As I understand it Jesus was originally born of a stone and Mary was added around the 13th century as the Christians were trying to convert the French. The French had a strong Mother in Birth theme in their faith and they couldn't get anywhere with them without making the change.
There is strong contention in the christian churches these days about who and what she was. Some say she is divine and without sin - for she would have to be to have given birth to Jesus - others say she was just a human vessel and not holy at all. To my way of thinking the most important and clear thing that Jesus ever said was "I am the son of God. We are all children of God" and that means that Mary and each and everyone of us is a divine and beloved child of the Universe with miraculous powers, just like Jesus.
Peace!
2006-12-12 15:26:55
·
answer #1
·
answered by carole 7
·
0⤊
0⤋
she is the Mother of Jesus, and we all her adopted sons and daughter....we Catholics respect and venerate her, it differs from what they tell us that we WORSHIP her, wrong, Worship is for GOd alone.Mary was the key purpose for God's plan of salvation for us humans:) and if u see us respecting her pictures or statues, well we are no idolatrers dear, its like having a picture of your Mom that u keep, sattues serve as our visual reminders ... peace. God bless.
2006-12-12 15:31:23
·
answer #2
·
answered by mylesr77 2
·
1⤊
0⤋
What can we learn from the Bible record about Mary?
(1) A lesson in willingness to listen to what God says through his messengers even though what we hear may at first disturb us or seem impossible.—Luke 1:26-37.
(2) Courage to act in harmony with what one learns to be God’s will, trusting fully in him. (See Luke 1:38. As shown at Deuteronomy 22:23, 24, there could be serious consequences for an unmarried Jewish girl who was found to be pregnant.)
(3) God’s willingness to use a person regardless of that one’s station in life.—Compare Luke 2:22-24 with Leviticus 12:1-8.
(4) Giving prominence to spiritual interests. (See Luke 2:41; Acts 1:14. It was not required that Jewish wives join their husbands for the long trip to Jerusalem at Passover time each year, but Mary did so.)
(5) Appreciation of moral purity.—Luke 1:34.
(6) Diligence in teaching one’s children the Word of God. (This was reflected in what Jesus was doing at the age of 12. See Luke 2:42, 46-49.)
Was Mary truly a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus?
Luke 1:26-31 (JB) reports that it was to “a virgin” whose name was Mary that the angel Gabriel carried the news: “You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus.” At this, verse 34 states, “Mary said to the angel, ‘But how can this come about, since I am a virgin [“I do not know man: i.e., as husband,” NAB footnote; “I am having no intercourse with a man,” NW]?’” Matthew 1:22-25 (JB) adds: “Now all this took place to fulfil the words spoken by the Lord through the prophet: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Immanuel, a name which means ‘God-is-with-us’. When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home and, though he had not had intercourse with her, she gave birth to a son; and he named him Jesus.”
Is this reasonable? Surely it was not impossible for the Creator, who designed the human reproductive organs, to bring about the fertilization of an egg cell in the womb of Mary by supernatural means. Marvelously, Jehovah transferred the life-force and the personality pattern of his firstborn heavenly Son to the womb of Mary. God’s own active force, his holy spirit, safeguarded the development of the child in Mary’s womb so that what was born was a perfect human.—Luke 1:35; John 17:5.
Was Mary always a virgin?
Matt. 13:53-56, JB: “When Jesus had finished these parables he left the district; and, coming to his home town, he taught the people in their synagogue in such a way that they were astonished and said, ‘Where did the man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? This is the carpenter’s son, surely? Is not his mother the woman called Mary, and his brothers [Greek, a·del·phoi´] James and Joseph and Simon and Jude? His sisters [Greek, a·del·phai´], too, are they not all here with us?’” (On the basis of this text, would you conclude that Jesus was Mary’s only child or that she had other sons as well as daughters?)
The New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967, Vol. IX, p. 337) admits regarding the Greek words a·del·phoi´ and a·del·phai´, used at Matthew 13:55, 56, that these “have the meaning of full blood brother and sister in the Greek-speaking world of the Evangelist’s time and would naturally be taken by his Greek reader in this sense. Toward the end of the 4th century (c. 380) Helvidius in a work now lost pressed this fact in order to attribute to Mary other children besides Jesus so as to make her a model for mothers of larger families. St. Jerome, motivated by the Church’s traditional faith in Mary’s perpetual virginity, wrote a tract against Helvidius (A.D. 383) in which he developed an explanation . . . that is still in vogue among Catholic scholars.”
Mark 3:31-35, JB: “His mother and brothers now arrived and, standing outside, sent in a message asking for him. A crowd was sitting round him at the time the message was passed to him, ‘Your mother and brothers and sisters are outside asking for you’. He replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking round at those sitting in a circle about him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother.’” (Here a clear distinction is drawn between Jesus’ natural brothers and his spiritual brothers, his disciples. No one claims that the reference to Jesus’ mother means anything different from what it says. Is it consistent, then, to reason that his natural brothers were not that but were perhaps cousins? When what is meant is not brothers but relatives, a different Greek word [syg·ge·non´] is used, as at Luke 21:16.)
Was Mary the Mother of God?
The angel who informed her of the coming miraculous birth did not say that her son would be God. He said: “You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. . . . The child will be holy and will be called Son of God.”—Luke 1:31-35, JB; italics added.
Heb. 2:14, 17, JB: “Since all the children share the same blood and flesh, he [Jesus] too shared equally in it . . . It was essential that he should in this way become completely like his brothers.” (But would he have been “completely like his brothers” if he had been a God-man?)
The New Catholic Encyclopedia says: “Mary is truly the mother of God if two conditions are fulfilled: that she is really the mother of Jesus and that Jesus is really God.” (1967, Vol. X, p. 21) The Bible says that Mary was the mother of Jesus, but was Jesus God? In the fourth century, long after the writing of the Bible was completed, the Church formulated its statement of the Trinity. (New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967, Vol. XIV, p. 295; see page 405, under the heading “Trinity.”) At that time in the Nicene Creed the Church spoke of Jesus Christ as “very God.” After that, at the Council of Ephesus in 431 C.E., Mary was proclaimed by the Church to be The·o·to´kos, meaning “God-bearer” or “Mother of God.” However, neither that expression nor the idea is found in the text of any translation of the Bible. (See pages 212-216, under “Jesus Christ.”)
2006-12-12 15:30:04
·
answer #3
·
answered by Anonymous
·
0⤊
0⤋
Her Birth.
"When the wife of Imran said:
'O my Lord! I have vowed to You what is in my womb [my child] to be dedicated to Your services, so accept this [my vow] from me. Verily, All-Hearer, the All-Knowing.' Then we she delivered her she said:
'O my Lord! I have delivered a female child' - and Allah knew better what she delivered - 'And the male is not like the female, and I have named her Maryam and I seek refuge with You for her and for her offspring from Satan, the outcast.' " (Quran 3:35-36)
The wife of Imran, and mother of Mary, out of her devotion to God vowed to dedicate the child in her womb to the sacred service of God and asked God to accept her vow. Her hopes were in a male child who will be brought up to service the places of worship and be dedicated to serve God. Delivering a female child, she realized that things did not go according to her plan, but decided to fulfill her vow, and Maryam was the name of the child. And she made a prayer for her newly born asking God to protect her and her offspring from Satan. The verses following described the response of God to the vow and to the prayer of the mother:
"So her Lord accepted her [Maryam] with good acceptance." (Quran 3:37).
Her Upbringing.
Quran verses 3:37 continue ..
"So her Lord accepted her with good acceptance. He made her grow in a good manner and put her under the care of Zachariya. Every time he entered Al-Mihrab (the praying place) to visit her, he found her supplied with sustenance [food]. He said:
'O Maryam! From where have you got this?' She said:
'This is from Allah. Verily, Allah provides sustenance who He wills, without limit.' "
So Mary was accepted by God, and was brought up in a good manner after she was put under the care of Zachary. Through her devotion and righteous upbringing and the prayer from her mother, Mary became the best woman to ever live as depicted in the Quran in the verses 3:42:
"And (remember) when the angels said: 'O Maryam (Mary)! Verily, Allah (God) has chosen you, purified you (from polytheism and disbelief), and chosen you above the women of the world (of her lifetime).' "
Mary Receives a Visit.
In the19th chapter of the Quran (which is called Maryam) Mary receives a visitor from God:
"And mention in the Book, Maryam [i.e. mention, O Mohammed, in the Quran the story of Mary], when she withdrew from her family to a place facing east. She placed a screen from them; then We sent to her our angel (Jibrael, or Gabriel), and he appeared before her in the form of a man in full human form. She said:
'I seek refuge with The Most Beneficent [God] from you, if you do fear Him.' (The angel) said:
'I am only a Messenger from your Lord, (to announce) to you the gift of a righteous son.' She said:
'How can I have a son, when no man has touched me, nor am I unchaste?' He (the angel) said:
'So (it will be), your Lord said: 'That is easy for Me: And to appoint him as a sign to mankind and a mercy from Us (from God)', and it is a matter (already) decreed (by God).' " (Quran 19:16-21)
In these verses, it is described how the pious virgin Mary is visited by angel Gabriel, who appears before her in a form of a man. Not knowing who he is, she fears for herself, but he asserts to her that he is an angel, a Messenger from her Lord, and announces to her news of her miraculous conception of a son. In shock, she questions, affirming her chastity. The angel answers that such a conception, though miraculous, is easy for The Lord, all He needs to say is "Be." and it is. And that these are matters decreed by Him, for greater purposes and to the benefit of mankind.
The Miracle.
And then, miraculously, Mary becomes pregnant. The emotional story of her pregnancy follows:
"So she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a far place . And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a date-palm. She said:
'Would that I had died before this, and had been forgotten and out of sight!' Then a call unto her from bellow, said:
'Grieve not! Your Lord has provided a water stream under you; And shake the trunk of the date-palm towards you, it will let fall fresh ripe dates upon you. So eat and drink and be glad, and if you see any human being, say:
'Verily! I have vowed a fast unto the Most Beneficent so I shall not speak to any human being this day.' " (Quran 19:22-26)
From these versus one mentally pictures Mary, driven out of town, out of sight to Bethlehem valley 4-6 miles from Jerusalem, in the pain of labor, and in fear of what is going to happen to her. It is her first child, she has no husband. What will her people, the Jews, say? What will they do? How will she react? With all that, she wishes that she was dead, but the God who gave her the miracle, the God to Whom she worshipped, to Whom she devoted her life, did not forsake her. A voice came from beneath her, soothing and comforting her, and guiding her. And when she gave birth, the voice instructed her not to speak or explain, but make a vow of silence and everything will workout.
"Then she brought him (the baby) to her people, carrying him. They said:
'O Maryam! Indeed you have brought a thing which is greatly evil! O sister of Haron (i.e. O you who we consider the like of Haron, who was a pious man at the time of Mary)! Your father was not a bad man (adulterous), nor was your mother an unchaste woman.' Then she pointed to him (to the baby). They said:
'How can we talk to one who is a child, in the cradle?' " (Quran 19:27-29)
Mary gives birth to the child, and takes him back to her village. And there Mary meets the Jews. Upon seeing her with her baby, they are struck. In their eyes, she has done a heinous crime. Their argument was: 'How could you do something so evil! We always considered you a model person of piety, and you come from a pious family -- known and respected!'. But Mary obeys the commands of her Lord. She is quiet and points to the baby.
2006-12-12 17:03:24
·
answer #4
·
answered by Abdullah r 2
·
0⤊
0⤋