The Virgin Mary

The Virgin Mary is the Jewish woman of Nazareth who consented to bear Jesus Christ and who is honoured by Catholics as the Mother of God. Catholic teaching about her rests on four dogmas: that she is Theotokos, God-bearer, defined at the Council of Ephesus in 431; that she remained a virgin; that she was preserved from original sin from the moment of her conception, defined in 1854; and that at the end of her earthly life she was taken body and soul into heaven, defined in 1950. Catholics honour her and ask her prayers. They do not worship her, and the Church has always taught that worship belongs to God alone.

Every Marian dogma exists to protect a statement about Jesus Christ. That is the single most useful key to the whole subject, and it is the thread this page follows.

1. Who Mary Was

Mary was a young Jewish woman of Nazareth, a village in Galilee, betrothed to a carpenter named Joseph of the house of David, at the time Gabriel was sent to her (Luke 1:26 to 27). Scripture gives her no genealogy, no age and no account of her parents. The names Joachim and Anne come from the second century Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal work, and are traditional rather than scriptural.

She was poor. The offering she and Joseph made at the Presentation was the pair of birds prescribed for a family that could not afford a lamb (Luke 2:24, Leviticus 12:8). She travelled to Bethlehem while pregnant, fled to Egypt as a refugee, and raised her son in an obscure village.

Her recorded words in the Gospels amount to a handful of sentences, and the longest of them, the Magnificat, is a song about God overturning the powerful and lifting up the poor (Luke 1:46 to 55). Her last recorded words are four: "Do whatever he tells you" (John 2:5). She is present at the crucifixion (John 19:25) and with the apostles in prayer before Pentecost (Acts 1:14), after which Scripture says no more about her.

2. Do Catholics Worship Mary?

NO. This is the biggest misconception about Catholicism. (If we did, we'd be doing it wrong.) Worship (Latria) belongs to God alone. We honor Mary (Hyperdulia) as the greatest of all saints.

We pray with Mary, asking her to intercede for us to her Son, Jesus. She grants nothing by her own power, and Catholic teaching has never said otherwise. Just as you might ask a friend to pray for you, we ask the Mother of God to pray for us. And we believe Jesus listens to His mom (would you say no to your mother at a wedding?).

The three terms are worth learning because they end the argument quickly. Latria is adoration and belongs to God alone; giving it to any creature is idolatry. Dulia is the honour given to the saints. Hyperdulia is the higher honour given to Mary as the greatest of them, and it remains a different kind of act from adoration rather than a larger amount of it.

The Church says this about itself in the plainest terms. The Catechism teaches that the Church's devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship, and that this devotion differs essentially from the adoration given to the incarnate Word and to the Father and the Holy Spirit (Catechism of the Catholic Church 971). The Second Vatican Council placed its teaching on Mary inside its document on the Church rather than in a separate decree, precisely to keep her within the communion of the redeemed.

3. Mother of God (Theotokos)

This title defends who Jesus is. If Mary is only the mother of Jesus' "human side," then Jesus is two persons. But Jesus is ONE person. Therefore, since Mary gave birth to that Person, and that Person is God, she is truly the Mother of God.

The dispute is historical and datable. In the early fifth century Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, objected to the title Theotokos, God-bearer, and proposed Christotokos, Christ-bearer, instead. Cyril of Alexandria argued that the substitution divided Christ into two subjects. The Council of Ephesus in 431 upheld Theotokos. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 completed the formula: one person in two natures, divine and human, without confusion and without separation.

Elizabeth had already used the substance of the title. Filled with the Holy Spirit, she asks, "why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" (Luke 1:43). The claim is about the identity of the child. A mother is the mother of a person, and the person she bore is God the Son.

4. The Immaculate Conception

This dogma teaches that Mary was preserved from original sin from the moment of her conception. Why? To be a pure vessel for the All-Holy God. You don't put fine wine in a dirty cup. The Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament was overlaid with pure gold to carry the tablets of the Law, the word of God. Mary is the New Ark, carrying the Word made flesh.

Two clarifications settle most confusion. The Immaculate Conception is about Mary's conception, not the conception of Jesus, which is the virgin birth and a separate matter. And Mary was saved by Christ like everyone else. The Church teaches that she was preserved from original sin from the first moment of her existence in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, which makes her redemption more complete rather than an exception to it (CCC 490 to 493). Her own words at Luke 1:47 call God "my Saviour".

Pope Pius IX defined the doctrine in 1854 in the bull Ineffabilis Deus, after long theological debate in which serious theologians, Thomas Aquinas among them, had raised objections that were later answered by the argument from preservative redemption. Gabriel's greeting, kecharitomene, rendered "full of grace" or "highly favoured" (Luke 1:28), is the scriptural anchor Catholics point to, and the tradition of Mary as the New Eve goes back to the second century in Justin Martyr and Irenaeus.

5. The Assumption

At the end of her earthly life, Mary was taken up body and soul into heaven. She is the first to experience the resurrection of the body that we all hope for. She is the "woman clothed with the sun" of Revelation 12.

Pope Pius XII defined the Assumption in 1950 in the apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus. The definition was deliberately worded to leave one question open: it says that when the course of her earthly life was finished she was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory, without stating whether she died first. The Eastern tradition speaks of the Dormition, her falling asleep, and keeps the same feast on 15 August.

The doctrine is ancient in practice. The feast was kept in the East from at least the sixth century and spread west, and no city ever claimed to possess her body, which is striking given how vigorously relics of the apostles and martyrs were sought and disputed. The Catechism presents the Assumption as a singular participation in her Son's resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of all Christians (CCC 966).

6. Perpetual Virginity and the "Brothers of Jesus"

The Church holds that Mary was a virgin before, in and after the birth of Christ, a teaching affirmed in the early councils and held in common by Catholics and by the Orthodox. The usual objection is that the Gospels mention brothers of Jesus (Mark 6:3, Matthew 13:55).

Two answers have circulated since antiquity, and the Church has not defined between them. The Eastern view, drawing on the Protoevangelium of James, takes them as children of Joseph by an earlier marriage. The Western view, following Jerome, takes them as close kinsmen, noting that Greek adelphos translates a Semitic usage that covers cousins and other relatives, since neither Hebrew nor Aramaic had a separate word for cousin. Supporters of the second view point out that James and Joses, named as brothers of Jesus in Mark 6:3, appear in Mark 15:40 as sons of another Mary.

The strongest indirect argument is from the cross. Jesus entrusts his mother to the disciple John (John 19:26 to 27), which would be an odd act if she had other sons living. The teaching is a statement about a woman set apart entirely for one purpose, and it says nothing against marriage or childbearing.

7. Mary in Scripture, Scene by Scene

Mary appears less often in the New Testament than most people assume, and every appearance carries weight.

• The Annunciation (Luke 1:26 to 38). Gabriel greets her, she asks how, and she consents: "let it be to me according to your word."
• The Visitation (Luke 1:39 to 56). Elizabeth calls her the mother of my Lord and blessed among women. Mary answers with the Magnificat and says that all generations will call her blessed.
• Bethlehem and the shepherds (Luke 2:1 to 20). Mary keeps all these things, pondering them in her heart.
• The Presentation (Luke 2:22 to 38). Simeon tells her that a sword will pierce her own soul.
• The finding in the Temple (Luke 2:41 to 51). She questions her twelve-year-old son and does not understand the answer, and keeps it in her heart.
• Cana (John 2:1 to 11). She notices the wine has run out, tells her son, and gives the servants her last recorded instruction: "Do whatever he tells you."
• The cross (John 19:25 to 27). She stands there, and Jesus gives her to the disciple and the disciple to her.
• The upper room (Acts 1:14). She is with the apostles, devoted to prayer, before Pentecost.

8. What Other Christians Hold, and Why

Representing other positions accurately is part of arguing honestly, so here they are as their holders state them.

The Orthodox

The Eastern Orthodox honour Mary very highly as Theotokos and Ever-Virgin, keep the feast of the Dormition, and pray to her constantly in their liturgy. They reject the 1854 definition of the Immaculate Conception, generally on the grounds that it rests on a Western account of original sin as inherited guilt that they do not share, and they object to the manner of definition by papal authority. They hold what amounts to the Assumption within the Dormition tradition without a dogmatic definition.

Protestants

Most Protestants accept the virgin birth and the title Mother of God as protecting the Incarnation. Luther and Zwingli held Mary's perpetual virginity explicitly, and Calvin rejected the argument that Scripture proves Jesus had brothers by blood, though most of their heirs hold neither position. The general Protestant objection to the 1854 and 1950 dogmas is that they are not taught in Scripture and that Scripture alone is the rule of faith. The objection to asking Mary's prayers is usually drawn from 1 Timothy 2:5, that there is one mediator between God and men. Catholics answer that Christ's unique mediation is what makes the prayers of the members effective, in the same way that asking a living Christian to pray does not compete with it.

9. Apparitions and Private Revelation

Catholics report appearances of Mary, and the Church has judged some of them worthy of belief, among them Guadalupe in 1531, Lourdes in 1858 and Fatima in 1917. The status of these is often misunderstood, so the rule is worth stating exactly.

Approved apparitions are private revelations. Public revelation was completed in Christ and handed on by the apostles, and nothing can be added to it. Church approval of an apparition means that the faithful may believe it and that nothing in it is contrary to faith and morals. No Catholic is required to believe in any apparition, and no one's standing in the Church depends on it. Our pages on Our Lady of Guadalupe and the apparitions at Fatima set out those two cases in detail.

10. Feasts, the Rosary and Devotion

The Marian feasts of the Roman calendar mark the shape of her life and the Church's teaching about her: the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God on 1 January; the Annunciation on 25 March; the Visitation on 31 May; the Assumption on 15 August, a holy day of obligation in many countries; the Queenship of Mary on 22 August; her Nativity on 8 September; Our Lady of the Rosary on 7 October; the Immaculate Conception on 8 December; and Our Lady of Guadalupe on 12 December. Pope Francis added the memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church, on the Monday after Pentecost, in 2018.

The Rosary is the best known Marian devotion and is mostly Scripture. The Hail Mary joins Gabriel's greeting to Elizabeth's, and the mysteries walk through the life of Christ from the Annunciation to the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and beyond. Our page on how to pray the Rosary covers the mysteries and the method. The Angelus, the Memorare, the Salve Regina and the scapular belong to the same family of practice, and all of them are free.

11. What a Reader Can Take From Her

Consent, then act

Mary's answer to Gabriel is the model of the Christian response: a question asked honestly, then a yes that costs something. She travels to Elizabeth immediately afterwards.

Do whatever he tells you

Her last recorded words are an instruction to obey her son. All Catholic devotion to Mary that is working ends there.

Stay

She was at the cross when nearly everyone else had gone. Presence at somebody's worst hour is a Christian obligation, and it requires no words.

Ponder

Luke twice notes that she kept things and turned them over in her heart without understanding them. Faith that keeps unanswered things rather than discarding them is faith operating normally.

12. Frequently Asked Questions

Do Catholics worship the Virgin Mary?

No. Catholic teaching reserves adoration, which theologians call latria, to God alone, and giving it to any creature is idolatry. Mary receives honour, called hyperdulia, as the greatest of the saints, which is a different kind of act rather than a larger amount of the same one. The Catechism states that the Church's devotion to Mary differs essentially from the adoration given to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Catholics ask Mary to pray for them, in the same way Paul asked the churches to pray for him.

Why do Catholics call Mary the Mother of God?

Because the person she gave birth to is God the Son. The title Theotokos, God-bearer, was upheld at the Council of Ephesus in 431 against Nestorius, who wanted Christ-bearer instead. The concern was about Jesus rather than about Mary: a mother is the mother of a person, and if Mary were only the mother of a human nature then Christ would be two subjects rather than one. Elizabeth uses the substance of the title at Luke 1:43 when she calls Mary the mother of my Lord.

What is the difference between the Immaculate Conception and the virgin birth?

They are separate doctrines about different people. The Immaculate Conception concerns Mary's own conception, and teaches that she was preserved from original sin from the first moment of her existence in view of the merits of Christ. The virgin birth concerns the conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit without a human father. The Immaculate Conception was defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854 and is celebrated on 8 December.

Did Mary die before the Assumption?

The Church has not decided. The definition issued by Pope Pius XII in 1950 says that when the course of her earthly life was finished she was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory, and the wording deliberately leaves the question of her death open. The Eastern tradition speaks of the Dormition, her falling asleep, and keeps the feast on the same day, 15 August.

Does the Bible say Jesus had brothers?

The Gospels refer to brothers of Jesus at Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55. The Church holds Mary's perpetual virginity, and two explanations have circulated since antiquity without one being defined. The Eastern tradition takes them as children of Joseph by an earlier marriage. The Western tradition, following Jerome, takes them as close kinsmen, since the Greek word translates a Semitic usage covering cousins and other relatives. James and Joses, named as brothers of Jesus in Mark 6:3, appear in Mark 15:40 as sons of a different Mary.

Do Catholics have to believe in apparitions like Fatima and Lourdes?

No. Approved apparitions are private revelations. Public revelation was completed in Christ and handed on by the apostles, and nothing can be added to it. Church approval means the faithful may believe an apparition and that nothing in it contradicts faith and morals. No Catholic is obliged to accept any of them, and no one's standing in the Church depends on it.