Q: Why do Catholics Honor & Love Mary? A1. She brought the Savior into the World. Mary said Yes! In Luke 1:26-35 The Angel Gabriel appeared to the young Mary and said that she would conceive a child and he will be called “The Son of the Most High.” Now Mary has free will, like all of us, she could have said no. She could have said find someone else, but what did she say? In Luke 1:38 Mary answered “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” By her consent, by her free will Mary united her will to the will of the Father and brought the salvation of the human race into the world in the person of Jesus Christ. Think about it, without Jesus Christ there would be no salvation for mankind. Mary carried the God-Man, the creator of time and space himself in her womb. She agreed to provide him with flesh and blood, carried him for 9 months and nurtured him throughout his life. A2. “Hail, full of Grace, the Lord is with you!” When the Angel Gabriel came to Mary she was greeted with a royal greeting. Luke 1:28 recounts Gabriel greeting Mary by proclaiming “Hail, full of Grace, the Lord is with you!” The Greek word for Hail that is used here is a word that is used to address royalty. Think of it, an Angel, a being far superior to a human, greeting a young girl with such respect and awe; in other cases when an angel approaches a human this is not the case. This would imply that Mary is no normal human being; God created her and prepared her to carry his son, to be a living tabernacle of the Lord. “Full of Grace”, this is said by Gabriel to Mary in Luke 1:38 before she even said yes to be the Mother of God. This would imply that she was full of Grace (God’s own life and love) even before she had Jesus in her womb. Like the pure and untouchable Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament that held symbols of God, Mary was made pure and full of grace in order to hold the Word of God made flesh, Jesus Christ Mary was even given the grace she needed for the encounter with the Angel Gabriel. In Revelation 19 and 22 when an Angel appears to John, he is confused and mistakes him for God and begins to worship him. When Gabriel appears to Mary in Luke 1 something very different happens. Mary has the grace to recognize that this Angel isn’t God and Gabriel acknowledges that Mary isn’t just some ordinary girl but a girl that has been prepared by God from her conception to be the Mother of the God-Man, Jesus Christ.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 13:10:33 +0000
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