It commemorates a visit by the three-year-old Mary to the
When Mary was three years old, Anna, her mother, brought her to the Temple, and dedicated her to God's service. It was customary for many young Jewish virgins and widows to live at the temple where they studied the Word of God and performed temple service.
The tradition of honoring Mary by venerating images of her goes back to 3rd-century Christianity. Following the period of iconoclasm, the position of the church with respect to the veneration of images was formalized at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787.
In fact, according to Jewish law and customs of the day, Mary and Joseph probably would have both been young when they married. “Girls were usually engaged sometime between the ages of 12 and 15, and would be married sometime thereafter, at 15 or 16, and boys would have been 19 or 20,” Fredriksen says.
A careful look at the New Testament shows that Mary kept her vow of virginity and never had any children other than Jesus. When Jesus was found in the Temple at age twelve, the context suggests that he was the only son of Mary and Joseph.
According to Christianity.com, Mary was 46 to 49 years old when Jesus died. Britannica states that she “flourished” from 25 B.C. to A.D. 75. Assuming this is in reference to her lifespan, according to Britannica, Mary was approximately 54 to 59 years old when Jesus died.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (the official teaching of the Church) teaches that worship (or adoration) is meant for God alone. Catholics as well as the Orthodox and some older Protestant groups venerate Mary and the Saints. Mary is venerated because she is full of God's own life and love, his Grace (Luke 1:28).
The earliest recorded prayer to Mary is the sub tuum praesidium (3rd or 4th century) and the earliest depictions of her are from the Priscilla catacombs in Rome (early 3rd century).
The phrase "pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death" demonstrates that Catholics view Mary not as a goddess to be worshipped, but as a helpful ally in the life-long struggle against sin and temptation. In all of the Marian prayers offered by Catholics, there is not a single claim of Mary's divinity.
Catholics do not pray to Mary as if she were God. Prayer to Mary is memory of the great mysteries of our faith (Incarnation, Redemption through Christ in the rosary), praise to God for the wonderful things he has done in and through one of his creatures (Hail Mary) and intercession (second half of the Hail Mary).
A: As you know the bible does "not" tell us to pray the Rosary because this form of prayer originated only during the middle ages. However, important elements of the Rosary are biblical and/or belong to the common Christian beliefs.
Catholics do not view Mary as equal to Christ, but rather venerate Mary because of her relationship to Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, “Mary's role in the Church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it” (CCC 964).
Tradition does hold that St. Dominic (d. 1221) devised the rosary as we know it. Moved by a vision of our Blessed Mother, he preached the use of the rosary in his missionary work among the Albigensians, who had denied the mystery of Christ.
Actually, we owe the first half of it to the angel Gabriel and to Mary's cousin Elizabeth. “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” are the words of the angel when he greets Mary at the Annunciation (Luke 1:28).
In 1569, the papal bull Consueverunt Romani Pontifices by the Dominican Pope Pius V officially established the devotion to the rosary in the Catholic Church.
Let's summarize: Catholics confess their sins to a priest because that is the method of forgiveness that God established. The Almighty alone has the power to forgive sins, and the Son of God granted that authority to His Apostles.
As Mary is the Mother of Christ, and Christ is head of the Church, then Mary is the Mother of the Church. Mary is also seen as the model of the Church. In all of her actions she exemplifies the mission of the Church.
A: Like the dogma of Mary's Immaculate Conception, the dogma of the Assumption is not explicitly stated in the Bible. The teaching that 'at the end of her earthly course, Mary was assumed into heavenly glory, body and soul' was dogmatically defined by Pius XII in 1950 in Munificentissimus Deus.
Hyppolitus of Thebes says that Mary lived for 11 years after the death of her son Jesus, dying in 41 AD.
She ascended into heaven
The early centuries of the Christian tradition were silent on the death of Mary. But by the seventh and eighth centuries, the belief in the bodily ascension of Mary into heaven, had taken a firm hold in both the Western and Eastern Churches.
We often refer to Jesus as Jesus Christ, and some people assume that Christ is Jesus's last name. But Christ is actually a title, not a last name. So if Christ isn't a last name, what was Jesus's last name? The answer is Jesus didn't have a formal last name or surname like we do today.
In Islam. In Islam the rosary (subḥa) consists of three groups of beads whose total is 100. Each bead represents one of the “most beautiful names of God,” and the rosary serves to count these names. The rosary is also used in an act of prayer and is carried by all classes of Muslims, especially pilgrims.
It is known as the "Three Hail Mary Devotion," and consists of saying three times each day the Hail Mary with the invocation "O my Mother, preserve me this day (or night) from mortal sin." The prayer is said three times to honor the Most Blessed Trinity, Who is the source of all of Our Lady's greatness.
The beads are traditionally used to keep count while saying the prayer. The prayer is considered a form of dhikr that involves the repetitive utterances of short sentences in the praise and glorification of Allah, in Islam.
The good news is that we don't need to pray to Mary or to the saints in order to be heard by God. Jesus made this wonderful promise: “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:3).