Mary: Virgin Mother

The Church teaches and believes that the Blessed Virgin Mary is in fact that: a virgin before, during, and after the birth of Jesus. What is the significance for us in our lives? Is this just a teaching that is important to nuns or priests? What is God doing through Mary, that will also affect us?

It will be important for us to understand that Mary's Virginity is completely the initiative of God. This is something that is given to her as a gift in order to establish a type of new creation. Mary's perpetual virginity is closely connected to the reality that she is redeemed by Christ in a completely unique and singular way. What does this mean? The Church knows that Christ became incarnate in order to restore creation to its original beauty. After all, if there was nothing wrong with the world and there was no sin, then it wouldn't have needed a savior.

Christ, through his suffering on the Cross and through a complete gift, redeemed Mary to such a degree that she became as Paul says a new creation. So in this way, Mary is like an icon of the Garden of Eden, the original creation. What God created when he made the garden of Eden, he re-created when he made the Virgin Mary. Just as the Garden of Eden, Mary was completely in harmony with God. There was nothing keeping her separate from God nor was there anything that would enter into her that would keep her from God. So in this way, her Virginity speaks loudly about her 'untouched' nature just as we speak of the "Virgin Islands". Why are they the Virgin Islands? Because of their pristine nature.

This took Mary an incredible amount of faith and shows her wonderful gift of self to God. There was no way that she could understand what God wanted to do with her, since she had never seen it or experienced it before. God wanted to make her a 'new creation', and she completely allowed and trusted in his hand. How did she have the strength to give herself completely to God? We can understand that in being redeemed even before her birth, she was given a freedom that was truly free. She was fully free to say yes to God.

The Church is called to be like a new Garden of Eve. This is first true in the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is like a spiritual "Virgin Islands" and we are called to travel there to bask in the waters, to walk on the pristine sand, to enjoy the sweet tropical fruits...in a word to allow this Virgin land to 'mother' us. And who do we find dwelling in this Garden? The same gardener that Mary Magdalene found...Jesus is the gardener who is dwelling in the midst of its beauty, waiting for us to find him. Mary is where we go for vacation, for prayer, and for rest. She is always there to be like a 'home country' where we find Jesus walking in the breezy time of the day...

The disobedience of Eve & the obedience of Mary

Why was Eve disobedient? Why did Mary disobey? God is a God of love and not an evil genius that delights in our uncertainty. He gives us many signs under the guise of our ordinary life.

The Fathers of the Church will say that the whole of the universe is waiting for the "yes" of Mary.

What preceded Eve's disobedient was disbelief because perhaps she felt that she knew better than what God had to say. Mary on the other hand felt that she didn't know better and that she had in fact every right to trust in God. What a struggle we have in choosing between Eve and Mary. The early Church fathers saw the Virgin Mary as the new Eve, the new mother of all the living.

In today's class we compared and spoke much about the difference between the two. On a very simple level, Eve was disobedient and Mary was obedient. This leads us to ask several questions but most importantly 'what was behind their decisions?' We believe that Even was created perfectly and so why did she disobey God whom she knew so well? What becomes apparent is that she disobeyed God first because she began to lose faith and trust in him. The devil in Genesis is shown to strike at her relationship with God. He wanted her to believe that God was somehow sinister and did not want the good for her. *This is so much like our hearts! We struggle to come closer to God because as we come closer, we realize how mysterious and unknown he is to us. God is a mystery and there is always more to learn and know about him.

Therefore, God causes much fear in us because he is like an abyss of light...although He is light...there is so much that we are afraid to dive in... It seems that there are two fundamental reactions to God...to be afraid or to trust...once we fear...we distrust...and then we disobey...which is the path of Eve. When we choose to release our fear...we trust..and then we obey...which is the path of Mary. Clearly, this courage that we are invited to have before God is only something that can be given to us as a Grace.