Transcript

So tonight the lecture is going to be entitled Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary, and I'll be drawing on my new book by the same title, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah.

And so what I'm going to do tonight is just give you a little overview of some key points from the book in the hope that you'll want to buy it and read it and share it with others and grow in our understanding of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

So without any further ado, let's begin with a word of prayer in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of this day.

We ask that she would intercede for us in a special way tonight as we look at what the Scriptures reveal to us about her and her role in the history of salvation, her identity, and the mystery of who she is in your eyes and in the eyes of your Son.

So we ask all these things, praying the words that your Son gave to us: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou amongst 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.

Amen.

St. Paul, pray for us.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Okay, so I'd like to begin tonight's lecture with just a little bit of background about myself and my own journey to understanding the biblical roots of what we as Catholics believe about Mary and about the Blessed Virgin's role in salvation history.

I'm a cradle Catholic, not a surprise.

I'm from South Louisiana.

I was born pagan but baptized Catholic very soon thereafter.

And so I grew up, you know, like most Cajuns in the South Louisiana Catholics, you know, praying the rosary, having statues of Mary around the house, at our church, you know, lighting candles at church.

I had a special prayer and intention I wanted to ask the Blessed Mother.

to pray for me; that was just kind of part and parcel of my life.

And I never really had any doubts or struggles about the Catholic Church's teachings about Mary.

I knew that she was immaculately conceived.

I knew that she didn't commit any sins her whole life long, that at the end of her life, she was assumed into heaven, that she prays for us and intercedes for us.

We can ask for her to pray for us— all of those things.

That she's the Mother of God, for example.

All those things were just part of my upbringing, part of my Catholic faith.

And I never really had any doubts or questions about them until I met my future wife, Elizabeth.

She was 14. Yeah, I was 14 too.

She had just turned 15, so she was an older woman.

We had met; we were dating, and she was a pretty little Baptist girl.

She came from a long line of Baptist family members, devout Baptists.

Her grandfather was a Baptist preacher, a very well-known one, who went along the valleys of South Louisiana, basically converting Catholics, pulling them out of the church and into the Baptist church.

One of their main issues with the Catholic Church was, of course, Catholic beliefs about Mary.

And Catholic veneration of Mary in particular—devotion to Mary, asking her to pray for us—was described by her grandfather, for example, as not just blasphemous, but idolatry, as the worship of Mary.

So when we began to date, Liz, my wife—not at the time—began to ask me questions that I hadn't really ever encountered before.

Like, why do Catholics worship Mary?

Why do you call her the Mother of God?

Does that mean she's greater than God?

Why do you think she was sinless when the Bible says, in Romans chapter 3, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God?

I mean, that's clearly unbiblical.

Do you think she's divine?

How can she be sinless and still be human?

So I had all these questions.

And because Elizabeth was really pretty and really smart, I wanted to impress her as her boyfriend; I thought, I've got to learn some stuff here about my Catholic faith.

So I tried my best to answer her questions.

And on certain topics, like the Eucharist, it was a little easier because there are passages in the New Testament, like John chapter 6, that are really explicit about the reality of Jesus' body and blood in the Eucharist.

But when it came to Mary in the New Testament, I kind of found myself coming up short.

As I started to study the Bible and look through the New Testament, I asked myself, where does the New Testament ever say Mary was immaculately conceived?

Apparently nowhere, right?

Where does it describe her bodily assumption into heaven?

Well, apparently, nowhere, right?

Where does it say that she's the Queen of Heaven and that we should pray to her and ask her to pray for us?

I mean, these are all things that if you just look at the New Testament, there doesn't seem to be a lot of clear biblical evidence to support Catholic teachings.

This became even more pressing when we had this very consequential meeting for me with her pastor at the time, and he asked me all kinds of questions over the course of a two-hour meeting.

One of them that really hit me hard was about Mary as the Queen of Heaven.

He said, why do you Catholics call Mary the Queen of Heaven?

Don't you know that in the Old Testament, in the book of Jeremiah, the Queen of Heaven is a pagan goddess?

Now, I don't know about you, but in my catechism classes, in my CCD classes, they never mentioned the book of Jeremiah and the Queen of Heaven in the Old Testament.

Anybody else had that in catechism?

No, I mean, come on, no.

I had no idea how to respond.

I knew the Holy Queen; I knew Mary was the Queen of Heaven, but I didn't know why we called her that when that was the name for a pagan goddess in the Old Testament.

So he said, oh, look, you Catholics are pagans, right?

You brought paganism into Christianity.

And so what happened with me over the years was, although my devotion to Mary as a boy was very fervent, I used to pray the rosary at night.

My little brother was six or seven years old.

We prayed a 45-minute rosary with the scriptures at night by ourselves, just on our own.

By the time I got to college and graduate school, that devotion kind of started to wane because I wasn't sure what the scriptural foundations for the Catholic beliefs on Mary were.

I never left the church or anything, but I just, you know, just stopped praying the rosary.

Stop kneeling before statues of Mary.

Stop asking her to pray for me because I wasn't sure how it fit with what the Scripture said.

And then when I got to Notre Dame, I began to study not just the New Testament, but I began to study ancient Judaism.

I began to study the Old Testament in particular.

I looked at what ancient Christian writers, the early church fathers, had to say about Mary, about Christ, and the Old and New Testaments and how they go together.

What I discovered was two things.

First, Catholic beliefs about Mary are not new.

They weren't made up in the last century or even in the Middle Ages.

They're very, very ancient.

They go all the way back to the early church, as I show in the book.

But the second thing is the reason ancient Christians believed these things about Mary—that she was sinless, that she was assumed into heaven, that she was the queen, that she could pray for us—the reason they believed these things is because they, unlike us, did not just look at what the New Testament had to say about Mary.

They looked at what the New Testament said about Mary in light of the Old Testament.

They read the new in light of the old and the old in light of the new.

And when you start doing that, not just with reference to Jesus— all kinds of Christians look at Jesus that way.

He's the new Adam.

He's the new David.

He's the new Moses, whatever.

When you don't just look at Jesus that way, but when you begin to look at Mary that way as well, all of a sudden, the lights go on.

And it becomes clear that our Catholic beliefs about Mary don't just come from the New Testament; they come from the whole Bible.

So what I want to do tonight is look at what the Bible says about Mary in light of the Old and New together, and I want to focus on three key themes: number one, Mary as the new Eve; number two, Mary as the new Ark of the Covenant; and then number three, Mary as the new Queen Mother.

What I want to show you is that when you approach Mary, when you try to see Mary through ancient Jewish eyes, as the first Jewish Christians would have seen her in fulfillment of these Old Testament prophecies about the Mother of the Messiah, all that we believe about Mary as Catholics really is deeply rooted, not just in ancient Christianity, but in the Bible itself.

So that's my task for tonight.

I do want to begin with one quotation from the Catechism, though, that I think is really important.

A number of people have asked me, you know, Dr. Petrie, why did you call it Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary?

Why not just the Jewish roots of Mary?

That would have been shorter, more concise.

That was deliberate on my part.

The first reason was because that was the title of my first book, and I wanted you to think it was a sequel and buy it.

That's important.

The second and deeper reason is because the book isn't just about Mary; it's about Jesus and the Jewish roots of Mary.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is the Church's official compendium of all its teachings, right here, in paragraph 47, says this, at the top of your handout: "...what the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ."

Very important, right?

What we as Catholics believe about Mary is based on what we believe about Jesus.

And if we can understand Jesus better, we'll understand Mary better.

Likewise, if we understand who Mary is, it's going to shed light on who Jesus is as well.

So it all goes back to Jesus.

Okay, so let's dive right in here to our study of Mary in the Old and New Testaments.

So let's begin with the first topic, and that is Mary as the New Eve.

Now, in order to understand how the New Testament depicts Mary as the New Eve and what the implications of that are for us as Catholics, we've got to go back to the Old Testament.

We've got to look at the first Eve in the Scriptures, and that is the woman who's created at the beginning of the book of Genesis along with Adam.

Now, I know you all know the story of Adam and Eve, so I don't have to rehearse it here, but I just want to highlight a couple of elements about the portrait of Eve in the Old Testament that are significant for understanding Mary.

So we can begin, number one, with just a basic question.

All Christians reading the New Testament would agree that Jesus is the new Adam.

If you look at 1 Corinthians 15 or Romans 5, Paul's really clear that Jesus isn't just the Son of God.

He isn't just the Messiah.

He's the new Adam who's coming to the world to undo the effects of the fall, to undo the effects of the first Adam who brings sin and death into the world.

And now, if that point is true, which it is according to Scripture, then the question it raises for us is, well, who's the new Eve?

Well, go back to the Old Testament and look at the first Eve, and we'll get some clues.

A couple of points about Eve in the Old Testament.

First, notice that Adam and Eve at the beginning of the book of Genesis, chapter 1, verses 27 to 28, are created, quote, "very good."

In Hebrew, Old Testament scholars will tell you that phrase there is packed with meaning.

And one of the things it means is that God creates Adam and Eve without sin.

It's really important.

They're created in the state of what's called original holiness or original righteousness, right?

They choose to sin very quickly, chapter 2, right?

But that's not how they're created.

Sin is not God's fault.

It's not something He bestows upon us at the moment of creation; it's something we choose, right?

And our first parents chose at the beginning.

So first, Adam and Eve are created without sin, very good, in Genesis chapter 1. Second, although we refer to this woman in the opening chapters of the Bible as Eve—that's her common name—the book of Genesis actually doesn't call her that very much.

It only calls her Eve once.

The majority of the time, it refers to her as simply the woman.

So Eve is called woman 12 times, just in that short little space of the book of Genesis there, starting with Genesis 2, verse 23. Another point: after Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge and fall, Eve gets a name, and her name in Hebrew is Chava.

In Greek, that gets translated as Zoe, which is the Greek word for life.

If anybody's named Zoe, you're named after Eve.

The reason she's called that, Genesis tells us, is because she was the mother of all the living.

Okay?

So there's like a pun in the Hebrew.

Her name is Havah because she's the mother of Hayah, all those who are alive.

So her very name means life because she's the mother of all who live.

There's also kind of an irony there, too, because she's the mother of all the living, but what does she give to them?

Death.

Thank you, Mom.

Appreciate that.

Okay, yeah, okay.

I call that original sin, but that's another issue.

Another element in Genesis that's really important, although your picture Bible that you had as a child—at least mine, when I had it as a child—depicts the fall taking place like this.

I don't know what yours was like.

Mine had Adam working the fields, you know, really.

So they tend to separate them in the pictures, don't they?

That's not how it is in the Hebrew.

In the original text of Genesis, Adam and Eve fall together.

Genesis 3, verse 6 very clearly says, Eve gave some of the fruit to her husband who was with her, and they ate and they fell.

So in the book of Genesis, the first man and the first woman, Adam and Eve, cooperate in bringing about the fall of humanity.

It's not something done by themselves; they cooperate.

There's a man and a woman involved.

Then finally, the last part of Genesis, and this is really the most important for understanding Mary as the new Eve, is in the prophecy that's given to the serpent.

So you recall after the fall, God says to Adam, you know, what have you done?

And he blames the woman, and so he says to her, what have you done?

She blames the serpent.

So he turns to the serpent, and the serpent's like, yeah, yeah, I did it.

And so God pronounces a curse upon the serpent after the fall.

And this is what he says to the serpent.

He says this, quote, this is Genesis 3:15: I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed.

He shall strike your head, and you shall strike his heel.

Genesis 3:15. So what's going on here?

Now, some commentators say, oh, well, this is just kind of like a nice ancient story about why women don't like snakes.

And that is true; most women do not like snakes.

When I was a boy playing in the backyard, about a four-foot king snake went down a crawfish hole, and I did what any good eight-year-old boy would do, which is grab the tail and what?

Pull it out, right?

And then go show Mom.

"Hey, Mom, look what I got," you know?

She screamed, told me to get out of the house, and told me I absolutely could not keep it, which, by the way, is really funny.

So I said, "Well, Mom, come on, why can't I keep the snake?"

You know what she told me?

She said, "You cannot keep the snake because the serpent..."

I'm sorry.

She said it this way: "You cannot keep the snake because Satan, the devil, appeared to Eve under the form of a serpent."

And you know what I said to her?

"That's not all the other snakes' fault.

That's not Satan's fault."

I started to cry.

Of course, she won, and the snake was gone.

You could interpret the text that way, but that's not how ancient Jews interpreted it.

That's not what they thought.

They actually saw this as a prophecy of the Messiah—an ancient Jewish tradition—that one day there would come a woman who would give birth to the Messiah.

This woman would be like a new Eve.

And unlike the first Eve, who fell to the serpent, the new Eve would be at war with the serpent.

Her seed, her offspring, her child, would also be at war with the serpent and would somehow conquer the serpent, conquer the devil.

Now, what's interesting about that interpretation of that prophecy is this.

Again, sorry, South Louisiana, can't help myself.

But if you're from Louisiana and you ever killed a snake, you know that you go for the head, right?

You go for the head.

However, if you do what this prophecy says and you try to step on the head, you might kill the snake, but you also might get bit in the process, right?

And if it's a poisonous snake and you get bitten, you're going to die, or at least you'll be in a lot of pain.

So this prophecy is mysterious because it appears to describe a war between the woman and the serpent and her seed and the serpent.

In this battle, both sides die; they both lose, apparently.

The serpent strikes his heel, and he crushes his head.

So what do we make of this?

Well, you'll see in just a minute.

The church fathers, the ancient Christians, interpreted this as what they called the Proto-Evangelium, the first gospel.

Before God even says one word of punishment to Adam and Eve, He's already prophesied the passion, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ and His triumph over Satan through the cross—right there, in mystery.

Now, let's go back to Jewish tradition for just a minute.

As time goes by, the Jews had a very clear understanding of the fact that the fall did not take place just through Adam alone.

In fact, there's a wonderful quote.

I want to make a bumper sticker out of it.

Sirach chapter 25, verse 24 says this: "From a woman, sin had its beginning, and because of her, we all died."

The point is to highlight that the woman played a key role in the fall of humanity.

She played a unique role; Eve did in the fall of humanity.

And the same thing is going to be true in the redemption of humanity.

If a woman played a decisive role in the fall of humanity, it's going to be fitting that she plays a decisive role in the redemption and restoration of humanity in Christ.

All right, so fast forward to the New Testament.

When we get to the New Testament, it's absolutely true that the New Testament never says, "Hey, everybody, Mary is the new Eve," like in explicit terms.

But at the same time, it's equally true that it absolutely depicts her as a new Eve if you read the New Testament through Jewish eyes.

There are two books where this is really clear: the first one is the Gospel of John, and the second one is the Book of Revelation.

So let's look at both of those for just a moment.

In the Gospel of John, Mary appears in two key moments in Jesus' ministry: at the wedding at Cana in John chapter 2 and then at the foot of the cross in John chapter 19, like bookends, beginning and end of Jesus' ministry.

In both of those occasions in the Gospel of John, Jesus does something, well, weird.

He refers to his mother—he addresses his mother, I should say—as woman, in Greek, gune.

Now, this has caught interpreters' attention for centuries because that's a strange thing to do, right?

Most people do not address their mothers as woman.

I don't even want to think about what would happen to me if I addressed my mother as woman, right?

And the same thing was true in ancient times.

Now, I've told my students this over and over again: whenever you see something weird in the New Testament, invariably, it goes back to the Old Testament.

The answer, the explanation for what's going on, lies in the Old Testament.

And the same thing is true here.

Because if you look at the context of how Mary is being depicted in the Gospel of John, and you go back to the Old Testament, you'll see that the reason Jesus is referring to her—addressing her as woman—is not because he's being disrespectful, right?

For one thing, he obviously can't be disrespectful because to dishonor your mother is to break the fourth commandment: honor your father and your mother.

If your interpretation leads you to the conclusion that Jesus breaks one of the commandments, you're probably wrong.

That's just a basic rule of thumb.

So, why does he call her woman?

Well, a number of scholars on John's Gospel have pointed out that if you look at Mary and Eve carefully in John's Gospel, there are several parallels that make it clear that Mary is being depicted as a new Eve.

Jesus is addressing her as the new Eve, the new woman of the new creation.

So if you look on your chart there, I've got some parallels in a handout.

For example, number one: Eve in the Old Testament is called woman some 11 or 12 times.

In the New Testament, in the Gospel of John, Mary is called woman twice by Jesus, addressed as one.

Number two: in the Old Testament, Eve invites Adam to commit the first sin, right, through which everything falls.

In the Gospel of John, Mary invites Jesus to perform his first sign, right, through which the world is going to be redeemed.

Number three: in the Old Testament, Eve is with Adam at the fall; she's tempted by the devil to sin.

The same thing, number three, in the New Testament: Mary is with Jesus, the new Adam, at the crucifixion, which, according to John, is when the devil is cast out of this world.

John describes the crucifixion of Jesus as the great exorcism.

Now the ruler of this world is cast out.

Now the hour has come.

Fourth, in the Old Testament, in the book of Genesis, Eve is called the mother of the offspring who will conquer the serpent, this new woman.

In the New Testament, Mary is the woman whose child conquers the devil in the Gospel of John.

And then finally, this is really interesting: fifth, in the Old Testament, Eve becomes the mother of all the living, and at the cross, what happens to Mary?

She becomes the mother of the beloved disciple.

Remember when Jesus says to her, "Behold your son," and then to John, "Behold your mother"? In that way, he gives Mary to be mother not just to the beloved disciple but to all beloved disciples.

We'll come back to that at the end.

Okay, so clearly Mary is being depicted in the Gospel of John, and scholars agree on this, as a new Eve.

Christ, Jesus, her son, is the new Adam who conquers the devil.

What about the Book of Revelation, though?

Well, this one's even clearer.

If you turn to Revelation chapter 12, verses 1 through 5, I've just given you a little summary here on the handout.

There's a very famous vision of this woman in heaven.

Most Catholics are familiar with this, but let's look at it again.

I just want to highlight it in light of the Old Testament.

Read it like a first-century Jew.

In the Book of Revelation chapter 12, John says this: "...a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars."

And another sign appeared in heaven.

Behold, a great red dragon.

The dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth.

Revelation 12, verses 1-5. And if you keep reading in Revelation, he goes on to say that that dragon was the ancient serpent, the devil.

He's very explicit about that.

You can see here that it's alluding to Genesis because when it says the dragon wants to devour the child, that also is an allusion to the book of Genesis.

You remember at the beginning of the curse, God says to the serpent, "...on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life."

Now, you might think, what does that mean?

Does it just mean snakes get a little dirt on their chin when they're crawling on the ground?

No! When does the word dust appear in Genesis 2? It's when God breathes into the dust and makes out of it what?

A man.

So see, the serpent is cursed with the desire to consume us—to consume human beings, to devour man.

But when he does, it's not going to give him anything.

It's like eating dust; it doesn't give life.

That's why you always see in all these ancient pagan religions serpents eating humans.

Or people, whenever there's human sacrifice, they offer the babies, for example, to the snake god.

It's demonic.

It's a demonic image.

This goes back to Genesis here.

Okay, that's time for another talk.

So, in any case, what's going on in Revelation?

Well, these are allusions to the Old Testament.

If you understand the Old Testament, you'll understand the New; you'll understand Revelation.

So, in this vision that John is having, there are three key characters: number one, the serpent; number two, the child; and then number three, the woman.

Okay?

Now, there are lots of interpreters—lots of non-Catholic interpreters, for example—who will insist that when John sees this woman clothed with the sun, it is not Mary.

What they will say is it's just a symbol for the church or a symbol for the Jewish people because the Messiah comes from the Jewish people.

And it is true that in the Old Testament, the image of a woman is used to describe Israel.

She is the bride, and the Lord is the bridegroom.

I even wrote a book on it called Jesus the Bridegroom.

They might have some copies of that.

You can get that, okay?

But the idea of...

See, I just wove that in.

It was getting woven in.

All right.

The idea of Israel as a bride is totally biblical.

That's totally true, right?

Same thing about the church as a bride in the New Testament, Ephesians 5. But in context, the primary meaning of the woman is definitely an individual because look at the other characters involved.

The serpent is clearly an individual.

Who?

The devil.

Nobody denies that.

The child is clearly an individual.

Christ, right?

Nobody denies that.

So in context, it makes sense that the third character, the woman, would also be what?

An individual.

And who is the woman who gives birth to the Messiah?

Mary.

Come on, this is a very plausible reading.

And in that context then, what is Revelation doing?

It's depicting Mary as the new woman, as the woman of Genesis 3:15, the new Eve, whose child would conquer the devil.

Whose child would be the Messiah, who would undo sin and death through his passion, death, and resurrection.

Okay, so there's the first image.

So what?

So what?

If Mary's the new Eve, so what?

What are the implications of that?

Well, there are several that are really crucial.

Number one, this is so important.

It's not on the handout.

Don't turn the page.

I'm just throwing this out there.

I don't want to put everything on the handout.

You've got to buy the book.

First and foremost, this is so crucial: the Immaculate Conception.

Why do we believe that Mary was conceived without sin?

Why do we believe she was created without sin?

Which, by the way, let me make sure I'm clear here.

There's a lot of confusion about the Immaculate Conception.

I've been teaching for a lot of years, and a lot of students think the Immaculate Conception is the virginal conception of Christ.

No, it doesn't have anything to do with the conception of Jesus.

The Immaculate Conception is about the conception of Mary in her mother's womb and her preservation from all stain of original sin.

Why do we Catholics say that about Mary when Paul says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God?

Isn't original sin universal?

And the answer is no, because there are exceptions.

There are some exceptions.

Everyone in here was born with original sin, but there are a few people who were created without sin: Jesus, the first exception.

Everybody agrees on that.

But the other ones are Adam and Eve.

It's really important.

In Genesis 1, they're created good.

They're not created in a state of sin.

So, if Jesus is the new Adam and Mary is the new Eve, then it follows that Mary too would be created what?

Without sin.

Otherwise—this is important—the old Eve would be greater than the new Eve.

See?

That's really important.

And that's not how the Bible works.

Old Testament prefigurations are never greater than their New Testament fulfillment.

Adam's a type of Christ, but he's not greater than Christ.

David's a type of Christ.

Is David greater than Jesus?

Please say no.

Remember Bathsheba?

Come on.

Solomon's a type of Christ.

Same thing—700 wives, and three of them are concubines.

So Solomon's not greater than Christ.

The same thing is true when it comes to Mary.

If Mary was created in sin, then she would be less than the old Eve.

So it's fitting that God would make the new Adam and the new Eve both without sin because they're the beginning of a new creation.

Amen?

Amen.

Also, too, as Catholics, we believe that Mary committed no sin her entire earthly life through God's grace.

How is that possible if she's just a human being?

The answer?

Because she's the new Eve.

If Mary had committed just one sin in her whole life, she would be less than or equal to the old Eve, right?

And don't give me this stuff that, oh, well, it's not possible for a human being not to commit sin.

Really?

Do the saints in heaven sin?

Think about it for just a second and then say no, right?

Are they still human?

Yes.

How's that possible?

Through God's grace.

Because with God, all things are possible.

I just made that up.

With God, all things are possible.

All things are possible.

Write that down.

Okay.

So, if we say Mary is immaculately conceived, it's just because we're giving God too much credit.

We think His grace is that powerful.

We actually believe that.

And because she is the new Eve.

In fact, here, I didn't put this on the handout, but there's a quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 411. I'll just read this real quick.

It says, "You're thinking, wow, I never heard any of this in catechism."

This is what the catechism says: Paragraph 411. The passage in Genesis 3 is called the Proto-Evangelium, or the first gospel.

It's the first announcement of the Messiah and the Redeemer, of a battle between the serpent and the woman, and the final victory of a descendant of hers.

The Christian tradition sees in this passage an announcement of the new Adam, who, because he became obedient, makes amends super abundantly for the disobedience of the first Adam.

Furthermore, many fathers and doctors of the church have seen the woman announced in the Proto-Evangelium as Mary, the mother of Christ, the new Eve.

Mary benefited first of all and uniquely from Christ's victory over sin.

She was preserved from all stain of original sin and, by a special grace of God, committed no sin of any kind during her whole earthly life.

See, the catechism has read my book on Jewish priests.

Let's turn the page.

All right, so Jesus is the new Adam, and Mary is the new Eve.

What about the Ark of the Covenant?

Well, the New Testament very clearly depicts Jesus as the new manna from heaven.

That's John chapter 6. I deal with that in my book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, right?

Jesus describes himself as the bread that has come down from heaven.

Now, if you're a first-century Jew and you know that about Christ, then the question that follows is, well, if Jesus is the new manna, then where is the new Ark?

Because every Jew would have known that when the manna came down, they put it in a golden jar and then they put it in the Ark of the Covenant.

So, in order to see how Mary fulfills that prophecy of the new Ark, we've got to go back to the Old Testament and look at the Ark of the Covenant there.

Now, when it comes to the Ark, it's helpful that there was a movie about the Ark, Raiders of the Lost Ark.

So, even if you haven't read the book, you've seen the movie.

Oh, that joke's getting too old.

Okay, I'll do it again.

All right.

Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Now, actually, this one's really important for me because when I was a kid, I was too young to see Raiders of the Lost Ark when it came out in the theater.

But I did get a read-along record book.

I don't know if there were little records that would come along.

And they had all these pictures of Professor Indiana Jones and the Bible.

I remember this one picture from the record book, which I still own, showing Indiana Jones pointing at a picture of the Old Testament.

It's an image of the Israelites carrying the Ark of the Covenant into battle.

Because whenever they brought the Ark into battle, they would defeat their enemies.

They were unstoppable.

And whenever they didn't bring it, they would be defeated.

And of course, in the movie, that's why the Nazis want the Ark—because it's so powerful, right?

I can't help but wonder if that had any influence on me becoming a Bible professor.

Because Indiana Jones is a professor.

I'm just throwing that out there.

He's a professor.

Anyway, so in the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant is this powerful object, and it's powerful because it is the dwelling place of God on earth.

The Lord comes down, dwells in the Ark with His people, and then moves with them throughout the desert in the book of Exodus.

So when you look at Exodus 25 to 40, you're going to see some elements of the Ark of the Covenant that are really important for understanding Mary's identity in the New Testament.

Here are a few of them.

First, I've already mentioned, it's the dwelling place of God on earth.

Second, it's a sacred container.

So it was a box made of acacia wood that was covered in gold with two golden statues of angels on top of it.

The Israelites put certain things in it.

They put three things in particular.

First, the manna from heaven—I've already mentioned that.

Second, they put the two tablets of the Ten Commandments in the Ark.

And then third, they put the staff of Aaron that miraculously budded to show his tribe was the priestly tribe chosen by God.

They put the staff of Aaron in the Ark and carried it about with those three sacred objects.

All right.

Most people know that, but there are some other elements that are a little interesting and easy to miss.

Number three: the Ark was also described as holy and as having been made of incorruptible wood.

Really interesting.

It was made of this special wood I already mentioned—it's called acacia wood—which is very hard, very durable, and just does not rot.

So when you wanted to make something sacred, you would use acacia wood because it was really hard and it didn't corrupt.

You don't use cheap pine.

It just rots like the fence I made a few years back.

I paid big money for it, and after two years, it was rotten.

I need an acacia wood fence; that would only cost like $100,000. Incorruptible wood.

Fourth, the Ark is covered in gold.

Why is it covered in gold?

Why don't they just give the gold to the poor Israelites?

You know, people complain, why do you have all this gold in your churches?

Because that's how God likes it, evidently, right?

He commands them to cover the Ark with gold because gold is a symbol of divinity.

It's a sign that in the Ark, God is with us on earth.

We're like entering into heaven on earth.

Whenever you see gold, it's a symbol of heaven on earth.

It's a symbol of purity.

It's a symbol of holiness—the absolute holiness of the Ark.

If you look in the book of Kings, it was so holy that if any mere man touched it, he could be struck dead.

Holiness is good, but it's dangerous.

It's like Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia.

No, it's true, right?

He's a good lion, but he's not tame.

And that's how God is in the Old Testament.

He's good, but he's dangerous.

He's not tame; he's powerful, he's mysterious.

One other element of the Ark that's really interesting that I just discovered in working on this book is that whenever they took the Ark out, it wasn't just gold; they would cover it in a cloth, and the cloth was blood.

So if you think Ark of the Covenant, you think blue and gold.

Isn't that interesting?

I went to the University of Notre Dame.

What were the colors?

Blue and gold.

All right, so Numbers chapter 4, verse 7, the Ark is blue and gold.

And then finally, and most importantly, the reason the Ark was the dwelling place of God is because when they completed it, God comes down from heaven in the book of Exodus in chapter 40, and His glory cloud, the Shekinah of His glory, the pillar of fire and pillar of cloud, comes down upon the Ark so that the Lord might dwell there.

Exodus 40, verses 17 and 18 actually says this: Moses brought the Ark into the tabernacle, and then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

That's why the Ark is special—because God dwells in the Ark with His people.

And so after this happens, what do they do?

They head on over to the promised land.

They cross the river Jordan.

They bring the Ark.

The Ark is the first thing to go across the river Jordan with 12 priests that carry it across.

The waters part, and they bring the Ark into the promised land.

Then it moves around for a bit during the period of Joshua and the judges until David takes the Ark of the Covenant and brings it up to Jerusalem so that he can give a permanent sanctuary, a permanent place of worship for God's people to encounter Him eventually in the temple of Solomon in 2 Samuel 6 and 1 Kings 8. So that's about a thousand years before Christ.

Unfortunately, though, if you fast forward to the 6th century B.C., something devastating happens to the people of Israel and to the Ark of the Covenant.

The Babylonians come into the land of Israel.

They conquer the Judeans; they conquer the Southerners.

They burn the city of Jerusalem to the ground.

They destroy the temple.

And in the process of all that, what happens?

The Ark is lost.

Now, in fact, Josephus tells us this.

He was a first-century Jewish historian.

By the time Jesus was alive in the first century A.D., everybody knew that if you went into the Holy of Holies, guess what was in it?

Nothing.

No, no, nothing—it's empty.

It's just a pitch-black room.

The priest was supposed to go into the Holy of Holies once a year and pour the blood of atonement on the Ark, on the mercy seat—that's the cup of the Ark.

But they can't do that when Jesus is alive because there is no Ark; it's gone.

Now, of course, this led to all kinds of theories about what happened to the Ark.

This is why the title of the movie was Raiders of the Lost Ark, right?

Because it's lost, right?

And so you have all kinds of speculation about what happened to the Ark.

Some people think that the Babylonians took it, although the Book of Kings does not list it among the implements that they took from Jerusalem when they destroyed it.

Other people suggest, oh, that it's been found and that it's in this monastery in Ethiopia.

You watch these documentaries; I know you've seen this stuff on the Discovery Channel, History Channel, right?

They make you sit through two hours of "Where is the Ark?"

and then you get to the end, and they're like, oh, it's in a sanctuary that's protected by these monks, and we can't get in.

Sorry.

You're like, okay, man, why did I just waste all this time?

No one can verify or falsify if it's the Ark.

And then there are all kinds of other theories as well.

What's interesting about this is, as Catholics, we don't need to actually wonder.

We actually know what happened to the Ark because our Bible tells us.

In the Catholic Old Testament, in the second book of Maccabees, we have the most ancient account of what happened to the Ark of the Covenant in 2 Maccabees 2. Now, most Protestant Christians aren't familiar with this ancient tradition because it's only in the Catholic Old Testament.

And most Catholics aren't familiar with this ancient Jewish tradition because it's in the Catholic Old Testament, right?

So nobody knows about it.

But it's very important, okay?

So 2 Maccabees chapter 2 tells us that Jeremiah the prophet, who was alive during the destruction of the temple, took the Ark—he was a priest—and hid it in Mount Nebo, which is east of the Jordan River, where Moses went up and saw the Promised Land before he died.

Not Mount Sinai, but Mount Nebo.

So, this is what it says: "Jeremiah ordered that the tent and the Ark should follow with him, and he went out to the mountain where Moses had gone up and seen the inheritance of God.

And Jeremiah came, and he found a cave, and he brought there the Ark, and he sealed up the entrance.

Now some of those who followed him came up to mark the way, but they could not find it.

Now when Jeremiah learned of it, he declared, '...the place'—meaning the location of the Ark—'...shall remain unknown until the glory of the Lord and the cloud appear.'"

2 Maccabees 2:4-8. What does that mean, the cloud?

He's not talking about a thunderstorm here; he's talking about the glory cloud from the Old Testament.

Because in the book of Ezekiel, it tells us that before the temple was destroyed, the glory cloud departed from the Ark and departed from the temple, and they heard a voice saying, "We shall depart hence."

In other words, we're leaving.

Meaning that the angelic presence that was there with the Ark and the divine presence took off.

And then the temple was destroyed.

So what Jeremiah is saying is, you're not going to know where the Ark is until the cloud that overshadowed the Ark comes back down again from heaven.

All right, now with all that in mind, now that you've got your Jewish CCD, catechism—all got it down—now go to the New Testament and read the account of the Annunciation to Mary.

You're going to see something very, very important.

And it's this: in the Gospel of Luke, Mary is depicted as fulfilling the role of the Ark of the Covenant in the New Testament.

She is the Ark, so to speak, of the New Covenant.

You can see this whenever the angel says to her—this is in Luke 1:35—the angel Gabriel comes to her and says, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

Therefore, the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God."

Luke 1:35. Now, if you look at that little chart that I've given you there, Luke uses a very distinctive Greek verb to describe the Holy Spirit and the power of God overshadowing Mary.

The Greek word there is episkiazo.

It's just used a couple of times in the Old Testament, and it's used with reference to the glory cloud overshadowing the Ark.

So in Exodus 40, verse 35, the glory cloud, episkiazo, overshadows the tabernacle with the Ark in it.

And the same thing happens in Luke 1, verse 35. The Holy Spirit, episkiase, overshadows the Virgin Mary.

Even Protestant commentators on Luke who know the Old Testament well have looked at this and said it appears here that Mary is being depicted as the new Ark of the Covenant.

In other words, her body is the new dwelling place of God on earth.

Now, it doesn't stop there.

If I had more time, I could actually show you how it isn't just the Annunciation; it's also the Visitation to Elizabeth.

In the book, Jewish Roots of Mary, on page 58, I take you through more parallels.

This is just one.

There are about five parallels between Mary and the Ark in the Old Testament and New Testament in the Visitation to Mary.

So in the Old Testament, in 2 Samuel 6, David arose and went to the hill country of Judah, just like Mary arose and went to the hill country of Elizabeth, who lived in Judah.

David says in 2 Samuel 6, "How can the Ark of the Lord come to me?"

And in the New Testament, Elizabeth says, "How is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"

In the Old Testament, David leaps before the Ark and shouts with a loud voice.

And although we miss this, in Luke chapter 1, it says that not only does John the Baptist leap in Elizabeth's womb, but Elizabeth cries out with a loud shout, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb."

She doesn't just quietly say it; she shouts it.

She exclaims it.

She's filled with the Holy Spirit.

And then finally, the Ark remains in the house of Obed-Edom for three months.

And then Luke says something weird.

He doesn't say Mary stayed with Elizabeth until John was born; he says Mary stayed in the house of Elizabeth for three months.

Why does he do that?

Well, again, Catholic and non-Catholic scholars have recognized it's because he's drawing out the parallels between the Ark coming up to Jerusalem and Mary coming up to the house of Elizabeth because she is the new Ark of the Covenant.

Now, if you have any doubts about that, you can just fast forward to the book of Revelation, and there's one more connection between Mary and the Ark.

It's in Revelation 12, again, the image of the woman clothed with the sun, but it's in the immediate preceding verse in Revelation 11:19. Most of us miss this because the chapter is divided, but there aren't any chapter divisions in the original Greek.

In fact, there aren't even periods and sentence divisions.

It's just letters running in a line, right?

So in the original vision, scholars recognize there's a parallel being drawn here.

Look what it says.

Revelation 11:19. John says, "Now pause right there."

If you're a first-century Jew, you've been waiting for the Ark to show up for almost six centuries since the time of Jeremiah.

Everybody's waiting: when is the Ark going to come back?

Where is it going to be?

So when John has this vision, this is a big deal.

And far from being in Mount Nebo across the Jordan, where is the Ark?

It is in heaven.

And no sooner does the temple in heaven open—because the Ark's in the Holy of Holies, right?

The door is open.

John sees into it.

Then he also sees another sign in heaven.

What?

A woman clothed with the sun.

The two verbs that John uses here parallel one another, and scholars have pointed out that he appears to be describing—and he does this elsewhere in the book—overlapping symbols: two ways of looking at the same thing.

The Ark and the woman.

The place where God dwells.

Mary, the mother of the Messiah.

All right, so.

So what?

So Mary's the new Ark.

Big deal.

She's just an ordinary woman.

Well, not really.

There's a little more to it than that.

What are the implications of Mary being the new Ark?

Well, first of all, it should just tell us about the holiness of Mary.

Sometimes people get bothered because we call her Holy Mary, Mother of God.

Well, she's the new Ark of the Covenant.

I'm sorry—she's holy by definition.

Her body is consecrated; it's set apart to be the dwelling place of God.

Now, I don't have time to get into this tonight.

I have a whole chapter in the book on the perpetual virginity of Mary.

This is something that not just Protestant Christians, but lots of Catholics I've met, really struggle with—the Catholic doctrine that Mary remained a virgin her entire life, that she didn't have any other children, and that she and St. Joseph never had marital relations.

People will ask, you know, what's the big deal?

I mean, if they were married, why would she remain a virgin within marriage?

Isn't there something wrong with sex?

I mean, doesn't God say, "Be fruitful and multiply"? It's the first words out of His mouth in Genesis.

So obviously, marital relations are good.

There's nothing wrong with them.

So why does Mary remain a virgin?

I have a whole chapter that deals with that and the brothers of Jesus and all that stuff.

But for now, I just want to throw out one little point.

If St. Joseph even had the slightest clue that the Holy Spirit in the Incarnation overshadowed Mary, like the glory cloud overshadowed the Ark, then he also would have had a very lively awareness of the sanctity and the holiness of Mary as well.

Remember, in the Old Testament, if you're not a consecrated priest, you can't even touch the Ark.

Right?

Because it's so powerful.

It's so holy.

It's set apart for God.

Anyway, we can maybe talk about that in a question-and-answer session if you want a little bit more.

But I just want you to think about that.

So, the holiness of Mary.

Second, it's her body that's holy because her body is the dwelling place of God.

So, in the Old Testament, what was in the Ark?

It was the Ten Commandments, it was the manna, it was the staff of Aaron.

No, that was not in the Old Testament, right?

And it won't be in heaven either, right?

No cell phones.

Good reason to try to get to heaven—no cell phones, right?

Okay.

Where was I? What was in the Ark?

Thank you.

Okay, so what's in the Ark?

The Ten Commandments, the manna from heaven, and then the staff of Aaron.

So, if Mary's the new Ark, what is it that's in her body?

The Word made flesh.

The bread of life.

And the eternal priest of God—the true priest, Jesus Christ.

That's who she is.

That's the role she plays.

And then finally, Mary's identity as the new Ark is crucial for understanding her bodily assumption into heaven.

Because if Jesus is the new Moses, who's inaugurated a new exodus and who brings us into the heavenly promised land, the heavenly temple, like Hebrews says, then where does the new Ark belong?

Where does it go?

It goes in the heavenly Holy of Holies.

And not just Mary's soul, because it wasn't Mary's soul that's the Ark; it's her what?

It's her body.

So it's fitting that if she's the Ark, then at the end of her life, her body would be taken up into the heavenly temple to be with God.

Pope Benedict XVI actually said this in his homily on the Assumption of Mary on August 15, 2011. You don't have to listen to me; the Holy Father said, quote, "If Mary is the new Ark, then it makes sense that her body would not experience corruption but would be brought up into the heavenly Holy of Holies."

Remember, the Ark was made of incorruptible wood, and so was the body of Our Lady.All

right, third and final.

Turn the page to page three.

I just called Mary Our Lady.

What does that mean?

Well, it's tied to her identity as the new queen mother.

Anyone who reads the New Testament would agree that Jesus, if he's anything, is the king of Israel.

That's what it means to refer to him as the Messiah.

He is the new Davidic king.

But the question we don't often ask ourselves is, well, if he's the king, then who is the queen?

The reason we don't ask ourselves that is because we just don't read the Old Testament like we should.

Any first-century Jew going back to the Old Testament would have recalled that in the time of David's kingdom, the queen was not the king's wife.

The queen was his mother, right?

She was actually referred to in Hebrew as the Gebirah, which often gets translated as queen mother, but it actually means great lady.

A Gebir is a powerful man, like a great man.

A Gebirah is a powerful woman, a great woman—the great lady, a royal lady, okay?

So she's referred to, for example, in 1 Kings 15, verse 13. And if you walk through the books of Kings—1 and 2 Kings, as well as 1 and 2 Chronicles, which don't get made into movies, and that's why we don't know about the Queen Mother—what you're going to see is that every time they introduce a new king, they don't tell you who his wife is.

They give a little genealogy, tell you the king's name, and then they tell you his mama's name.

They tell you his mother's name because she holds the rank of second in the kingdom.

She holds the office of queen mother.

You can see that it's an office from a few things.

First, she wears a crown, as noted in Jeremiah chapter 13, verse 18. Just like the king, she wears a crown.

Also, in Psalm 45, it says she stands at the king's right hand.

You remember this song, "dressed in gold of Ophir," right?

Okay, there's the gold again.

Why is she standing at his right hand?

Well, any time in the Old Testament you see somebody at a king's right hand, it means they share in his authority, right?

"The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand."

So she has authority; she has an office.

She also acts, and this is important, as a kind of royal intercessor.

You can see this custom reflected in a famous story from the book of Kings, 1 Kings 2. Now, this is a story about Bathsheba, right?

And Bathsheba really is the most famous of all the queen mothers of Israel because of the story of the adultery between her and David.

So we all know Bathsheba from that story, right?

David's out on the roof, he looks down, he sees Bathsheba taking a bath, which makes one wonder...

Maybe her parents should have called her, "Don't take a bath, Sheba."

I don't know.

All right.

That landed.

Good.

Come on.

That's good.

I was waiting all day to do that.

All right.

"Don't take a bath, Sheba."

All right.

Okay.

And then he commits adultery with her, and the child dies.

But then the next child of their union—he marries her after he murders her husband.

The next child of their union is Solomon.

Now, when you fast forward to 1 Kings 1, while David is still alive, when he's the king, and Bathsheba comes into the royal courtroom, Bathsheba bows to him.

She's the wife, but she bows to the king.

But in the next chapter, 1 Kings 2, David has died, and now Solomon's king.

When Solomon is king, and Bathsheba comes into the royal courtroom, he bows to her.

It's reversed.

And he doesn't just bow to her; he gets his men to bring a throne in for her.

And she sits at his right hand.So

this is 1 Kings 2. Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him on behalf of Adonijah.

Adonijah wanted to get Abishag, who was David's concubine, to be his.

It's kind of a long sort of story.

And look what she says.

The king rose to meet her and bowed down to her.

Why?

Well, because she's the queen and she's his mother.

The fourth commandment says to honor your father and your mother.

In Hebrew, literally, it means to glorify your father and your mother.

It's not just honor; it's glorify them.

Now I need to go to confession.

Okay, that's a strong commandment.

So he honors her as the queen mother, bows down to her, then he sits on his throne, and he has a throne brought in for the king's mother.

She sits at his right.

Now, pause there.

Some translations say he had a seat brought in for her, even though the Hebrew word is kisei.

It's the word for throne.

It's the same word they use for his throne, kisei.

But the translators change it because they're like, why is she getting a throne?

It doesn't make sense.

She should just get a seat.

That's not what it says; it says a throne because she's the queen mother.

Right?

All right, so two things here real quick.

What does Adonijah's request of Bathsheba and then Bathsheba's request of Solomon presuppose?

It presupposes a custom of asking the queen mother to take the role of intercessor with the king, which makes sense, right?

If you want the king to do something for you, ask his mom.

Now, some people will object because they'll say, aha, but if you keep reading in 1 Kings 2, Solomon actually doesn't obey her request because he sends an assassin to kill his brother.

Well, yes, but Solomon does lots of things that aren't exactly morally admirable.

That doesn't undo the fact that they reflect the custom, the presumption, the presupposition of what?

The queen mother acting as an intercessor.

Effectively, what Solomon says is, I'd love to fulfill your request, my mother.

He just happens to be dead.

Sorry, can't do it.

In any case, though, does everybody see what's going on here?

The queen has an office.

She acts as intercessor, and she's close to the king.

All right.

Now, those aren't the only passages about the Queen Mother.

She's also mentioned in various prophecies in the Old Testament, the most famous one being the virgin who will conceive and bear a child, and his name will be called Immanuel, right?

It goes on to say, you know, he will be a wonderful counselor, mighty God, prince of peace, God with us—all those things.

Okay, that's Isaiah 7-9. Now, we know those passages from Christmas and Advent, right?

Preparation for the birth of the Messiah and the application to Mary.

But what we often forget is that if the woman, that virgin, who's mentioned in Isaiah 7, is going to have a child who is the king, then guess what that makes her?

The queen mother, that's right, by definition.

The same thing happens in Micah chapter 2, which describes a woman who's going to give birth to the ruler in Bethlehem.

So it locates the queen mother as having the child in Bethlehem.

Again, these aren't just prophecies of anybody; they're prophecies of the queen mother of the kingdom of the Messiah.

So with those prophecies in mind, just put yourself in the shoes of a first-century Jewish woman like Mary.

One of the things that Jewish women would have known is that one of us is going to be the mother of the Messiah.

And whoever God chooses to be the mother of the Messiah is also, by definition, going to be exalted to the office of queen.

Now, I have four daughters, and they're all princesses.

They all want to be queens, so this is just a natural desire.

You can almost imagine Mary thinking, who's going to be the queen?

Who's the future queen?

And when the angel Gabriel appears to her and tells her, she would have known not only is she going to bear the Son of God, she's going to be the Queen Mother.

And if you have any doubts about that, just look at the New Testament.

A couple of key points.

Number one, the story of the Nativity.

Really fascinating.

When Matthew tells you the account of Jesus, he begins with that long genealogy.

Remember?

Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob.

Why are you groaning, right?

Isn't that your favorite reading in Mass?

Whenever they start and read the whole genealogy, you think, oh man, this guy needed an editor, right?

I mean, what is he doing beginning the book with the genealogy?

One of the things that's weird is that usually these genealogies focus on priests and kings, right?

And yet, Matthew throws in a number of women into the genealogy, and he ends with Mary.

Now, you go back to the Old Testament, and it's interesting—in the books of Kings, whenever these little genealogies are given of the kings, guess who appears?

Whenever a woman's in the genealogy, it's often his wife.

A little implicit clue that she's the queen mother.

But even more explicit, in Matthew 1:20-23, he describes Mary as the mother of Emmanuel.

Let me just read this passage to you real quick.

If you have your Bible with you, Matthew 1:23—this is really important for understanding Mary's identity in the New Testament as the Mother of God.

Because many people say, where does the New Testament ever call Mary the Mother of God?

And sometimes Catholics will say, well, Elizabeth calls her "mother of my Lord," right?

That's close, and it's true.

"Lord" can be used not just for the king, but also for God.

But Matthew chapter 1 is really where they get this from because in Matthew 1:22-23, it says this: "All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.

Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel, which means what?

God with us."Now,

although we say "Mother of God," the actual Greek term is theotokos, "God-bearer."

It comes from the Greek word theos (we get "theology" from that) and then tikto, or tokos, which means a bearer, or a woman who bears someone.

Well, where do those terms come from?

First page of the New Testament.

When Matthew says that a woman will conceive and bear, tikto, a son, she will be called the mother of Emmanuel, God, theos, with us.

You just put those two things together, tikto and theos, what do you get?

Theotokos, "God-bearer," Mother of God.

It's right there.

Because ancient Christians weren't reading English; they were reading it in Greek.

And that's where they got that title from.

So, that's the Nativity.

What about the Visitation?

Well, not only does Mary get called "mother of my Lord" by Elizabeth, but this is so important.

After she hears the message of Gabriel and the words of Elizabeth, there's a clue to her identity as the Queen Mother in the Magnificat.

You all know the Magnificat, right?

You love the Magnificat, right?

This is something prayed every single day by religious and priests throughout the world.

And there's a little clue here about Mary as Queen Mother because in the Magnificat, what does Mary say?

In Luke 1:46 and following, she says, "...behold, henceforth, all generations will call me blessed, for the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name."

Right?

What does she say?

"He has regarded the lowest state of His handmaiden."

And if you skip down to verse 52, Mary says, "He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly."

Now, that Greek word for lowly, taponosos, is exactly what she just referred to herself as—the lowly handmaid.

And now God has taken the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly.

Why is there more than one throne?

And who are these lowly who have been exalted?

It's Mary and her son.

Because he's the king and she's the queen.

That's who sits on thrones in the kingdom of David, right?

All right, so, and then finally, Revelation 12, verse 1. This one's really easy.

When John sees the woman clothed with the sun, she's wearing what on her head?

A crown of twelve stars.

Now, I know in our day and time, lots of women wear crowns, right?

Miss America, Miss USA. I even wore a crown once when I was playing Pretty Pretty Princess with my daughters.

There's a photo—hopefully it doesn't end up on the internet.

But that doesn't make just any person into royalty.

But in ancient Israel, if a woman is wearing a crown and the crown has twelve stars, who is she?

The Queen of Israel.

The Queen Mother.

Okay, so the New Testament depicts Mary as the New Eve, the New Ark, and the New Queen.

What's the implication of this?

Quite simply, that if Mary is the New Queen Mother, then it makes sense that we as Catholics do two things.

We should honor her.

It's hard for us as Americans to get our brains around this because our whole country came into existence in a revolt against a monarchy.

We're not a monarchy here; we're a republic.

But try to think back into the fact that in the Bible, it's the kingdom of God that Jesus is proclaiming.

That's what we belong to.

We belong to a kingdom.

And we have a queen.

If earthly queens of earthly kingdoms deserve the honor of their subjects, then how much more the holy queen of the kingdom of heaven?

I'm sorry, she's not just an ordinary woman; she's the queen.

Second, if she is the queen, then it makes sense that we would ask her to intercede for us.

Because she's not dead; she's alive in heaven.

That's why we call it eternal life, not eternal death, right?

I mean, she's not dead; she's alive.

And so she is with Christ in the heavenly Holy of Holies and can ask Christ—she can intercede on behalf of us as members of the kingdom and as children of God.

Amen?

Totally fitting.

It makes perfect sense if you think of her that way.

Now, sometimes people say, well, wait, but you Catholics are worshiping her by praying to her, asking her to pray for you, and singing songs to her, and all that kind of stuff that you do.

Well, no, we're honoring her.

There's a big distinction, an infinite difference, between honoring Mary and worshiping her.

I have a whole section in the book on this distinction.

In the 4th century A.D., there was a heresy, a heretical group called the Collyridians.

They were denounced as heretics because, you know what they were doing?

They were offering the Eucharist to Mary.

collyra is the Greek word for a loaf of bread.

So they were worshiping Mary as a goddess by offering the sacrifice of the Eucharist to her.

That's exactly what Catholics do not do with Mary.

And neither do Orthodox Christians.

We do not offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass to Mary.

Amen?

Because sacrifice is offered to God and to God alone.

But if you're not Catholic, if you didn't grow up Catholic or Orthodox, and you're looking in at what we do, it's easy to be confused because my wife, she grew up Baptist.

In her church, worship is singing songs, listening to the sermon, and prayer.

It's song and prayer, song and prayer.

So when we sing songs to Mary or we pray to Mary in the sense of asking her to intercede for us, it feels like to someone outside the tradition that we're worshiping her.

Because they don't have a priesthood; they don't have a sacrifice.

The service is not a sacrifice.

Everybody follow what I'm getting at?

But for Catholics, worship in its essence is sacrifice.

And that worship is offered to God and to God alone.

Right?

We offer the body of Christ through the Spirit to the Father.

So this is a crucial difference.

Whenever these heretics were sacrificing and worshiping Mary, they were immediately condemned by St. Ambrose and St. Epiphanius as heretics.

That's not what we do with Mary.

We honor her.

We're devoted to her.

We ask her to pray with us and for us because she is our mother.

All right, in conclusion then, what do we take away from all this?

Well, hopefully, a clearer understanding of the biblical foundations for what we believe about Mary.

I hope it's at least a little clearer that we're not just making this stuff up.

This isn't something that came up in the Middle Ages; we're getting this from the Scriptures.

And if any of this sounds new to you, I'm really just stealing it from the Catechism.

It's all right here.

These are three quotes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

First, Catechism of the Catholic Church 2.618 says, "It is at the hour of the new covenant, at the foot of the cross, that Mary is heard as the woman, the what?

The new Eve, true mother of all the living."

Catechism 2.6076 states, "Mary, in whom the Lord Himself has just made His dwelling, is the Ark of the Covenant."

The place where the glory of the Lord dwells.

And then finally, paragraph 976 of the Catechism states, "The Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things."

So in closing then, I'd just like to end with the words of Christ.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the talk, John 19, verses 25-27—the last time Mary appears in that Gospel is at the foot of the cross.

When she is there with the beloved disciple at the foot of the cross, Jesus says something really important.

I don't know how many of you have been with someone when they die, but when you hear their last words, you don't forget that, do you?

So these are Jesus' last words.

What does He want to do with His dying breath?

They've taken everything else away from Him.

They've taken His clothes; His disciples are gone.

The only possession He has left in this world is His mother.

And He even gives her away.

Standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother, His mother's sister Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing near, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold your son."

And then He said to the disciple, "Behold your mother."

And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own home.

Literally in Greek, he took her to his own—to be his own.

To be his own what?

His own mother.

I love these verses because, for me at least, they show that the common assumption that if we honor Mary or focus on Mary or take her to be our mother, the idea that those things take away from Christ is just not true.

Mary's identity as the new Eve doesn't take away from the glory of Jesus' identity as the new Adam, right?

Mary's identity in the New Ark doesn't take away from Christ's identity as the God who has become flesh among us.

Instead of taking it away, it actually magnifies it.

And when Jesus here gives Mary to John to be His mother, what's He essentially doing?

Notice, He doesn't just give her to John; He gives her to the beloved disciple.

Well, who's the beloved disciple?

It's every one of us in this room.

Revelation 12, verse 17 says that the woman, close to the Son, had other offspring—anyone who obeys the commandments of Jesus.

In other words, she's the mother of all Christians, not just Catholics, but all Christians.

And Jesus is literally dying to give her to us to be our mother.

The funny thing is, once you finally begin to realize that, what you're going to discover is that Mary is already there waiting for you.

Because that's how it is with mothers—they love us first.

Notice Jesus says to her first, "Behold your son," and then to John, "Behold your mother."

Right?

The mother sees the baby first.

When the baby's born, I can't see anything.

But eventually, he or she opens their eyes and they behold their mother.

And that's how it is with Mary too.

So if you're late in the game, it's okay.

But I really want you to take to heart Jesus' dying wish for you and for me: "Behold your mother."

Amen?

Amen.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Blessed Mother Mary, new Eve, new Ark, queen of the kingdom of heaven, thank You for Your prayers for us.

Thank You for Your fidelity to Christ, for Your yes to God in the Annunciation, and for becoming our mother through the sorrow of the cross.

We ask that in a special way, the study of the Scriptures, the study of Your life in the Word, the study of Jesus and You in the Old and the New Testaments would lead many people to Your Son and to His Holy Church.

And we ask all this as we say, glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

Amen.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thanks, everybody.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because that's like six questions you got there.

Yeah, yeah, it's okay.

Let me repeat this question.

So, is Mary subject to the effects of original sin?

For example, in Revelation 12, the woman that I suggested to you is Mary, is described as laboring in birth pangs, right?

And aren't birth pangs the result of the fall?

Genesis chapter 3: "In pain, you will give forth children," right?

That's Genesis 3. Thankfully, I have a whole chapter, a whole chapter in Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary.

Actually, no, it's true—it's called The Birth of the Messiah, and it's on the birth pains of Mary.

It's one of my favorite chapters, I'll be honest with you, because it's a really important question.

So let me just, in a nutshell—it’s a complex question, but I'll sum it up.

In the Old Testament, there appear to be contradictory prophecies.

Some prophecies of the mother of the Messiah say she's going to have birth pain.

But there's this other prophecy; it's in Isaiah chapter 66. And it's really weird because it's describing the new creation and it has this mysterious woman in 66:7. It says this: "Before she was in labor, she gave birth.

Before her pain came upon her, she was delivered of a son."

Who has heard?

Interesting.

Now, contemporary Catholics and most Christians don't even know that prophecy exists, but ancient Christians did.

They saw that prophecy as a prophecy of the birth of Jesus, and that His birth, just like His conception, would be without pain, as another son of Mary is the new Eve.

However, they also said that she did not completely escape the birth pangs because although she didn't have the physical pangs of childbirth in Bethlehem, she did undergo the birth pangs of the cross.

There's a whole chapter on this in John 16. Jesus Himself describes the cross.

When the disciples are getting upset that He's going to go, He says, "...when a woman's hour has come upon her, she has sorrow."

But when a child is born into the world, she no longer remembers the sorrow for the joy.

Now, why would Jesus in John's Gospel talk about a woman and an hour when He always uses the hour to refer to the cross?

And He uses woman to refer to Mary.

I've got a suggestion: it's because the cross is itself a birth.

Mary gives birth to John through the birth pangs of the cross.

And you know what else?

She gives birth to us through the birth pangs of the cross.

Because you don't become a mother without suffering.

And we are the children of Mary's sorrows.

Does that make sense?

Okay.

Really important question.

Good.

I'll leave the others aside for a while.

That's all right; we'll just stick with that one.

Okay, the question is, did John the Baptist, who was conceived, obviously, in the state of original sin, was he purified of that sin before he was born, and did he live a sinless life after?

Unlike the teachings about Mary, the Church does not have a doctrine on John the Baptist's sinlessness.

It is a widespread tradition among the ancient Church Fathers that when the angel says to Zechariah that he would be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb, that filling with the Holy Spirit actually was a cleansing of original sin, so that John was unique in that he was born without original sin, although not conceived without original sin.

But that's not a dogma of the Church.

It's not an official doctrine; it's just a tradition of the Church Fathers.

So there is some debate about that.

I'll deal with that in Jesus and the Jewish Roots of John the Baptist.

Just keep going; you know, it's a good question.

It's hard to answer.

There isn't any scriptural testimony about his sinlessness that's very clear.

Although you could put some money on the table based on Jesus' statement that among those born of women, no one is greater than John the Baptist.

Now that's what I would like to hear Jesus say about me.

That's quite a statement, no?

But the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than him.

There's a paradox going on there.

John's really important.

We're about to enter Advent, and we have two whole weeks every year in Advent devoted to John the Baptist.

We forget how important he is.

He was always considered in the tradition of the Church, after Jesus and Mary, the greatest saint.

There was actually competition between him and St. Joseph, but I won't go into all that.

I don't want to make you mad at me.

Other people?

Other questions?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, great question.

So let me back up and make clear.

What the Church Fathers and the tradition of the Church say is not that Mary didn't suffer at all, but that she doesn't suffer the pains of childbirth because the pangs of childbirth are a distinctive effect of the fall in Genesis 3. So in the sense that she's the new Eve and the beginning of the new creation, it's fitting that she not suffer those pains which were specifically tied to the sin of Adam and Eve.

That's how they construe it.

That doesn't mean she doesn't suffer, because her whole life is just going to be one long litany of suffering.

I mean, we call them the joyful mysteries, but last time I checked, losing your kid for three days—there's nothing joyful about that.

No, seriously, right?

She's fraught with anxiety in the finding of Jesus in the temple.

That's a dark night for Mary.

So her whole life is under the shadow of the cross.

But the Fathers say that that specific suffering of birth pains, she is preserved from those to show that Jesus is divine, that He's the new Adam, and that she's the new Eve.

All right?

Good.

And plenty of women don't have birth pains today.

That's epidurals, right?

It doesn't make you divine.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Is there a connection between Mary as the new Ark and her presence at the cross?

I think there is, although I haven't found any of the Church Fathers say that yet.

I'll never forget—I knew about Mary as the new Ark the first time I saw Mel Gibson's *The Passion of the Christ*. One of the things that struck me as I was watching that film, which is of course just an artistic interpretation of the Gospels, is that when the soldier pierces the side of Jesus in the film, if my memory is correct, it's not like a trickle of blood comes out.

The blood bursts forth from His side, right?

And if you imagine the blood getting onto Mary, whether in that moment or after when they take His body down, that's powerful because in the Old Testament, the climax of the Day of Atonement was the high priest pouring the blood of atonement on the mercy seat, which is the cover of the Ark.

So, for me at least, although I'm always suspicious in talking about finding the Fathers, that's really powerful to imagine that as the new Ark, Mary is there on the Day of Atonement, which is Christ, and that in a sense, she is the living mercy seat.

The blood of Christ comes upon her, right?

And she calls down on our behalf the mercy of God.

She's our mother of what?

Our Holy Queen, mother of our life, our sweetness, and our hope.

Yeah, I would put it a little differently because the Church Fathers do say this: in the Eucharist, there is a real sense in which, through Christ, we're also receiving the flesh of Mary insofar as He receives His entire human nature from her and from her alone.

Christ has no flesh apart from the flesh which He received from His mother.

Christ has no blood apart from the blood which He received from His mother.

It's really interesting to think about it.

They must have looked a lot alike.

You know, because people always say, "Oh, you look like your mama," or "You look like your daddy," you know?

Well, you know?

So, yeah, the Church Fathers would say they have a saying that's pretty common: "She gave the milk to be our bread."

She gave the milk to our bread.

So somebody put milk in bread, you bake it.

Well, her milk made our bread—the bread of life.

Yeah, it's almost like it's all true, huh?

Isn't this beautiful?

This is the stuff we should be meditating on, pondering as we get ready for Advent and Christmas.

This is a big deal.

See, anything we said tonight, does it take away from Jesus?

No. So is it necessary for us, like if we're going to use the really strong language of St. Maximilian Kolbe and say that we need to be obedient to the will of Mary, do we need to qualify that in any way?

I think it's helpful to qualify it depending on who you're talking to.

In other words, does the person have an understanding, a proper understanding of who Mary is, what Catholics believe, and what Catholics don't believe about her?

Because you can imagine if you're coming in from the outside and you think Catholics think Mary is like quasi-divine, kind of like a goddess, and then you say things like, "I need to be obedient to the will of Mary."

Well, that just kind of closes the case: these Catholics are idolaters.

But if somebody understands what we believe about her and what sanctity entails, and I think it was St. Maximilian Kolbe who basically said that sanctity, the essence of holiness, is big V equals little v, voluntas, the will of God, and my will being one and the same.

That's all being a saint takes—just make your will equal the will of God.

Just do whatever He tells you.

Who said that?

Mary.

So, in that sense, if Mary doesn't sin her entire life, then her will as a human being is perfectly configured to the will of God.

She doesn't will anything that Christ doesn't will.

She doesn't will anything that God doesn't will.

So if I say that I'm going to be obedient to Mary's will, in one sense, it's expressing my honoring her as a mother because you also obey your mother.

But it also expresses her sanctity and the fact that her will is in perfect conformity to God.

As long as somebody understands that, then I think that's fine.

But in our day and age, you probably would want to make sure you qualify that so that people understand what you mean and what you don't mean by that.

Mary doesn't have any will independent of God.

And for that matter, none of the saints in heaven do.

That's why they're saints.

That's the one thing they all have in common.

They weren't all virgins.

They weren't all priests.

They weren't all bishops.

But they all had their wills conformed to God's will.

Thank you all.

I think it's getting a little late.