Notre Dame: Intro

"Our Lady Queen of Victory, pray for us!" It was our prayer before and after every basketball game in the locker room at Bishop Kelly. I only sometimes said it, since growing up evangelical/baptist, the thought of praying to the Virgin Mary was something that was wrong at best, demonic at the worst.

Mary has been something that I've been trying to avoid for most of my life. It's probably THE defining difference between Catholics and Protestants and all attempts at ecumenical discussion I've seen completely gloss over and ignore the subject. So it isn't with the least bit of fear and trembling that I'm engaging it.

In all honestly, it's been going deeper spiritually in conversations with neighbors, that I am being forced to figure out exactly what I think about Mary. Many of my neighbors are Catholic and put a lot of practice/reverence into Mary. One neighbor almost broke relationship with her evangelical son over Mary. She told him "May God and the virgin bless you". He retorted, "Don't say 'the virgin' since I don't believe in her." That mother does not have a particularly favorable view of evangelicals at as a result of his rejection of what she saw as her blessing.

Also, in a recent discussion, one of my Catholic neighbors asked me what I thought about Mary. I danced around the inquiry and repeated the question to him. He said that as Catholics, they believed that the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and she conceived Jesus as a virgin. . . and then he stopped. I said I completely agreed with that, but that I had some issues with the Catholic doctrine that Mary was born without sin and that she always maintained her virginity. My neighbor looked at me and said, "Well I don't believe that either. Plus, it says in the Bible that Jesus had brothers, doesn't it?" I was a bit dumbfounded, and told him that I was almost sure that Catholic doctrine upheld the former things I was sharing. He seemed a little surprised by that, and I could tell that he didn't feel quite right with those ideas. I know that he couldn't attend all of the catechism classes as a child, and figure that must explain it.

Still, the conversation showed me that the topic and person of Mary is something that I can no longer ignore. As an evangelical, I have never been comfortable with the idea of studying Mary and on purpose avoided coming to any sort of definite belief in her regarding Catholic and ancient Church tradition. I figure my reluctance is a pretty lousy excuse and am devoting my reading and theological reflections to "Mariology" until Christmas. I will be sharing my research findings and thoughts here as time progresses. I want this to be an open conversation to all, so please feel free to leave comments as you read, but please do so in the spirit of love and edification. I hope to tackle the following topics in order and will add to them as time goes on: The Catholic Doctrine surrounding Mary, Mary through history (early church and beyond), My own theological thoughts about Mary in light of Catholic Doctrine and church history, Practice here in Latin America, and final thoughts in terms of my relationships with Catholic neighbors.

Please tag along and take a look at Mary and the thoughts, ideas, and practices surrounding her.