Mary, the Mother of JESUS

One of my favorite comedians (Richard Jeni) used to speak of false syllogisms in his routine by explaining that “...if the first two parts are true, then the last part has to be true.” He remarked how cool that was because he could just hang out in his dorm room, get high and “…make up true sh*t all day.” He used a common example of, “God is love, love is blind, therefore…. Ray Charles is God.”

A similar syllogism has been used by Catholics for a very long time and it’s caused quite a bit of debate over the years. Catholics call Mary the “Mother of God.” Why? Well, God is Jesus, Mary gave birth to Jesus, therefore…. Mary gave birth to God and is His mother.

Well, that’s a great way to sum things up, but since it takes such a great mental effort for many people to understand how Jesus and God could be one and the same, you can’t possibly expect people to just swallow that Mary is the mother of God without hearing a few confused grunts. I mean, pretty much everybody would agree that Mary was the mother of Jesus because Jesus was the human manifestation of the One, True God.

So, is Jesus equal to God? Is Jesus a part of God? Is Jesus the whole embodiment of God?

Well, those are some mighty tough questions for a mere mortal such as myself to answer, even if armed with my favorite Bible and all of the blog space I could ever possibly want. Yet, that's not the most befuddling question of the hour. Here’s where my true confusion sets in.

Say you’re a Catholic, right? With all of the crap that Catholics catch from pretty much the rest of the freakin' planet, wouldn’t you want to eliminate whatever non-essential arguments you could, if for no other reason than to free up more time to tackle the essential ones?

I would think that Catholics would just be content with saying that Mary was the mother of Jesus. I mean, not only is that a true statement, but let's face it - who’s gonna argue with that?

Somebody who doesn’t believe that Mary or Jesus ever existed? How many of those people exist? Like seven? Meanwhile, the rest of the world is pretty much in agreement with the fact that Mary gave birth to Jesus. Protestants would agree. Baptists would agree. I daresay Mormons, Jehovah’s witnesses and even Muslims and Jews would agree. Yet, Catholicism takes it to the next level. The syllogism is invoked and, BINGO! Mary is the Mother of GOD…. and people are up in arms.

Now, I’m all for fighting for what I believe in, but I’m also a big advocate of fighting the fights that need fighting. Put another way, I don’t engage in conflicts that I could easily avoid while maintaining the integrity of my core beliefs.

As for the reason why some have a problem with the "Mother of God" title? Well, I would imagine it might have something to do with the fact that God pre-existed Mary, wouldn't you think? Like I said, you can write several theses on Jesus and God being the same or being different and you may never resolve the issue.

One question that haunts me in that long-standing debate is that if Jesus and God were the same, why would Jesus pray to God or ask Him to spare Jesus from the cup of suffering He was about to endure as seen in Matthew 26:39 and Mark 14:36? If you read it, you'll see that the last part of Mark 14:36 says, “…nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt.” If Jesus is separating Himself from God, why wouldn’t we do likewise?

Anyway, that’s pretty much my reasoning for avoiding a title such as “Mother of God” for Mary without getting into a thesis of my own.

So, taking the example that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all one and the same… we still refer to them with different names, don’t we? Water, much like God, can exist in three forms: The original state of water (the liquid), steam (the gas) or ice (the solid). Well, steam and ice are still water, but we don't CALL them that, right? One of the reasons why we have different names for them in the first place is so that people can tell which FORM of water you're talking about when you broach the H2O topic.

Simply put, steam rooms aren't called water rooms and ice cream isn't called water cream. The Titanic may never have sunk, had it hit a waterberg, though the same might not hold true for a steamboat if we referred to it as a waterboat.

If I want to have my glass of water with ice, I'll ask for ice - not water. Mary gave birth to Jesus, so YEAH, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Mary is the mother of Jesus. Ice and Water might both be H2O, but I'll confuse fewer people if I say I'm going ice skating instead of water skating and I'll raise fewer eyebrows by referring to Mary as the mother of Jesus than I would if I were to refer to her as having given birth to GOD.

I know that Catholicism won’t change a bit, regardless of how many blogs I write about it, but that’s my take on the matter. Calling Mary the Mother of Jesus instead of the Mother of God isn’t me trying to diss her – I’m just telling it like it is…. as clearly as possible. Is that so wrong?

Seriously?