I was interviewed on May 17, 2011 by Brian Patrick of Sacred Heart Catholic Radio’s Son Rise Morning Show on the EWTN Global Catholic Radio Network. We discussed the Christocentric (Christ-centered) nature of the Marian Dogmas, in particular, their relation to the Church’s efforts to combat early heresies regarding the nature and identity of Jesus Christ.
One of the questions I sometimes am asked by non-Catholics is, “Why does the Church have all these teachings about Mary?” And that is a reasonable question. To one who is not Catholic, or to one who has never cultivated a devotion to our Lord’s Blessed Mother, Catholic teachings and practices can seem strange, even very strange. But they are anything but!
The Church proclaims four dogmas (teachings that require the assent of faith) directly concerning Mary. They are:
- Mary is the “Mother of God”
- The Virgin Birth of Jesus and Mary’s Perpetual Virginity
- The Immaculate Conception of Mary and Mary’s Personal Sinlessness
- The Assumption of Mary
Each of these teachings reveals more about her Son than they do about Mary. They are Christ-centered (Christocentric) teachings. In other words, as the late Archbishop Sheen would say, we don’t start with Mary, but with her Son. Jesus we adore and worship, Mary, we venerate because of who her son is and the example of faith she lived and what learning about her can teach us about her Son.
The interview focused on three categories of Christological heresies combatted by the early Church and how the proclamation at the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D. that Mary is the Mother of God served to teach that in Jesus is one Divine Person, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity in whom, by His Incarnation, are two natures, one Divine and one human. This proclamation refuted Nestorianism. We also examined what we learn from the Dogma of the Virgin Birth of Jesus and the Perpetual Virginity of Mary.
A more detailed article on the dogma, Mary is the Mother of God, will appear on ICL next Thursday (May 26, 2011).
Listen to Son Rise Morning Show Interview…
Into the deep…
Acknowledgement:
A link to the Son Rise Morning Show is located under Catholic Media on the left sidebar of ICL’s front page. I encourage you to visit their website where you can find archives of past shows.
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