Mary

[PamC]

What makes you think Mary was without sin? "Put no confidence in the flesh" (Phil. 3:3) and "that which is born of the flesh is flesh" (John 3:6). All people, then, without exception are born fleshly in sin of the body and selfishly of the soul.

 

[King of the Nations]

Are you asking, or are you trying to convince us that we have a wrong assessment? If the former, many of us will be glad to oblige you with an answer. If the latter, this thread will not be around long.



Greg

 

[PamC]

Did I ask a question with a question mark?

 

[King of the Nations]

Greg

 

[PamC]

Greg

 

[poppinskw]

Pam, Welcome to OBOB I believe King asked a valid question, are you asking a question to learn the answer from Catholic teaching? There are many here that will be more than happy to help you with your question if you are.

Blessings

Les

 

[PamC]

Les,

I look forward to a reply to the same question still.

 

[Y_Cathol]

Hi, PamC

My answer is this: Mary is the Ark of the Covenant. The New Ark.

She was preserved from sin by God, not by any of her own merits, but by His Grace, so that she could bare the Child in Purity, and be the Ark (since the Ark is to be Holy (check leviticus)) and the Child she carries in her womb is the Christ, the Living God.

These here are writings from the Church Fathers:

"He was the ark formed of incorruptible wood. For by this is signified that His tabernacle was exempt from putridity and corruption." Hippolytus, Orations Inillud, Dominus pascit me (ante A.D. 235).

"This Virgin Mother of the Only-begotten of God, is called Mary, worthy of God, immaculate of the immaculate, one of the one." Origen, Homily 1(A.D. 244).

"Let woman praise Her, the pure Mary." Ephraim, Hymns on the Nativity, 15:23 (A.D. 370).

"Thou alone and thy Mother are in all things fair, there is no flaw in thee and no stain in thy Mother." Ephraem, Nisibene Hymns, 27:8 (A.D. 370).

"O noble Virgin, truly you are greater than any other greatness. For who is your equal in greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word? To whom among all creatures shall I compare you, O Virgin? You are greater than them all O Covenant, clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the Ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which divinity resides." Athanasius, Homily of the Papyrus of Turin, 71:216 (ante AD 373).

"Mary, a Virgin not only undefiled but a Virgin whom grace has made inviolate, free of every stain of sin." Ambrose, Sermon 22:30 (A.D. 388).

"We must except the Holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honour to the Lord; for from Him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular was conferred upon her who had the merit to conceive and bear Him who undoubtedly had no sin." Augustine, Nature and Grace,4 2[36] (A.D.415).

"As he formed her without my stain of her own, so He proceeded from her contracting no stain." Proclus of Constantinople, Homily 1 (ante A.D. 446).

"A virgin, innocent, spotless, free of all defect, untouched, unsullied, holy in soul and body, like a lily sprouting among thorns." Theodotus of Ancrya, Homily VI:11(ante A.D. 446).

"The angel took not the Virgin from Joseph, but gave her to Christ, to whom she was pledged from Joseph, but gave her to Christ, to whom she was pledged in the womb, when she was made." Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 140 (A.D. 449).

"[T]he very fact that God has elected her proves that none was ever holier than Mary, if any stain had disfigured her soul, if any other virgin had been purer and holier, God would have selected her and rejected Mary." Jacob of Sarug (ante A.D. 521).

"She is born like the cherubim, she who is of a pure, immaculate clay." Theotokos of Livias, Panegyric for the feast of the Assumption, 5:6 (ante A.D. 650).

"Today humanity, in all the radiance of her immaculate nobility, receives its ancient beauty. The shame of sin had darkened the splendour and attraction of human nature; but when the Mother of the Fair One par excellence is born, this nature regains in her person its ancient privileges and is fashioned according to a perfect model truly worthy of God.... The reform of our nature begins today and the aged world, subjected to a wholly divine transformation, receives the first fruits of the second creation." Andrew of Crete, Sermon I, On the Birth of Mary (A.D. 733).

"[T]ruly elect, and superior to all, not by the altitude of lofty structures, but as excelling all in the greatness and purity of sublime and divine virtues, and having no affinity with sin whatever." Germanus of Constantinople, Marracci in S. Germani Mariali (ante A.D. 733).

"O most blessed loins of Joachim from which came forth a spotless seed! O glorious womb of Anne in which a most holy offspring grew." John of Damascus, Homily I (ante A.D. 749).

 

[Carrye]

All people, then, without exception are born fleshly in sin of the body and selfishly of the soul.

But this conclusion cannot result from the scriptures, because if all people without exception were born as you say, then Jesus would have been as well. And if we know that Jesus wasn't, then we must conclude that God is able to make some kind of special provision if he so deems.

More than that, Jesus' human nature was given by his mother. If her human nature was corrupted, then so would his have been. Much of the Church's teaching about Mary is not for her own sake, but comes as a testament to the Person of Jesus Christ - his identity, his nature, his glory.

 

[cairaiii]

What makes you think Mary was without sin? "Put no confidence in the flesh" (Phil. 3:3) and "that which is born of the flesh is flesh" (John 3:6). All people, then, without exception are born fleshly in sin of the body and selfishly of the soul.

Them be figthing words!

 

[WarriorAngel]

Personally when there is a question, I feel the 'Father's' knew best.

The earliest Church fathers that is.

Even before the terms "original sin" and "immaculate conception" had been defined, early passages imply the doctrines. Many works mention that Mary gave birth to Jesus without pain. But pain in childbearing is part of the penalty of original sin (Gen. 3:16). Thus, Mary could not have been under that penalty. By God’s grace, she was immaculate in anticipation of her Son’s redemptive death on the cross. The Church therefore describes Mary as "the most excellent fruit of redemption" (CCC 508).


The Ascension of Isaiah


"[T]he report concerning the child was noised abroad in Bethlehem. Some said, ‘The Virgin Mary has given birth before she was married two months.’ And many said, ‘She has not given birth; the midwife has not gone up to her, and we heard no cries of pain’" (Ascension of Isaiah 11 [A.D. 70]).


The Odes of Solomon


"So the Virgin became a mother with great mercies. And she labored and bore the Son, but without pain, because it did not occur without purpose. And she did not seek a midwife, because he caused her to give life. She bore as a strong man, with will . . . " (Odes of Solomon 19 [A.D. 80]).


Justin Martyr


"[Jesus] became man by the Virgin so that the course which was taken by disobedience in the beginning through the agency of the serpent might be also the very course by which it would be put down. Eve, a virgin and undefiled, conceived the word of the serpent and bore disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy when the angel Gabriel announced to her the glad tidings that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her and the power of the Most High would overshadow her, for which reason the Holy One being born of her is the Son of God. And she replied ‘Be it done unto me according to your word’ [Luke 1:38]" (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 100 [A.D. 155]).


Irenaeus


"Consequently, then, Mary the Virgin is found to be obedient, saying, ‘Behold, O Lord, your handmaid; be it done to me according to your word.’ Eve, however, was disobedient, and, when yet a virgin, she did not obey. Just as she, who was then still a virgin although she had Adam for a husband—for in paradise they were both naked but were not ashamed; for, having been created only a short time, they had no understanding of the procreation of children, and it was necessary that they first come to maturity before beginning to multiply—having become disobedient, was made the cause of death for herself and for the whole human race; so also Mary, betrothed to a man but nevertheless still a virgin, 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" (Against Heresies 3:22:24 [A.D. 189]).

"The Lord then was manifestly coming to his own things, and was sustaining them by means of that creation that is supported by himself. He was making a recapitulation of that disobedience that had occurred in connection with a tree, through the obedience that was upon a tree [i.e., the cross]. Furthermore, the original deception was to be done away with—the deception by which that virgin Eve (who was already espoused to a man) was unhappily misled. That this was to be overturned was happily announced through means of the truth by the angel to the Virgin Mary (who was also [espoused] to a man). . . . So if Eve disobeyed God, yet Mary was persuaded to be obedient to God. In this way, the Virgin Mary might become the advocate of the virgin Eve. And thus, as the human race fell into bondage to death by means of a virgin, so it is rescued by a virgin. Virginal disobedience has been balanced in the opposite scale by virginal obedience. For in the same way, the sin of the first created man received amendment by the correction of the First-Begotten" (ibid., 5:19:1 [A.D. 189]).


Tertullian


"And again, lest I depart from my argumentation on the name of Adam: Why is Christ called Adam by the apostle [Paul], if as man he was not of that earthly origin? But even reason defends this conclusion, that God recovered his image and likeness by a procedure similar to that in which he had been robbed of it by the devil. It was while Eve was still a virgin that the word of the devil crept in to erect an edifice of death. Likewise through a virgin the Word of God was introduced to set up a structure of life. Thus what had been laid waste in ruin by this sex was by the same sex reestablished in salvation. Eve had believed the serpent; Mary believed Gabriel. That which the one destroyed by believing, the other, by believing, set straight" (The Flesh of Christ 17:4 [A.D. 210].

Ephraim the Syrian


"You alone and your Mother are more beautiful than any others, for there is no blemish in you nor any stains upon your Mother. Who of my children can compare in beauty to these?" (Nisibene Hymns 27:8 [A.D. 361]).


ETC ETC
http://www.catholic.com/library/Mary_Full_of_Grace.asp

Mary was indeed the New Eve, but unlike Eve she remained sinless. She remained obedient.

She was not under the penalty of sin, and did not bear pain at giving birth.

 

[WarriorAngel]

IF I may also add, her being WITH sin is a new concept.

So do you trust the new interpretters? Or do you believe 2000 plus years of Christian theology?

 

[GraceInHim]

What makes you think Mary was without sin? "Put no confidence in the flesh" (Phil. 3:3) and "that which is born of the flesh is flesh" (John 3:6). All people, then, without exception are born fleshly in sin of the body and selfishly of the soul.

since you used scripture, let me go alittle forward on this... fleshly desires of sin, temptations, things which we do in the flesh which are sins which you quote in verse Phil 3:3.

"that which is born of the flesh is flesh" (John 3:6).

John 1

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.

and of course you know the rest...

now when Jesus met Nathanael who was with no guile 1:47 When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false."

Think Mary, the mother of our Lord had nothing false about her either, without guile..

question.. having nothing false in one means what?

 

[PamC]

Could it be construed as a legalism by saying "nothing false" then means no sin or has never sinned considering "that which is born of the flesh is flesh"? Isn't the Holy of Holies the place of God's dwelling where the law of commandments judge and we receive God's guidance deep within in communion with God in our spirit? Where is there mention of Mary here? I am convinced we can believe otherwise if we accept books added to the 66 books of the Bible, such as the Ascension of Isaiah or when we are contrary to what the Bible says not to call any man your father as idolizing church fathers who came subsequent to the first century love. My other interest is that there is not just sin but also self. Though someone may not sin, they still can cling to something of self (being born into sin), which no man or woman has never not committed. Since Jesus is God, He can also be sinless man in the likeness of flesh to be the perfect sacrifice, but can a person born of the flesh not be flesh with sin in the body and self of the soul?

My prayer is for very conscientious responses.

 

[NewMan99]

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