It’s said the festive season ends when we celebrate the New Year, yet for many Catholic Christian faithful, the festive season lasts till March 25th.
March 25th marks the beginning of the nine months Mary was pregnant with Baby Jesus. Of course we all celebrated Christmas as Christians, from the Anglicans, Pentecostals, Jehovah’s witnesses and so many more Jesus, his birth and resurrection have always been a big deal.
One day I was talking to this friend of mine who seemed to be baffled by the fact that Catholics attach a lot of respect to the Virgin Mary, in her view; Mary was just like any Girl God would choose to do his work.
“there is no reason to attach all that respect to a woman simply because she became pregnant by the grace, Mary is an empty vessel like all of us, the lord just chooses you to do, say his words and do his work on earth”, she argued.
Apparently that sweet friend is not the only one that thinks so, many non catholic faithful share her sentiments, they feel Mary should be relegated to the ranks of a mere believer just like you and I.
May be they are right, Mary is simply any woman, just another daughter to Hannah and Joachim, but they usually forget a lot of issues, why did God choose Mary and not an Elizabeth or Martha? Why did he wait that long? Where other women not pure enough? Or better, what if Mary said no? What if Mary said no to Angel Gabriel’s massage?
Like I usually say, someone skewed the bible to favor or boost men’s egos; I mean its only religion and the bible where everything that would have brought respect to a woman was mysteriously deleted. It’s partly because of this that many feel like Mary is irrelevant to our beliefs.
In one of his writings on Catholic.org, Deacon Keith Fournier says Mary is a mirror and a reflection of someone beloved and that’s her son and our savior Jesus. Much as it was a privilege for her to bare for the sake of the world, the lord filled her with his grace which makes her special.
In different editions of his writings the Deacon even tries at explaining the name and origin of the Name Mary. Mary or Madonna is originally from Hebrew spelt as Miryam and was the only daughter Hannah and Joachim had after various trials.
According to him, it was not chosen to give birth to Jesus by mistake, she wasn’t the only virgin considering the fact that this was the time morality was at its best, she wasn’t the only Mary and if we are to look at the meaning of the name, “beautiful and rebellious” don’t really count enough to get God have his son.
Mary was special that God specifically wanted her not anyone else, but what if she let her human nature take over by looking into the angel’s eyes and said NO. Would you have celebrated Christmas last year who knows may be God would have taken another break of like more 2000 years and may be to date he would still be looking for the perfect candidate.
It’s sad when many Christians fail to see the importance of Mary; they forget that all the events of Jesus and his miracles have one Genesis which is Mary.
Without Mary there would be no human Jesus thus probably there would be no Palm Sunday, no Good Friday. Without this there would be no Easter or resurrection.
Literally if Mary said NO this entire Christianity thing would have been a dream since there’s no Christianity without Jesus.
One may argue that God may have swapped for another candidate, yes he might have but just like humans don’t want to be used I don’t want to believe that God simply used Mary to get his son and then throw her away like she was waste.
It’s the act of God to have a child with Mary that makes and blesses the Marriage institution, if Jesus had been a single product of God, the world order would be different. This would have given room to gay marriages since the savior would have been born by one parent who even happens to be a he.
If Christians usually talk about family with respect, then they should get used to the fact that God is the father and Mary is a mother.
If Mary had said No on that afternoon of March 25th Jesus would probably have come but without a mother, that would have deprived him of being human. Not even a disciple would follow a man without a background they would have called him a ghost.
Mary made Jesus appear human she made God one of us and part of us. Imagine a Jesus without a mother or biological dad? He would have been a nowhere man of nowhere background and nowhere parents. He would be making his nowhere plans for nobody, performing miracles for nobody and preaching a nowhere gospel to no one.
We all listen to people we know, people with a reference and in this case Jesus’ reference was Mary and Joseph. Would any one of you have followed pastor Kayanja if he had no history or can a catholic believe a priest who just shows up and says he’s a priest without passing through the seminary?
Mary gave Jesus a back bone, it’s because of Mary that Jesus was referred to as so and so’s son, without this he would be hanging. Any human being comes from a woman thus regardless of what or who; no one could have offered Jesus the element of humanity if it wasn’t for the mother.
It’s crazy for one to call her simply another human in the bible, if it wasn’t for this human, we couldn’t have seen Jesus change water into wine which cements the importance of the virgin’s role and a question, if Mary had said No, would Christianity be the Christianity we know today?
mary is more than a wife to a carpenter
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