Probably, the most troublesome aspect of Catholicism and/or Orthodoxy for Protestants is their veneration of Mary. Certainly, that was the case for me when I started looking into it. All those prayers and statues and icons honoring her seemed like idolatry. There are many aspects to her veneration that I found troublesome, but I'm going to focus on just one. I couldn't figure out why Catholics and Orthodox said Mary was "ever-virgin" (meaning she was a virgin her ENTIRE life, not just before the birth of Jesus) when Scripture clearly said she wasn't. Why was this issue so important? I think this one issue can explain all the other things Catholics and Orthodox believe about Mary. It is important, because it goes to what we believe about Who Jesus Is.
The explanations that most Catholics gave me generally fell along the lines of how it wasn't against Scripture to believe Mary was perpetually Virgin. And this is the case. Protestants point to Matthew 1:25 which says Mary didn't "know" a man "until" Jesus was born. The word "until" implies that there was an after period in which she did "know" Joseph and had several children by him. I was shown other Scriptures where "until" is used to denote a permanent state. Very well, but what about Matthew 13:55-56 where his brothers are mentioned by name and sisters are referred to as well? It was pointed out to me that, in the Old Testament, "brother" is used as we would use "relative" or "kinsman." In Genesis 14:15, Lot is referred to as Abraham's "brother," even though Lot is his nephew. I believe Boaz does the same. Regardless, referring to kinsmen as "brother" was common in Jewish culture.
Those explanations led me to conclude that, because Scripture didn't prohibit it and it was the more ancient and universally held belief, I'd just go with it and decided that Jesus "brothers" were either cousins or step brothers. But I didn't really see why it was important, either to Catholics/Orthodox or to Protestants/Evangelicals. I once wrote a satirical poem in the style of some of the hymns about Mary I had encountered, but from the perspective of a Protestant.
Protestant Praise of Mary
O, most mediocre mother!
O, somewhat meritorious [former] maid!
We hail thee, most OK, though no better than us.
Though thou wert the form from which Christ took flesh,
verily, any of us could have done it,
random choice of the Father.
Though the Ark of the Covenant was so holy
death was dealt to unworthy wielders, for it contained
the Staff of Aaron, Law of God and Bread of Heaven;
Yet thou art still of small account, and nothing special,
though the Word willed your womb be His dwelling.
Therefore, though God grew a baby in thy belly,
we dutifully ignore thee,
and chafe at those who sing thy praise.
Later, someone pointed out to me that in John 19:26, as Jesus is dying on the cross, He gives His mother to the care of John the Apostle. He would not have done this if He'd had half-siblings, other children of Mary, to care for her. This was much more powerful evidence to me, although I still didn't see why it was important.
It wasn't until years later, after I had thought long and hard about the Incarnation and what it means for something (or someone) to be "holy," that I understood Perpetual Virginity. First, holiness. I think many of us would define the word as "perfection." If something is holy, it is pure, untainted, perfect. And there is that aspect to it, especially in English. The word "holy" is the same as "whole" and denotes completeness.
However, in Latin (sanctus) and Hebrew (קֻדַּשׁ, kodesh), the word means consecrated, untouched or set apart. It's holy because it has been reserved for a specific purpose. Keep that meaning in your mind and forget about Mary for a moment. In the Old Testament, when do we see things being set apart because they are holy? Why are they considered holy? What happened when a holy place or thing was touched improperly?
- In Genesis 28, Jacob has the dream about the ladder. When he wakes up, he declares the place "awesome" and says it is the "House of God" (Bethel) and the "Gate of Heaven." Then sets up the stone he used as a pillar and anoints it with oil.
- Four chapter later in Genesis 32, Jacob wrestles with Someone who is identified as God. This Someone touches his thigh and makes him limp. Jacob says that he has "seen God face to face" and from then on, the Hebrews wouldn't eat the thigh-meat of any animal because that's where God had touched Jacob.
- In Judges 6, God talks to Gideon at Gideon's threshing floor. Gideon builds an altar there and it remains an altar ever after.
- In 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles, a story is told of the Ark of the Covenant being brought back to Israel on a cart. It's about to fall and an unfortunate gentleman named Uzzah puts out his hand to stop it. And God strikes him dead. Uzzah hadn't done anything wrong necessarily. He was trying to do a good thing, to keep the Ark from falling. But the very presence of God in the Ark struck him dead.
- The Ark was kept in the Holy of Holies in the Temple (which was built on the site at Mt. Moriah where God provided a ram to take the place of Isaac and David had made an altar after the whole census debacle). When the High Priest would go in, there was a whole ritual he had to do and I have been told that they had bells on their robes and a rope around their ankle so, if God struck them dead, they could be pulled back out without anyone else risking their lives.
What do we learn from all of this? Every place where the LORD touched earth became sacred, SET APART, to Him. It was made holy because of His presence. And people violated that sacred place at their own peril.
Question: Would the Israelites have used the Temple for ANYTHING other than the worship of God? It was when Antiochus Epiphanes violated the Temple that the Jews finally rose up in revolt in Maccabees. But what if it was a good thing. A library? A hospital? An orphanage? The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem isn't even part of the original temple and certainly not the Holy of Holies, but could you imagine if someone put graffiti on it, even something like a Bible verse? What if someone posed on top of it for a photo? People would die.
Let's bring Mary back into the picture. IF Jesus is who He said He was and IF either Mary or Joseph understood who He was, would they have used her womb for any other purpose than as the place where the LORD took on flesh? Sex is not a bad thing. Children aren't a bad thing. But neither is putting out your hand to keep the Ark from falling. The Holy of Holies was holy because of the unique presence of the Lord there. But the womb of Mary was infinitely more holy than any other place ever in the history of the world to that time because God dwelled there uniquely. God took on flesh there.
I was talking about this with my nephew and he asked if I knew where the Ark of the Covenant was. I replied, "Here's a better question. If you found the Ark, would you touch it?" I eat the Body and Blood of Christ and I'm still not sure if I'd touch it. I've seen "Raiders of the Lost Ark." I know what happens.
I 100% believe Mary was and is ever virgin because it has to be so, not because of who she is but because of Who Jesus Is.
Mary the gate, Christ the Heavenly Way!
Mary the root, Christ the Mystic Vine;
Mary the grape, Christ the Sacred Wine!
Mary the wheat, Christ the Living Bread;
Mary the rose tree, Christ the Rose blood-red!
Mary the font, Christ the Cleansing Flood;
Mary the cup, Christ the Saving Blood!
Mary the temple, Christ the temple’s Lord;
Mary the shrine, Christ the God adored!
Mary the beacon, Christ the Haven’s Rest;
Mary the mirror, Christ the Vision Blest!
Mary the mother, Christ the mother’s Son
By all things blest while endless ages run. Amen.
I also love this Middle English carol (performed by the Mediæval Bæbes) called "There Is No Rose."
And, finally, some quotes from the ever-insightful G.K. Chesterton about Mary:
I do not want to be in a religion in which I am allowed to have a crucifix. I feel the same about the much more controversial question of the honour paid to the Blessed Virgin. If people do not like that cult, they are quite right not to be Catholics. But in people who are Catholics, or call themselves Catholics, I want the idea not only liked but loved and loved ardently, and above all proudly proclaimed. I want it to be what the Protestants are perfectly right in calling it; the badge and sign of a Papist. I want to be allowed to be enthusiastic about the existence of the enthusiasm; not to have my chief enthusiasm coldly tolerated as an eccentricity of myself. And that is why, with all the good will in the world, I cannot feel the crucifix at one end of the town as a substitute for the little Roman Catholic Church at the other.
The honour given to Mary as the Mother of God is, among a thousand other things, a very perfect example of the truth to which I have recurred more than once: that even what we may call the Protestant truths were only saved by the Catholic authority. Among these is the very necessary truth of the subordination of Mary to Christ, as being after all the subordination of the creature to the Creator. Nothing amuses Catholics more than the suggestion, in so much of the old Protestant propaganda, that they are to be freed from the superstition called Mariolatry, like people freed from the burden of daylight. All the spontaneous spirituality, as distinct from the necessary doctrinal orthodoxy, is on the side of the extension and even excess of this cult. If Catholics had been left to their private judgment, to their personal religious experience, to their sense of the essential spirit of Christ and Christianity, to any of the liberal or latitudinarian tests of truth, they would long ago have exalted our Lady to a height of superhuman supremacy and splendour that might really have imperilled the pure monotheism in the core of the creed. Over whole tracts of popular opinion she might have been a goddess more universal than Isis. It is the authority of Rome that has prevented such Catholics from indulging in such Mariolatry; the strict definition that distinguished between a perfect woman and a divine Man.
- From The Catholic Church and Conversion, by G.K. Chesterton
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