E7: The Blessed Virgin Mary (Catholic or Protestant: What's the Difference?)

IMPORTANT UPDATE: A portion of this episode speaks of Mary with the titles of 'Co-Redemptrix' and 'Mediatrix' that the Magisterium has since asked the faithful to refrain from using. "In “Mater Populi Fidelis” (“The Mother of the Faithful People of God”), the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) said when an expression requires frequent explanation to maintain the correct meaning, it becomes unhelpful" (CNA, 11-4-2025). 

Doctrinal Note on Marian titles: Mother of the faithful, not Co-redemptrix | Vatican News (Nov. 4th, 2025)

Episode Published July 17th, 2024

For Episodes 2-10 we'll be diving into the 9 key differences between Catholicism and Protestantism in a series called Catholic or Protestant: What's the Difference?

In today’s episode we’ll be talking about the Blessed Virgin Mary—the difference between veneration and worship, why the Church has Marian dogmas, what those various dogmas and doctrines are, and the purpose of Marian devotion.

Bible Passages Quoted:
-Leviticus 19:30
-Luke 1:35
-Philippians 2:6-7
-John 19:26-27
-Luke 1:46-49
-Psalm 93:5
-Galatians 4:26, 31
-Ephesians 5:31-32
-Psalm 132:8
-Revelation 11:19
-Psalm 16:10
-Revelation 19:7
-Sirach 4:13-18

Resources:
An Honest Proposal To Christians... | Theology of the Body Institute
Assumptions About Mary | Catholic Answers
Mary, Mother of Salvation | Catholic Answer
How We Know Mary Was a Perpetual Virgin | Catholic Answers
More Reasons for Mary’s Perpetual Virginity | Catholic Answers
Why Do We Call Mary "Mother of God?” | Theology of the Body Institute
Mary Saves | Catholic Answers

Have a question about the Faith you’d like to have answered on the Podcast? Submit it here: https://forms.gle/zorQwuUGtSdukzjc6 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Catholicism 101, Forever Learning and Living the Faith. Today, of course, we are continuing our July series, Catholic or Protestant, what's the difference? Going over nine of those key differences, but always remembering that we truly are more alike than we are different. I have been anxiously and excitedly awaiting today's episode because today we are talking about none other than the Blessed Virgin Mary. So right off the bat, we are going to talk about the difference between veneration and worship. Then we're going to get into uh why does the church have Marian dogmas and doctrines? What's the point? Uh, and then we're going to talk about after that, you know, what's the point of them? What are they? So, what are those various dogmas and doctrines that have to do with the Blessed Virgin Mary? And, you know, what again, what is the purpose of Marian devotion? We're going to kind of weave that through all of this as we walk through all things Mary, at least that I could think of writing this episode. So honestly, let's just get right into it with veneration versus worship. Okay, so to start off, there are two terms we need to be familiar with. And the first one is Latria. The second one is dulia. Okay. So Latria literally means to worship. It comes from both Greek and Latin, but the term we use is Latria, and it means to worship. And when you worship something, it means that that something has ultimate worth. Worship, worth ship, you know, uh, it's due only to God. Okay? And then there's dulia. Dulia is honor or reverence or like a profound respect. And so dulia is the honor due to the saints. Now, when it comes to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and we're going to get into this, into why. But Mary does not receive Latria. She does receive dulia, but it's called hyperdulia. It's this exalted honor that is due to Mary. Again, it is still dulia. It is not Latria, because Mary does not have ultimate worth in and of herself. So um, one of the reasons we venerate Mary, again, we give her exalted honor, not worship. People think Catholics worship Mary. We don't. I just want to, that's like the first thing I want to say is Catholics don't worship Mary. But we reverence and we venerate Mary because uh the Lord literally said to, okay. We read in Leviticus uh chapter 19, verse 30, the Lord says, Reverence my sanctuary, I am the Lord. So, like I said, we reverence Mary out of obedience to the Lord, the one whom we worship. Because the sanctuary, the temple, the holy of holies, the ark of the covenant, all of these things are direct prefigurements and foreshadowings of Mary because she is the one, it is her womb where the incarnation happened, where the word was made flesh. That happened in her womb. Incredible. And you may start to think of those scripture verses. Um, I think it's St. Paul who's like, Do you not know that you are a temple of the Holy Spirit? And you can be like, Well, those are all like prefigurements of us. Like the temple is a prefigurement of us because we have Jesus within us when we're baptized. And to that I would say, Yes, I agree. And I would also say, in addition, Mary is a more concrete reality, more concrete vision of what our destiny is. And this is what I'm talking about. Mary is the embodiment of the church. She is the mother of the church. Everything that God has done for her, he wants to do for each one of us if we just allow him to. Again, he has given us this concrete vision of our destiny in Mary, who is his first disciple. It is not Mary in herself by herself that makes her so special. Everything special about her was given to her by the Lord, by the Holy Spirit, by Christ, by the Father. And he just clothes her in his divinity, which is also our destiny. And there's this really beautiful tradition in Eastern iconography where Mary is portrayed as in like this blue tunic, draped in a red robe. And this blue tunic symbolizes that she is human, but being draped in a red robe symbolizes that she is draped in divinity. And when you look at uh these eastern icons of Jesus, on the other hand, he wears a red tunic because he is divine, but also he wears a blue robe because he assumed our humanity. And these are the scriptural evidences I'm talking about here. Okay. Luke chapter 1, verse 35, when the angel Gabriel comes to Mary and is like, hey, you're gonna have Jesus, and she's like, How? She doesn't doubt that it's gonna happen. Anyway, the angel Gabriel says, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Pretty sick. And then in Philippians chapter two, verses six to seven, this is talking about um Jesus, Jesus, you know, wearing the red tunic and blue robe. He's draped himself in our humanity. Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God, something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness, and found human in appearance. So these Eastern iconography artists did not make this up. Okay, they were portraying what was the common belief and what has been and always will be the common belief. Now, what follows those verses in that first chapter of Luke is Mary's Fiat, where she says, Let it be done unto me according to your word. And I have this quote here from used to be Cardinal Ratzinger. Uh, we now know him as Pope Benedict XVI. Super cool. Okay. He said in his commentary on the third secret of Fatima, he said, To be devoted to the immaculate heart of Mary means therefore to embrace this attitude of heart, which makes the fiat, your will be done, the defining center of one's whole life. We go to Jesus through Mary, because Mary shows us how to perfectly surrender to him and his will. That is the essence of Catholic Marian devotion. And not only that, Jesus literally gave Mary to us as our mother. We read in John chapter 19, when Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, Woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother. And from that hour the disciple took her into his home. So she's the first and greatest disciple. She experienced this unique, unitive suffering with Christ on the cross. And many theologians will actually say that the labor pains that she was spared of at the birth of Christ, at Christmas, the Nativity, that those were experienced in superabundance at the birth of the church, which happened at the foot of the cross. We are the church. We uh we we we are meant to insert ourselves in the place of John the beloved disciple there when he says, Behold your mother. And he tells Mary, Woman, behold your son. She is our mother, we are the church. So why does the church feel the need to establish like officially Marian dogmas and doctrines? Well, I'll tell you. Okay, so it's because everything that the church teaches about Mary, it has one singular goal. And that goal is to safeguard everything the church teaches about Christ. I kid you not, the Catechism, paragraph 487, it says, what the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ. And what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ. And then I have a quote here from Father John Sayward, his work Redeemer in the Womb. He says, Catholic doctrine, Christology, Mariology, Eucharistic theology, and moral theology. It is a tightly interwoven tapestry. To cut away one part is to ruin the whole. The history of Protestantism is living proof of this thesis. The Reformation's rejection of Mary and the Mass has been followed four centuries later by this widespread abandonment of Christian morality and faith in God incarnate. The more you learn about these Marian dogmas and doctrines, the more you get into them and like the reasoning and the theology behind them, the more clear it becomes that at the root of everything we teach about Mary, like he said, it is to safeguard what we teach about Christ. You know, they are logical conclusions. And it's logical conclusions that we aren't just pulling out of thin air. These things have been believed for centuries, okay? And the church, sometimes she takes a while to officially proclaim things, but that's because she's sorting out the weeds from the wheat. We don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, okay? We want to make sure that we safeguard things with the utmost care and utmost, you know, precision, honestly. And so when we're talking about these Marian dogmas and doctrines, they're safeguarding what we believe about Christ, and they're affirming what we believe about Christ. We have to remember that Mary herself is not the ending object of Catholic Marian devotion. Rather, she's always pointing us to her son, the Lord of whom she says, My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked upon his handmaid's lowliness. Behold, from now on, all will call me blessed. The mighty one has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And that comes from Luke chapter one, the Magnificat, verses forty-six through forty-nine, and that's just the beginning of it. The rest of it's really beautiful. You should read that. I digress. But let's get into what these dogmas and doctrines are. Okay, so the first one is the Theotokos, the teaching, um, the dogma that Mary is the mother of God. Again, what the faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ. That's directly from the catechism. Okay, so you don't just give birth to a nature, you give birth to a person. Yes, we do believe Christ has two natures, that he has both that divine nature and he has the human nature, fully divine, fully human, fully God, fully man. We also know, um, just through natural reality, that you don't have to contribute every element of a person to be their mother. So the mother does not contribute every single element of her child to the child. The father plays a role in that, yes. And then even beyond that, um, the human soul does not come from the matter of the parents, the human soul comes from God. You do not have to contribute every element of a person to be their mother. The doctrine of the Theotokos is a direct safeguarding of the fact that Christ is not only true God and fully God, but he is true man and fully man. And that is a quick summation of why, with confidence, we can say that Mary is the mother of God. She is the Theotokos, she is the God-bearer. God was made flesh, the word was made flesh in her womb. Now let's talk about Mary in her mother's womb, the Immaculate Conception. Okay, so the Immaculate Conception is the fact that dogma that Mary was saved by Christ in advance and conceived in the womb of her mother, Saint Anne, without the stain of original sin. Now, this can confuse a lot of people because they're like, Jesus wasn't even born yet. Jesus hadn't died yet. How could she be saved and like born without original sin and conceived without not even not just born, because you know, John the Baptist, but conceived without original sin before Christ even came into the picture. And that's because God works outside of time. He has the ability to work outside of our chronological timeline. And what he does, what he does for the rest of us is picks us up after we've fallen. Okay, but what he does for Mary is he prevents her from even falling. That is still saving her. A lot of people can argue that, you know, Mary being conceived without original sin means that she didn't need a savior. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That is not at all what we are saying. That is not at all what we believe. We believe that he saved her by preventing her from falling, and he worked outside of time. And, you know, this also plays hand in hand with the scriptures. Is it explicitly said in the scriptures? Not exactly, okay? But is it incredibly fitting and does it line up perfectly with the scriptures? Yes. So, for example, Psalm 93, verse 5, holiness is fitting to your house. It is fitting that the Theotokos would be free of stain, free of blemish, and would be all holy. And that is a very special grace. Very special grace. Also, in Galatians, uh Galatians chapter 4, Saint Paul says, the Jerusalem above is freeborn, and she is our mother. We are children not of the slave woman, but of the freeborn woman. I mean, how can you deny that he's talking about Mary and Eve there? You know, we talk about Mary as the new Eve. And um, a lot of times when we read scriptures and it's talking about Zion, like daughter Zion, daughter Jerusalem, all of this, and like the woman, especially like in Sirach, um, those were supposed to read with like the eyes of Mary. Mary is all over scriptures, she is all over the Old Testament, and it's really beautiful when you start to read scriptures through the lens of like where is Mary? Where is the Lord talking about Mary? And it oh, it's so cool. Okay. And then again, um, though this was not officially declared dogma of the church until December 8th, 1854, it was commonly believed by the faithful for centuries prior. Now let's talk about Mary's virginity, Mary's perpetual virginity. So we believe as Catholics that Mary was virgin before birth, during birth, and after birth. Okay. And I just want to get this out of the way because a lot of people, a lot of Catholics, honestly, will um see Mary's virginity as a negation of sexuality. And that is that is not it. I will be the first to tell you that is not at all it. Mary's virginity is in no way, shape, or form a negation of human sexuality. Because the whole purpose of marriage on earth is to point us to the marriage of Christ in the church. I'm paraphrasing, but it's for this reason a man shall leave his wife, or no, no, don't do that. For this reason, a man shall leave his mother and his father and shall cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So that's verse 31. And you think it stops there, but then he goes on to say, This is a great mystery, and I speak in reference to Christ in the church. The whole point of the sacrament of marriage is to point us to Christ in the church, the marriage of Christ in the church, what awaits us at the end of time, our destiny. So Mary skips this earthly sign, the sacrament, because she is already living the reality, okay? She is living the fulfillment of human sexuality as being a radical, complete gift of self to the Lord. I'm gonna say that again. Mary skips the earthly sign, the sacrament, you know, the the way we under the way we understand and God has ordained marriage to operate on earth. She skips that because she is already living the reality that it points to. The fulfillment of human sexuality is being a radical, complete gift of self to the Lord. Let me put it in this way. If she were to have engaged in the marital embrace, she would be choosing the sign over the reality. And let me, you know, put it this way. When you go to Las Vegas, okay, sure, the sign is cool and all, and you're gonna get a picture with it, but you don't go to Vegas just to see the sign. Okay, there's like a whole strip that's pretty cool. You go to experience Vegas itself. You go to experience the reality of Vegas, you know, the morality of Vegas, whatever aside. You get what I'm saying. You don't go just to see the sign, you go to experience the reality. That is the purpose of marriage. It is a sign that points us to a reality. She chose reality over the sign. And then other thing, real quick, um, on Mary's perpetual virginity, it says in the scriptures a lot, you know, the brothers and sisters of Jesus. And it's it's just like a biblical um exegesis here, or oh no, that's not the right word. It's just like biblical theology and research and history that um there was no specific term in Hebrew or Aramaic to express the relation of cousin. And, you know, these families, they had multiple like household, multiple, like uh, oh, what's that word? They had multiple immediate families living together in one household. And so people who were really actually your cousins, you know, they would call brothers and sisters because you were in the same household and under the same roof. Now, let's talk about what might be my personal favorite Marian dogma, and it is the dogma of her bodily assumption. Now, real quick, there is a difference in assumption and ascension. And the difference is in the causality, what it what it what causes it. So Christ causes his own ascension into heaven. Christ is the cause of his own ascension. Mary is not the cause of her assumption. She's being assumed, she is not lifting herself up, she's being brought up by God. You would think it's a minor difference, but it's really not. Um, it is actually a very important detail, very important difference. Because again, we don't worship Mary. Mary is Mary is not the cause of her own um sanctity and sanctification and holiness. Mary received the gift. So here are a few scripture verses um that just really support the dogma of the assumption very beautifully. Psalm 132, verse 8, it says, Arise, Lord, come to your resting place, you and your mighty ark. Who is a prefigurement of the Ark of the Covenant, if not Mary? Mm-hmm. Okay. And then in Revelation chapter 11, verse 19. Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple. It was the Ark of the Covenant. Okay, now the next one. Revelation 19, verse 7. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory, for the wedding day of the Lamb has come. His bride has made herself ready. These scriptures are all very fitting, all very fitting for the assumption of Mary and what the Lord has done for her. And then also, Mary is the origin of the human body of Christ. So therefore, uh the verse uh in Psalm 16, verse 10, you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay. That is very fitting for Mary. And the other thing is that Mary holds the highest degree of perfection a human being can attain by the merits of her son. What Christ has done for her gives us great hope and further reason to believe in the resurrection of the body. Mary's destiny is our destiny. Everything he has done for her, he wants to do for us. And JP2, JP2, in his work Theotokos, he says, The mystery of the assumption proclaims the supernatural destiny and dignity of every human body. By looking at Mary, the Christian learns to discover the value of his own body. And so again, even though this one was not officially declared dogma until 1950, like the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, it was also commonly believed by the faithful for centuries prior. Now, before we get into these last two titles of Mary, I'm just gonna be honest and let you know that if you don't already know this, um, that these two are ones that our Protestant brothers and sisters really struggle with the most. And those are co-redemptrics and mediatrics of all graces. Now, taken out of context, it is very understandable, very understandable as to why um you can kind of like butt heads with those titles. But let me let me explain them to you a little bit, okay? So co redemptrics, a subordinated type of redemption, which is totally dependent upon the redemption. Redemption, Christ already won for us. It is a testimony, not an affront to the power of Christ. I've talked about this in a previous episode, that the greatest teachers form their students into teachers. So the fact that Christ gives Mary the power, she he kind of puts our salvation in her hands. Okay, we we wouldn't have a redeemer without her consent to the incarnation and unique cooperation. And you may bucket that. You may bucket what I just said, that he he puts our salvation in her hands, in her fiat, and like her consent. But let me remind you this. He is all knowing, and he knew who he could trust with such great and such high a call. He wasn't acting recklessly. He was acting in his omnipotence and his utter love for us. He knew who he could trust, and he could trust Mary, and he still does. So Catholic answers put it this way. God permitted the redemption of mankind to depend on the free will decision of a human being. Whether or not we would have a mediator was dependent upon Mary's yes. Had there been no yes for Mary, there would have been no mediator. Now, that is Mary as co-redemptrix. Now, Mary as mediatrix of all graces. That quote continues from Catholic answers. There would have been no mediator, you know, if Mary had not said yes. Thus, the graces that come through Jesus may be said to come to us in a secondary way via Mary, not as the origin of the graces, but as a conduit. Again, that's from Catholic answers, and I have that linked in there in the resources somewhere. But an example of this is the wedding at Cana. Okay, the wedding at Cana shows us that Mary is sensitive to the needs of her children. Our sufferings and our needs move her heart to intercede for us and bring us in our petitions to the foot of her son. And JP2, in his encyclical Redemptoris Mater, he says, Mary places herself in the middle. That is to say, she acts as a mediatrix, not as an outsider, but in her position as mother. Mary intercedes for mankind. She also wishes that the messianic power of her son be manifested. Again, these are graces given to her, these are gifts given to her, because he knew he could trust her with them. He prepared her and he made her worthy, honestly. Now the last thing I want to talk about real quick is the essence of Marian devotion, having Marian devotion, and a lot of people you'll hear totus tuis Maria, which means totally yours, Mary, or consecration, like Marian consecration, which is the full title of that is Consecration to Jesus through Mary. Okay, and this is this is why. Saint Louis de Montfort he uses the image of casting a figure into a mold to describe Marian devotion. And referring to her womb, the place of the incarnation, he says, Mary, the great and unique mold of God, was made by the Holy Spirit to form the God man, the man god. In this mold, none of the features of the Godhead is missing. Therefore, whosoever is cast into it and yields himself to the molding, receives all the features of Jesus Christ. And Saint Louis de Montfort, that is in his book The Secret of Mary. And scriptures affirm this. He who holds fast to her inherits glory. He who hearkens to dwell in her inmost chambers, she comes to bring him happiness and reveal her secrets to him. To have a devotion to Mary, the mother of God, is to place yourself in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, where our salvation is brought to birth. Can we go to Jesus directly? Yes. Should we go to Jesus directly? Yes. Is he also telling us to go through his mother to him? Yes. Why? Because she is his slingshot. She will perfectly form us to be like her son, because that's how she was formed. Her womb is a mold, just like I just read. And thanks be to God for that mold. Thanks be to God for Mary. And I will be the first to admit that I thought I had a really profound, deep relationship with the Lord. Very like personal, intimate relationship with the Lord. Um and then I started to form a relationship with Mary. And let me tell you, she casts you into the depths of the Lord's heart. She walks the journey with us. And she honestly keeps us company at the cross. And just thanks be to God for Mary. That's gonna be it for me today. Um, that's Mary. And I hope you'll check out some of the resources I have linked in the description or the show notes, whatever. Uh, the first one I have is a video from Christopher West with the Theology of the Body Institute. And it's called An Honest Proposal to Christians. And um, he's talking about kind of clearing up some misconceptions about Catholic belief with Mary. And then there's a few articles from Catholic Answers. There's another video from the Theology of the Body Institute on why do we call Mary the Mother of God? All of these resources I highly recommend, and I really hope you'll check them out. Honestly, this may be my favorite episode so far. And I really hope you've enjoyed it. If it has stirred more questions or you want clarifications on something, please use that question box that's linked in the description. But until I talk to you again, I hope you have a blessed day.