Mary: The Mother of God and The Immaculate Conception

Mary has a part to play in our relationship with God, because She is the Mother of God the Son, and the Scriptures are clear, that She becomes OUR Mother, as well.
Because we are bothers and sisters of Christ, then HIS Mother, becomes OUR Mother.  Mary does matter.
But it is important to see, from the Scriptures, how we can justify to those for whom the Scriptures are the only authority, the “fuss” (to quote the Protestants) that we make over Mary.
Why do we speak of Mary as the Mother of God?
Why do we believe that She was Immaculately Conceived, and sinless throughout Her life?
Why do we believe that She was perpetually a virgin?
Why do we believe that she was bodily Assumed into Heaven at the end of Her life?
Why do we believe that She was crowned “Queen of Men and Angels” in Heaven?
Why do we believe that Her prayers are more powerful in our behalf, than the prayers of anyone else in heaven?
Why do we have Marian Dogmas?  And why do we have Marian Devotion?
Catholic Theology teaches that everything Mary has; every privilege She has; every title She has; every grace that She has; every role and function that She has in our lives, She has by Virtue of Christ- She has as grace, from Jesus Christ.  She has them because She is the Mother of God.
The title “Mother of God” arose quite early in the Church.  They got it first of all from Scripture, where Elizabeth says to Mary: “Who am I, that the Mother of my LORD should come to me?”
Elizabeth, given the context, is clearly using the word “LORD” The Greek word “Kuriou” – The Latin word “Domini.”  She is using it in the Divine sense, not in the way a serf would speak to his “lord’ in the middle-ages… ‘Who am I, that the Mother of my LORD (my Divine Lord) should come to me?’  Elizabeth identifies Mary as the Mother of THE LORD/GOD.  On the basis of that, the Church has always referred to Mary as “The Mother of God” or “The One Who Bears God” (especially in the Eastern Churches) and the Greek term, which means: “Mother of God” or “God Bearer” is “Theotokos.”
In the early 400’s a church leader, named Nestorius began to deny that “Theotokos” was an appropriate title for Mary, he thought, as modern Protestants do today, that it was going a bit too far… (Actually, Nestorius had another problem as well, he was guilty of confusion about Christology -that section of theology that deals with our doctrine of Christ) and He said that Mary simply gave birth to a man, in whom divinity subsequently dwelt- so She was not the Mother of God, that the child She gave birth to was not in fact God at that particular point- so he said “I don’t mind if we call Her ‘Kristotokos’” meaning: “Mother or Bearer of Christ”.. “But we cannot call Her: ‘Mother of God’.”  Well, the Church met to deliberated and debate over this issue, and the conclusion was- after studying the Scriptures and after prayer, and after thinking through this logically-  That Mary gave birth to a person; not just a nature.  Nestorius said ‘Look, She gave birth, not to the divine nature, because the divine nature always existed,” (that’s true).. “She gave birth merely to a human nature” he said.  “So She is the source of Christ’s humanity.. so we can call her mother of that, but not the Mother of God.”  And the Church said: “Wait a minute, a woman gives birth to a PERSON, not just to a ‘nature,’ because human nature is just the abstract, but it is embodied in a specific, concrete individual.  The PERSON that She gave birth to; is it a Divine Person?  Or, a human person?”
The Church’s teaching was clear on that: Jesus is a Divine Person- not a divine human person- He is a Divine Person, who now assumes- in ADDITION to His Divine Nature, which He ALWAYS possessed- a Human Nature, as well.  He always was Divine, from all eternity, He always was a person, therefore, He is a Divine Person.
Because His Divine Person hood cannot change- or it wouldn’t be Divine, God can’t change- He couldn’t become any other type of Person.  He simply ASSUMED a human nature.
Since a mother is a mother of a person, and since the person She is the Mother of is a Divine Person, then it is absolutely appropriate to say Mary is The Mother of God.
She’s the Mother of Jesus; Jesus is God, therefore, She’s the Mother of God.
Because She’s the Mother of God – because She has this unique title and privilege that no other woman has ever had – God decided to shower upon Her, to lavish Her, with all kinds of special privileges.  The first one would be Her Immaculate Conception.  God decided since SHE would be the Matrix- the bearer of God; of the Divine Second Person of the Trinity-  that it was singularly apt and appropriate that She would be the Holiest human person possible.  She is human; She is not divine.  She’s a creature; She is not a creator.. She is not a goddess.  And even though She is the highest human creature, there is still an infinite chasm- a qualitative difference- between She, the highest human being, the highest creature imaginable, and the Creator, God.  But, it was appropriate that THIS person, (because of Her intimate union; Her most intimate association with the Child that She would bear in Her womb for nine months; that She would suckle at Her breasts for three years; that She would raise to manhood) that She, too, be holy, because in the Bible, the “Holy” always requires a holy setting or holy context.
For example, when God says that he will dwell in the midst of Israel, He does so in this “Cloud of Glory.”  He demands that a Holy Tabernacle be built for Him.  It must be absolutely perfect and flawless.  It must be a holy habitation, for His Holy Presence.  And that is why the Church, as the Temple of God is called to Holiness.  It must be Holy.
“Don’t you know” St. Paul says to the 1st Corinthians 3-16, “that you are the Temple of God, and that God dwells within you? And if you defile the Temple of God, then God will destroy you!”
God created the world to be His Temple; Genesis chapter 1, if you read it carefully and compare it to passages of poetical books, like Psalms, it’s very clear that it uses what is called in Biblical scholarship “Architectonic Language.”  It uses the language of building of a temple.  There’s a certain type of rhetoric that was used in the ancient Near East to recount a narrative of a king building a palace or temple in which the culture’s ‘god’ will be worshipped.  That language is used in Genesis 1.
God builds His Cosmic Temple in which he will dwell and so the Temple must be perfect; flawless.  At the end of Genesis 1 “And God looked at all he had made and behold, it was very good”  It was perfect.
What is interesting in the Bible is that a temple is always described in feminine terms.  The temple is described as a body (refer to Corinthians quote above) in fact, it is a female body.  The temple of God, the Tabernacle, is described in very subtle terms, in the original Hebrew, as though it’s a female body.  And, the High Priest as he enters the temple represents God as the Heavenly Husband entering His bride, it is a kind of marital embrace, a unity, she gives children to God.
The “Cosmic Temple” is also feminine.- God desires it to be His bride; He desires to give Himself to it; to fill it with Himself; to make it fruitful and fertile>  So there is all this emphasis on “blessing and fruitfulness” (“Blessing”, in the Bible is always to make “fruitful and fertile”) “God blessed them” in Genesis 1, saying “Be fruitful and multiply.” So God blesses His cosmic bride, He makes her fruitful.  He wants to love her.  He wants to bind Himself in marital union with her.
The “Cosmos” that he makes is a feminine entity.  It is the first “type” we have of Mary in the Bible.  In fact, St Paul tells us in 2nd Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”  In other words: Christianity brings about a new covenant, a new creation, a new cosmos.
Who is the first Christian, according to Scripture and according to Christian Tradition?  It is Mary.  In fact, She’s the Christian before Christ, because Jesus saves her from the moment of Her conception.  So She’s the first specimen of this ‘new humanity’ that is made possible by the death and resurrection of Our Lord, even though He had not even been conceived or born, let alone died and risen again.
How can this be?  How could He do that?  How can Christ save Her from the beginning of Her conception? Because He was the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world, as St. Peter says.  He saved Her from the word “go.”  She’s the first of a new creation.  And if the first creation was made sinless (Adam and Eve before the fall), perfectly good, then Mary, as the beginning of the New Creation would also have to be made perfectly good.  She would have to begin immaculate.
In fact, the Hebrew word translated “good” in Genesis 1:31 the Hebrew word “Tov” always has a context of sexual attractiveness throughout ALL of Genesis, without a single exception.  It’s translated “beautiful” in Genesis 6:3 where it says “The sons of God seeing the daughters of men, that they were very good”  They were very beautiful.. “very tov.”
So God looks at the cosmos and He loves it, He’s in love with it, He is attracted to it, He embraces it.
Now Mary comes as the beginning of the new cosmos, the new creation; and God loves and delights in Her, and He makes Her perfect as well, so that He can take complete delight in Her… and not look at her and say “well, She’s good, EXCEPT for sin.”
There is no detachment between God and Mary anymore than there was between God and the first creation.  There is nothing to cause a Holy God to shrink back distance Himself in any way from Mary.
In Genesis chapter 2, we find another “type” of Mary (in Biblical Theology “type” means anything in the Old Testament, any person or place, or event or institution that foreshadows something in the New Testament, i.e., Moses is a Type of Jesus; Josue is a type of Jesus; the Passover Lamb is a type of Christ.. The Creation in Genesis 1 is a type of Mary and Her Immaculate Conception.. etc.) The earth that gives birth to Adam in Genesis 2 is a type of the Immaculate Conception as well.  In Genesis 2:7 we read that God created man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul or living being.
He created man from the dust of the ground- the Hebrew word for “ground” there is a feminine noun “Adama.”  The ground/earth, is spoken of in Scripture, in Hebrew, in feminine terms.  This is not some “New Age” concept: “Mother Earth” it is Biblical concept.  The Bible speaks of the earth in maternal terms, here is one of them: “Adama”, it gives it a feminine name that’s why the man is called “Adam,” because it means the son of the Adama, it is the same word only shortened into a masculine form.
In Job 1:31 speaking, as he is suffering there, says: “Naked I came from my mothers womb, and naked I will return there.  The Lord has given; the Lord has taken away, Blessed be the name of the Lord”  Notice how Job is refers to his death?  It’s a return to his mother’s womb.  Now, does he literally crawl back into his biological mother’s womb when he dies?  No.  No man does.  What happens?  His body goes back into the earth.  Job speaks of that as a return to his mother’s womb- why?  Because that which gave birth to Adam’s body, is ultimately the mother of us all, since we all come from Adam and Eve. (As Pius XII stated very clearly in Humani Generis.)
Job says that we return to our mother’s womb when we die; we return to the earth.  The earth is spoken of as our mother.  St Paul does the same thing in the passage Romans 8:18-23 ‘the earth groans, as a woman in the pangs of childbirth, waiting to give birth to the sons and daughters of God in their resurrection.’  St. Paul says in other words, that we return to womb of the earth and that the resurrection will be a rebirth from the barren womb of the tomb.
A = Adam  ___  C = Christ
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B = Earth    ___  D = Mary

A to B represents a mother to son relationship; the Earth which gives birth to Adam is the mother of Adam.

A to C is a relationship of type to anti-type that is fore-shadowing to fulfillment.  Adam is a type of Christ, St. Paul says that explicitly in those exact words in Romans 5:14, he says Adam is a type of the one who was to come, he speaks of Christ as the second Adam, as a new Adam in that whole passage (Romans 5:12-21 and also in 1st Corinthians 15:22).  Now did Christ have a mother?  Of course…

C to D is a line from Mother to Son.

B to D the Earth is a type of Mary, as Adam is a type of Jesus.

What was the quality of the Earth that gave birth to Adam?
It was un-cursed.
It was un-fallen.
And if the first Adam had the privilege of being birthed by an un-fallen, un-cursed, un-defiled mother, then for Scriptural Logic and Justice to hold true.. for the parallel to be proper.. then Jesus, the second Adam would have to enjoy the exact same privilege; His Mother would also have no curse; no fall; no blemish; no defilement; no pollution upon Her, whatsoever.  She is not tainted by Original Sin.
Now, there is a third type of Mary’s Immaculate Conception in that same chapter- Genesis 2: God creates Eve from the side of Adam.  What type of creature is Eve?
She is sinless (the fall has not occurred yet)
If God can create a sinless man and a sinless woman at the beginning of the human race, at the beginning of the first covenant; then He can certainly and similarly create a sinless man and woman at the beginning of the NEW Covenant, so He does.  Jesus is the second Adam, Mary is the second Eve.
Genesis chapter 3 has another type of the Immaculateness of Mary.  When God speaks to the Serpent and says “I will put enmities between you and the Woman and between your seed and her seed; she shall crush your head, and you shall lie in wait for her heel."  Who is God talking about?  There is Eve, who is in confrontation
With the Serpent right now… She had given herself to the Serpent.  She had been spiritually seduced by the Serpent; that’s the language St. Paul uses in 2nd Corinthians 11:2; So that she bears for the Serpent a fallen human race- the seed of the Serpent- we are ALL born the seed of the Serpent, children of the Devil – Our Lord Jesus calls us that in John 8:44.  That’s why we have to be “Born Again” by water and the Spirit, to become a child of God.  Then we become the seed of the Woman.  But who’s children do we become then?  Mary’s – clearly.  Because the definitive “seed” of the Woman, is Jesus.
He’s the one who is the promised seed; who destroys the works of the Devil by His death on the Cross, and His mighty Resurrection.  So His Mother is the definitive Woman with a captial W, and that’s why Jesus, whenever He speaks to Our Lady in the New Testament, never says “Mary”, He always calls Her “Woman”.  In John 2; “Woman” at the wedding in Chanaan.  In John 19, hanging on the Cross; “Woman”.  He is trying to let people know: This is THE Woman that Genesis 3:15 predicts.  This Woman, since She is the fullest fulfillment of the prophesy, must have the most absolute opposition to the devil.  He says, ‘I will put ‘opposition’ between YOU and the Woman.’  Now, if a woman sins, as every woman except Mary has, then she is not in TOTAL opposition to the Devil, is she?  Because when I sin, or you sin, am I opposing the Devil?  No.  I am collaborating with him in his rebellion against God.  Only if I NEVER sinned could God say: “Here is a complete opponent to the Devil.”
If Genesis 3:15 envisions someone who will perfectly and thoroughly fulfill this prophesy, and if Mary is that Woman- who’s seed is Christ- then Mary must have been in complete and total opposition to the Serpent from the word go, (Yet another indicator; another hint, in the Old Testament, that the Mother of the Messiah would have to be sinless.)
There are other ones.  You can go to the description, in the book of Exodus, of the Tabernacle that God has them build, (remember that the Tabernacle is a feminine entity).  The holy husband, (the High Priest,) enters it to perform these fruit-ifying, fertile, life producing acts, the Sacramental acts of the Liturgy.
We read a description of the Tabernacle in Exodus 25-30 that is exactly repeated after the “golden calf worship” in Exodus 32-34 and in 35-40.  God is doing His “Amen, Amen.”  He is saying it twice to say that this is a matter of life and death, it has GOT to be ABSOLUTELY Holy, or the Priests will die when they enter it, (as many Priest did die when they entered it in an unholy or unauthorized manner.)  Nadab and Abiu, for example, who enter it, in the Book of Numbers, with unconsecrated incense.  They are slain on the spot, because God’s Holiness CANNOT be compromised it cannot be put in jeopardy.  God put His Divine “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” His “Imprimatur” upon the Tabernacle at the end of its construction in Exodus 40--  in the concluding passage of the Book when the “Glory Cloud” comes down upon it and it Overshadows it- a very unusual verb is used there.
It is the Ark of the Covenant, of course, within the Holy of Holies that makes the “Holy of Holies,” holy.  And the Holy of Holies’ innermost chamber corresponds to that innermost and holy and sacred chamber in the Woman’s body, which only ONE High Priest is consecrated to enter.  The Holy of Holies, in turn consecrates the Holy Place, and that consecrates the outercore and the whole Tabernacle consecrates Israel, and that consecrates the world.
Within the Holy of Holies is the Holiest THING; The Ark of the Covenant.. the Glory Cloud comes down upon it.
In 2nd Samuel (2nd Kings in Douy-Rheims) chapter 6, we read the story of David recapturing the Ark and bringing it back to Jerusalem.  First of all, David brings the Ark through the hill country of Juda.  Then, we read, that David “Leaps before the Ark with all his might” he leaps a Liturgical Dance in verse 14 and in verse 16.  We also read in 6:9, David says: “Who am I, that the Ark of the Lord should come to me?”  We read that he breaks forth into Sacred Song; into songs of praise and worship.  We read that the Ark stays in a particular persons house for three months in verse 11, and it brings Blessings to all the household (blessing, as you remember brings fruitfulness, so this person was having more children born at this time in his house, maybe even bigger, healthier children, his crops growing more abundantly..etc.)
When we go to the New Testament and we read a description of Our Lady in Luke 1, we find amazing parallels to the Ark of the Covenant.  The Angel appears to Mary, in verse 26, and he says: ‘You will be the Mother of the Messiah’ and Mary says: ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?  And the Angel said to Her ‘The Holy Ghost will come upon you and the power of the Most High will Overshadow you.’  He uses that very rare verb which is borrowed from Exodus 35:40.  In other words: just as the Glory Cloud; the Holy Spirit; the visible manifestation of God’s presence, came upon the Tabernacle, and specifically upon the Ark of the Covenant to sit enthroned upon it in Exodus 40, so now the Holy Spirit will come upon MARY.  Mary is being identified, in other words, as the Ark of the New Covenant.  That would mean that She possesses the same sinlessness, the same perfection and flawlessness that the Ark of the Covenant did in the Old Testament.
Right after the Angel leaves her we read in verse 39, that Mary rises up and she goes to the hill country of Juda (exactly retracing the ‘steps’ of the Ark of the Covenant.)  When She enters Elizabeth’s house; Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and the infant in her womb (John the Baptizer) leaps in her womb (the word used here is the exact same word used when David leaped when in front of the Ark.)  John the Baptizer is like a new David, leaping in liturgical joy in the presence of His Redeemer, in the presence of the Ark of the New Covenant.  Elizabeth says “Who am I, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?” exactly echoing David’s words.  Mary burst forth into Sacred Song: the Magnificat: as David did, and lastly we read that Mary remained with Elizabeth for exactly three months and then left just as the Ark of the Covenant stayed in a house in Juda for three months, with the exact same result:  Mary’s whole purpose in going to Elizabeth’s house was to be the “Ark of the Covenant”, to bring Blessing: fertility; fruitfulness and a healthy and safe birth of an aged woman with a high-risk pregnancy.  And when the child was born the Ark then moved on its way, and went back to its own home.
Mary is being depicted clearly here, by St. Luke, as the Ark of the New Covenant.  What are the implications of that?  Well, She must be the most Sacred thing on Earth, just as the Ark was under the Old Covenant.
There are many other Old Testament proof-text for the sinlessness and the Immaculateness of Mary.  Luke in that very chapter mentions many more like when the Angel appears to Her and says “Hail, full of Grace!”  Grace is the life of God in our soul.  Mary is a vessel so full of grace, that is no room for sin.  She doesn’t BECOME full of Grace by the advent of the Angel (as some wish were so) no.. because what he says to Her is: ‘Hail, you who have already been filled with Grace’ it is a perfect passive participle- ‘I find you’ says the Angel ‘already in the state of being full of Grace.’  Mary was created Immaculate, as the Ark was, as the Earth was, as the Cosmos was.
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What about: Mary’s perpetual virginity?  Is there any biblical evidence against it?  “Yes!”  Says the Protestant.  They will point to Matthew chapter 1, at the very end of the chapter, after the Angel appears to Joseph.  We read that Joseph takes Mary to be his wife- and we read in Matthew 1:25 that he had no relations with her: “He knew her not, UNTIL she brought forth her Son.”  The Protestant will say “See! that means he had relations with her AFTER she brought forth Jesus!”  The only problem is; that is not true.  Logically,- grammatically- that doesn’t necessarily follow.  Because, the Preposition “Until”, in English, as the Latin preposition “donec”, or the Greek preposition “ews”, or the Hebrew preposition “ad” in the original, (because Matthew was written originally in Hebrew.)  None of these prepositions say anything more, than that a certain condition is true, up UNTIL point A, it doesn’t say that it wasn’t true after point A.
Several examples are:
In John 9:18, the exact same preposition is used, when we are told that the Pharasees did not believe that Jesus had healed a man that had been born blind; UNTIL they brought the man’s parents, and asked: “is this your son?” and they said: “yes he is.”  But they STILL didn’t believe AFTER that point.  It is very clear- the situation did not change.
Another example:
In 2nd Samuel (2 Kings in the Douay-Rheims) in the same chapter that was referred to in the previous post, on Mary’s Immaculate Conception where David leaps before the Ark of the Covenant.
2nd Samuel 6:23-- Because Michol, the daughter of Saul, (King David’s bride, whom he received when he slew Goliath) mocked and despised David in a very disrespectful and sacrilegious way, (she made fun of him for dancing before of the Ark of the Covenant) and she abused him, and abused- implicitly, the Ark of the Covenant:  We read that the Lord punished her.  He struck her with barrenness.  And, we read that Michol had no children UNTIL the day of her death. (btw, the irony here is that the Ark of the Covenant’s whole function is to bring life and blessing, and because she distanced herself from it, God says ‘Alright.  You choose your own fate.  You will not have children.)  She had no children “until the day of her death.”  What does that mean?  Did she start having kids after she died?  Obviously, not.
Matthew 1:25 is simply saying: “look, Jesus was not fathered by Joseph.  Joseph had no relations with Mary the whole time, so he is NOT the father of Jesus.”  Matthew is not saying “But he did have relations with her afterwards.”  It doesn’t logically follow.
Another verse that Protestant will use would be Luke 2:7, where the birth of Jesus is described in Bethlehem “She brought forth her firstborn son.”  And they will say “See!  Jesus was her FIRSTBORN son, so there must have at least been a second, maybe a third or forth..!”  It doesn’t follow.  Again, that is superficial Bible-Study.  Because, the Greek word translated “prwtotokon,” as the Hebrew word before it in the OT, simply means “the child that opens the womb” and you do not need to wait for there to ever be a second, or subsequent child, to know that one is the firstborn.  It doesn’t require a second.  The proof of that is; in Exodus 12 and 13 you are given a ceremony called “The Consecration of The First Born” it is supposed to happen a few days after that child is born.  The parents don’t say: “well wait a minute!  We cannot holdup this child and say: ‘this is the firstborn’ we have to wait till we have a SECOND child, THEN we will know this is the ‘firstborn!’”  No.  It is the Firstborn even if there are no other children.  And there are many instances in Scripture of “firstborn children” who don’t have any siblings.
Then the Protestant (OH how they PROTEST!) will say: “well what about the passages in the Gospels in Matthew 10, and elsewhere, where it talks about the “brothers and sisters of Jesus?”  Notice first of all that they are never referred to as “the children of Mary.”  Jesus was referred to as “the son of Mary”… but they are never called that, which is very odd, if in fact she had these other children.  Secondly, notice that Jesus, when He is hanging on the Cross, in John 19:26 says to Mary: “Woman, behold your son pointing to the beloved Apostle; Son, behold your mother and from that day, John took Her into his home.”  What is Jesus doing here?  The language that Jesus is using here, in this exchange, is very technical/legal language in Hebrew legislation- He is entrusting a member of His family to the care of someone else, because there are no surviving members of the family.  Hebrew Law requires, on pain of death, that children care for their parents in their old age.  That’s one of the dimensions of the Commandment to honor your father and mother.  You have an obligation to care for them, support them, and keep them in your home until they pass away.
Jesus makes it very clear, when He is being Baptized by John the Baptizer in Matthew 3:16 (and the preceding verses) that it is incumbent upon Him to fulfill ALL the righteous requirements of the Law, that’s why he must be Baptized.  He, Himself was sinless and didn’t need Baptism, but he needed it to fulfill the requirements of the law, that Priests be washed with water at the inauguration of their priestly ministry.  Jesus could not break the Law.  If on the Cross, He took Mary and gave Her into the keeping of someone else other than her flesh and blood children, if in fact He had brothers and sisters, then Jesus would have been a law breaker.  The fact that he entrusted Her to John the Apostle proves that She had no children to care for Her.
The brothers of Jesus, whom we hear about, are not the children of Mary.  Who are they then?  They are relatives of Jesus, but not children of Mary, they are cousins, etc.  Prot: “But it says BROTHERS, it doesn’t say ‘COUSINS’!”  Study the Bible carefully, I say.  In Genesis 13, we have the story of Abraham speaking to Lot, and he says to Lot, “Why should your herdsmen dispute with my herdsmen over the pastures?  You go your way, I’ll go mine, we shouldn’t be arguing, for WE ARE BROTHERS.”  He uses the same word that is used in the Gospels, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament; the Septuagint, it’s the word “Adelphoi,” the same word used to describe the brothers- the adelphoi- of Jesus.  What does that word mean in Genesis 13?  Are Abraham and Lot brothers in the sense that they have the same mother?  No.  Abraham is Lot’s uncle.  So the word can be used in a broader sense, simply to mean the near kinsman.  These are the kinsmen of Jesus that we read of.  They are not siblings.
Even the Protestant Reformers did not teach that Jesus had siblings, if any of the Protestants reading this want to, they can dig about the writings of Luther and Calvin, and find out that they all believed in the Perpetual Virginity of Mary ?.  The rejection of Mary’s Perpetual Virginity is a later development of Protestantism.  In other words: Protestants aren’t even faithful to their own “fore-fathers in the faith.”
What about Mary’s Assumption into Heaven and Her Coronation as Queen of heaven and Earth and Her Maternal Intercession?  Very briefly: At the end of Her life, because Her body had not been susceptible to Original Sin, and its affects, God bought Mary into Heaven- Body and Soul.  There is nothing in the Scriptures that preclude that, there is no reference to Her death and burial, and on the contrary there is reference to her Assumption into Heaven in the last book of the Bible: the Apocalypse.  A very, very mystical book of course, loaded with many symbols, and most of the symbols have more than one meaning, as this one does here.  It describes the destruction of Jerusalem in 70ad, and the destruction of the Temple, and the people of God would worry: “What would happen to the Ark of the Covenant if the Temple is destroyed and the Ark is allowed to be in there?  Won’t it be desecrated?”  And john is showing that; “No, the Ark of the Covenant will be caught up into Heaven.”  So, in the Apocalypse (Book of Revelation) chapter 11:19- as the Temple is about to be destroyed, as it’s slated for judgement, we read that: “The Temple of God was opened in Heaven- The Heavenly Tabernacle- and lo and behold the Ark of the Testament is there it has been caught up into Heaven, so that it is safe from the ravages of the Romans.”  What is this Ark of the Covenant?  We have already seen from Luke 1, that it is Mary.  She’s the real Ark of the Covenant in the real Temple in Heaven that is the Church, and the very next sentence makes that clear: And I saw a great sign in Heaven.  A Woman: clothed with the sun; with the moon under Her feet; a crown of twelve stars on Her head; she has a child she gives birth to; he is the Messiah; He is caught up to Heaven… This is Mary.  It is Israel, it is the Church, it is Mary.  These are polyvalent or multi-leveled symbols.  Mary is shown here as being caught up into Heaven.  She has been translated there at the Ark of the Covenant, prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70ad.
Some other proof text are:  Elias was caught up to Heaven, at the end of his earthly ministry in 2 Kings 2 (DR- 4 Kings 2).  Elias is a type of Mary.  There are about a dozen features of Elias’ life that would be exact parallels to Mary, but here is one:  Elias has a spiritual son named Eliseus, he is his prophet who succeeds him.  He says “I want a double portion of your spirit when you go to Heaven” and Elias says “If you SEE me going to Heaven, then you will get your wish”  Eliseus wants to be the “Firstborn son” who always gets double portion of the inheritance.  So he is identified in Scripture as the son of Elias.. not the biological son, but the spiritual son.  Eliseus is a type of Jesus.  Many of the miracles of Jesus are specifically describe with unusual phrases borrowed from these OT Books.  Eliseus, for example, multiplies some loaves and fishes; he raises some people from the dead, and Jesus’ miracles, while they are being told in 1st century Greek, right in the midst of a miracle story- all of a sudden- it will borrow some very rare and unusual verb, etc. not normally in a certain Greek, from these OT stories of Eliseus’ miracles, He’s identified as the “new Eliseus.”

A = Elias ---------C = Mary
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B = Eliseus -------D = Jesus

A to B and C to D is to spiritual son.
A to C and B to D is to ‘Type’
Elias is a type of Mary, as Eliseus is a type of Jesus.
And, if God brought this great prophet, (Elias), of the Old Covenant to Heaven at the end of his earthly existence, then for Him to be faithful to the fulfillment of the “Type,”  He would have to provide the same privilege and honor to Mary, at the end of Her earthly life.
There are other ones:  Josue and Caleb are the only two people who emerge from Egypt – which is a symbol of deliverance from sin, in the Bible – and enter the land of Chanaan, because those are the only two men that believed that God can help them conquer the Chanaanites, all the other members of their generation die in the wilderness, and only those two cross the Jordan River and into the land of Chanaan – the Jordan River represents death in the Bible and in a lot of hymnology – the land of Chanaan is the Promised Land and represents Heaven.  Josue and Caleb are ‘Types’ in the OT of Jesus and Mary.  Josue is Jesus, the Letter to the Hebrews says so, Caleb is Mary.  There are about 10 parallels of Caleb and Mary, the exact same things are said of them in the Book of Numbers and the NT: they are both in the same Tribe- the Tribe of Juda; they have the same sorts of Virtues described; they are the only ones that God is completely pleased with.  Josue and Caleb are the only ones who entered the Promise land, and Jesus and Mary are the only ones who entered Body and Soul into the real Promised Land- Heaven.
Mary being crowned “Queen of Angels and Men.”  The Book of Revelations shows this.  St. Paul tells us that the Church is the Bride of Christ.  Jesus is King, the Church is His Bride, the Church is His Queen, and he says ‘we will rule the universe with Christ.’  Jesus says ‘if you overcome, you will sit with me on my throne; share my glory as the Father has invited me to sit on His Throne.’  If Mary is a microcosm of the Church, the Church will one day be this “Virginal Bride” espoused to God without any wrinkle or spot or blemish, St. Paul says; then Mary is already a sneak-preview of what our destiny will be.  If we will rule the Cosmos as Christ’s “Bride Queen” then Mary is already doing it now.  She’s the Queen of Heaven and Earth.  Can She pray for us?  Of course She can.  The Bible commands Christians to pray for eachother.  And, if you die and go to the Lord, you are not going to stop being a Christian or stop praying, you are going to be doing it all the MORE- your prayers are even MORE powerful, because the Bible says the holier we are the more powerful our prayers are.  “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” James 5:16 says, so if its not wrong for a person to ask his friend “will you pray for me?”  If that person dies, and goes to Heaven, he is going to love his ‘brothers and sisters’ on Earth even more then when HE was on Earth.  He is less distracted by his own sins, he is less diminished of the efficacy of his prayers, now he is perfect and sanctified.  So his prayers are really unleashing Gods graces upon earth.  The Communion of Saints means we are all in one Body; those in Heaven (The Church Triumphant) are still connected to, by bonds of charity, their brothers and sisters on earth.  They can pray for them, they MUST pray for them.  Mary, being the holiest human person in existence, Her prayers are more powerful than all prayers put together.  And it is not wrong for Catholics to say “Mary, please pray for me.”
We don’t pray to Mary as though She’s God, we ask Her to intercede on our behalf with Our Heavenly Father, and through Her hands, comes great Grace.  We see Mary interceding all throughout the Scriptures, both in Her literal self, and in Her “Types” in the OT.  She’s the one who comes to Jesus, at the wedding in Chanaan and says ‘Provide the wine for them’ and Jesus does it.  In the OT, in 1st Kings chapter 2 (DR 3rd Kings), you have the story of Adonias approaching Bathsheba; the Queen mother (in ancient Israel the king’s mother was thought the most venerated woman in the land.  The “first lady” was the king’s mother, not the wife) this person wants a favor of King Solomon: “And Adonijah the son of Haggith came to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon. And she said, Comest thou peaceably? And he said, Peaceably. He said moreover, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And she said, Say on. And he said, Thou knowest that the kingdom was mine, and that all Israel set their faces on me, that I should reign: howbeit the kingdom is turned about, and is become my brother's: for it was his from the LORD. And now I ask one petition of thee, deny me not. And she said unto him, Say on. And he said, Speak, I pray thee, unto Solomon the king, (for he will not say thee nay,) that he give me Abishag the Shunammite to wife. And Bathsheba said, Well; I will speak for thee unto the king. Bathsheba therefore went unto king Solomon, to speak unto him for Adonijah. And the king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, and sat down on his throne, and caused a seat to be set for the king's mother; and she sat on his right hand. Then she said, I desire one small petition of thee; I pray thee, say me not nay. And the king said unto her, Ask on, my mother: for I will not say thee nay.”  If Solomon, the son of David, the King of Israel, the son of God, he, being a sinner and imperfect would honor his imperfect and sinful mother that way, how much MORE would Our Lord Jesus Christ honor HIS Mother?  SHE is the Queen Mother!  Remember what Our Lord Jesus says about Himself: “Behold, a greater than Solomon is here!” Pointing to Himself, and He could just as easily point to His Mother, Mary and said ‘Behold, a greater than Solomons mother is here!’  Jesus has the same attitude as any righteous King of Israel would have to have towards His mother, but he has it in infinite degree because He is a sinless, righteous, faultless King.  He will not refuse Her intercession.  How could He?  Her Immaculate Heart is exactly attuned with His Sacred Heart.  She desires nothing that he doesn’t desire.  Her Heart is but an echo of His agenda.  So, every prayer that She brings before Him will be answered.  What a privilege we have, by the grace of God, to have in Mary an Immaculately Conceived, Perpetually Virginal, Assumed into Heaven, Queenly Coronated, powerful prayer intercessor on our behalf.  As Mother of God, She possesses these privileges not to bask in Her own glory, but to be a servant to the servants of God.
“Henceforth, ALL generations will call me ‘blessed’”  Are Catholics wrong to refer to her as “The Blessed Virgin?”  Absolutely not.  We are being Bible-Believing Christians, and in honoring her, we are obeying that Commandment to “Honor our father and our mother.”  Jesus, as the perfect Jew, would have kept that Commandment, He would have honored her.  The Hebrew verb “To Honor” mean to heap glory upon, that is what He has done with all these marvelous privileges.  Are we going to follow Christ?  Are we going to imitate Him?  We must do what he does.  He has honored Mary, we have no choice but to do the same.  Catholics are obedient to that Command, I ask that ALL Christians follow suit.