Mariology Quotes

“The rising influence of lay piety is particularly marked upon the Mariological controversies of the late medieval period. Two rival positions developed: the maculist position, which held that Mary was subject to original sin, in common with every other human being; and the immaculist position, which held that contrary view that Mary was in some way preserved from original sin, and was thus to be considered sinless. The maculist position was regarded as firmly established within the High Scholasticism of the thirteenth century. The veneration of the Virgin within popular piety, however, proved to have an enormously creative power that initially challenged, and subsequently triumphed over, the academic objections raised against it by university theologians.”
― Alister E. McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation

“Consuelo's appearance set her apart from the others, and the nuns, sure that this was not accidental but a sign of benevolent divine will, spared no effort in cultivating her faith, in the hope she would decide to take her vows and serve the Church; al their efforts, however, came to naught before the girl's instinctive rejection. She made the attempt in good faith, but never succeeded in accepting the tyrannical god the nuns preached to her about; she preferred a more joyful, maternal, and compassionated god.
"That is the Most Holy Virgin Mary," the nuns explained to her.
"She is God?"
"No, she is the Mother of God."
"Yes, but who has the say in heaven, God or his Mama?”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“But the work which most richly embroidered the gospel narratives and was destined to exert a tremendous influence on later Mariology was the Protoevangelium of James. Written for Mary's glorification, this described her divinely ordered birth when her parents, Joachim and Anna, were advanced in years, her miraculous infancy and childhood, and her dedication to the Temple, where her parents had prayed that God would give her 'a name renowned for ever among all generations'. It made the point that when she was engaged to Joseph he was already an elderly widower with sons of his own; and it accumulated evidence both that she had conceived Jesus without sexual intercourse and that her physical nature had remained intact when she bore Him.

These ideas were far from being immediately accepted in the Church at large. Iranaeus, it is true, held that Mary's childbearing was exempt from physical travail, as did Clement of Alexandria (appealing to the Protoevangelium of James). Tertullian, however, repudiated the suggestion, finding the opening of her womb prophesied in Exodus 13, 2, and Origen followed him and argued that she had needed the purification prescribed by the Law. On the other hand, while Tertullian assumed that she had had normal conjugal relations with Joseph after Jesus's birth, the 'brethren of the Lord' being his true brothers, Origen maintained that she had remained a virgin for the rest of her life('virginity post partum') and that Jesus's so-called brothers were sons of Joseph but not by her...In contrast to the later belief in her moral and spiritual perfection, none of these theologians had the least scruple about attributing faults to her. Irenaeus and Tertullian recalled occasions on which, as they read the gospel stories, she had earned her Son's rebuke, and Origen insisted that, like all human beings, she needed redemption from her sins; ...”
― J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines

“Mary is the safest, easiest, shortest, and most perfect way of approaching Jesus.”
― Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort