Questions Answered: Mary, Mother of God and Queen of Heaven

Protestants typically have a difficult time with the titles of Mother of God and Queen of Heaven in reference to Mary. Each one I have spoken to seems to want to qualify the terms, to a certain degree this has merit, but they come off sounding accusatory towards Catholics. They seemingly try to insinuate that Catholics worship Mary as a God or Goddess which is far from the truth but instead we are happy to give her the full reverence that our Lord Jesus did without qualifications.

Why do Catholics call Mary “Mother of God?”

The reason why Catholics call Mary the Mother of God is because that is what she is. Mary is the Theotokos or God bearer. This was pronounced in 431 at the Council of Ephesus in opposition to Nestorianism. The two natures of Jesus, human and divine, are inseparable from the person of Jesus. This is called the hypostatic union which was definitively defined at the Council of Chalcedon in the 5^th century though used before that time. Since humans give birth to person not natures, your mother is not the mother of your nature but of you as a person, it is right and true that Catholics, and everyone else, should see it fit to call Mary the Mother of God seeing as she is the Mother of the God-Man Jesus.

Isn’t it enough to say Mary is the Mother of Jesus and stop at that?

While this is true, it is not the whole truth. There is nothing wrong in declaring Mary as the mother of Jesus, since it is true, the problem stems from a denial of Mary as the Mother of God. If Mary is the mother of Jesus, and if Jesus is God, then Mary is the Mother of God. Denial of Mary as the Mother of God is tantamount to denial of Jesus as fully God and fully man. It is a bifurcation of the two natures which does not exist. This is what Nestorius tried to claim and the Church proclaimed against his teaching.

Doesn’t calling Mary the Mother of God lead people to believe that she is a god herself?

It could, just like any other positive Doctrine may lead someone to believe contrary to its intent. Take the Trinity for example. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslims see this as Christians believing in three gods. Of course this is not the intent of the Doctrine, but some people can intentionally or unintentionally misconstrue the Doctrine and lead others astray. If we could not teach a Doctrine which could possibly lead people astray, we would be short on Doctrines in which we could teach, and would be missing out on many truths that God intended us to know. The argument doesn’t follow.

Catholics do not say that Mary is the source of Jesus’ divinity. Catholics also do not claim that Mary existed prior to Jesus. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says in paragraph 466:

“For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: "Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh."

As you can see here, and in other parts of the Catechism, the Catholic Church goes out of its way to ensure rightful worship of the True God and steer us away from the worship of Mary.

Why do Catholics pray to Mary?

Catholics pray (petition) to Mary in hope that she will petition her son, Jesus, on their behalf. Since Catholics believe that saints can hear our prayers they pray to Mary, who is a saint.

It is important to note that Catholics do not believe that Mary and the saints answer prayers from their own powers, but through the powers of Jesus.

Why would Jesus answer Mary’s petition from our prayers?

It is quite simple really. We see in Exodus 20:12 that we are to honor our mother and father. Since Jesus never sinned. we can assume that He kept this commandment and never dishonored His mother. We see in 1 Kings 2:13-23 that the mother of the king wielded great authority in her petitions to the king. It would be fitting that if Mary was granted access to our petitions to her, and petitioned Jesus on our behalf, that Jesus would grant Mary’s petitions. Not granting the petition would be seen as dishonoring Mary. We also see Jesus granting Mary’s petition at the wedding feast of Cana.

This leads to the question of why Catholics believe Mary to be the Queen of Heaven when Jesus, who is the king of heaven, never married much less married His mother!

Of course Jesus and Mary never married! It would be absurd to assert that, and the Catholic Church surely does not. In the ancient Near East, Israel in particular, it was not uncommon for a king to have multiple wives. There becomes a twofold problem first being which wife is the true queen and the second of which son will succeed the father. This problem is resolved with the mother of the king being queen as evidenced with Solomon and Bathsheba in 1 Kings 2:13-23. In addition in 2 Kings 11:1-4 we see the queen mother ruling in the stead of her deceased son. This alone would give Mary the right to be called Queen of Heaven, seeing as she is Jesus’ mother and Jesus is the king of heaven.

Didn’t Jeremiah warn us about the Queen of Heaven in Jeremiah 7 and 44?

Jeremiah warned us of a god called the queen of heaven which happens to be Astarte, not Mary. This prohibition of worshipping a god called queen of heaven is not a full on denial of someone else being the actual Queen of Heaven. If we followed that reasoning to its logical end, we would not even be able to call Jesus the Son of God! If because we are warned about a false queen of heaven means that there can be no real Queen of heaven, then because we are warned about false gods would also mean that there is no real God. The argument does not follow. In addition, Catholics do not offer sacrifices or adoration to Mary, which is what these specific passages are speaking to.

Shouldn’t the fact that if Mary is the Queen of Heaven, it should be shown explicitly in the Bible?

This assumes that all Doctrine be explicit in the Bible. For instance, the Trinity is an implicit Doctrine. There are many verses that point to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit being divine but none come to the same conclusion that Christians believe today. Instead we needed Sacred Tradition to complement what Scripture says in order to get the fullness of Truth. We can thank St. Athanasius and St. Cyril, both Catholics, for leading the charge.

There is no reason that this would need to be explicit in the Bible considering it was a cultural norm. In fact, it would seem as if this would need to be explicitly rejected, which could not be as it would be in violation of the 4^th commandment in dishonoring Mary thereby saying Jesus sinned, in order for this to not be considered true. As we saw in the previous question this is at least implicit in Scripture and supplemented by the cultural tradition. We have to remember that the old is revealed in the new in which case Revelation 12 reveals the old.

Revelation 12 is referring to the Church not to Mary.

You are correct in that it does depict the Church but incorrect that it you say it does not also depict Mary. In Revelation 12:1 we see a lady crowned which harkens back to Jeremiah 13:18. This would seem to mean a queen, an actual being, not a symbol. In verse 2 we see the same lady give birth to a male child who is to rule all nations (v. 5). The male child is quite clearly Jesus while Mary is the lady who gave birth to Him which these verses appear to claim as well. In 12:9 we see the dragon which recalls Genesis 3:15 to mind showing the “New Eve” which is clearly, again, a being, not a symbol. We could go on and on but there have been many books written on this subject and cannot be contained in one small article.

The Catholic Church does not limit its exegetes to only view certain passages in one way as many off shoots do. It allows them to bring forth the whole meaning of Scripture within reasonable limits.

Since there is no Biblical reason to reject these teachings and plenty of Biblical reasons to believe them, it follows that we would look to what the Church Fathers said since they too were authoritative in their own right, receiving the authority through the laying on of hands from the apostles and their successors:

Irenaeus

"The Virgin Mary, being obedient to his word, received from an angel the glad tidings that she would bear God" (Against Heresies, 5:19:1 [A.D. 180]).

Hippolytus

"[T]o all generations they [the prophets] have pictured forth the grandest subjects for contemplation and for action. Thus, too, they preached of the advent of God in the flesh to the world, his advent by the spotless and God-bearing (theotokos) Mary in the way of birth and growth, and the manner of his life and conversation with men, and his manifestation by baptism, and the new birth that was to be to all men, and the regeneration by the laver [of baptism]" (Discourse on the End of the World 1 [A.D. 217]).

Since, as shown before, the title Queen of Heaven is a necessary consequence of being the Mother of God, there is no necessity of any Tradition to specifically name Mary as Queen of Heaven as it is already contained in the title Mother of God. Mary simply is the Mother of God and by virtue of that is also the Queen of Heaven. The only way to get around this teaching is to reject the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, this rejection has no merit, and believe that Jesus can be separately human and separately God. This is an error of grave importance which should be rejected immediately. While it is mostly the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox who speak in these terms, each Christian should feel obligated to proclaim the truth which Christ has given to us in order to fully proclaim Him.

Since, as shown before, the title Queen of Heaven is a necessary consequence of being the Mother of God, there is no necessity of any Tradition to specifically name Mary as Queen of Heaven as it is already contained in the title Mother of God. Mary simply is the Mother of God and by virtue of that is also the Queen of Heaven. The only way to get around this teaching is to reject the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, this rejection has no merit, and believe that Jesus can be separately human and separately God. This is an error of grave importance which should be rejected immediately. While it is mostly the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox who speak in these terms, each Christian should feel obligated to proclaim the truth which Christ has given to us in order to fully proclaim Him.