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On the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima

Katherine Arcement, writing in the Washington Post two years ago today, which marked the centenary of the first Marian apparition in Fatima:

The Virgin Mary appeared to the children on May 13, 1917 as “a lady dressed in white, shining brighter than the sun, giving out rays of clear and intense light,” dos Santos wrote. She promised to come to the children on the 13th of each month.

Jacinta told her mother about it. While her siblings joked about the apparition, her alarmed mother hauled her in front of their parish priest to recant. She would not.

News of the visions spread by word of mouth, and the following month a small crowd waited with the children to witness the second apparition June 13. At the third sighting, on July 13, the children said the Virgin Mary revealed three secrets to them about the future.

Interest in what was happening in Fatima grew more intense.

On Aug. 13, the children were taken into custody by a state bureaucrat, who took them by car to Vila Nova de Ourem in hopes of getting them to recant their testimonies. Again, they would not.

Thousands of people began streaming to Cova da Iria, the site of the Virgin Mary apparitions. On Sept. 13, 30,000 people were present when dos Santos said the Virgin Mary told her, “In October I will perform a miracle so that all may believe.”

On that day, Oct. 13, 1917, the crowd of believers had swelled to 70,000.
About 2 p.m., some began to see what later became known in the Catholic Church as “the Miracle of the Sun.” The rains that had plagued the day ceased, and the sun emerged from behind clouds to spin and tremble for 10 minutes.

“Before the astonished eyes of the crowd, whose aspect was biblical as they stood bareheaded, eagerly searching the sky, the sun trembled, made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws — the sun ‘danced’ according to the typical expression of the people,” reported O Seculo, a Lisbon newspaper.

The strange phenomena included odd colors.

“Looking at the sun, I noticed that everything was becoming darkened. I looked first at the nearest objects and then extended my glance further afield as far as the horizon. I saw everything had assumed an amethyst color. Objects around me, the sky and the atmosphere, were of the same color. Everything both near and far had changed, taking on the color of old yellow damask,” said José Maria de Almeida Garrett, a science professor from Coimbra, Portugal, who was at the scene.

Onlookers from as far as 25 miles away noted the strange phenomena in the sky.

Following this event, the crowd and grounds, which had been soaked by those heavy rains, were, suddenly, bone-dry.

Of course, purely naturalistic theories have been proffered for the Miracle of the Sun, like this one, which, depending on one’s point of view, might require more faith to believe than that an actual miracle had occurred. Theories like these assume extreme gullibility on the part of those in attendance, including the secular publications which reported on these phenomena.

It should also be noted that the children were also threatened with physical torture by authorities (being boiled in oil) in an attempt to get them to recant, which they did not.

At any rate, it should be noted that no Catholic is required to believe in any Marian apparition — even those, like Fatima, Lourdes, and Guadalupe, that have been approved by the Church as worthy of belief. Why? Because they fall under the category of private revelation, whereas Catholics are only bound to believe in public revelation. Despite the fact that there have been public aspects to the events at Lourdes (the existence of the spring and healings), Guadalupe (the miraculous tilma), and, of course, Fatima, the associated supernatural apparitions and revelations were made to certain individuals. (I happen to think that there is convincing evidence to believe in these apparitions, but I’m not troubled if friends remain, for now, unconvinced).

Speaking of centenaries, this coming Monday, May 18th, marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Pope St John Paul II, a towering figure of the 20th century who held that Our Lady of Fatima personally intervened to thwart the assassination attempt on his life made on this day in 1981. In fact, the Pontiff had the bullet, which came within millimetres of ending his life, placed within the crown of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima.

This frightening event was interpreted as the fulfillment of the “Third Secret” of Fatima which had been revealed to the children. The “First Secret” had to do with the end of WWI and the even greater destruction of WWII to follow; the “Second Secret” was a prophecy about the rise of Communism and the Soviet empire — an empire that John Paul II played a major role in dismantling.

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On the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker

On this Feast of St Joseph the Worker, let’s take a look at where Jesus grew up, working with St Joseph. What kind of work, exactly, did they do, and what sort of projects did they work on? How did the place Jesus grew up influence his teaching? You might be surprised!

My favorite basketball player growing up was the legendary Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics. The media (and Larry himself) liked to play up his humble, small-town roots, dubbing him the “Hick from French Lick,” the small Indiana town where Bird grew up. He was just a kid from the sticks who made good.

For centuries, preachers have similarly accented the alleged small-town roots of Jesus. Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, is usually portrayed in homilies as a type of isolated backwater, far removed from the hustle and bustle of the empire.

Now, it’s certainly true that in Jesus’ day Nazareth was relatively tiny, with a population somewhere between 200 and 400. But recent archaeological excavations around Nazareth, which today is a relatively bustling city of about 60,000, have quashed the quaint myth that Jesus grew up among “country bumpkins” removed from major centers of commerce and culture.

One of the most important of these digs took place at Sepphoris, which is located about four miles north of Nazareth. Sepphoris, which Roman historian Josephus called “the ornament of all Galilee,” was the largest and one of the most important cities in the area. In fact, a highway linking the two other major regional centers—Caesarea Maritima and Tiberias—was not far from Nazareth and Sepphoris.

Considering its proximity to Nazareth, it’s highly likely that Jesus would have traveled to Sepphoris on many occasions. In fact, according to an early Church tradition, the Blessed Virgin Mary hailed from Sepphoris. One could easily imagine Jesus, Mary, and Joseph making the trip to see Jesus’ grandparents, Joachim and Anne, on many an occasion.

It is also possible that Joseph and Jesus worked in Sepphoris during its period of heavy expansion under Herod Antipas from 4 B.C. to A.D. 39. The Greek word tekton—which the Gospels employ to describe Jesus’ and Joseph’s occupation—actually means much more than “carpenter.” It refers to a highly skilled laborer who would have been proficient in working with stone as well as wood and other materials. (In fact, it is likely that Joseph and Jesus would have had architectural abilities as well. One might even say they were the equivalent of modern-day engineers.) Antipas had originally intended to make Sepphoris his headquarters, and he installed some beautiful architecture there in the Greco-Roman style, including magnificent colonnaded streets and an impressive theater (more on that later).

The Sepphoris excavations are also important for debunking a popular skeptical theory. The scholar (and ex-Catholic priest) John Dominic Crossan argues that, in his early life, Jesus came under the sway of itinerant Cynic philosophers in Sepphoris who greatly influenced his teaching. But excavations at the city dump have determined that, at the time of Jesus, Sepphoris’s inhabitants were anything but pagan.

Only in strata (layers of cultural remains in the earth, representing different eras) dated after A.D. 70 do we find pig bones and other evidence of Hellenizing influences, consistent with growth in the city’s non­-Jewish population following the failed Jewish revolt of 66­-70. It seems the citizens of Sepphoris in Jesus’ time kept to a kosher diet.

Furthermore, coins minted in Sepphoris prior to 70 do not depict the image of the emperor as a deity, which would have offended devout Jews, even though such currency was common elsewhere in the empire. After the year 70, this is not the case. Also, stone vessels and miqva’ot (ritual bathing pools) used for Jewish purification rites, as well as menorahs, have also been found from the pre­-70 period.

In short, Sepphoris was in all likelihood a mostly—if not completely—Jewish city at the time of Jesus. It is therefore improbable that Jesus came under the sway of pagan Cynics during his early life in and around Nazareth. His teaching, like the area he hailed from, was thoroughly Jewish.

Sepphoris is also a potential boon for understanding and clarifying certain aspects of Jesus’ teachings. We know that Jesus was a master at pointing out profound lessons from the everyday world (for example, his many agricultural parables). I believe there is a high probability that Sepphoris was a part of that world and that it figures prominently in Jesus’ preaching—especially as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. The “city set on a hill [that] cannot be hidden” (Matt. 5:14) may have been inspired by Sepphoris, which was elevated. Its evening lights would have been visible to the inhabitants of Nazareth.

Excavations at Sepphoris also reveal a splendid public theater, carved out of the local bedrock and initially seating about 2,500. Could it be that Jesus and Joseph worked on its construction? But Jesus’ references to “hypocrites” (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16; 7:5; 15:7; 16:3; 22:18; 23:13-15, 23, 25, 27-29; 24:51; Luke 6:42; 11:44; 12:1, 56; 13:15), an originally innocuous word that referred to “actors” or “play-actors,” may have been expropriated from the theater at Sepphoris. Jesus used the term to excoriate the people-pleasing, insincere piety of some scribes and Pharisees.

Jesus likewise admonishes his disciples not to practice their piety “before people, in order to be seen by them” (Matt. 6:1). The term translated as “to be seen” is the Greek word theathenai, from which we derive the English word theater. Jesus teaches his followers not to “be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others” (Matt. 6:5). This may allude to an actor who stands and performs a soliloquy on stage.

In contrast, Jesus encourages us to live not for the applause of others but rather for the applause of One: God alone.

Church Fathers, such as St. Jerome, referred to the Holy Land as the “Fifth Gospel” because it helps put the life of Jesus in context. It helps us to understand many of Jesus’ teachings and activities. It also helps us understand how the four written, canonical Gospels are indeed trustworthy, because they exhibit verisimilitude—that is, that they cohere with the way things actually were in the Israel of Jesus’ day. That’s why archaeological discoveries like those at Sepphoris shed so much light on the teachings of Christ.

Note: This post was originally published as “Lessons From Big-City Jesus”.

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2 Marian Dogmas in Luke’s Annunciation Account (Video)

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Quick video on how Mary’s Immaculate Conception and Perpetual Virginity are referenced — at least obliquely — in Luke’s account of the Annunciation.

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Apologetics in the Letters of St Ignatius of Antioch

Today is the Feast of St Ignatius of Antioch, a very important figure in the early Church. He was the third bishop of Antioch (Peter being the first, before Peter went to Rome), and also a disciple of the Apostle John. He was martyred in the Roman Coliseum circa 107 AD, having been thrown to wild beasts.

On the way to his martyrdom, Ignatius was chained to Roman soldiers who treated him quite brutally. Ignatius called them the “ten leopards”. He also wrote seven famous letters to key outposts of the nascent Church. These missives are rife with evidence that the Early Church was, in fact, the Catholic Church.

Let’s take a look at just two important apologetic facets of just one of these letters, the one written to Smyrna, a city mentioned as an early Church hub in the Book of Revelation.

Ignatius is the first person to use the term “Catholic Church” in an extant writing. The fact that he doesn’t explain the term in any way is likely a sign that he expected his readers to know what he meant by it, and that the term predates his use of it in 107 AD. The word “catholic” comes from the Greek term kata holos, which means “universal” and also “according to the whole”. This perfectly describes the Church founded by Christ, for it is “universal” (for people of all times and places), and also keeps the “whole” of Christ’s teaching intact. Splinter groups who have departed the Church over the centuries usually reject one or more doctrines of the universal Church.

See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is administered either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude of the people also be; even as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.

—Letter to the Smyrnaeans, Chapter 8

We may note also in this quote the hierarchical offices of bishop, priest (“priest” is the English translation of “presbyter”), and deacon as being essential features of the Church. Ignatius also speaks here of a “proper Eucharist” as one either a) celebrated by a bishop himself, or b) by his designates (the priests, or “presbyters”), with whom the bishop shares some of his prerogatives, such as the ability to confect the Eucharist. But did the early Christians believe in Eucharistic realism? The Smyrnaean letter once again comes through:

Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God… They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, Flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes.

— Letter to the Smyrnaeans, Chapter 6

Ignatius explicits says that the Eucharist is the Flesh of the same Jesus who died on the cross and was resurrected on the third day. This coheres very nicely with the words of Jesus himself in John 6:51: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh”.

There is, in my view, a very good argument for John the apostle as the source of the material found in John 6. We also know that Ignatius of Antioch was a disciple of John himself. So, I think Ignatius had a pretty good idea of what John — and, by extension, Jesus, meant in John 6:51. Ignatius confirms that the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is an essential feature of the apostolic Church founded by Jesus himself.

St Ignatius of Antioch, pray for us.

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On the Feast of Saints Joachim and Anne, Grandparents of Jesus

We live in an age that is somewhat obsessed with genealogies. Various companies like Ancestry.com and 23andMe offer you the chance to mail in a sample of your DNA for an opportunity to discover more about your family tree, or where your ancestors came from (although giving one’s genetic info to a private firm amy not be the greatest of ideas). Hey, inquiring minds wanna know.

All of this is is really an attempt to answer fundamental questions of the human experience: Who am I? Where do I come from? No matter what the answers to those questions are from a physical/historical point of view, ultimately we all came from God (who created all things and gave us all an immortal soul at the moment of conception), and are going to God (provided we pass from this world in a state of Grace — that is, in God’s friendship).

And that’s where the modern ancestry craze meets the Bible, which is filled with genealogies. When reading them, like the genealogy of Jesus contained in Matthew 1, for example, one can at times feel like one is reading a phone book (remember those?). But biblical family trees are important, especially when it comes to that of Jesus. They remind us that God works through very imperfect people (just like you and me), living in a very imperfect world, to bring about his designs.

Today is the Feast day of Ss. Joachim and Anne, the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary. As such they are important members of Jesus’ family tree, according to the flesh. We know their names only through extrabiblical traditions and documents such as the noncanonical Protoevangelium of James, which may — or may not — give us any real, historical information about Mary’s early life. That’s another post for another day. Such traditions say that they resided in Sepphoris, which was near Nazareth.

I think one of the main takeaways of today’s feast is that Joachim and Anne belong to the so-called “hidden life” of Jesus. Jesus lived an ordinary life for the vast majority of his life on Earth prior to his public ministry, and there’s certainly a message there for us. Jesus sanctified his everyday work, worship, and family activities, and that included his relationship with his grandparents. As Fr. Steve Grunow writes in the Word on Fire blog:

Their role in Christ’s life? We can only guess. What we do know is that Christ must have had grandparents, and if the role that most grandparents play in our lives is any indication, their impact on him was likely quite profound.

Perhaps they were part of a nexus of relatives that nurtured him and helped him to negotiate and understand the world. Did he help his grandfather up from his bed and lead him to sit in the cool shade of a tree? Did he soothe his grandmother’s gnarled and calloused hands? Did he beg from them stories about the old days or for tales about his mother when she was just a little girl? Maybe their deaths were the first deaths that touched him deeply. Was it in their aged faces that he saw how brief, fragile, and wonderful life in this world really is? Did he ask of them their thoughts about God? Did they know his secret?

I am often taken by how quickly the mystery of the Incarnation can be emptied of its true content and dulled in its impact. As children, the tale of Christ’s Holy Birth can hold us enrapt at attention. But since it is a story that we identify as familiar, it can wrongly be thought of as just one more of many seasonal tales. This perception on our part is a grave mistake because the Incarnation is not just a story, it is the story — a story that describes the most surprising and uncanny event that has ever or will ever happen. God accepted for himself a human nature and lived a real human life. This means that he accepted, not just a human nature in the abstract, but as it is embedded in the real circumstances of this world. God chose a family for himself. He submitted himself to having to learn about life in the context of a particular culture at a particular time and place. Because the human nature he chose was real, God in Christ called two people his grandmother and grandfather…

This is a great day to pray for our own grandparents, and for their repose if they have passed into eternity. I’m always amazed by how many people I meet who say that it was a grandmother or grandfather who introduced them to a living relationship with Jesus Christ. And if you’re a grandparent yourself, don’t underestimate the spiritual impact you can have on those around you.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

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At the Church of the Visitation in Israel (Video)

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Happy Feast of the Visitation! In this teaching, recorded live at on pilgrimage at the Church of the Visitation in Israel, Cale Clarke, Director of The Faith Explained Institute, explains the significance of the site. Learn how the Gospel writers show how Mary fits into salvation history using typology.

Interested in joining us on our 2019 Faith Explained Holy Land Pilgrimage? Drop us a line at TheFaithExplained.com/contact and we’ll send you the info!

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The Immaculate Conception: Mary as the New Temple

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Today, December 8, marks the great Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. And it’s certainly a doctrine misunderstood by many. The Immaculate Conception is not the Virginal Conception of Jesus. Nor does it have anything to do with this, sports fans.

Here’s the actual definition, from Blessed Pope Pius IX, the beloved “Pio Nono”:

We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.

–Ineffabilis Deus, Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius IX solemnly defining the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, 8 December 1854.

the basis for the Immaculate Conception of Mary in the New Testament is well-known, but today I’d like to share about one of the ways the doctrine is foreshadowed in the Old Testament. In his masterful devotional series, In Conversation with God, Francis Fernandez writes about Mary as the new Temple in which God dwells:

In the litany of Loreto we call upon Mary, House of Gold, the abode of greatest conceivable splendor. When a family turns a house into a home by taking up residence there, the place reflects the individual qualities of the people. They accentuate the beauty of the dwelling place. Just like the Holy Spirit dwelling in Our Lady, the home and its inhabitants make up a particular unity, in much the same way as the body and its garments do. The foremost Tabernacle in the Old Testament, later to be the Temple, is the House of God, where the meeting of Yahweh and his people takes place. When Solomon makes the decision to build the Temple, the Prophets specify that the best available materials are to be used – abundant cedar wood on the inside and clad with gold on the outside. The most highly skilled craftsmen are to work on its construction.

Before God made known his coming into the world in the fullness of time, He prepared Mary as the suitable creature within whom He would dwell for nine months, from the moment of his Incarnation until his birth in Bethlehem. Evidence of God’s power and love show forth in his creation. Mary is the House of Gold, the new Temple of God, and is adorned with so great a beauty that no greater perfection is possible. The grace of her Immaculate Conception, including all the graces and gifts God ever bestowed on her soul, are directed towards the fulfillment of her divine Maternity.

God’s gift of supernatural life to her exceeds that of all the Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors and Virgins combined. It reaches far beyond the experience of anyone who has ever lived, or ever will live, until the end of time. God dwells in Our Lady more than in all the angels and saints, since the foundation of the world, taken together. Truly God has prepared a human vessel in keeping with the dignity of his eternal Son. When we say that Mary has an almost infinite dignity, we mean that among all God’s creatures she is the one who enjoys the most intimate relationship with the Blessed Trinity. Her absolute honor is the highest possible and her majesty is in every way unique. She is the firstborn and most highly favored daughter of the Father, as she has often been called throughout the history of the Church, and as has been reiterated by the Second Vatican Council, Our Lady’s blood relationship with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, leads her to a singular relationship with him.

Mary indeed became the new Temple and Tabernacle of God.

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Quick Q and A on the Trinity

TrinityQ. This past Sunday, we celebrated the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. Why is this doctrine so important?

A. There are many reasons, but most prominent among them is this: it’s who God is. God is a Trinity of Persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is actually God’s “name”. In the Scriptures, one’s name defines a person’s identity.

At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus urges his followers to “(g)o therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matt 28:19-20, emphasis mine).

Notice Jesus says, “name”, not “names”. There are not three Gods here; there is one God, but three divine Persons within the Godhead. Their essence – what they are, essentially, is divine. Divinity is what they are “made of”, so to speak. In the case of Jesus, of course, who was the divine Logos from all eternity, he “wedded” a human nature to his preexisting divine nature at the moment of the Incarnation.

Q. So many still find the Trinity difficult to understand or believe in.

A. I’ve got two pieces of news for you, which may be surprising: first, one must believe in the Trinity to hold the Catholic faith. It is a truth revealed by God. On a somewhat practical level, if you have the question of God wrong, you’ll never get anything else right about the faith. To use a management term, it’s a “top-down” process.

Secondly, don’t worry if you don’t completely understand the Trinity, because no one does. That’s right – no saint or theologian – not even the great St Thomas Aquinas, the “Angelic Doctor” – has ever claimed that they fully understood the Trinity. In fact, if they had claimed that they did, they would have been guilty of heresy. Why?

If you could completely understand the Trinity, that would mean that you were greater than God, which is obviously not the case. Your finite, created mind, however intelligent it may be, cannot comprehend God in his infinity. However, that does not mean that we can’t know anything about the Trinity.

One can know something is true without being able to perfectly understand or explain it: for example, I know electricity works: I flip the switch, and the room lights up. Can I explain it? No. I don’t know how the energy moves throughout the circuitry, etc. I just know the truth of electricity, that it works. In the same way, we can be certain about whatever God chooses to reveal about himself, even if we can’t fully comprehend it – and what he has revealed is that he is a Trinity of persons.

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Pentecost Primer

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Q. This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday. Could you explain its background?

A. When Pentecost arrives each year in the liturgical calendar, most Christians immediately think of the dramatic gift of the Holy Spirit poured out on the Church, Peter’s impassioned preaching, and the mass conversion occasioned by this event, as recorded in Acts 2.

Many people are surprised to learn that the feast of Pentecost did not originate at this time. It has its roots in the Old Testament period. It’s actually one of the great Jewish festivals in the liturgical cycles of Israel’s worship. It was during this feast that the gift of the Holy Spirit was given to believers in Jesus the Messiah.

Q. Was the festival of Pentecost known by another name during the Old Covenant period? What was its original purpose?

A. This feast was also called the feast of Weeks. It arrived seven weeks after the festival of Passover and Unleavened Bread came to an end. The name “Pentecost” is a Greek word that refers to the fifty-day period (Lev 23:15-22; Deut 16:9-12).

What the festival of Weeks/Pentecost celebrated was the great wheat and barley harvest that took place in the summertime (Lev 23:10-15). The Hebrews has different names for the months of the year at that time, but this took place roughly at the end of April and the beginning of May.

Q. How can we relate the Old Covenant feast of Pentecost to that of the New?

A. There is much that could be said here, but let me focus on just a few points. In the New Testament, Jesus is presented as a new and greater Moses. Just as Moses dispenses the Spirit on his elders (Num 11:11-29), Jesus imparts the Holy Spirit to his Apostles (Jn 20:19-23, which is the Gospel reading for today).

Weeks/Pentecost was also linked in the Jewish tradition with the covenant made to Noah, which sheds light on how the Holy Spirit was gifted to humanity as a whole (Acts 2:5-11). Pentecost also, of course, is a celebration of the “first fruits” of the grain harvest, given by God. Jesus often spoke in agricultural parables of the world as a “field of souls”. Those early believers in Christ were indeed part of the “first fruits” of people harvested from the world, to belong to God for all eternity.

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“Hail, Full of Grace”: On the Solemnity of the Annunciation

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Today’s Gospel on this Solemnity of the Annunciation is the famous account of Mary’s encounter with Gabriel from Luke 1:26-38. It includes some indirect proof for two major Marian dogmas of the Church – the Immaculate Conception (which was recently celebrated on Dec. 8), and the perpetual virginity of Our Lady. It also gives us part of the biblical roots of the “Hail Mary”.

When the archangel Gabriel greets Mary, it marks the only recorded incident in scripture that an angel greets someone by their title, not their name. “Hail, Full of Grace, the Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28). This, of course, is the first line of the “Hail Mary”, with the second line, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb”, from Luke 1:42. So much for the ridiculous argument that the prayer is “unbiblical”.

But what of those dogmas? Speaking of the phrase, “Full of Grace”, in the original Greek of Luke’s Gospel, it is an interesting term: kecharitomene. It means, literally, “one who has been made full of God’s grace” (biblical translations that render this term “highly favored one”, or something to that effect, don’t cut it) . It’s a past perfect term, meaning that, at some point in the past, Mary was made perfectly full of God’s grace. This condition extends out into the future, into eternity. This is exactly what the Immaculate Conception is all about – that, from the first moment of her existence, Mary was preserved free from all stain of original sin. If one is perfectly full of the grace of God, there is no room for sin.

With respect to the perpetual virginity, Gabriel explains to Mary that she will bear the Messiah, and at this point he has said nothing about Jesus being conceived by the Holy Spirit. Yet, Mary says, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” (Lk 1:34). A very strange question for a young woman to ask, who, as we have already been told, was engaged to be married. Unless, that is, she had already intended to remain a virgin, consecrating herself wholly to God.

This post was originally published as “Mary of the Annunciation”. 

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