Dogma - Mary,Mother of God

Sharing – Nisha Francis (Asst.Coordinator - Wednesday Prayer Group)
*********************************************************************************On Sunday, the 31st of August, a group of 11 of us gathered at the JY office for the Bible group to learn more about “Mary, our Mother”. The session was led by Mr.Paul Cheerankal, who works for GE & who led us through an extremely enlightening 180 minutes of facts about our Mamma Mary.A briefing of the session would be as follows: The Catholic Church since many, many years has been issuing ‘Dogmas’ or teachings which are openly accepted by the church. These dogmas are nothing but interpretations of the Holy Scripture and every dogma is based on a reference to the Holy Word of God. One such dogma released by the Church states that Mary is the Mother of God. We may often wonder that God is the Almighty, so why would He need a mother. It is by His great virtue that Mary has been titled the Mother of God. This can be compared to the great truth that we are called the sons and daughters of God, not because we deserve it but only because of our Lord’s virtue & His great Love due to which He sent His only Son to die on the cross for us and pay ransom for us by His Precious Blood. God is the Holy of Holies, in spite of this; He came down, humbled Himself and welcomes us to have union with Him.
Mary is called the Arc of Covenant (carrier of God’s glory). There is only one mediator between Heaven and earth – Jesus – because in Him the nature of God & nature of man is fully united. 1Timothy 2:5 says that Jesus is our mediator. For those who might argue that we already have a mediator then why do we need Mother Mary, the answer is in James 5:16 (The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective) Mother Mary is our most powerful intercessor. Mary’s intercession is not valid without Jesus. She receives all her energy from Jesus, since she is born Immaculate (without stain of sin). Whenever we take a look at a person, we analyze them & understand them by our flesh & blood. Similarly, our flesh & blood reveals to us that Jesus is the Son of Man but it is a revelation from God to make us understand that Jesus is the Son of God (Mathew 16:13-16 Peter’s Declaration of Jesus)
Luke 1:41-45 talks about Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth. Elizabeth who is totally unaware of Mary’s condition, filled with the Holy Spirit, addresses Mary as the Mother of God, in the same way as Peter addresses Jesus as the Son of God by the power of the Spirit within him (Mathew 16:13-16 as seen above) .
A mother does not give birth only to the nature of a person but to a person completely, so Mary did not deliver the human nature of Jesus but gave birth to Jesus, true God and true man.
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About Nisha - she works with accenture and is presently the asst.coordinator for professional wednesday prayer group who meet @ st.anthony's church 6:30pm