Mary is our mother because Christ the Lord gave her to us as a mother. [963-966, 973] “Woman, behold, your son!…. Behold, your mother!” (Jn 19:26b-27a). The second command, which Jesus spoke from the Cross to John, has always been understood by the Church as an act of entrusting theContinue Reading
Mary was more than a merely passive instrument of God. The Incarnation of God took place through her active consent as well. [493-494, 508-511] When the angel told her that she would bear “the Son of God”, Mary replied, “Let is be done to me according to your word” (LkContinue Reading
The Church believes that “the most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin” (Dogma ofContinue Reading
No. Anyone who calls Mary the Mother of God thereby professes that her Son is God [495, 509] As early Christianity was debating who Jesus was, the title Theotokos (“god-bearer”) became the hallmark for the orthodox interpretation of Sacred Scripture: Mary did not give birth merely to a man whoContinue Reading
No. Jesus is the only son of Mary in the physical sense. [500, 510] Even in the early Church, Mary’s perpetual virginity was assumed, which rules out the possibility of Jeus having brothers and sisters from the same mother. In Aramaic, Jesus’ mother tongue, there is only one word forContinue Reading
God willed that Jesus Christ should have a true human mother but only God himself as his Father, because he wanted to make a new beginning that could be credited to him alone and not to earthly forces. [484-504, 508-510] Mary’s virginity is not some outdated mythological notion but ratherContinue Reading
Yes. Jesus “worked with human hands, he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved” (Second Vatican Council, GS 22, 2). [470-476] The humanity of Jesus is complete and includes also the fact that Jesus possessed a soul and developedContinue Reading
Jesus extends into God; therefore we cannot understand him if we exclude the invisible divine reality. [525-530, 536] The visible side of Jesus points to the invisible. We see in the life of Jesus numerous realities that are powerfully present but that we can understand only as a mystery. ExamplesContinue Reading
In Jesus, God really became one of us and thus our brother; nevertheless, he did not cease to be God at the same time and thus our Lord. The Council of Chalcedon in the year 451 taught that the divinity and the humanity in the one person Jesus Christ areContinue Reading
“For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven” (Nicene Creed) [456-460] In Jesus Christ, God reconciled the world to himself and redeemed mankind from the imprisonment of sin. “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son” (Jn 3:16). In Jesus, God took onContinue Reading
