REFLECTIONS ON THE MOTHER OF GOD

Excerpt from Catholic Culture

Mary and Jesus interlinked

The most important Christian doctrines—all those having to do with the identity of Jesus Christ as both God and man—are intimately bound up with a proper understanding of Mary. This is so true that it is impossible to get Jesus right, so to speak, without getting Mary right. One can take any Marian doctrine, such as the Immaculate Conception, and show how it is necessary to preserve and protect the proper understanding of Who Our Lord really is, and also necessary to fully grasp the Father’s merciful plan for our redemption. Though an exposition would far exceed our space, it is hardly too much to say that Christology and Mariology are forever interlinked.

The earliest Christians sought Mary in  the Old Testament
They found her as the “woman” in the third chapter of Genesis, whose offspring would conquer Satan. They found her in Isaiah’s great prophecy of the virgin who would bear a son named Immanuel (God with us) (Is 7:14). They found her in Micah’s reference to Bethlehem, from whom the ruler of Israel was to come forth “when she who is to give birth has borne” (Mic 5:1-2). They also found references to Mary in Jeremiah 31:22 (“The Lord has created a new thing upon the earth: the woman must encompass the man”); in Psalm 45 (“Here, O Daughter, and see…. All glorious is the king’s daughter as she enters”); in Judges 15 (“You are the glory of Jerusalem, the surpassing joy of Israel; you are the splendid boast of our people”); in Proverbs 8 and Sirach 24 (when they describe Wisdom, they seem also to describe Mary); and of course in the nuptial imagery of the Song of Songs.