Q: When Mary was invited by the
Archangel Gabriel to be the mother
of Jesus, did she know any details about
Jesus’ future life? Where he would be born?
What he would do as an adult? That he
would be crucified, rise from the dead and
ascend into heaven?
A: Mary probably knew none of
these details beforehand. If she
had, Mary might have gone through
life with an I-know-but-I-can’t-tell-you
smirk on her face. Her willingness to
live with uncertainty began with her
reply to Gabriel: “Behold, I am the
handmaid of the Lord. May it be done
to me according to your word” (Luke
1:38a). Mary had to take life as it
came—just as we do.
St. Luke tells us a great deal when he
writes that after the visit from the shepherds
outside Bethlehem, “Mary kept
all these things, reflecting on them in
her heart” (2:19). After Jesus, at age 12,
was lost in the Temple for three days
and then returned to Nazareth with
Mary and Joseph, St. Luke notes, “and
his mother kept all these things in her
heart” (2:51b).
In a way, Mary anticipated the
two disciples on the road to Emmaus
(Luke 24:13-35) by bringing the puzzling
events of her life to prayer, by
seeking help from Scripture to understand
them. This is what makes Mary
the first and most perfect disciple of
Jesus, as the late Father Raymond
Brown, S.S., describes so well at www.AmericanCatholic.org/Messenger/May1997/Feature2.asp.
Mary knows our struggles and our
joys. Perhaps that is why paintings and
statues of Mary holding Jesus after he
was taken down from the cross have
been very popular across cultures and
down through the centuries. This is
not the end of her story, but she had to
live it to arrive at the end.
Where would faith have been if Mary
had known the details of Jesus’ life but
had chosen to hide them? According to
Hebrews 11:1, “Faith is the assurance of
things hoped for, the conviction of
things not seen” (NRSV).
Henry Alford’s hymn text describes
Mary’s faith as well as ours: “We walk
by faith, and not by sight/No gracious
words we hear/of him who spoke as
none e’er spoke/but we believe him
near.” Mary did a good deal of soul-searching
before she heard Jesus
speak—as well as much pondering and
praying long after Jesus ascended into
heaven.
Q: On the feast of St. Thomas the
Apostle (July 3), this quote appears
in St. Anthony Messenger Press’s book
Saint of the Day: “...they [the apostles]
supplied what was wanting in the sufferings
of Christ by their own trials and sufferings”
(Colossians 1:24).
How could anything be “wanting” (normally
understood as meaning absent,
falling below expectations or lacking in
capacity) in Christ’s suffering and death?
How could any human being possibly supply
anything of meaning, compared to
Christ’s sacrifice?
A: Both the print and the online
version for this feast place this
Scripture reference within a longer
quote from Vatican II’s Decree on the
Church’s Missionary Activity (#5).
In the New Jerome Biblical Commentary,
Maurya Horgan writes about Colossians
1:24: “This is usually translated, ‘I
fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the
afflictions of Christ.’ Interpreters have
debated two issues: 1) the meaning of
filling up what is lacking; and 2) the
meaning of ‘afflictions of Christ.’
“Since the hymn proclaimed Christ
as the one through whom all are reconciled—restated by the author in
1:22—verse 24 should not be thought
to say that Christ’s work was somehow
insufficient. The word thlipsis, which is
never used of Jesus’ passion but is regularly
used of the hardships of those
proclaiming the gospel (Romans 5:3;
8:35; 2 Corinthians 1:4,8; 2:4; 4:17; 6:4
and 7:4), suggests that the afflictions are
Paul’s, not Christ’s.”
This interpretation is supported by
the Decree, which, after referring to Christ’s mission, states: “Since this mission
continues and, in the course of history,
unfolds the mission of Christ, who
was sent to evangelize the poor, the
Church, urged on by the Spirit of Christ,
must walk the road Christ himself
walked, a way of poverty and obedience,
of service and self-sacrifice even to
death, a death from which he emerged
victorious by his resurrection.
“So it was that the apostles walked in
hope and by much trouble and suffering
filled up what was lacking in the
sufferings of Christ for his body, which
is the Church. Often, too, the seed was
the blood of Christians [reference to
Tertullian, who wrote, ‘The blood of
martyrs is the seed of the Church’]” (#5).
Q: Some of my family members are
arguing that because the Church
no longer teaches what I learned about
limbo as a child, there is no longer any reason
to baptize their newborn twins.
Two questions: Has the Church, in fact,
changed its teaching about limbo? If so,
what effect does that have on the practice
of baptizing infants? I don’t agree with my
relatives regarding the Baptism of children,
but I need a better answer.
A: The Church never officially
taught that all unbaptized persons
will go to limbo—unless they were
martyred or were old enough to experience
“Baptism of desire.” But many
Catholics have thought the Church
taught that.
As I indicated in my September 2007
column, on April 20, 2007, the International
Theological Commission (ITC)
published, with Pope Benedict XVI’s
permission, a 41-page document titled
The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die
Without Being Baptized. This is the result
of a study begun in 2004 by the ITC,
whose members are appointed by the
pope and work with the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).
This ITC text is available at the CDF section
at www.vatican.va.
In 1984, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
stated: “Limbo was never a defined
truth of faith. Personally—and here I
am speaking more as a theologian and
not as prefect of the Congregation—I
would abandon it since it was only a
theological hypothesis. It formed part
of a secondary thesis in support of a
truth which is absolutely of first significance
for faith, namely, the importance
of Baptism” (The Ratzinger Report,
p. 147).
The Catholic Church was baptizing
infants for centuries before any theologian
speculated about limbo, which
solves one problem (Where do unbaptized
good people go?) but created
another (Is limbo the best that most
people who have ever lived can
achieve?).
Baptizing infants is a way for parents
to affirm which values they consider
most important to share with
their children. Your relatives could
delay baptizing these twins for years.
Meanwhile, those twins will be accepting
some values as “normal”—but not
necessarily values consistent with following
Jesus Christ.
If parents are not ready to make the
commitment to be the primary educators
in the faith for these twins, then
Baptism is not proper at this time. The
parents, however, cannot use the downgrading
of limbo to justify their decision.
Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on
the Church teaches: “Those who,
through no fault of their own, do not
know the gospel of Christ or his
Church, but who nevertheless seek God
with a sincere heart, and, moved by
grace, try in their actions to do his will
as they know it through the dictates of
their conscience—these too may attain
eternal salvation” (#16).
This quote indicates that limbo is
not the best hope for unbaptized adults
who have led a good life.
Q: On June 27, the Office of Readings for St. Cyril of Alexandria
quoted St. Athanasius: “There have been many holy men free from
all sin. Jeremiah was sanctified in his mother’s womb, and John
while still in the womb leaped for joy at the voice of Mary.” I thought
that Mary the mother of Jesus was the only person free from
all sin. Am I missing something in this passage?
A: St. Athanasius was noting here that Jeremiah was called to be
a prophet from his mother’s womb (1:5). Likewise, St. Luke notes the meeting
of the unborn John the Baptist and the unborn Jesus (1:44). St. Cyril
is not saying that Jeremiah and John the Baptist were conceived without
Original Sin, which is what the 1854 definition of Mary’s Immaculate
Conception affirms about the mother of Jesus. Even though the
Prophet Jeremiah and John the Baptist had unique vocations from God,
neither of them was born without Original Sin.
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How Much Did Mary Know?
