Musing Over Mystery

By Fr. Frederick Edlefsen

Catholic dogma forms a narrative. Mary is conceived in innocence.  A first since the Beginning.  Fourteen years later, an angel “who stands in God’s presence” (Luke 1:19) announces to Mary that, by the Most High’s power, the Holy Spirit will “overshadow” her and conceive the Father’s Son.  She will remain a virgin.  Moreover, Mary is the first to hear and believe that God is a Trinity – Father, Son, and Spirit – thus perfecting Abraham’s faith.  She is the first Christian and our Mother in Faith.  Mary gives virgin birth to Jesus, a divine Person with a human nature. This God-Man is “baptized” into a mission that forgives sins.  Jesus’ core teaching: love God and one another as “I have loved you” (John 15:12). Read the Sermon on the Mount for details (Matthew 5-7).  He calls Twelve Apostles to kickstart his mission via a Catholic and Apostolic Church.  The core mission: forgive sins.  Jesus changes water into wine at a wedding, heals via miracles, and finally changes bread and wine into his Body and Blood at the Last Supper.  He suffers and dies for our sins, and he rises before dawn on the “first day of the week”.  Forty days later, he ascends to heaven.  He sends the Spirit upon his Church, inaugurating its mission to sanctify, teach, and govern until the Last Judgment, when Christ calls down his Bride, the Holy City (Revelation 21:2), in which everything is resolved in himself (1 Corinthians 15:28).  In the meantime, Mary goes into “dormition” and is “assumed” into heaven, body and soul. 

This narrative is real history.  It is a “trans-historical” event that is actively present in every Catholic Mass.  It makes saints.   Take note of Mary’s role.  

January 1st, New Year’s Day, is a Holy Day.  It acknowledges Mary as God’s Mother.  In 431 AD, at the Council of Ephesus, the Church declared that Mary is the “Mother of God”.  Mary was solemnly declared to be “Theotokos”, which means “God-bearer” in Greek.  The Council acknowledged, as a matter of faith, that Mary gave birth to the “humanity” and the “divine Person” of Jesus.  This is a dogmatic, life-giving, and poetic fact.  Mary, Mother of God, pray for us. 

“Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother / Thou hast light in dark, and shut’st in little room, / Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb” (John Donne).