Welcome to today’s video. In today’s video, we’re going to talk about an introduction to the Virgin Mary, who is she? Why is she important? Why do we care? I’m gonna make the case that I think she’s a great role model for womanhood, which may be a little weird sounding at first, especially if you’re not Catholic, but I’m going to discuss today why I think she is and why we should give that some consideration. 

Introduction to the Virgin Mary

Today’s video, as mentioned before, we’re going to talk about the Virgin Mary. This is going to be an introduction to her. There is a lot you could say about her. And I’ll probably make more videos on this channel about certain facets of her because there’s so much you could say, but we’re just going to stick to kind of some basics and do like an introduction to who she is.

I know some of you watching this channel might not be Catholic. If you’re Catholic, you’re like, Oh my gosh, I know this. But I do think even as a Catholic, I think Our Lady is only depicted under the aspect of her motherhood, which while that’s very beautiful, and I can’t talk today, I was gonna say like……. While that’s a very crucial part of who she is, I think as women, especially as single women, as women who maybe aren’t Catholic, I think she still makes a really good role model and I am going to get into that today on why.

So without further ado, I’m going to show you this is a picture and this is like my favorite picture. They’re called the Madonna and child. They’re paintings depicting Our Lady and I’m gonna show you one, this one’s my favorite. I don’t know if you can see that. So, I like this picture. This is known as Our Lady of China. And I think Our Lady looks so beautiful in it. I didn’t even realize this was like a religious picture when I first saw it, I was walking by and there was like a festival going on and I saw this picture, outside one of the booths. And I was like, Wow, what a beautiful Asian ladylike, dang! and then I look closer, and I was like, oh, there’s a halo, you know. And then I realized it was a picture of Our Lady and I love it. I found it on the internet. If you Google Our Lady of China, you’ll find the picture and then you can just print it out and frame it like that’s what I did, honestly I just love this photo. To me, it represents Our Lady in a way she’s not often depicted. And I find that inspiring because I think of Our Lady under an aspect that she isn’t often depicted. As mentioned before, I didn’t have a normal mother, she had a lot of health problems, she has a lot of really severe psychiatric health problems. And so I didn’t have much of a mother growing up. And so I always had a hard time relating to Our Lady. I was raised Catholic, but I just didn’t get Our Lady. People were like, “Oh, you know, she’s your mother”, you know, when I would try to understand her, people would just go, “well, she’s your mother”. And they would say that like that was supposed to be like, self-evident, you know? And I was just like, I don’t know what that means. I didn’t tell people this, I didn’t have much of a mother. I didn’t even really know what that word meant, you know, like, people are like, Oh, it’s synonymous with like, love and nurturing. And it’s like, not always, sadly. And so for me, that was a hard thing.

And so Our Lady, I have since developed a bit of devotion to her. But I look at her more like a fellow woman. And as someone that I can learn from, as to how to be a woman that is both strong and soft, but I think is important in today’s world, you don’t want to just be very nurturing and sweet. While that’s important, you need to have a little bit of strength to you, there’s got to be a little bit of a bite there. It is what it is. And so I think Our Lady achieves that, and I’m going to discuss in this video and also in future videos, I’m going to outline why I think that and I’m going to give reasons and theological backing and all that for why I think she’s a good role model.

Who is Mary?

So having said that, we’re going to get into who Mary is and I’m going to just go over it very briefly because I don’t know who you are watching this, and maybe you’re not Catholic, and maybe you’re like, oh, I’ve heard of the Virgin Mary. Don’t you guys worship her? No, but we’ll get into that. So anyway, the first thing is who is Mary? There is a saying especially in theology books, a Latin phrase, it’s called quæ est hæc siesta, and that is Latin for Who is this woman? And it said that the angels in heavens look at each other and they asked themselves that about Our Lady who is this woman that’s been raised to such dignity, that she gets so much honor, that she was made the Mother of God, you know, like, Who is this woman that she got that? And, there is something about Our Lady that is very mysterious, like all women, we all have a certain aspect of mysteriousness about us and I think Our Lady is no different. You know, there is something about her that we will never really fully grasp, I think, but we can go a long way toward figuring it out.

The number one thing and this is the most striking and obvious thing about Our Lady Is that she is the mother of god. In the Bible she has been given the grace to be the mother of God, which is the source of all her privileges. Everything impressive about Our Lady usually stems somehow from that fact. You know, she was chosen from all eternity, to be the woman that God was going to be born of, to redeem us. And the interesting thing is in the Bible, when we read about the Annunciation, in the Bible, it talks about how Our Lady was, you know, she was just praying one day, and an angel appeared to her and was like, your, he was like, you know, hail full of grace, you know, he was like, basically was greeting her with a bunch of honor and she was like, What the? And, you know, it said that she didn’t understand that greeting. Basically, the angel is like, you know, God would like you to become The mother of the Messiah. And Our Lady was very knowledgeable about the Messiah prophecies and the Old Testament. She was a bit of a biblical scholar if you might say of her day, she was very familiar with those writings and so she knew that the Messiah was going to have a hard time. Put it nicely. He knew that he was going to die a very violent, humiliating death. She knew he was not going to have you know, he’s going to be contradicted. You’re gonna have a lot of enemies. And so she kind of knew what she was getting into a little bit. And so when the angel said that to her, she did ask.

I’d like to point out she did ask a clarifying question. A lot of people you kind of treat Mary are like, well, she was just this tool that God uses. And that is not the view of the church on it. God did tell her that she was going to be the mother of God, you know, there was an aspect of command there, but she said yes to that. And it’s known as her Fiat. And so when the angel came and said that to her, she did ask a clarifying question. And she said, how will this be done? Because I know not man. And that’s kind of an old-timey way. And it was a very discreet way. Because there are children reading the Bible. That was a discreet way of saying, I don’t intend on sleeping with men. So how do you think this is going to happen? That’s why the angel had to say, well, the Holy Ghost will overshadow you, again, it’s a discreet way of saying, the Holy Ghost will impregnate you, and you’re not gonna have to lose your virginity. And so then once she had made sure of that, then she was like, Okay, I’ll do it. And so I think that’s something important that gets glossed over a lot when we talk about Our Lady and this is why I think she makes a great role model for women. Because while she was submissive to God, we can see clearly that she had a brain, she knew what was going on. She knew how babies were made. And so she was kind of like, wait a minute, what are you saying here? She didn’t just naively and blindly agree to whatever. And so sometimes when people talk about traditional womanhood, they get this idea that women, they get this idea that women should just go along with what people want of them and not ask any questions. And clearly, we see that that’s not the case. Even Our Lady herself, you know, asked a clarifying question before she agreed to it. So having said that, she did agree to it. And that was a big deal. We all have free will, you know, we don’t have to do what God says. And the fact that she agreed to be the mother of God, that was great for us, you know, and that’s why Catholics are so happy about Our Lady and why we give her So much honor because she didn’t have to do that. Let’s look at Eve, you know, in the Garden of Eden, she was commanded not to eat the apple and we all know what happened there. She decided God commanded her something and she didn’t do it. So then, with Our Lady, she gets commanded. And everybody kind of just assumed like, Oh, of course, she would have said yes, maybe not. You know you didn’t say yes. Eve said no. And Our Lady said, Yes. And that’s why Catholics make a big deal about Our Lady. And we’re like, oh, my gosh, she’s amazing, because this is probably a very unfair theological way to say it, but she did us a solid, and we’re pretty grateful about it.