Dear NotAnHourGoesBy
I would like to post a part of a reply Mor Ephrem did once on the issue of Mary. I really like the information and spirit of the answer, and I could not in any way answer it better. It was originally a reply to a long thread, so forgive me if things may sound out of context.
" He is impressed when a woman cries out in a crowd "Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed", and rather than contradict those words, he amplifies them by declaring blessed those who hear the word of God and keep it (cf. Lk. 11.27-28). No one in Scripture heard the word of God and kept it better than Mary, who heard God's word with the ears and heart of faith and brought it forth in her manner of life even before she heard God's word through the angel with the same ears and heart of faith, bringing forth God's Son made flesh, flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone, blood of her blood. It was because there was no one who heard the word of God and kept it better than Mary that God chose her to be the mother of his Son; he didn't just scour the world looking for an incubator and say "That Jew will do."
LBK and others have given you a lot of Scripture and a lot of ideas from Scripture to consider. If you are really interested, interact with that material, as others in this thread have, who may not understand at first but are willing to ponder and learn. No one expects you to understand or believe immediately, but there's a way to seek understanding and then there's simply the obstinate refusal to believe nothing but your own wisdom. Don't do the latter.
When LBK wrote about the role of the Queen Mother in the OT, I couldn't help but think of the Wedding at Cana (cf. Jn. 2.1-11). When Mary approaches Jesus with the problem of the lack of wine, he at first doesn't seem disposed to do anything about it: he tells her that it's not their concern, and that his hour has not yet come. But Mary's insistent plea for her Son's help takes on another form, as she prepares the servants to "do whatever he tells" them. And Christ, even though his hour had not yet come, advances that hour--alters his schedule and plan, as we might say--to provide wine for a wedding (relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things), because it meant so much to his mother that he help. He advanced his approach to Calvary in order to answer the seemingly insignificant request of his mother. Are we to believe that he won't listen to her when she asks for even more important things?
And at Calvary, on the cross, he thought of his mother: "When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold, your son!' Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!' And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home" (Jn. 19.26-27). Now, we believe that this "beloved disciple" was John himself, but it's surely not an accident, but the intention of the Holy Spirit, that he is not named, but is simply "the disciple whom Jesus loved". Jesus gives his mother another son: his beloved disciple. And the beloved disciple receives a mother: Jesus' own mother. If we would be another of Jesus' beloved disciples, how can we ignore the gift he gave us in his mother, his dying gift to us from the cross? If we would be another of Jesus' beloved disciples, how can we not but take his mother into our own homes and lives as immediately as that beloved disciple did? "
- And please, both Mor Ephrem and NotAnHourGoesBy, pray for me a sinner. May God bless you all on your journeys and discussions
