Why Is Mary So Important to Catholics? Biblical Roots of Marian Devotion | Dr. Brant Pitre

[Music] [Applause] [Music] recently i was out to dinner with a couple couples and one of those couples was a great uh had a great protestant who loved scripture and he asked us how how do you catholics why do you catholics make such a big deal out of mary and you know i know from the protestant perspective you've probably heard that question before protestants think well this marian devotion is distracting us from devotion to jesus christ and so one of the things i did is i started going to a couple biblical passages and showing how scripture is devoted to mary and that scripture shows that mary has a important role in the kingdom of god and in jesus's plan of salvation and he was blown away at the end of that conversation saying i have asked catholics many many times and i've never gotten an answer that led me into the word of god and taught me the word of god like that before and that's what we're going to talk about tonight how mary and marian devotion is deeply biblical but more importantly it leads us to jesus christ [Music] joining me tonight as a special guest is dr brandt petry who is a professor of scripture here at the augusta suit and a renowned biblical scholar he's written many many academic books as well as many many popular books you might have seen some of his lecture bible studies unformed and he has a new lectio bible study out lexio mary on the bible and the mother of god and i love what you do here brant in this study is you really dive deeply into mary through scripture and showing the biblical roots of marian devotion which so many catholics don't know not even mention protestants absolutely yeah no this is uh when we were talking about future lexio projects this is one that was very close to my heart because in my own experience as a cradle catholic i grew up knowing what to believe about mary i also grew up practicing certain devotions to mary like the rosary um but i didn't know why we believed those things and certainly didn't know where they were grounded in sacred scripture so um over the years especially as i began to study more not just of the new testament but of the old testament background as well as ancient jewish traditions about the mother about the messiah and about his mother which there are some um it became it gradually dawned on me that one of the reasons so many christians and and also so many catholics can't see clearly the biblical foundations of what we believe about mary or various maryland devotions is because we're looking at the new testament uh passages that relate to mary which are you know they're substantial but they're not anywhere near as many as about jesus or about peter but we we tend to look at those passages in isolation right so if you're looking for like the phrase immaculate conception in the new testament you're not going to find it if you're looking for an account of mary's bodily assumption into heaven you're not going to find it if you're looking for an explicit statement about her perpetual virginity you're actually going to find passages that look like they contradict it like mentions of the brothers of jesus and what i discovered is every time there's a major marian belief that catholics have if we look at the new testament in light of the old testament and in light of ancient christian writings the early church fathers we put in that broader context all of a sudden it becomes really clear that what catholics believe about mary is not only deeply biblical but based on what we believe about christ you know that method is so simple but so profound bran you know the idea that you take the new testament in the context of the old testament and there's a reason why god waits to reveal the new he's preparing for the new yeah through the old testament revelation and that's so important to understand the new but then to see how the first christians in those first several centuries how they passing on the apostolic tradition understood that new testament you put both those together and you get a very catholic read that don't you that no it's absolutely the case um in fact one of the things i find most exciting about this particular bible study dyslexia on mary was how how deeply catholic ancient christian beliefs about mary were and how deeply biblical they were and it's precise because ancient christians unlike a lot of modern christians who tend to like the new testament but not like the old testament so much because it's it's old and it's long and it's difficult so they read the whole bible and when and as i show in my book on mary as well and in this series um those ancient christian beliefs about mary's sinlessness about her bodily assumption into heaven about her perpetual virginity are very very catholic and not just in ancient latin christianity in the west but eastern christianity as well you know that idea of what how many of the church fathers say these doctrines yeah i remember i'd love to take people on pilgrimage to the holy land and when you go to the basilica of the annunciation and you're going up from the lower crypt where the annunciation happened and you're walking the stairwell up to the upper there's an on the wall in latin which is the or greek is the phrases of the latin and greek fathers in the original language about our lady what and so people always ask me what does that say what does that say and then you i'd love to show this is an early church father who's talking about the blessed mother wow and you see what these early christians say about our lady which is a powerful testimony it is and and um the reason they saw it to restate the point is because they recognize that you have to read the old the new testament in light of the old now i think most christians like most protestant christians would would admit well of course you need to do that when we're talking about christ so for example uh catholics and protestants will agree that jesus isn't just the messiah he's also the new adam right he fulfills that prefiguration of adam in the old testament he's a new david right he's a new king who's come to inaugurate a kingdom he's also a new solomon who's greater than solomon and brings us the wisdom so lots of christians isaac yeah new isaac newton if you don't know the story of isaac carrying the wood up the mountain you miss what's going on yeah you miss what's going on with the cross so lots of christians are familiar with typology the study of old testament types or prefigurations and their new testament fulfillments when it comes to jesus but what they don't realize many don't realize is that jesus isn't the only person who's prefigured in the old testament mary is also prefigured in the old testament so uh that not only does the new testament reveal that jesus is the new adam it also reveals that mary is the new eve and it doesn't just reveal that jesus is the manna the new manner from heaven like in john chapter six it also reveals that mary is the new ark of the covenant that contained the manna so what i do in the lecture series is work through these various types these prefigurations of mary in the old testament eve the ark of the covenant the queen mother rachel and i show how these various women as well as events and and elements like the art are not just part of salvation history they point forward to and are fulfilled in mary and when you begin to do this typology not just with jesus but with mary it's very exciting and it leads to catholic conclusion i love that and i want to invite everybody to join us on the text line so you can join by just texting your questions for dr petry and myself at 720-650-0-100 and just put your name and what your question is and join our conversation we want you to be part of this and that's always part of our show here at the augusta suit so bran let's just you give us a list of great great typologies and what i love about your bible study and your book is that you're very systematic right you start with i have a lot of german in so i like i like things to be ordered i love the order though it's so great for people to learn as they walk through you're walking them through scripture with the major types with mary so let's just start with eve okay you know um because obviously eve is really important and and paul is always talking about jesus as the new adam right yeah absolutely you get that in romans you get it in corinthians right it's so important that jesus that for paul jesus is the whole new adam and therefore a whole new humanity right now how do we understand that mary is in god's plan a new eve yeah um well there are several texts the new testament that would point to this but for me uh the place i like to start with is the gospel of john this is really where it's clearest in two key episodes where mary appears the wedding at cana and then the crucifixion of jesus on the cross and one of the things you'll notice about both those episodes it that's strange that's unusual is that jesus when he speaks to mary doesn't call her mary and he doesn't call her mother he calls her woman he addresses her as gune in greek the word woman and and when you're reading it as an english speaker you think oh man this sounds rude right it sounds like jesus is dishonoring his mother right because i know if i called my mother a woman it would not be good right right mom it wouldn't be good but but whenever you see something strange like that in context is almost invariably some key to unlocking it in the old testament well if you go back to the old testament the book of genesis chapter one and two although we always think of her as eve which he is named in genesis chapter three that's actually not the primary way of referring to the first woman 12 times before that in genesis 2 she's called woman woman woman woman over and over again so that in a sense the word woman is the principal name for the first woman of the first creation eve right so when you look at um the gospel of john there's a lot of detail i can't go into right now but basically the first couple of chapters of john are actually modeled on the book of genesis it begins with the words in the beginning just like genesis and it kind of culminates in the miracle of the wedding of cana so when jesus is being revealed in in john chapter 1 as the one who's going to bring a new creation who's like the new adam and then he calls his mother gune woman the same word used to refer to eve since ancient times christian readers and modern scholars have recognized what is happening is that jesus isn't just being revealed as the new adam was going to bring a new creation but mary is the new i love that and that's where you you can join that context knowing the old testament background for eve being called woman yes and then knowing the early church fathers who interpret that together oh absolutely continuity and what they're going to say the ancient christians will say is just as death comes into the world by eve's initiation of eating the fruit of the tree knowledge so mary brings life into the world not just through the her giving birth to christ in incarnation but also she invites him to perform his first public miracle his first sign that's going to begin the revelation of his messiahship so eve invites adam to bring death into the world in luke's gospel you have an angel approaching mary right asking for her fiat and then you had an angel fallen angel approaching and so i don't know if you've seen we have a great image an eye uh painting of the annunciation that we just got here at the august institute and uh and so we it tries to show uh mary as the new eve in fact it has several symbolisms in the painting oh that's fantastic point that out but in the background of where mary's encountering the angel is uh the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and an and an olive tree as the sign for the tree of life oh that's beautiful right but and that and then that actually fast forwards to the crucifixion scene because if you thought jesus was dishonoring his mother in the wedding at canaan which of course he wouldn't because he'd be breaking the fourth commandment which as a rule if your interpretation leads you to think jesus breaks the commandments you're probably wrong but he does it on the cross as well that's right right and so what happens is just like you have a man a woman and the tree at the fall of humanity you have a man christ the woman the new eve and then the true tree of life which is going to be the wood of the cross that's so beautiful and this is what i think asking these questions and getting deeper into the biblical story right gets us to what you said before catholics often times know the what but they don't always realize the why that's right and that's where the spark is because when you when you see the why yeah it gets your faith on fire that's exactly right so for example in this case why do catholics believe in the immaculate conception of mary the idea that mary through a singular grace of god was conceived in the womb of her mother without the stain of original sin people say how can you believe that about mary isn't she fully human and we you know no human is without sin except christ and i'll say no no actually that's not true there are two other humans created without sin created very good in the bible and it's adam and eve in the book of genesis it's so important because i think so many protestants think that our devotion to mary makes her larger than reality and we make her quasi-divine and so the idea that mary would be without sin means she's got to be divine but that's not the case at all not unless you even is a perfect example that's exactly right so if adam and eve could be created without sin and still be fully human exactly then it's fitting that in the new covenant you wouldn't just have christ the new adam who was without sin but that you would also have a new eve without sin and real quick so notice and if she is the new eve and she was created with sin then the old eve would be greater than the new and that's not how typology works right so for mary to be the new eve if the first deed was created without sin then the new eve has to be better it has to be greater than so she is without sin as well i love that well there there's a a question that uh mark asks and he says you know given the protestant reformation why do protestants reject mary okay um well there i mean we could get into a number of reasons because luther doesn't all together right away it's really the second generation that's right so some of the first generation reformers actually held to many of catholic doctrines about mary and even held to certain devotions to mary but it quickly fades away and i think part of the reason is well let's look at luther how did luther feel about the old testament was he exceedingly positive about the old testament the answer is no he drew a stark contrast between law and gospel and how did luther feel about tradition yeah right the the tradition of the church fathers he also rejected that and his clarion call was solo scripture so once you start rejecting or looking only negatively at the old testament and once you start rejecting the witness of the ancient christians you're going to lose the context then it allows you to see the truth about mary that's being revealed in the new testament but can only be really seen clearly if you read it in light of the old one of the things i was fascinated by just studying a little bit of the reformation period is that the devotion to our lady of sorrows grows significantly and as a response to the reformation because one of the things that the reformation says is all this catholic art of mary holding the baby jesus well doesn't jesus say you know when a woman says blessed are the breasts that bore you and and nursed you and um and jesus says instead blessed rather she who does the will of god or here's the word god does it and does it right well the response became our lady of sorrows devotion and images of mary at the foot of the cross and you know in sorrow because there she is as a disciple faithful to jesus during the passion right oh wow and so there's a sense of okay yeah mary is there at the infancy right but mary's there at the cross which i think is a really beautiful response no it is and i i i wasn't aware of that connection although i would like to look into it further because my probably my favorite uh lecture in the series and definitely my favorite chapter in the book on the jewish roots of mary is the chapter on mary as the new rachel where i try to show that just as rachel in the old testament was the mother of israel right she's the wife of jacob and the the matriarch she's the mother of the people of israel and in jewish tradition in scripture was regarded as the mother of sorrows a sorrowful mother like in jeremiah 31 it says rachel weeping for her children because they are no more i show in the book that that description that biblical description of rachel as a woman of sorrows and a mother in jeremiah 31 and in the book of genesis goes on in jewish tradition to lead to rachel being venerated as the mother of israel and as the mother whose prayers have a particular power of intercession because she suffers with her children of israel and prays to god for them so this is this great rabbinic tradition ancient rabbis they had this story of how the people of israel were suffering and moses interceded for them with god god said no and then abraham interceded for them with god and god said no but when rachel the sorrowful mother interceded for him the the the genuine the authenticity of her mother's pain moves the heart of god to answer her prayers so rachel's prayers are the most powerful of all and there's even as you know to this day a shrine to rachel right rachel's tomb is a holy site yeah and so and we even have evidence of some jews going there and asking for intercession right outskirts of bethlehem right on the outskirts of bethlehem that's where that's exactly right so now take that fast forward to the new testament when mary has christ of course what follows is the massacre of the infants near bethlehem and what does matthew say he quotes jeremiah 31 about rachel weeping for her children and even jewish scholars have said like uh jacob newsor and david flusser have recognized that mary appears to be being depicted in matthew as a kind of new rachel now if matthew sees mary that way then it it makes so much sense that very early on christians would begin asking mary who's not dead but alive in heaven right that's why we call it eternal life not internal death begins ask the early christians began asking mary we have evidence in the second third century of them asking for her to pray for them just like there was this tradition of rachel acting as our lady of sorrows a mother of sorrows and an intercessor i i love that i i i know one of my friends that was their favorite chapter they never heard that before yeah it totally blew them away and uh it's just so great people have to go back and dive in more to find out about that well here's a question that is typical okay uh ryan asks well why do catholics believe that mary is a perpetual virgin when it mentions jesus's siblings that jesus has brothers and sisters yeah so i i have a this is one of my favorite chapters in the book uh there's a whole chapter just on that question with the specific focus on the perpetual virginity mary and the brothers of jesus so i can't do it justice church in a nutshell here but let me let me put it this way um in brief many catholics will rightly respond by saying that in uh ancient greek and in hebrew the word brother did not only mean uh a uterine brother like the the son of the same mother well like lot in general like exactly genesis 14 he does that so he calls him brother but many many times that will seem like kind of special pleading to our non-catholic friends because they'll look at mark chapter six where it mentions the brothers of jesus james and joseph and simon and judas and it mentions his sisters in the context of saying hey isn't this the son of mary and these are his brothers and sisters and don't we know them who is this guy who's coming and performing these works so they'll say look in context it looks like these people are the brothers of jesus so i think it's not enough to just say that the word brother could mean cousin what you have to actually show is if you read mark's gospel in context it is the best proof for those guys not being his brothers but being his cousins because if you fast forward to mark 15 the same two guys jose james and joseph who are called the brothers of jesus in mark 6 are later identified and marked as the sons of a woman named mary but who is called the other mary right not the mother of jesus so in other words the gospel themselves tell you that the brothers of jesus are the children of another woman named mary who's at the foot of the cross right and who john's gospel in chapter 19 identifies as mary the wife of clopas and so when you put all the data of the gospels together right matthew mark and john it's very clear that james and joseph simon and judas these guys who are called his brothers that's just a semitic way of referring to his cousins and they're the children not of the virgin mary but of another mary and by the way ancient christians all knew this if you read you see this is church history sippus was an early church historian they knew that james the bishop of jerusalem and simon two of the brothers were actually the sons of a man named clopis who was jesus's uncle so this was not like some cryptic secret knowledge this was just public knowledge but as christianity moved into gentile spheres where people didn't understand that semitic language of brothers it became garbled and people became confused about who these men were yeah it's such a great explanation and it just reminds me of you know there's a lot of protestants that don't understand mary and devotion but there's just as many catholics who don't understand mary and devotion and the biblical roots of it right that's absolutely right for us catholics i think catholics sometimes get like why don't the protestants understand this well it's because we catholics aren't able to answer dinner conversations when protestant friends ask us right and we can't give the y but if catholics could explain the why that's exactly there won't be many protestants left i think no i mean if we could if catholics can articulate the biblical reasons for our faith no i think that's the unity between protestants and catholics is going to grow is going to grow because because mayor i know this from personal experience because mary is one of the greatest impediments like it's not mary herself but point of division for beliefs about mary have protestant friends and family who have become catholic and they said mary was the greatest hurdle because it's they for them the beliefs about mary seem so patently unbiblical and because so many catholics aren't able to explain how they're biblical yeah it really just seems like their beliefs that we just close our eyes and say well the church says so and i believe it even though you know i know it isn't true or whatever it's not biblical but i'm going to believe it anyway i know many catholics who get nervous when they hear those passages about the brothers of jesus in in the lectionary and mass but they don't know how to explain them so that's what this book's for that's what the lexico bible study is for and i i really encourage people in in our audience that if you want to help catholics understand mary get a bible study group maybe start it yourself you know if you know there's a bible study group in your parish tell them hey we've got to do this lexion mary bible study and you can get this at catholic.market catholic market sells it it's also on the forum platform and you can also get dr peter's book the jewish roots of mary at catholic.market so please go go there find these resources get the book and watch this series because we've got to get catholics to understand and know their mother this is really important so that they can evangelize because this is this is the barrier oftentimes with catholics and protestants and we don't need that we don't need that barrier it's a huge barrier and i love that you said to get to know their mother because you know one of the things i try to show in this series is that mary isn't at the end of the day mary isn't a doctrine mary isn't a dogma mary is a person yeah she's a real person who jesus in his last words gave to us through john to be his mother his last will and testament one of the last things he said was to john actually he said to john behold your mother and then to mary behold your son and and just as just as he doesn't use mary's name mary he uses his mother he uses yeah he uses for john yeah right woman no actually so yeah woman but also for john he he doesn't he looked at the disciple whom he loved yeah that's true so he didn't just look at john he looked at us because we're all invited to be that disciple he stands for us then that's right yeah the ancient christians says very clearly that john the beloved disciple in the gospel john is a kind of figure or type in which we're supposed to see ourselves right we all should strive to become beloved disciples of jesus and when jesus gives mary to john to be her mother he's giving her not just to john but to all of his disciples and if you have any doubts about this you can go to the book of revelation chapter 12 yeah where the mother of the messiah the woman clothed with the son it says that um the devil went off to persecute her children the rest of her children her offspring who are those who believe in christ who believe in jesus that is what that's my favorite marriage verse it's revelation 12 verse 17. go look it up and it says you know went to make war on the rest of her offspring on those who bear witness to marteria bear witness to jesus and obey the commandments of god that's exactly right and so in other words it's clearly identifying that the children of mary are those who bear witness to jesus that's right and obey god's commandments and it it's not about uh genetics it's not about natural birth order it's about and it's not about denomination ex christian it's about a spiritual order here that's exactly loving jesus if if you know you love christ and you want to obey the commandments of the father yeah mary's your mother yeah whether you know it or not she's your mother she's your mother you know um diane asks you know mary seems to be without free will or temptation can you comment on that i think probably what diane's thinking about if mary doesn't sin she can't really be free yeah that's not true is it no that's not true we're not free in heaven that's that's my answer to this always so wait a second are we going to sin in heaven say no so does that mean we lose our freedom no in fact what heaven is it's the perfection of our freedom because god gives us our freedom precisely in order to choose the good and so what mary and all the saints in heaven who are all sinless by the way and don't stop being human so if you say oh you can't be sinless to be human we have a problem because the saints in heaven are still human but what they do is they through god's grace their freedom is perfected so that they choose god and they choose the good for all eternity oh and i don't know about you but that sounds pretty good to me yeah i'm ready for the perfection ready for do that get ready for that bring it lord that is it's so glorious but you know that's the beauty of our faith brian just to end with you know you you've spent a lot of time praying and studying on this how in doing the book and and doing this study and studying our lady and realizing mary is your mother how did it lead you to be a more devoted to jesus christ because i think a lot of people think mary and devotion is a parallel track to devotion to jesus but it doesn't have to be that way marian devotion should lead us to be a more devoted disciple of our lord right absolutely yes so um for me personally um what this what this study helped me realize something the catechism says that i knew as a doctrine but i i i really deepened it i penetrate that teaching more deeply it says the catechism says everything that the catholic church believes and teaches about mary is based on what she believes and teaches about christ and so it has only made my grasp of who jesus is more splendid more profound so for example by realizing mary is um the new eve it's helped me understand oh jesus isn't just the messiah he's the new adam he comes to inaugurate a whole new creation by focusing on mary as the the queen mother it's helped me realize that jesus didn't just come to set up like a new institution he's a king he reigns as a king and i'm a subject that belongs to this heavenly kingdom right of in recognizing mary as the the new uh the i have a whole chapter on this but as the new rachel the sorrowful mother it helps me realize that jesus is also the new joseph right the the beloved son of rachel yeah who suffers who suffers who's betrayed by his 11 brothers one named judah right sold for 20 pieces of silver right and goes down into the pit only to emerge and to rise to the highest throne and then save the world israel and the gentiles by feeding them with what the wheat so this is what christ does he's the new joseph who feeds the world and saves us with the bread bran i'm so glad you shared this i can't believe our time is up but i just want to encourage people you know just from what brown was just saying you know the more we understand mary in scripture the more we're going to understand jesus christ and that's the goal that is the goal and so marian devotion leads to devotion to jesus and i always think personally if john the beloved disciple is the only one at the cross because he's with our lady he's with mary and mary helps john have the courage to be there at the cross and if we become truly devoted to mary she will give us the courage to take up the cross in our own lives and to follow jesus christ where he wherever he calls us and i want to thank you all for joining us uh it's been a great pleasure to talk about the blessed mother with you brett yeah it's a great joy to have you on the show thank you for being with us always a pleasure yeah and i next week we're going to do so many of you ask you know if you love these shows we just do a question answer so next week i'm going to do a question answer episode with dr ben akers we always enjoy those we're always happy to have your questions and have you participate in the show thank you so much for being a part of this and thanks special thanks to all of you who support us through the mission circle our monthly giving society it helps us have this ministry god bless you [Music] you

Channel: Augustine Institute | The Catholic Faith Explained

Views: 317,299

Keywords: brant pitre, augustine institute, catholic mary, mary, mother of god, theotokos

Id: w4IKv7FHAgo

Length: 31min 31sec (1891 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 16 2021