Christian Art | Holy Mary | King James Audio Bible | KJV | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ
Luke 11: 27-28 – Week 27 Ordinary Time, Saturday (King James Audio Bible KJV, Spoken Word)
27 ¶ And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.
28 But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.
The woman raises her voice to praise Mary, for Jesus’ sake. Through Jesus, the woman is moved to acclaim the holiness of Mary. It can be true to say also that very many Christians are moved to contemplate Mary through knowledge of Jesus. For many Christians, Mary is our spiritual mother. Through Jesus, we discover our relationship with Mary, and so reciprocally through Mary we discover and seek to imitate the Son.
In response, Jesus highlights Mary’s ‘Yes!’ to God. Mary said: ‘Be it done unto me according to thy word.’ Here is a model of complete humility and obedience to God.
We hear little of Mary through much of the course of the Gospels. Some of what we read may seem strange, as when Mary and Jesus’ family come to try to speak with Jesus, concerned that Jesus is mad. It is also striking when Mary seems perfectly in tune with Jesus’ mission, as for example when Jesus is on the Cross.
Such relative silence, between infancy narratives and the Cross, may be illustrative of Mary’s perfect humility. It was through this perfection that Mary conceived of the Holy Spirit the Son.
Concluding Prayer | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ
Lord God,
source and origin of our salvation,
make our lives here on earth so proclaim your glory,
that we ay praise you without ceasing in heaven.
We make our prayer through our Lord.
King James Audio Bible | Endnotes
Hail Mary, Mother Of God
The title ‘Mother of God’ is a longstanding and deeply meaningful term used by many Christians to refer to Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. While the phrase ‘Mother of God’ does not appear in the Bible, there are many passages that support this understanding of Mary’s role in salvation history.
One such passage is Luke 1:43, in which Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, greets Mary with the words: ‘And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?’ (KJV) The phrase ‘my Lord’ (Greek kyrios) is a common title for God in the Old Testament, and Elizabeth’s use of it to refer to Jesus suggests that she saw him as divine. This would make Mary the mother of God in the fullest sense of the term.
Another important passage is John 1:1-14, which describes Jesus as the Word of God made flesh. Verse 14 states: ‘And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.’ (KJV) By giving birth to Jesus, who is the Word made flesh and the only begotten of the Father, Mary can be understood as the mother of God.
The Gospel of Matthew also contains several references to Mary as the mother of Jesus, who is God in human form. In Matthew 1:23, an angel tells Joseph that the child to be born to Mary ‘shall be called Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us’ (KJV). This name emphasizes the divine nature of Jesus and reinforces the idea that Mary is the mother of God.
In addition to these biblical passages, the early Church Fathers also wrote extensively about Mary’s role as the mother of God. For example, in the 2nd century, the theologian Saint Ignatius of Antioch wrote that Jesus ‘was truly born of a virgin, and was truly crucified…He was also truly raised from the dead…Mary was truly of the seed of David’ (Letter to the Smyrnaeans, chapter 1). This statement affirms both the humanity and divinity of Jesus, and by extension, Mary’s role as the mother of God.
In the 5th century, the Council of Ephesus officially affirmed the title ‘Mother of God’ for Mary, declaring that ‘the holy virgin is the mother of God, because she bore according to the flesh the Word of God made flesh’ (session 3). This council was convened to address the heresy of Nestorianism, which denied the unity of Christ’s divine and human natures, and the affirmation of Mary as the mother of God was a key part of the council’s teaching.
In more recent times, both Catholic and Protestant theologians have continued to affirm Mary’s unique role as the mother of God. The Catholic Church, for example, teaches that Mary’s ‘divine motherhood…is the source of her extraordinary dignity’ and that ‘the Church venerates her as the Mother of God, and also as Queen of Heaven and earth’ (Catechism Of The Catholic Church, paragraphs 495, 966). Similarly, many Protestant theologians, while not using the title ‘Mother of God,’ have acknowledged Mary’s special place in salvation history and her role in bringing Christ into the world.
Sometimes, when I read my Bible, I pause in the reading and say to myself: ‘This bit’s real.’ It would be fair to say, I have issues with Mary, because, contrary to what we are taught to say, Mary isn’t my mother. Rather: Mum is. One bit of the Bible-text says this: And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, “He is beside himself.” … And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Mark 3: 21; 31-35.) Here she comes. She is in considerable distress. I can imagine that. I can relate to that. To save her boy from whatever he’s got himself into this time. And you’re not telling me there isn’t something inside that. Her boy is beside himself. Radical. Radicalized. Radicalizing. A misunderstood word. /ˈradɪk(ə)l/ adjective & noun. 1 Forming the root, basis, or foundation; original, primary. 2a Inherent in the nature of a thing or person; fundamental. b Of action, change, an idea: going to the root or origin; far-reaching, thorough. c Advocating thorough or far-reaching change. d Characterized by departure from tradition; progressive; unorthodox. ‘He has a demon! And he is mad!’ – thus ‘the Jews’. (e.g. John 10: 20.) Come home! It’s all she wants. His family want him back now. But it is an exclusive cult: there is an inside and there is an outside; and on the outside, they are not meant to understand, lest they be converted. He has defined himself as different from anything she was. Only at the end does Jesus say to his Mum – and with savage, bitter irony: ‘Woman, behold your son.’ And then he dies. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. We ask that we might find Mary in our hearts as a Yes! place for Jesus. It is also recommended that we pray to Jesus that we may be further in oneness with Mary. It is self-emptying, such that we only exist insofar as we are responsive to God’s Word. * Last term, and put-out to pasture, the old Archbishop Emeritus came over to stay for a few days and did the odd class with us. He spoke of Yes! as the meaning of Mary’s virginity. And we were not very nice about him. One or two took umbrage. One or two got the hump. In a sense, his Grace, the Arch, basically wanted to move anyone he’d ever known from a high-place – a mountain – received theological ‘truth’ – to an imminent, human plane. Earthing the spiritual. Recalibrating metrics of life’s believability toward a spiritual sense of things. He might have asked the impermissible question: what happened? His Grace described it. God’s love as a cloud. This descended upon Mary – and subsumed her. Within the cloud, Mary capitulated utterly. She became only and purely a response to God’s love. As he spoke, the Arch cradled her. He carried her in his lap – in his hands. His Grace was a consecrated bishop. He was faith. He sat squat, a rounded man, hands cupped and ankles crossed, fingers interlocked, with parted thighs. Rumpled, washed, speckled. A lifetime’s skin… There could be no doubt His Grace spoke through long-term personal relationship with Mary. It was Julian went for him: ‘So are you saying Mary was a Virgin? Or are you not saying Mary was a Virgin?’ Nasty. No, it wasn’t pretty. Julian twisting his silver ring. For a moment, what Julian had said to the Arch simply failed to communicate. No, for a moment, that dumped on the air meant nothing. Then His Grace said: ‘There is a range of possible meanings we may understand in the question of Mary’s virginity. For example, there are understandings of the word virginity entailed in the action of giving birth.’ Julian said: ‘Duh! So had she had sex or hadn’t she?’ Trigger words. No, it wasn’t pretty. On that went for a little while. At length, Julian’s point seemed reluctantly conceded. Then the Arch told us a new story, an additionally human event, the more to baffle us. Controversially, he told us that Mary could not have been Joseph’s first wife, for this would not have been the way of things in the society of that time. His belief was that Joseph must have taken Mary into his household through pity. That would be normal, he said, for Joseph to bring a young, vulnerable girl, who is about to have a baby, within his protection, not meaning to enjoy with her marital relations, but through kindness. ‘And this story of the inn and stable,’ the Archbishop said, ‘it can’t have been like that really. Joseph has travelled with Mary to stay with his family, at home in Bethlehem, and they don’t want Mary in their house, for reasons which I am sure we can understand. It must have been there was considerable resistance to Mary. But Mary gives birth, and who can resist a baby? That’s what happened. It must have been. ‘I’m convinced that must have been how it happened really.’ Later that term, toward the beginning of Advent, we met boys who had been here before, in Valladolid, and now were in regular seminary. They had heard and recited verbatim all the Archbishop had said to them. Their spot-on impressions of each of the fathers were scathing. […]
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