Questions I Answered on Catholic Answers Live: “Mary in the Old Testament”

Being a guest on Catholic Answers Live is always so much fun and my adrenalin flows. Great stuff. In this episode we discuss Mary in typology, how she is prefigured and foretold in the Old Testament so we can understand her better and more richly in the New Testament.

We started by explaining what typology is and how I learned more about Mary from the Old Testament than from the New Testament. We discussed in detail Mary as the New Eve, Jacob’s Ladder, and the Ark of the New Covenant. We had good questions called in too.

The final questioner got a bit feisty as he wanted to argue against the Catholic understanding of Mary, accusing us of making Mary a god. It was quite interesting and again it just demonstrates the beauty of the Catholic teaching.

• 15:29 – What was Mary called by those around her in her time? And if Mary never sinned, does that mean she always did everything right?
• 31:55 – Why do Catholics say that Mary is the Immaculate Conception?
• 42:10 – What is a dogma, and why is the birth of Mary not considered a dogma?
• 44:44 – Is there any Church tradition or Biblical title that first declared Mary as Undoer of Knots?
• 49:05 – If Mary was an immaculate conception, were her parents immaculately conceived too? How far back does it go?

In the third question, we discussed the image of Mary as the “Untier of Knots”. I was asked if this was taught in the Early Church. I knew it had but did not have the exact quote on the tip of my tongue, so here it is:

St. Irenaeus (AD 130-200)  “And thus also it was that the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith.” (Against Heresies, 3, 22, 4).