Virgin Mary Day 2024 is on Sunday, September 8, 2024: Do Catholics believe Mary was a virgin until the day she died?

Sunday, September 8, 2024 is Virgin Mary Day 2024. A Sinner's Guide to the Saints: Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God ... the Blessed Virgin Mary is

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Yes and so did the reformers

Martin Luther

Christ, our Savior, was the real and natural fruit of Mary's virginal womb . . . This was without the cooperation of a man, and she remained a virgin after that.

Christ . . . was the only Son of Mary, and the Virgin Mary bore no children besides Him . . . I am inclined to agree with those who declare that 'brothers' really mean 'cousins' here, for Holy Writ and the Jews always call cousins brothers.

A new lie about me is being circulated. I am supposed to have preached and written that Mary, the mother of God, was not a virgin either before or after the birth of Christ . . .

Scripture does not say or indicate that she later lost her virginity . . .

When Matthew [1:25] says that Joseph did not know Mary carnally until she had brought forth her son, it does not follow that he knew her subsequently; on the contrary, it means that he never did know her . . . This babble . . . is without justification . . . he has neither noticed nor paid any attention to either Scripture or the common idiom.

John Calvin

Helvidius displayed excessive ignorance in concluding that Mary must have had many sons, because Christ's 'brothers' are sometimes mentioned.

[On Matt 1:25:] The inference he [Helvidius] drew from it was, that Mary remained a virgin no longer than till her first birth, and that afterwards she had other children by her husband . . . No just and well-grounded inference can be drawn from these words . . . as to what took place after the birth of Christ. He is called 'first-born'; but it is for the sole purpose of informing us that he was born of a virgin . . . What took place afterwards the historian does not inform us . . . No man will obstinately keep up the argument, except from an extreme fondness for disputation.

Under the word 'brethren' the Hebrews include all cousins and other relations, whatever may be the degree of affinity.

Huldreich Zwingli

He turns, in September 1522, to a lyrical defense of the perpetual virginity of the mother of Christ . . . To deny that Mary remained 'inviolata' before, during and after the birth of her Son, was to doubt the omnipotence of God . . . and it was right and profitable to repeat the angelic greeting - not prayer - 'Hail Mary' . . . God esteemed Mary above all creatures, including the saints and angels - it was her purity, innocence and invincible faith that mankind must follow. Prayer, however, must be . . . to God alone . . .

'Fidei expositio,' the last pamphlet from his pen . . . There is a special insistence upon the perpetual virginity of Mary.

Zwingli had printed in 1524 a sermon on 'Mary, ever virgin, mother of God.'

I have never thought, still less taught, or declared publicly, anything concerning the subject of the ever Virgin Mary, Mother of our salvation, which could be considered dishonourable, impious, unworthy or evil . . . I believe with all my heart according to the word of holy gospel that this pure virgin bore for us the Son of God and that she remained, in the birth and after it, a pure and unsullied virgin, for eternity.

Heinrich Bullinger

Bullinger (d. 1575) . . . defends Mary's perpetual virginity . . . and inveighs against the false Christians who defraud her of her rightful praise: 'In Mary everything is extraordinary and all the more glorious as it has sprung from pure faith and burning love of God.' She is 'the most unique and the noblest member' of the Christian community . . .

'The Virgin Mary . . . completely sanctified by the grace and blood of her only Son and abundantly endowed by the gift of the Holy Spirit and preferred to all . . . now lives happily with Christ in heaven and is called and remains ever-Virgin and Mother of God.'

John Wesley (Founder of Methodism)

I believe... he [Jesus Christ] was born of the blessed Virgin, who, as well after as she

brought him forth, continued a pure and unspotted virgin.

One day the anti-catholic people understand that...?

Acknowledging that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the mother of Jesus and that Jesus is God is not a Catholic thing, It is a Trinitarian Christian thing.

Christianity has called Mary, the Mother of God since before 250 CE when Dionysius of Alexandria used Theotokos in an letter to Paul of Samosata.

The Council of Ephesus decreed in 431 that Mary is Theotokos because her son Jesus is one person who is both God and man, divine and human.

Is your mother the mother of your human body or your soul or both? Or is she just your mother?

Even though you were ultimately created by God (both body and soul), your mother is still your mother. This is because your mother gave birth to a person, who has both a body and a soul.

In the same way, the Blessed Virgin Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ. Christians believe that Jesus Christ is a divine Person who possesses two natures, one human and one divine. Because Jesus is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son, and Mary is his biological mother, it logically flows that Mary can be called the Mother of God even though she is not divine.

This is similar to a commoner who marries a king and becomes the mother of the next king. She is entitled to the title of Queen and Mother of the King even though she is not royalty.

Nobody two hundred, five hundred or a thousand years ago would have been confused about these terms. But this is hard for people to understand in these times where royalty and kings and queens are few and far between.

By the way, Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli all believed that Mary was the mother of God:

Martin Luther: “In this work whereby she was made the Mother of God, so many and such good things were given her that no one can grasp them… Not only was Mary the mother of Him who is born [in Bethlehem], but of Him who, before the world, was eternally born of the Father, from a Mother in time and at the same time man and God.” (The Works of Luther, English translation by Pelikan, Concordia, St. Louis, Vol. 7, page 572)

John Calvin: “It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of His Son, granted her the highest honor…Elizabeth calls Mary Mother of the Lord, because the unity of the person in the two natures of Christ was such that she could have said that the mortal man engendered in the womb of Mary was at the same time the eternal God.” (Calvini Opera, Corpus reformatorum, Braunschweig-Berlin, 1863-1900, Vol. 45, page 348 and 335.)

Ulrich Zwingli: “It was given to her what belongs to no creature, that in the flesh she should bring forth the Son of God.” (Zwingli Opera, Corpus reformatorum, Berlin, 1905, in Evang. Luc., Op. Comp., Vol. 6, I, page 639.)

With love in Christ.

Virgin Mary is resurrected after 3 days?

The Dormition and Assumption are basically the same in that they describe how Mary left earth - that God brought her bodily up to heaven. The only difference is whether or not she experienced physical death. The Orthodox say she did - the Catholics teaching of the Assumption doesn't say one way or the other. It's certainly acceptable for Catholics to believe in the Dormition. So it really isn't that much of a difference.

The difference probably came about because there is no record of exactly how, when, where (or if) Mary died. But because in part there are no remains - it's agreed she was taken bodily to heaven.