www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology The Messiah's Attitude Toward His Mother.

Any thoughts on that? 

There are only 3 times mentioned where the Messiah spoke to her. And He seemed to be a bit perturbed with her 2 of those times. The 3rd time He merely told her to look at her son.

Also, He only spoke 2 times with regard to what someone said about her and again His response couldn't be considered very flattering.

And He never referred to her as mother, but only as a woman.

There just never seemed to any warmth shown between them.

And then aside from the Messiah, there is the fact that other than Galatians 4:4 saying that the Messiah was born of a woman, none of the epistle writers ever mention her in any of their letters including the one to the church at Rome and the two by Peter.

Christ is in our midst!!

rstrats,

You cite to Biblical references to the Mother of God. Do you understand that the New Testament is an "outline" of what the Church believes? What does Tradition say? What do the Apostles and the Fathers say? What does our liturgical tradition say? What are the common things taught by all the Churches of Apostolic origin? . . . about the Mother of God?

Mary, the All-Holy, Ever Virgin, Mother of God is part of the Church's inner life. The Church preaches, and has always preached, Christ crucified, risen, and coming again. The essence of the Faith is that "God became man in order that man might become like God." Once people come to accept these basic things, the richness of how all this has been accomplished comes to be shared as people come into the life of Christ in the Church. There is a mistake in the newest translations where "a virgin" has been replaced by "a woman." Why the translators have chosen to do that is up for debate. Nevertheless, translations are a form of interpretation that can reflect the faith or bias of the translator; they are often a compromise.

If there were no "warmth" between Our Savior and His Most Pure Mother, why would He take her to Heaven before the General Resurrection, preventing her from any corruption of body?

There's much more here than is contained in the canonical books. They even contain a line that all the things Christ said and taught were not contained in them, but enough so that one could come to believe in Him.

I wasn't disagreeing with what the Church believes or with tradition. I was merely pointing out that scripture is silent with regard to showing any warmth between the Messiah and Mary in case there may be some who think that it isn't.

Because you're thinking like a modern westerner and not like a first century Middle Eastern Jew.
Calling Mary "Woman" has a very specific meaning. Think back about the "woman" in the book of Genesis.
If Jesus is the new Adam, who then is the New Eve? For the record, this is not anything new, and I didn't come up with it.
PLEASE do not make the mistake of reading the Bible like it's a New York Times best seller.

The address of "woman" at the Wedding of Cana was a term of respect, it just doesn't seem that way in modern English translations. This question is a well beaten "dead-horse." As for telling her to look at her son, spoken from the cross, Christ was being a dutiful loving Son and placing His mother in the care of His most beloved and trusted disciple John, since Christ was an only son and there was nobody else to care for her.

Mary was one of the sources of information for St. Luke's Gospel. I'm not sure it's fair to say the Scripture is entirely silent on the warmth between the two, especially in light of Tradition.