Sunday, September 15, 2024

René Laurentin on the Relative Silence in the New Testament and Early Christian Writings Concerning Mary

  

. . . for a time whose precise duration escapes us the Mother of Jesus is alive and lives in the Church without there being any explicit mention of her. Her prayer and intercession remain hidden. Mary herself does not seem to be conscious of the extent of her influence nor is it known by those around her. She is a living organ of the body of Christ, but is not the object of any teaching. (René Laurentin, A Short Treatise on the Virgin Mary [6th ed.; trans. Charles Neumann; Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022], 5)

 

 

Silent Growth:
The Eve-Mary Antithesis Explored (2nd Century)

 

After the period of the Scriptures there follows what could be described as a stretch of fog and mist. In the Christian literature of the second century, inasmuch as it is known to us, the Virgin Mary occupies only a tiny place. Texts about her are rare and do little more than repeat in lustreless terms what Matthew and Luke had with much more relish: Mary is the Mother of Jesus, she is a virgin in her conceiving. The scriptural information is reduced almost to its simplest expression and a part of its wealth remains hidden. Mary’s features concealed in the shadow, almost as in a fog. (Ibid., 52)

 

 

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