On April 28th, I'll be beginning my 33 Day Total Consecration to Jesus living through Mary, which will conclude on May 31st, the Feast of the Visitation!
In preparation for this consecration, I thought I would challenge Protestants by making a case for the Mariology present in the Visitation:
"39 In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, 40 and she entered the house of Zechari′ah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” 46 And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed;" Luke 1:39-48 RSVCE
This passage reveals the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Living Ark of the New and Eternal Covenant, as I will now show with the following Biblical passages.
In 2 Samuel 6:9 David says in reaction to the Lord striking down Uzzah,
"How can the ark of the Lord come to me?” which is extremely similar to Elizabeth's exclamation "And why is this granted to me, that mother of my Lord should come to me?," make also, two quick side notes; (1) it is the sound of Mary's greeting that causes the pre-born St. John the Baptist to leap in her mother's womb and Saint Elizabeth herself, to be filled with the Holy Spirit and (2) Saint Elizabeth calls Mary "The Mother of my Lord," we'll get to those two points later.
Earlier in the Gospel, Saint Gabriel the Archangel tells Our Lady:
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
therefore the child to be born will be called holy,
the Son of God." Luke 1:35 RSVCE
In the Old Testament, The Old Ark would often have the Shekhinah glory cloud hovering above and overshadowing it, the Old Ark contained the Ten Commandments; the Manna bread, come down from Heaven; and the budding staff of Aaron signifying him and his descendants as the rightful heirs to the High Priesthood. The New Living Ark, Mary contains in her womb, the Word of God Himself, the Logos; the Living Bread Himself, come down from Heaven; and the High Priest Himself.
In 2 Samuel 6:11 the Old Ark remains in Obed-Edom's house for 3 months and all his household is blessed by God, in Luke 1:56 we read that Mary stayed with St. Elizabeth's household 3 months and no one can deny that the Holy Spirit filling Saint Elizabeth and St. John the Baptist leaping in her womb is a blessing. Just as quick side note, on a historical level, the name Obed-Edom means "slave of Edom" (it is my hope that through this consecration I may no longer be a slave of Edom but of Mary and through her, the One Lord Jesus Christ Son of God) at the time of the Visitation the priesthood was working for Herod the EDOMITE building his new temple, Elizabeth was a member of the Priestly family thus it could be said the Elizabeth was an Obed-Edom, a slave of Edom.
Finally, I'll end here because this thing is already quite long, Mary's Magnificat begins with words that are similar to the words of David in 2 Samuel 6:21-22:
“It was before the Lord, who chose me above your father, and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the Lord—and I will make merry before the Lord. 22 I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes; but by the maids of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honor.”
David says that he was chosen by God, despite his lowliness, that he will make merry before God, and that he will be held in high regard by the maids.
In the Magnificat Mary says her soul magnifies the Lord, that the Lord has looked on her lowliness, for indeed even though she is the greatest of all God's creatures, she has done nothing to earn it, it is all a gift from God. And that all generations will call her Blessed, which begs the question why don't Protestants call her Blessed, why are you frustrating the word of the Lord O Protestants?
That's all I can say for now, though there as much more to be gleaned from this glorious event, it even gets into some of the Four Dogmas of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for example: remember how Saint Elizabeth calls Mary "the Mother of my Lord" at first glance, it may seem like a weak argument for calling Mary, the Mother of God. But let's think about this, how can St. Elizabeth call Jesus Lord? Why is Jesus called Lord? Because Jesus is the Messiah and King of Israel? But what right does Jesus have to the Messiahship and Kingship of Israel? Yes he's a descendant of David, but so are St. Joseph and many others at his time. Clearly it is because Jesus is the Son of God Himself that he can rightfully be called the Messiah and Lord, not to mention, in that 2 Samuel passage, when David said "Lord" he clearly meant "God." I'd like to get into this more but I'm running out of time and my opening post is already quite long, instead I'll address a few objections that Protestants might have to Mary as the Living Ark:
Objection: Scriptures tell us that man’s heart is the new temple of God. This is how He chose to dwell with us. Mary is not that temple, but a vessel that brought forth the sacrifice. You can’t say Mary is the new Ark of the covenant. Every Christian holds the Ark of the Covenant within his heart as the scriptures say. The function of the Ark became obsolete when God made His dwelling within.
I reply: Yes, a Christian that is baptized and has repented of all his/her mortal sins, has the Holy Spirit dwelling in him/her. What's more, a Catholic has the Son of God dwelling in him/her every time he or she goes to Holy Communion, while in a state of grace (like I did this morning). However, surely there must be a clear difference between a Christian being a temple of God, and Jesus Christ Himself stating He is the Temple of God in John 2:19-21! the obvious difference being Jesus Christ is God himself while a Christian isn't, but what about Mary? Well Mary like Catholics has both the Holy Spirit and God the Son dwelling in her, but while Catholics only receive a piece of Christ's flesh, Mary has the entire physical body of Christ developing in her womb and being dependent on her, this is the will of God. Also the recent scientific discovery of fetal microchimerism, shows that the blood of Jesus with the same DNA remains in His Mother Mary throughout her life. This why at Mary's apparition of Akita, Japan, when the scientist did DNA testing of her sweat, blood, and tears one of the blood types they found was AB, which is Jesus' blood type as found in the shroud of Turin and in every authentic bleeding host miracle.
Objection: Nowhere is Mary revealed as ark of the New Covenant. Since it is revealed that Jesus is not Himself the New Covenant but the "Mediator" of it, and that not through His birth but His sacrificial, substitutionary death.
I reply: In Revelations 11:19 the Ark of the Covenant is seen in Heaven and then in the very next chapter we see Our Lady, I know that Protestants will disagree with this, but I'm confident I can make a case for this. In regards to Jesus being the "Mediator" of the New Covenant and not the New Covenant itself, I reply that Jesus said that He was The Way, The Truth, and The Life, and what is the new Covenant if not The Way, The Truth, and The Life?
Objection: The Comparison is weak, The Ark of Covenant has only the Shekhinah Glory Cloud hovering over it while Mary has the Holy Spirit overshadowing her and the Power of the Most High coming upon her. The comparison Between Luke and 2 Samuel jumps between Elizabeth as David and Elizabeth as Obed-Edom.
I reply: The foreshadowing of Jesus' Most Holy Sacrifice on the Cross jumps around even more form the Passover Lamp, to the Bronze Serpent of Moses to Isaac on Mount Moriah, to the Ram that replaced Isaac, to name a few. History doesn't repeat itself, it only rhymes, and thus we should expect the New Testament fulfillment of what is in the Old to be not only different but greater for as 2 Corinthians 3:7-11 states:
"7 Now if the dispensation of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such splendor that the Israelites could not look at Moses’ face because of its brightness, fading as this was, 8 will not the dispensation of the Spirit be attended with greater splendor? 9 For if there was splendor in the dispensation of condemnation, the dispensation of righteousness must far exceed it in splendor. 10 Indeed, in this case, what once had splendor has come to have no splendor at all, because of the splendor that surpasses it. 11 For if what faded away came with splendor, what is permanent must have much more splendor."
Thus when the Lord strikes down Uzzah for touching the Old Ark, in a procession of song, lyres, harps and tambourines, David cries out, "[h]ow can the ark of the Lord come to me?” in the presence of the old, inanimate, man-made Ark of the dispensation of death and condemnation. By contrast, when, at the sound of Mary's voice, the pre-born Saint John the Baptist leaps in the womb of Saint Elizabeth, and she is filled with the Holy Spirit and she cries out, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" And all this is in the presence of the new, living, God-sown, Ark of the dispensation of the Spirit and righteousness!
So that is my case, like I said I have more, but for now this will suffice and I am more than happy to speak the truth in love with any Protestant who wants to contend.
Warning: At the risk of causing Protestants to do the contrary, I would like to warn them everyone the Lord loves Mary more than we can comprehend at least in this life and that speaking ill against her is deeply offensive to Him! At the end of every I intend to post the prayer of reparation for blasphemy and maybe offer up a few extra prayers in addition, I'd like to call on all my brother and sister Catholics to do the same and that whenever they stumble across one of these posts to take a moment and say the prayer before moving on.
For the Greater Glory of God and the salvation of souls!
AVE MARIA!!!
