitting, and significant on a permanent
basis, which is why her virginity is perpetual.
CCC 502
The virgin birth shows that God initiated our salvation.
The first thing the virginity of Mary does is make clear that the entire process
of saving us began as God’s initiative, not ours. That is why the Catechism of
the Catholic Church teaches:
Mary’s virginity manifests God’s absolute initiative in the
Incarnation. Jesus has only God as Father. “He was never
estranged from the Father because of the human nature which
he assumed. . . . He is naturally Son of the Father as to his divinity
and naturally son of his mother as to his humanity, but properly
Son of the Father in both natures.” (CCC 503)
9
Mary was Immaculately Conceived and remained sinless.
“Hail, Full of Grace.” Another example of the way the faith of the Church
appears in mustard-seed form in Scripture and is only unpacked later is seen
in the Church’s teaching that:
CCC 490–93
The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her
conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and
by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race,
preserved immune from all stain of original sin.1
In Scripture, the mustard-seed way of saying this is found in the words of the
archangel Gabriel: “Hail, Full of Grace, the Lord is with you!” (Luke 1:28).
Note that Gabriel calls her, not by her name, but by a title. Subsequently, the
Church began to unpack the meaning of that title as one Christian after
another recorded the faith of the Church that Mary never sinned in any way.
Testimony to this is found in many early Church fathers and, of course, it naturally raises questions:
• How can Mary be without sin when the Bible says clearly that “All have
sinned?” (Romans 3:23) The answer of the Church is that Paul is speaking
in a general sense, not with mathematical precision. After all, if “all”
means “every last individual human being without any exception whatsoever” then that includes Jesus, which is absurd. Likewise, Paul himself
recognizes that, for instance, unborn infants have not sinned. Similarly, Paul
elsewhere states that “God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he
may have mercy upon all” (Romans 11:32). Just as Paul does not mean that
every last individual will necessarily be saved, so he does not mean that every
last individual has sinned. He knows that Jesus and Mary have not sinned.
Romans 9:11
• If Mary never sinned, then how can Jesus be the Savior of all? Would that
mean that Mary does not need the saving grace of Jesus? On the contrary,
it means that Mary shares more fully than anyone else in the saving grace
of Jesus. That is why she herself sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46–47). For the Church
teaches that the Immaculate Conception is a singular gift, given by Christ,
to Mary. It is because of him that she is sinless.
• If Mary was without sin, she would be equal to God. God created Adam, Eve,
and the angels without sin, but they have never been equal to God. Nor is
Mary. Rather it is by God’s grace alone that she was conceived without sin to
allow her to be a pure vessel that would bring Christ into the world.
The early Church had little problem with the teaching that Mary was sinless.
Even St. Augustine, who boldly defended the teaching of Scripture that sin
infects the whole human race because of the fall of Adam, also made it clear
that this was true of everybody “except the Holy Virgin Mary, of whom, for the
honour of the Lord, I will have no question whatever where sin is concerned”
(De natura et gratia 36). In short, it was commonplace that:
Romans 6
• everybody is a sinner because of Adam, and
• Mary was sinless.
1
Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus, 1854.
13
The two ways Christ saves us from sin.
There are two ways medicine saves us
from disease:
• curative and
• preventative.
One way to defeat disease is to get a penicillin shot when
you have an infection and then get well. But with preventative medicine, it is possible to prevent somebody from ever
contracting the disease. The same is true of sin.
And so Mary, according to the Church, was saved from all
sin by Christ. In her, Christ displays what the absolute
fullness of salvation from sin looks like: not mere curative
medicine, but perfect preventative medicine.
Genesis 1:26–27
CCC 355–57, 374–75, 399–400
CCC 705
CCC 490–91
Sin is never natural.
The reason this matters for us is seen more clearly when
people try to deny this teaching. Almost invariably they
say things like, “But Mary must be a sinner! After all, she’s
human!” Note the underlying assumption that “human” = “sin.” This is exactly
what the Church denies. Rather we believe as Scripture says: “God created
man in his own image, in the image of God he created him” (Genesis 1:27). If
being human is equal to being sinful, then Jesus Christ would be sinful since he
is perfectly human. But in fact, sin, while normal, is never natural. Indeed, sin
is what destroys nature, including human nature. It is what severs us from our
true humanity and our true destiny of union and intimacy with God. It is
when we are striving to avoid sin and live holy and faith-filled lives in cooperation with God’s grace that we are more closely living as God intended.
In 1854, the Immaculate Conception became an article of faith.
The Church long taught the sinlessness of Mary. Yet, in 1854, the Church was
moved by the Holy Spirit to declare the Immaculate Conception an article of
faith that must be held by all the faithful. Why? For centuries, the Holy See
had been petitioned to define the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception
because the vast majority of Catholics already believed it and wanted to see the
Church define it as a sort of love letter to her.
Examination by bishops, cardinals, and theologians. Pius IX set up special con-
gregation of cardinals and theologians to study the matter and also sent a letter
to all the bishops in the world asking them to pray and give him their view of
whether or not he should define the Immaculate Conception as dogma. The
positive response was overwhelming.
14
Defined out of love for Mary. Usually the Church defines a doctrine because it
is under attack in some way. So, for instance, as we saw with the Theotokos, it
was a “grassroots” acclamation that Nestorius tried to stamp out, so the Church
defended it by declaring it an official title for Mary. The interesting thing is that
the Church was primarily motivated by love for Mary, not by warfare with
heresy, in defining the Immaculate Conception. The basic reason given by Pius
IX for the definition of the doctrine was that “the opportune time had come” for
this doctrinal love letter to Mary.
And yet, in the “inscrutable design of Providence,” the dogma did indeed end
up serving as an antidote to poisonous ideas of the nineteenth century that
would constitute the largest intellectual assault on the dignity and origin of the
human person in history.
Nineteenth-century attacks on the dignity and origin of the human person.
Darwin said the human person was an unusually clever piece of meat whose
origins were as accidental as a pig’s nose. Marx said humans were mere ingredients in a vast economic historical process. Laissez-faire capitalism saw people
as natural resources to be exploited and thrown away when they lost their value.
Eugenics said human dignity rested on “fitness.” Much of Protestantism declared
humans “totally depraved,” while much of the Enlightenment held up the
myth of Human Innocence, the Noble Savage, and the notion of human
perfectibility through Reason. Racial theory advanced the notion that the
key to human dignity was the shape of your skull, the color of your skin,
and your membership in the Aryan or Teutonic tribes. Freud announced
that a person’s illusion of human dignity was just a veil over fathomless
depths of unconscious processes largely centering in the groin or emerging
out of issues with Mommy and Daddy.
The Church holds up Mary as an icon of our true origin and dignity.
All these ideologies and many others had in common the degrading
rejection of human beings as creatures made in the image of God and
intended for union with God. In contrast to them all, the Church, by
declaring the Immaculate Conception as an article of faith in 1854, held
up the icon of Mary Immaculate, and thus held up an icon of both our
true origin and our true dignity.
Made in the image of God.
What needed to be said loud and clear was that we were made in the
image of God and that our fallenness, though very real, does not name or
define us: Jesus Christ does. We are not mere animals, statistical averages, cogs
in a machine, sophisticated primordial ooze, or a jangling set of complexes,
appetites, tribal totems, Aryan supermen, naturally virtuous savages or totally
depraved Mr. Hydes. We were made by God, for God.
Mary was the biggest recipient of grace.
Sin, though normal, is not natural and does not constitute our humanity. The
proof of it was Mary, who was preserved from sin and yet was more human than
the lot of us. She was not autonomously innocent, as though she could make it
without God. She was the biggest recipient of grace in the universe, a grace that
made her, in a famous phrase, “younger than sin.” Because of it, she was free to
be what Irenaeus described as “the glory of God:” a human being fully alive.
Genesis 1:26–27
CCC 362–64
CCC 411, 492
15
Mary was assumed into heaven.
Early Church feasts mark places of extremely deep ancient belief.
The recognition that Mary was a Cosmic Heavenly Figure is as old as Revelation 12.
By the fourth century, the Church was celebrating a feast
called the “Dormition (Falling Asleep) of Mary,” which
recalled not merely her death, but the tradition that she
was taken up into Heaven after her death. This is notable
because feasts in the early Church are like the tips of icebergs. When a feast is promulgated—and particularly
when it is promulgated with very little controversy as the
Feast of the Dormition was—that is a very strong sign that
the feast celebrates something that everybody took for
granted. The more widespread and taken for granted a
teaching is, the more likely it is regarded this way because
its origins are ancient and apostolic.
No controversy for the first sixteen centuries
of the Church.
Even early Protestants such as Luther believed in the
Assumption of Mary. They believed in the other Marian
teachings as well. But with the rise of the notion of “sola
Scriptura” (Scripture alone), many Protestants eventually
rejected not only this, but many other traditional Christian beliefs. The
Catholic Church, however, continued to hold to the apostolic teaching that
apostolic tradition comes to us in both written and unwritten form. It is
through Apostolic Tradition that we know which books belong in the Bible,
how to contract a valid marriage, what the seven sacraments are, that God is a
Trinity of three divine Persons—and that Mary was assumed into heaven.
2 Thessalonians 2:15
The Assumption of Mary became an article of faith in 1950.
It is interesting to note that Mary’s Assumption, though a prominent feature
of Christian belief for nearly 2,000 years, was not made a required belief for
Catholics until 1950. Again the question arises: Why did the Church
There are no relics of Mary.
pick that moment to emphasize this teaching? And again, the answer
is: Consider the times in which the Church chose to dogmatically
T IS ALSO worth noting that despite
declare that:
the fact that relics were avidly collected from very early in the Church’s
history, there has never been a time or
The Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary,
place where anyone claimed the relics
having completed the course of her earthly life, was
of Mary, further supporting the belief
assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.2
that she was assumed into heaven.
I
2
16
Pope Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus, 1950.
Mary’s Assumption reminds us of who we are
and what we are meant to become.
The intellectual assault on the dignity and origins
of the human person bore abundant fruit in the
twentieth century. As Pius XII put it, the twentieth
century gave birth to “very severe calamities” that
took place “by reason of the fact that many have
strayed away from truth and virtue.”3 In other
words, ideas have consequences and the ideas of the
nineteenth century had disastrous consequences
for the twentieth. So, once again, in 1950, in the
middle of the century that witnessed the biggest
assault on the dignity and destiny of the human
person that the world has ever seen—two world
wars, the Holocaust, millions killed under communism, dehumanization in the West, abortion, nuclear weapons, and the culture
of death—the Holy Spirit guided the Church to hold up Mary as an icon of
who we really are and who we are meant to become. It called us to look up with
love and to reject the insistence of the false philosophies that insisted we came
from chaos, were destined for chaos, and lived solely by warfare between race,
class, and gender.
By defining this dogma the Church hoped that the faithful would:
• Strengthen their piety toward their heavenly Mother,
• Increase their love for other members in the Mystical Body of Christ,
• Be more convinced about the value of human life in fulfilling God’s will
and bringing good to others,
• Recognize the lofty goal to which our bodies and souls are destined, and
• Make our belief in our own resurrection stronger and more effective.4
“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on
earth.” (Colossians 3:2). The Church is saying here that our destiny is not to be
the oven, the mass grave, the abortuary, the anonymity of the factory, the
brothel, the cubicle, or the street. It is supposed to be for us, as it already is for
her, the ecstatic glory of complete union with the Triune God in eternity. Once
again, God shows us something vital about our relationship to himself through
her, his greatest saint. By more closely coming to know Mary, she in turn shows
us how to grow closer to God.
3
4
Ibid.
Ibid.
17
The Rosary
The Church is full of various devotions to the Blessed Virgin that lead us in prayer
and contemplation to help us to grow in our relationship with Mary and Jesus.
Mary, as our heavenly Mother, through her example and prayer, helps us better
understand our roles as disciples of Christ her son and thus grow into even closer
union with him. Perhaps the greatest Marian devotion is the Holy Rosary. The
Rosary is a form of prayer and meditation on the life of Jesus as it is experienced,
first in Mary’s life and, by extension, in ours. It is comprised of several prayers
broken into twenty “decades” in which we meditate on twenty “mysteries” in the life
of Mary and Jesus. The “mysteries” of the rosary become ‘a compendium of the
Gospel’ ” focusing on “the Incarnation and the hidden life of
Christ (the joyful mysteries), . . . the sufferings of his passion
(the sorrowful mysteries), . . . the triumph of his Resurrection
(the glorious mysteries), . . . [and the] significant moments in
his public ministry (the mysteries of light).”11
Prayers of the Rosary
For each decade:
• Recite the Glory Be
• Fatima Prayer
(optional)
• Glory Be
• Fatima Prayer
(optional)
← • Announce
the Mystery
• Our Father
• Announce and reflect
on the Mystery
• Pray the Our Father
• Recite 10 Hail Marys
← • Hail Mary
(on each bead)
At the end: →
• Hail Holy Queen
Rosary Prayer
•
•
←•
•
Glory Be
Fatima Prayer (optional)
Announce the Mystery
Our Father
← • Hail Mary
(on each bead)
← • Our Father
← Begin with:
• Make the Sign of the Cross
• Apostles Creed
The Apostles Creed
The Apostles Creed that we pray today comes from A.D. 400’s,
although the original form dates back to around A.D. 125.
While it was not written directly by the apostles, it conveys their
teachings. The Apostles Creed embodies basic Christian truths
and is still in use by both Catholics and Protestants today.
I believe in God, the Father almighty
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, Our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
and the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.
11
22
Ibid., 19.
The Mysteries of the Rosary
If we simply recite the prayers of the rosary and do not meditate on the mysteries of
the life of Jesus and Mary, we miss the essence of the rosary. Jesus told us “in praying
do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do: for they think they will be
heard for their many words” (Matthew 6:7). Like Psalm 136, which was a prayer with
repeating refrains sung in the Jewish Temple, we must allow the repeating refrain of
the Hail Mary to draw us more deeply into prayer and meditation on the mysteries.
The Church teaches that meditation “engages thought, imagination, emotion, and
desire” and helps us to “deepen our convictions of faith, prompt conversion of
heart, and strengthen our will to follow Christ.”
CCC 2708
The Joyful Mysteries
The Joyful Mysteries draw us into “the joy radiating from the event of the
Incarnation” and we “enter into the ultimate causes and the deepest meaning
of Christian joy. . . . Mary leads us to discover the secret of Christian joy,
reminding us that Christianity is first and foremost, . . . ‘good news,’ which
has at its heart and its whole content the person of Jesus Christ, the Word
made flesh, the one Savior of the world.”
—Pope John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Marieae, No. 20
•
•
•
•
•
Annunciation (Luke 1:26–38)
Visitation with Elizabeth (Luke 1:40–56)
Nativity (Luke 2:6–20)
Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:21–39)
Finding of the child Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:41–51)
The Luminous Mysteries
The luminous mysteries were added by Pope John Paul II during the Year of
the Rosary 2002. The “addition of these new mysteries, without prejudice to
any essential aspect of the prayer’s traditional format, is meant to give it fresh
life and to enkindle renewed interest in the Rosary’s place within Christian
spirituality as a true doorway to the depths of the Heart of Christ, ocean of
joy and of light, of suffering and of glory. . . . It is during the years of his
public ministry that the mystery of Christ is most evidently a mystery of
light: ‘While I am in the world, I am the light of the world’ (John 9:5). . . .
Each of these mysteries is a revelation of the Kingdom now present in the
very person of Jesus.”
—Pope John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, Nos. 19 and 21
•
•
•
•
•
Baptism of Jesus (Mark 1:2–11)
The Wedding at Cana (John 2:1–11)
Proclamation of the Kingdom of God (Mark 4:23–32)
The Transfiguration (Luke 9:28–36)
The Institution of the Holy Eucharist (John 6)
25