The Catholic Church views the Blessed Mother with such reverence that the octave of Christmas, Jan. 1, is a holy day of obligation. The feast day reminds us of the role she had in the plan of salvation, which began with her simple answer of, “yes,” to God.
Mary’s fiat can be found in Luke 1:38, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Biblical scholars refer to Mary’s answer to the angel as her, “fiat,” because that is the Latin word for, “be it done,” or “let it be done.”
Mary’s fiat is her willingness to submit herself fully to the will of God so that He could restore humanity into communion with Himself.
Larry Fraher, director of catechetical ministries at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Scottsdale,
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For the first time in the plan of salvation and because His Spirit had prepared her, the Father found the dwelling place where His Son and His Spirit could dwell among men. In this sense the Church’s tradition has often read the most beautiful texts on wisdom in relation to Mary. Mary is acclaimed and represented in the liturgy as the ‘Seat of Wisdom.’” (§721)
Trent Horn, staff apologist for Catholic Answers based in San Diego, said our salvation centers around Jesus Christ, the God-man becoming flesh and dying for the sins of the world. Still, many heresies have claimed that Jesus was not truly God and thus God did not become incarnate for mankind.
“The heretic Nestorius claimed that Mary was merely the mother of the ‘Christ’ or the ‘Christokos,’ but this view was deemed heretical at the Council of Ephesus in 431,” Horn said. “Mary was not the mother of a man who later became divine, but she was instead the mother of one of the persons of the Trinity.”
The catechism states, “In fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly became her Son according to the flesh, was none other than the Father’s eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity”
In her embracement of the principle as Christ as Mother in the Second placement of Trinity she invokes a mothers unconditional love of her children. We are reminded of the passages in Isaiah of the Lord’s feeding his children as a mother feeds her children at her bosom. Providing the manna they need. This invokes New Testament passages as well as Christ teaches we will be provided manna through Him. In her theology of Motherhood we see Christ as our Mother in his birthing of our new creation and rebirth in our acceptance of Him as Savior during the Passion of crucifixion.
Salvation is an important part of the Catholic religion. As a non-religious student, I have had to rely heavily on the definition of Salvation from the teachings in my class. With the aid of The Bible, C.S. Lewis’ book Mere Christianity, St. Athanasius’ writing on Incarnation, and the “Class Notes on Salvation, I have been able to grasp an understanding of what Salvation is. At first, I believed that Salvation was a simple definition. I thought that Salvation was accepting Jesus Christ so that all of one’s sins are washed away. However, Salvation is much more than that. After multiple classes, I have learned that Salvation is essentially God’s plan to save humans by cleansing humans from Original Sin by using mechanical techniques such as becoming a finite being and dying for humans to live an indisputably whole life. After looking at the Fall, Lewis argues that sin affects the character of the fallen individual. Because of Original Sin, it can be said that human beings are corrupted in the mind which can be seen as a punishment in itself. With the understanding of Salvation, Catholics view Salvation by understanding the two sides of Salvation, Justification and Sanctification.
How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Everything is made to center upon the initial act of 'accepting' Christ … and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found him we need no more seek him. This is set before us as the last word in orthodoxy, and it is taken for granted that no Bible-taught Christian ever believed otherwise. Thus the whole testimony of the worshipping, seeking, singing Church on that subject is crisply set aside. The experimental heart-theology of a grand army of fragrant saints is rejected in favor of a smug interpretation of Scripture which would certainly have sounded strange to an Augustine, a Rutherford or a Brainerd (pp. 16-17).
‘What are we to make of Christ?’ There is no question of what we can make of Him, it is entirely a question of what He intends to make of us. You must accept or reject the story,” (Lewis, 8).
On May 13th, 1917 three children were playing games in the field while tending their sheep. Suddenly they saw a flash of light. Thinking it to be lightning, the children gathered the sheep and started for home. They took refuge under a tree about a hundred yards away. They saw a flash of light again. They began running when they saw, standing over a small holmoak tree, a Lady dressed in white more brilliant than the sun.
Mary writes to all people, including King's, city and county officials, and even the poor men and women. She tries to stop the poorest people in society from feeling let down and dishearten, and get them to let the power of Christ fall over them. Mary went on to write about how the Great Babylon made war with the Saints and after it played out in the end God made it better. Giving effort in telling people about having high hopes that everything will work out.
Jesus Christ, said he was the way, the truth, and life and that no one enters the kingdom of heaven accept through him. Through Catholicism, Christ’s Church, humanity has everything necessary for salvation. Since humanity is the Body of Christ, we are all called to his Church and to fulfill the Gospel. Though not everyone has the full knowledge of Christ and his Church, every individual has mission to find the fullness of truth and to seek it.
In the early stages of Catherine's life the surfacing modern age was bringing with it social turmoil which spread throughout Europe (Giordani 3). During Catherine's lifetime, according to Mary Ann Sullivan in her essay “St. Catherine of Siena,” the center of Catholic rule fluctuated between Rome and Avignon and contributed to a schism between popes in Italy and France (1). Catherine was born 23rd in a line of 25 children and, according to Sullivan “even at a young age, [she] sensed the troubled society around her and wanted to help” (1). While her parents were not exceptionally religious, St. Catherine's biographer Blessed Raymond of Capua discusses Catherine's early zeal for Catholic practices: “When she was about five she learned the Hail Mary, and repeated it over and over again as often as she could…she was inspired by heaven to address the Blessed Virgin in this way whenever she went up and down stairs, stopping to kneel on each step as she did so” (24). Her devotion to the Virgin Mary would become especially important in a vision she had around this time while walking with her brother to visit one of her sisters.
... didn't make any direct reference to Mary actually being the birth mother of Christ; they simply said that she was his mother, which I thought was clever, as some religions don't believe in the Immaculate Conception.
Mary of Bethany did what she believed was right and also was able to mourn with Christ. When Martha wanted to make the stay of Jesus as perfect
As we have looked in to the Christian worldview of God, our humanity, the Son of God, and the restoration of our lives back into God’s purpose. Now we have a better understanding of what it means to be a member of the Christian community. God wants believers to dwell in union and in community having the same mind that is in Jesus Christ (Phil 2:1-11). This paper showed how God and Jesus Christ are at the fundamental core of all Christian beliefs regardless of the countless differences many Christians may
he Bible teaches us regarding the incredible mystery of Jesus Christ that arrived on earth to convey immense ‘beloved knowledge’ concerning God and among this conceivably exists our Godly sexual presence within humanity. The following occurs as an “attempt” to describe the greatest happening the world has ever experienced; appropriately, I profess this endeavor has instigated a humbling, for there are no words on earth that could ever come close to the power that Jesus Christ engulfed humanity with. Truthfully, it grieves me to think of how the majority of people, lack the intelligence and clarity (including myself) to accomplish such a feat; for no amount of terminology, vocabulary, or skills expressing His true existence could ever come
... call to be His servant. Embedded in Mary’s decision was the full awareness that she would suffer ridicule, contempt, and loneliness.
Jesus had a human mother, Mary (see Luke 1:30-31 for example), but his father was God (see John 3:18 for example). Jesus was human, not God. Consider 1 Timothy 2:5:"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;" There could not be a clearer statement that Christ was a man.
Corley, Lemke and Lovejoy (2002) agree with the importance of the two contexts defining theological hermeneutics as, the process of thinking about God, thinking after the event of revelation in the...