How I Became Mrs. Watts ✓

How I Became Mrs. Watts (25)

CHAPTER 25

The weekend passed much faster than I wanted it to, but that's what happens with good moments. I convinced Andrew to take Oliver to Mass, because he needs to go even if he can't understand any of it, just the atmosphere would help him be still.

I stayed Sunday night as well, and Andrew drove us to class when he usually goes, which, I learned, wasn't that much earlier than I usually got there, just five minutes or so. I noticed that what he usually did in the mornings before class was put the finishing touches on his lecture, and that he usually writes the whole thing the night before, though he has a plan for which class is on which day.

I couldn't believe that those amazing lectures of his didn't take him that long to write up. He had a gift with this kind of thing and I told him such, though he denied it modestly. He was so cute when he did that! I told him that as well and he told me that I was cute when I skipped to class and when I got embarrassed. That was difficult for me to process because no one had ever told me that before.

I stared at him in utter silence for several minutes. “What are you doing?” he asked me kindly, still not looking up from his work.

“Staring at you,” I blurted. I flushed a bright red when he finally looked up.

“You are very cute when you do that, Ella,” he said. He leaned over his desk and stretched his hand out to gently touch my face. That, of course, only made me blush more.

“So, what're we learning about today?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Why'd you change the subject? I like talking about you.” He smiled.

“Just answer the question,” I sighed. “Please,” I added.

“Mary,” he said simply.

“Ooh!” I said with excitement. It was going to be a very fun class, I thought, and I was right about that.

The class came in shortly after that and I slide into my seat (I had been sitting on top of my desk beforehand and I had gotten more comfortable doing so).

“We are talking about Mary today because there is a lot to discuss and she is very controversial. She's usually the first thing to be brought up when debating with a fundamentalist,” Andrew began. I swear, I don't know how he does that, I thought, because he doesn't once look at his notes! He is just incredible, and brilliant, like he insists on calling me. I am in no way, shape, or form brilliant. I'm not even that smart!

Andrew continued on, and I ignored my thoughts in order to pay attention, “The first thing you should clear up right away is that Catholics worship Mary. We do not, if fact worship her. We honor her. Why shouldn't we? She was important in the history of salvation. Her 'yes' to God cleared the way for Jesus to enter the world. If you think about it, she was His first disciple, faithful to Him even at the foot of the cross, a spot deserted by all His apostles, save for John. So why not honor her?

“Let's look at the prayer, the 'Hail Mary.' Does anyone care to recite it for us?”

I replied immediately, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

“Great! Does anyone know the more modern version?” He smiled brilliantly at me.

A boy said, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

“75 percent of this prayer is directly from the Bible. The first two lines comes from Luke 1:28. The next two lines are from Luke 1:42. Now we can go on to the Immaculate Conception. Our first hint of this lies in the words of the angel to Mary: 'full of grace.' Mary was the recipient of the fullness of God's blessing. It's also clear that, logically speaking, that if Mary was to be the mother of Jesus-the one true God-she would need to be a worthy vessel. That means, free from the stain of sin. Understand?”

We nodded, so Andrew continued, “Our faith teaches us that God took care of that little detail. God, who has the power to save all of us from sin, and whose grace makes us holy and blameless in His sight, did this for Mary, too. It's just that He worked this moment and process of grace long before the gift came to the rest of us, at her conception, freeing her from original sin. He did this not for her sake, but for ours.

“Sure, there are places where the Bible seems to say otherwise, like Romans 3:23, for instance, 'All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.' If you go back and read in context, we can see that Paul is talking about the relative status of Jews and pagans in relation to God. He's saying that both stand equal in need of Jesus' salvation, that neither group is more privileged than the other.

“We can look at the Assumption next. Doesn't it make sense that if God could preserve Mary from the original sin, couldn't He preserve her from the corruption of physical death as well? This wasn't an unknown phenomenon in Scripture either. The story of Elijah should be familiar, of him being taken up in a fiery chariot. If God could do that for him, why not Mary?

“We have one thing left to cover: Mary's perpetual virginity. This is usually a tough one to get protestants to believe. The first point to make is that 'brother' in Scripture could mean 'cousin' or 'nephew.' there wasn't a specific word the meant 'brother' in Hebrew or Aramaic. Just look at Genesis 14:14, where is refers to Lot as Abraham's brother, though he was really his nephew. Genesis 29:15 says Laban's nephew Jacob is his brother. Deuteronomy 23:7 and Jeremiah 34:9 use the word 'brother' but refers to just kinsmen in general.1

“Karl Keating has explained in one of his books that the word 'until' or 'till' in the Bible 'means only that some action did not happen up to a certain point; it does not imply that the action did happen later, which is the modern sense of the term. In fact, if the modern sense is forced on the Bible, some ridiculous meanings result.' Look at 2 Samuel 6:23, for instance. It says 'Michal the daughter of Saul had no children until the day of her death.' Is it likely she had children after she died? And what about 1 Maccabees 5:54? It says, 'And they went up to mount Sion with joy and gladness, and offered holocausts, because not one of them was slain till they had returned in peace.' Does this mean the soldiers were slain after they had returned from battle?

“To sum up now, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox teachings about Mary are rooted in what the Bible says about Mary. It says she was 'full of grace'-totally blessed by God. All of the Church's teachings about Mary have been embraced by Christians from ancient times. Even the first Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther, believed them. And, Catholics honor Mary because she played such an important role in bringing Jesus into the world. We don't worship Mary. We honor her as our mother in faith, and we ask her to pray for us,” he dismissed the class.

1Prove It! Church,chapter eleven