Mary, mother of Jesus

"Furthermore, how will you endure [the Romanists'] terrible idolatries? It was not enough that they venerated the saints and praised God in them, but they actually made them into gods. They put that noble child, the mother Mary, right into the place of Christ. They fashioned Christ into a judge and thus devised a tyrant for anguished consciences, so that all comfort and confidence was transferred from Christ to Mary, and then everyone turned from Christ to his particular saint. Can anyone deny this? Is it not true?"

"On account of this personal union and communion of the natures, Mary, the most blessed virgin, did not conceive a mere, ordinary human being, but a human being who is truly the Son of the most high God, as the angel testifies. He demonstrated his divine majesty even in his mother's womb in that he was born of a virgin without violating her virginity. Therefore she is truly the mother of God and yet remained a virgin."

"Mother Mary, like us, was born in sin of sinful parents, but the Holy Spirit covered her, sanctified and purified her so that this child was born of flesh and blood, but not with sinful flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit permitted the Virgin Mary to remain a true, natural human being of flesh and blood, just as we. However, he warded off sin from her flesh and blood so that she became the mother of a pure child, not poisoned by sin as we are. For in that moment when she conceived, she was a holy mother filled with the Holy Spirit and her fruit is a holy pure fruit, at once God and truly man, in one person."

"God has formed the soul and body of the Virgin Mary full of the Holy Spirit, so that she is without all sins, for she has conceived and borne the Lord Jesus."

"All seed except Mary was vitiated [by original sin]."

"She never had public favor; it was a bit like the Hillary Clinton thing. She did all the right things for her country, but she wasn't ultimately revered. So she had a conversation with her confidant-adviser. She asked him, when have they ever looked up to or idolized a woman? Only one, he told her, the Virgin Mary. So she said, Then I will become like the Virgin Mary, and she did. She created a facade for herself; she stopped having lovers; she became like a virgin. She became sexless, and painted her face in a white alabaster way, and turned herself into an icon that was untouchable and sexless, and then she had everybody's respect."

"New Spain puts less faith in its own efforts than in the power of God and the intercession of its Blessed Mother, who appeared within the precincts of Tepeyac as the miraculous image of Guadalupe that had come to comfort us, defend us, visibly be our protection."

"And it came to pass on the third day of their journey, while they were walking, that the blessed Mary was fatigued by the excessive heat of the sun in the desert; and seeing a palm tree, she said to Joseph: Let me rest a little under the shade of this tree. Joseph therefore made haste, and led her to the palm, and made her come down from her beast. And as the blessed Mary was sitting there, she looked up to the foliage of the palm, and saw it full of fruit, and said to Joseph: I wish it were possible to get some of the fruit of this palm. And Joseph said to her: I wonder that thou sayest this, when thou seest how high the palm tree is; and that thou thinkest of eating of its fruit. I am thinking more of the want of water, because the skins are now empty, and we have none wherewith to refresh ourselves and our cattle. Then the child Jesus, with a joyful countenance, reposing in the bosom of His mother, said to the palm: O tree, bend thy branches, and refresh my mother with thy fruit. And immediately at these words the palm bent its top down to the very feet of the blessed Mary; and they gathered from it fruit, with which they were all refreshed. And after they had gathered all its fruit, it remained bent down, waiting the order to rise from Him who bad commanded it to stoop. Then Jesus said to it: Raise thyself, O palm tree, and be strong, and be the companion of my trees, which are in the paradise of my Father; and open from thy roots a vein of water which has been hid in the earth, and let the waters flow, so that we may be satisfied from thee. And it rose up immediately, and at its root there began to come forth a spring of water exceedingly clear and cool and sparkling. And when they saw the spring of water, they rejoiced with great joy, and were satisfied, themselves and all their cattle and their beasts. Wherefore they gave thanks to God."

"Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus."

"Most images of the Virgin stress her role as Christ’s Mother, showing her standing and holding her son. The manner in which the Virgin holds Christ is very particular. Certain poses developed into “types” that became names of sanctuaries or poetic epithets. Hence, an icon of the Virgin was meant to represent her image and, at the same time, the replica of a famous icon original."

"Most Western types of the Virgin’s image, such as the twelfth-century “Throne of Wisdom” from central France, in which the Christ Child is presented frontally as the sum of divine wisdom, seem to have originated in Byzantium (16.32.194). Byzantine models became widely distributed in western Europe by the seventh century. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw an extraordinary growth of the cult of the Virgin in western Europe, in part inspired by the writings of theologians such as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), who identified her as the bride of the Song of Songs in the Old Testament. The Virgin was worshipped as the Bride of Christ, Personification of the Church, Queen of Heaven, and Intercessor for the salvation of humankind. This movement found its grandest expression in the French cathedrals, which are often dedicated to “Our Lady,” and many cities, such as Siena, placed themselves under her protection."

"Tender images of the Virgin Mary with her son are among the most beloved in Christian art. Even early images from about the 6th century AD depict her gently cradling or supporting a haloed child or infant on her lap. Devotion to Mary in her dual role as the human mother of Jesus and a divine entity reached a peak in the 14th to 16th centuries, creating great demand for depictions of the mother and child. The term Madonna is Italian for “my lady” and was conferred as a title of respect or high rank, but came to be synonymous with the mother of the holy child and also with the physical representation or manifestation of the two. Small works of art depicting this theme were generally objects of personal worship and prayer intended for intimate use in a private setting, usually a home or a small chapel. Larger and more expansive scenes were produced for altars in public churches, often commissioned by a family or guild as an expression of devotion and an outward display of wealth. Over the centuries different themes emerged, but always with the mother and child as central figures in the scene."

"Virgin Mother who brought forth the King of the whole world."

"Interest in the conception of the Lord was fostered by popular reflection on the Gospel stories, and the liturgical embodiment of this reflection also played a part in the development of reverence for life in the womb. The December 25th feast of the Nativity of the Lord was established by the late fourth century. By the seventh century in the East a feast was established marking the Annunciation to Mary or "the Conception of Christ." This feast was established on March 25, with the implication that nine months had elapsed between conception and birth, and with the further implication that what had come from the Holy Spirit to Mary had been holy from the moment of conception. The feast of the Conception of Christ, it may be supposed, served, beyond its primary meaning, as a symbol of the sacredness of any conception. In the late sixth century there also came into existence in the East the feast of the Nativity of Mary, fixed on September 8. A century later the feast of Mary's conception by St. Anne was established on December 9 with an elaborate vigil on December 8. The prayers in the office of the day rejected the belief that Mary had been "born: after seven months," an apparent repudiation of the view that her soul was infused after her conception. The feast in honor of Christ's conception could be explained as a feast for a conception of a divine man; but the conception of Mary was believed to be the conception of a human being by the inter-course of humans. The recognition that she deserved honor at conception had specific implication for the humanity of all men."

"Since the time of Gregory the Great, the Ave Maria has been part of the Roman liturgy as a prayer to be said on particular feast days. It had not been prescribed as a prayer which every Christian should know. It did not have the status of the creed or the Pater Noster. In the twelfth century the Ave Maria emerged as a popular catholic prayer. In 1198 at the synod of Paris, Odo de Soliac, bishop of Paris, prescribed that priests should exhort the people to pray the “Salutation of the blessed virgin” (Mansi 22:681). In the next century the prayer was recommended by a number of local councils. Not all these bodies reacted to a direct Cathar menace; for example, the action of the council of Covntry in 1237 scarcely responded to a Cathar danger. But the conciliar actions did reflect an ideology which the cathar menace had made prominent in the Church. In 1254, when the Cathars had been destroyed in southern France and a council of Catholic bishops met in the old cathar seat of Albi to root out the effects of the heresy, the three prayers prescribed to be taught to every child over seven were the Creed, the Pater Noster, an the Ave Maria (Mansi 23:837). The central cathar tenet was indirectly denied by the prayer, “Hail Mary, full of grace. The lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”"

"Mary has many faces. In Haiti she’s Ezili Dantò—the Black Madonna. A fierce mother figure as well as a goddess, Ezili has been a revered Vodou spirit since the Haitian Revolution. Here dancers prepare for a midnight ceremony in her honor. Certain images and stories of the Virgin Mary are so powerful they help define a country. That’s the case with Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose image on the tilma, or cloak, of a poor Indian man gave rise, in 1531, to Mexican identity. Anyone witnessing the outpouring of love and devotion that pilgrims demonstrate for their beloved Madre on the days leading up to the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe—broadcast live throughout the country on December 12—can see that the Virgin Mary is deeply embedded in Mexican hearts and souls. Her image was what Mexicans carried into their war against Spain for independence in 1810 and their internal revolution in 1910. César Chávez marched with her banner in his fight to unionize farmworkers in California in the 1960s. Our Lady of Guadalupe conferred instant benediction on the once despised mestizo children of Spaniards and Indians. She is the symbol of la raza, the definition of what it means to be Mexican, and because of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexicans have always believed they’re special."

"Michael O’Neill, 39, a Stanford University graduate in mechanical engineering and product design, is the Virgin Mary’s big data numbers cruncher. On his website, MiracleHunter.com, he has codified every known apparition of Mary back to A.D. 40. Systematic investigation and documentation of supernatural occurrences began with the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church’s ecumenical reaction to the Reformation, more than 450 years ago. Of the 2,000 apparitions reported since then, Miracle Hunter cites a mere 28 as approved by local bishops, who are the first to decide whether “seers” seem plausible. Sixteen of those have been recognized by the Vatican."

"The version that I follow is the one that is closest to the holy revelation of the Evangelist and approved by the Catholic Church on the authority of the sacred and holy interpreters... In this loveliest of mysteries Our Lady should be painted as a beautiful young girl, 12 or 13 years old, in the flower of her youth... And thus she is praised by the Husband: tota pulchra es amica mea, a text that is always written in this painting. She should be painted wearing a white tunic and a blue mantle... She is surrounded by the sun, an oval sun of white and ochre, which sweetly blends into the sky. Rays of light emanate from her head, around which is a ring of twelve stars. An imperial crown adorns her head, without, however, hiding the stars. Under her feet is the moon. Although it is a solid globe, I take the liberty of making it transparent so that the landscape shows through."

"Predestined from eternity by that decree of divine providence which determined the incarnation of the Word to be the Mother of God."

"The Mother of the Church, carries on in heaven her maternal role with regard to the members of Christ, cooperating in the birth and development of divine life in the souls of the redeemed."

"Hence, it is the clear and unanimous opinion of the Fathers that the most glorious Virgin, for whom "he who is mighty has done great things," was resplendent with such an abundance of heavenly gifts, with such a fullness of grace and with such innocence, that she is an unspeakable miracle of God—indeed, the crown of all miracles and truly the Mother of God; that she approaches as near to God himself as is possible for a created being; and that she is above all men and angels in glory. Hence, to demonstrate the original innocence and sanctity of the Mother of God, not only did they frequently compare her to Eve while yet a virgin, while yet innocence, while yet incorrupt, while not yet deceived by the deadly snares of the most treacherous serpent; but they have also exalted her above Even with a wonderful variety of expressions. Eve listened to the serpent with lamentable consequences; she fell from original innocence and became his slave. The most Blessed Virgin, on the contrary, ever increased her original gift, and not only never lent an ear to the serpent, but by divinely given power she utterly destroyed the force and dominion of the evil one."

"Accordingly, the Fathers have never ceased to call the Mother of God the lily among thorns, the land entirely intact, the Virgin undefiled, immaculate, ever blessed, and free from all contagion of sin, she from whom was formed the new Adam, the flawless, brightest, and most beautiful paradise of innocence, immortality and delights planted by God himself and protected against all the snares of the poisonous serpent, the incorruptible wood that the worm of sin had never corrupted, the fountain ever clear and sealed with the power of the Holy Spirit, the most holy temple, the treasure of immortality, the one and only daughter of life—not of death—the plant not of anger but of grace, through the singular providence of God growing ever green contrary to the common law, coming as it does from a corrupted and tainted root."

"We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin."

"There is no more direct road than by Mary for uniting all mankind in Christ."

"If the popular praises of the Blessed Virgin Mary be given the careful consideration they deserve, who will dare to doubt that she, who was purer than the angels and at all times pure, was at any moment, even for the briefest instant, not free from every stain of sin?"

"Within her virginal womb Christ our Lord already bore the exalted title of Head of the Church; in a marvelous birth she brought Him forth as the source of all supernatural life."

"The revered Mother of God, from all eternity joined in a hidden way with Jesus Christ in one and the same decree of predestination, immaculate in her conception, a most perfect virgin in her divine motherhood, as the noble associate of the divine Redeemer."

""When the time had fully come, God sent forth his son, born of woman". With these words of his Letter to the Galatians (4:4), the Apostle Paul links together the principal moments which essentially determine the fulfilment of the mystery "pre-determined in God" (cf. Eph 1:9). The Son, the Word one in substance with the Father, becomes man, born of a woman, at "the fullness of time". This event leads to the turning point of man's history on earth, understood as salvation history. It is significant that Saint Paul does not call the Mother of Christ by her own name "Mary", but calls her "woman": this coincides with the words of the Proto-evangelium in the Book of Genesis (cf. 3:15). She is that "woman" who is present in the central salvific event which marks the "fullness of time": this event is realized in her and through her."

"She has brought forth God as man, and even as Supreme King."

"Then she conceived him; and withdrew with him to a remote place. ‏And the throes of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree. She said: Oh, would that I had died before this, and had been a thing quite forgotten! ‏So a voice came to her from beneath her: Grieve not, surely thy Lord has provided a stream beneath thee. ‏ And shake towards thee the trunk of the palm-tree, it will drop on thee fresh ripe dates. ‏So eat and drink and cool the eye. Then if thou seest any mortal, say: Surely I have vowed a fast to the Beneficent, so I will not speak to any man to-day."

"The cult of the Virgin Mary is drawn upon very successfully as a means of inculcating chastity. Again we must inquire into the psychological mechanism that is capable of assuring the success of these intentions. It is a problem of the masses of young men and women who are subjected to this influence. It is chiefly a matter of overpowering genital drives. Just as the Jesus cult mobilizes passive homosexual forces against the genitals, the cult of the Virgin Mary also mobilizes sexual forces, this time from the heterosexual sphere itself. ‘Inflict no wrong on a girl and remember that your mother too was once a girl.’ Thus, in the emotional life of Christian youths, the Mother of God assumes the role of one’s own mother, and the Christian youth showers upon her all the love that he had for his own mother at one time, that very ardent love of his first genital desires. But the incest prohibition cleaves his genital desires into an intense longing for orgasm on the one hand and asexual tenderness on the other hand. The intense longing for orgasm has to be repressed, and its energy intensifies one’s tender strivings and moulds them into an almost indissoluble tie to the mystical experience. This intense longing offers violent resistance, not only to the incestuous desire, but to every natural genital relationship with a woman. The same vital energy and enormous love that a healthy young man puts forth in an orgastic experience with his loved one is used by the mystical man to support the mystical cult of the Virgin Mary, after genital sensuality has been suppressed. This is the source from which mysticism draws its forces. Being unsatisfied forces, they should not be underestimated. They make intelligible the age-old power of mysticism over man and the inhibitions that operate against the responsibility of the masses. In this regard it is not a matter of the veneration of the Virgin Mary or of any other idol. It is a matter of producing a mystical structure in the masses in every new generation."

"This is the blessed Mary, pre-elect God's virgin. Gone is a great while, and she Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee. Unto God's will she brought devout respect Profound simplicity of intellect. And supreme patience. From her mother's knee Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity; Strong in grave peace; in pity circumspect. So held she through her girlhood; as it were An angel-watered lily, that near God Grows and is quiet. Till, one day at home She woke in her white bed, and had no fear At all - yet wept till sunshine, and felt awed: Because the fullness of the time was come."

"To the common Protestant mind the dignities ascribed to the Madonna have been always a violent offence; they are one of the parts of the Catholic faith which are openest to reasonable dispute, and least comprehensible by the average realistic and materialist temper of the reformation. But after the most careful examination, neither as adversary nor as friend, of the influences of Catholicism for good and evil, I am persuaded that the worship of the Madonna has been one of its noblest and most viral graces, and has never been otherwise than productive of true holiness of life and purity of character. I do not enter into any question as to the truth or fallacy of the idea; I no more wish to defend the historical or theological position of the Madonna than that of St Michael or St Christopher; but I am certain that to the habit of reverent belief in, and contemplation of, the character ascribed to the heavenly hierarchies, we must ascribe the highest results yet achieved in human nature."

"This New World has been won and conquered by the hand of the Virgin Mary ... [who had] prepared, disposed, and contrived her exquisite likeness in this her Mexican land, which was conquered for such a glorious purpose, won that there should appear so Mexican an image."

"When a priest administers the Sacraments, he is only a mediator in the distribution of divine graces. Mary, however, […] acts on a much higher level than the priest. In virtue of her own natural vitality, but together with the Holy Spirit, she built up [in her womb] the body of the divine child. Mary and the Holy Spirit gave us this divine child."

"Religious icons such as Mary in Christianity and Guanyin in Buddhism had deep roots in European and Chinese traditions. When the Jesuit missionaries came to China in the late 16th century, they represented Christianity as a different yet compatible religion to the native Chinese beliefs, first Buddhism and then Confucianism. Mary, the virgin mother of Christ and the principal saint of Christian Church, was one of the most appealing icons in Jesuits’ paintings and narratives. Though some Chinese expressed suspicion and even rejected Mary, many others tended to equate her with Guanyin, a popular Buddhist goddess in late Ming culture, largely because they two shared similar qualities such as compassion, purification, and child-giving power."

"(To the ever Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus) You have made the nature of men beautiful; you have surpassed the hosts of angels; you have overshadowed the dazzling splendour of the archangels; you have shown the seats of thrones to be inferior to you; you have lowered the height of dominions; you have surpassed the commands of the principalities; you have weakened the power of the powers; you have gone forth as a virtue more powerful than the virtues themselves; you, with earthly eyes, have surpassed the keenest sight of the cherubim; you, with divinely moved wings, have flown beyond the flights of the soul of the seraphim."

"Under thy protection we seek refuge, Holy Mother of God."

"[T]he conciliar debate on Marian devotion influenced the postconcilar debate on celibacy. Devoid of all connotations of sexuality, Mary had long served a twofold purpose in maintaining the discipline of celibacy. First, she provided a justification for a celibate priesthood. The medieval monk Petrus Damiani argued that because Jesus was born of a virgin, he could be touched only by virgin hands, thereby establishing a connection between sexual purity and the Eucharist celebration. Second, she served as a chaste role model and mother figure for priests. Mary, Pius XII wrote, provided the priest solace in his daily struggles against the temptations of the flesh: “When you meet very serious difficulties in the path of holiness and the exercise of your ministry, turn your eyes and your mind trustfully to she who is the Mother of the Eternal Priest and therefore the loving Mother of all Catholic priests.” Many bishops and theologians wanted the council to expand Marian doctrinal some supported conferring on Mary a new title, “Mother of the Church.” However, not all council fathers shared this view. Some preferred that piety be more centered on the Bible and the liturgy and less on devotional practices, including Marian worship. They felt that Marian devotion often diverged from the message found in scripture and in the liturgy. They also feared that any elaboration of Marian devotion would undermine the ecumenical movement. Thus, the seemingly innocent question of where to locate a statement on Mary had far-reaching theological and political ramifications. On August 29, by a margin of only forty votes, the council fathers decided in favor of incorporating a statement on Marian piety into ‘’Lumen Gentium’’. Although Paul VI later preempted the decision of the council fathers and bestowed upon Mary the title they had denied her, “Mother of the Church,” the popularity of Marian devotion continued to decline in Western-Europe."

"Unlike Marian devotion, scripture provided no unequivocal justification for mandatory clerical celibacy; many of Jesus’s apostle had been married men, including Peter, the rock whom the Church was built. In the 1980s, Marian piety came under vehement attack by European feminist theologians, such as Catherina Halkes and Uta Ranke-Heinemann. They argued that Marian piety provided the means by which celibate priests sublimated their sexuality into a sexually safe relationship with a virgin mother, untainted by original sin; the hostility caused by this sublimation was then projected onto real women, who could never realize the unattainable feminine ideal represented by Mary. The Church’s exaltation of Mary did not speak to the dignity of women, but rather served as a counterpoint to real women, who in Church teachings remained the daughters of the sexual temptress Eve."

"Paul VI and Betty Friedan, as representatives of the Catholic hierarchy and the American women’s movement, respectively, had fundamentally different understandings of gender equality. The pope believed that the Church’s esteem for the Virgin Mary constituted an avowal of women’s dignity. Since Mary embodied the feminine essence, any discussion of equality had to stem from the emulation of Mary. On November 6, 1974, in response to the United Nations’ designation of 1975 as “International Women’s Year,” Paul VI underscored how Mary defined the feminine sphere and equality: Equality can only be found in its essential foundation, which is the dignity of the human person, man and woman, in their filial relationship with God, of whom they are the visible image. But this does not exclude the distinction in unity, and the specific contribution of woman to the full development of society, according to her proper and personal vocation . . . . As we stated in our recent Exhortation ‘’Marialis Cultus’’, our age is called upon to verify and to “compare its anthropological ideas and the problems springing therefrom with the figure of the Virgin Mary as presented by the Gospel."

"The Virgin Mary was one of the most powerful images of the Middle Ages, central to people's experience of Christianity. During the Reformation, however, many images of the Virgin were destroyed, as Protestantism rejected the way the medieval Church over-valued and sexualized Mary. Although increasingly marginalized in Protestant thought and practice, her traces and surprising transformations continued to haunt early modern England."

"Mother! Whose virgin bosom was uncrost With the least shade of thought to sin allied; Woman! Above all women glorified, Our tainted nature's solitary boast..."

"It was given to her what belongs to no creature, that in the flesh she should bring forth the Son of God."

"I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin."

"The more the honor and love of Christ increases among men, so much the esteem and honor given to Mary should grow."

"I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste, immaculate Virgin Mary."

"Christ ... was born of a most undefiled Virgin."

"It was fitting that such a holy Son should have a holy Mother."

"Nou goth sonne under wode; Me reweth, Marye, thy faire rŏde. Nou goth sonne under tre; Me reweth, Marye, thy sone and the."