Mary: New Ark of the Covenant

Shannon: Welcome to episode 12 of the Catholic Frequency Podcast. What you are about to hear is a conversation I had with my friend Drago about the blessed Virgin Mary as the new Ark of the Covenant. He did a thread on the social media platform x talking about this, and after he did, I asked him if we could have a space to discuss it and have him walk us through parallels between the ark in the Old Testament and the, Mary is the new ark in the New Testament. So this conversation took place on the social media platform x, and I started the conversation by asking Drago, why did you want to write this thread?

Drago: You know, I actually was reading my new Ignatius Bible and, you know, saw the references there. And it's something I mean, as a Protestant, I I I I never connected those dots. I mean, no one ever told me. And, you know, I have in the past, seen those charts with Mary the ark and, all that, but I decided to actually, like, let me read Luke one and and really try to get a sense of what is, Luke trying to accomplish here. And, yeah, I guess before diving in, I'll I'll just first cap it off there, to answer your question about why I wanted to do this.

Shannon: Well, it's a pretty successful, thread. I think you have, I don't know, five or 6,000 followers, and it's been seen by a quarter of a million people. So it is multiples and multiples and multiples of your follower account, which is always a great sort of barometer of what is a good thread. If you get all of your followers to see something, that's really good, but if you double it or triple it or I mean, you're, like, more than 20 time. You're you're, like, it's just phenomenal how many people have seen this thread.

And so just sorta take us through it.

Drago: Yeah.

Shannon: What what are the connections with with the old is Mary in the old testament? Is she what do they call that typology? Is she reflected in the Old Testament? Yeah.

Drago: No. And and praise God. I mean, you know, with some of these things, I just I just pray to God that if he wants people to see these things because sometimes these posts lead to questions and then people will DM and then some people start going to OCIA, the Catholic faith. So even if one person sees it and their life has changed, you know, I try to I try to keep that mindset. But, yeah, I'm I'm glad that this has gotten the exposure because, look, the Bible is very Catholic and, you know, I I don't like the accusation about Catholics not using the Bible when, you know, in fact, we we do all the time every every single mass.

Right? We we read the Old Testament. We do a Psalm. We do, an epistle. We do the gospels.

And, and so, yeah, there's a lot of beauty to be uncovered. And for Protestants tuning in, like, look. I understand. There's many steps before you're going to, consider the Catholic faith valid, but, you know, each little thing that you see, and and then when I post from time to time, is meant to introduce you to something that you probably haven't seen before. And so but, like, look.

Okay. Let's so let's dive into this Luke one passage in this thread. And before doing so, you know, I think it's important to set the stage and say, you know, when, what we're about to do here is an exercise in pattern recognition. Pattern recognition. So what does it mean to recognize a pattern?

Right? It's it's to find a similarity, you know, unintelligible similarity, between, a couple of things. Now now here's the thing. Just like for some pictures, like, if you look at the cloud and you say, yeah, the cloud looks like a rabbit, and then the person next to you, they might not see it. They might not see it.

And and part of that is because of human bias. But what what I wanna emphasize there is, the threshold of what where you see similarity and where others see similarity, is is is going to be different sometimes. So for example, if I have an apple, like a fruit, and I have a pear, someone might say, well, yeah, those are those are quite similar. The those are very similar. I see the apple.

I see the pear. Yeah. This is very similar. But then to somebody else, they see the apple and the pear, and they say, what are you talking about? This is completely different.

An apple and a pear have nothing to do with each other. They're they're completely different things. And and and this isn't, you know, who's right? Who is right? So similarity, it's you you have to have the eyes to see it in some respect, but, you know, this is like seeing Jesus as a fulfillment of the prophecy.

We as Christians see Jesus the Messiah obviously fulfills Isaiah, but other people don't have the eyes to see that pattern recognition. That pattern recognition comes through faith at the end of the day. So, you know, that that's point number one. And and to set the stage with point number two, when you look at the gospel authors, we need to appreciate that they didn't just randomly write stuff down. They knew that what they were writing is what's going to convey important truths about the life of Christ that believers and subsequent generations would rely upon.

And so especially in the context of Luke, I mean, you know, who is, you know, a doctor, there's great intentionality and structure and organize organization about why did what they did. So in Luke, in in the infancy, narrative and the visitation, What what's he trying to do? He wants to immediately let people know that Jesus is divine, the son of God. Now in in in the gospel of John, it's very explicit. You know, John starts out with you in the beginning that was the word, the word was God, where it became, you know, flesh, all of that.

In Luke, he does it through a symbolic manner. He goes through this story of, you know, Mary and Elizabeth. And as we'll go through the verses here, he does a callback to the ark of the covenant. And we know that the presence of God was in some sense with the ark of the covenant. And so here you have the new ark of the covenant carrying the presence of God because Jesus is the son of God.

Even though, you know, you don't necessarily see that sentence, Jesus is the son of God here in, immediately until later on in the passage, maybe around verse 30, five or something. So so, okay. If we walk through right so again, think, is this similar? Is this a pattern or is it different? So we start off by noticing that, in in second Samuel six.

So if you have your Bibles, you can have, like, part of your Bible open to second Samuel six and then Luke one. So you can kinda flip back and forth and, actually just take a moment to do that. I have Luke one open. Let me just flip over in second Samuel. Can

Shannon: I ask what, translation you're you're reading from?

Drago: I I have the well, this is the RSV, but, hey, I know the hardcore Catholics will say Dewey Raims only. So, you know, you'll have to forgive me.

Shannon: I'm not that hardcore, so don't worry.

Drago: Yeah. Alright. So in in second Samuel six, so this is where David brings the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. And so we start at the beginning. David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, Thirty Thousand.

And David arose and went with all the people who are within, from Baile, Judah, and I'm I'm probably not pronouncing that correctly, to bring up from there the ark of God. So he arose and went in in the lands of Judah there. And now in in Luke one thirty nine, well, what do we see there? We see Mary's visit. In those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a city of Judah.

So, again, they both arose and went and it was within Judah. Now before, you know, you might say, well, hold on. What's the big deal? A rose and went happens. You know, they say that in the bible, other places.

I had some people see that. And it's like, okay. I mean, if this was the only verse, that would be a big stretch. It's a big stretch. But we have to look at all of the dots, all of the data points, and then the pattern emerges.

So we start off with the arose and went. Next, in second Samuel six nine, what happens? David was afraid of the Lord that day. He was in awe, and I think this is when someone touched the ark of the covenant and then died. So David was in awe and said, how can the ark of the Lord come to me?

How can the ark of Lord come to me? And then what do we see in Luke one forty three? Not the exact language, but a similar sentiment. Why is this granted to me that the mother of my lord should come to me? And, this is Elizabeth's reaction.

Right? So it's the same, like, wow. I'm in awe. I'm in wonder. Why am I getting this privilege?

So again, in David in in second Samuel says that same idea of, like, how can the ark come to me? How can I get this privilege in front of the holy vessel or the vessel containing, you know, the holy god? And Elizabeth says the same thing. Like, why do I get this privilege? Why is this granted to me that the mother of my lord should come to me that the vessel carrying the lord comes to me?

And so next, we also see, you know, the famous scene where David jumps around, you know, the the I forget the song. When I was a Protestant in in school, what was it? There was there was some song about, David dancing around, like a crazy guy. I forever remember that. But in second Samuel six sixteen, this is what happened.

As the ark of the Lord came into the city, David, Michael, the daughter of Saul, looked out of the window and saw king David leaping and dancing before the Lord, leaping and dancing. Okay. So Luke obviously understand, but he knows the story of King David, and he decided to write in verse 41 that when Elizabeth heard the greeting, the child leaped in her womb. It's a similar it's a similar word. So, you know, why I mean, just think about that.

That's a very strange detail. Why write down that the baby leaped in Elizabeth's womb? Right? I mean, like, what does that mean? I mean, maybe the baby was kicking around or whatever.

But but clearly, something happened, and Luke said, this is important enough that I want the reader to understand that John the Baptist leaped up in the womb in the presence of God. And we might say, well, just like David leaped around, when transporting the ark. And so then in verse, in in second Samuel six eleven, we also noticed another interesting thing. The ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed Edom in Gittite for three months for three months, and then the Lord blessed, them in all his household. In Luke one fifty six, Mary remained with Elizabeth for about three months and returned to her home.

Three months. Now could be a coincidence, you know, make three months with the arc there and then three months here, you know, instead of four months. I mean, I guess you have a one in 12 chance if it's a random number of months. I don't know. I mean, you could you could just say that's coincidence.

But now all of a sudden, we were talking about four different parallels. The the the arc was there three months, and we're second, Mary, the the was there three months. And, you know, what what I didn't, discuss in the thread, I was gonna make a separate post. And, I mean, for some people, this might actually be the most important thing. When, in Luke when when, in Luke one forty two, it says, Elizabeth exclaimed with a loud cry, blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

This word exclaim here, is only used once in the New Testament. And so, okay. What's the big deal? Well, if you look at how it's used in the Old Testament, the same Greek word, it's not just like exclamation, like, hey, I'm excited, I I claim. It's it's like an exuberant cry.

It's a liturgical cry. It's associated specifically whenever the ark was brought forward in in presence. So I think you have some verses in first Chronicles. There was a the exalting voice of instruments in first Chronicles fifteen twenty eight when the ark, was carried into procession. When Solomon transferred the ark, there was another similar use of that same word of exclaiming.

And so, I think even in was it Luke one five? What's Luke one five? There was the head of wife of the daughters. No. I'm sorry.

Back to one one forty two. So it's the same it's the same exclamation. It's a liturgical cry that was only used right? This was used in the context of the Old Testament ark, and you only see that word used one time in the New Testament. So if you're sitting here, again, I mean, you have, like, these strong signs, which you either say is a complete coincidence, which, you know, fair enough.

That's like saying that the the apple and the pear, they're they're completely separate. You know, they're they're no they're no more similar than an apple is similar to a car or an airplane. You know? Or you see, wow. There's some similarity there.

And if there is similarity, you ask yourself, did Luke intentionally make that connection, or did he accidentally, coincidentally do that? So and then really you should ask, Luke, as smart as he was, do you think, a, he was aware of the story of the ark of the covenant? Do you think he was biblically literate literate enough to know what happened with the ark and David or not. Now if he was biblically literate, you would think that he knows the similarities of what he wrote when he described Mary. So then there's a second decision.

He says, wow. When people read this, they might notice the similarities. If he did not want to to associate Mary with the ark, you know, maybe, right, maybe he would have tried to clarify or make it different because he knows that could have been confusing. But what we see instead is he left those passages in there And the most reasonable explanation, at least in my opinion, in the Catholic church's opinion, and in the opinion of the early church fathers. I mean, we can go through, like, 20 different quotes where the early Christians understood Luke one exactly in this way.

Then the most reasonable explanation is that that's what Luke intended to do. He intended to connect Mary as a fulfillment of the ark of the covenant because she bore the son of God. She carried God's presence. Now, again, just like the ark itself, you don't worship the ark. Okay?

But you you just notice that the the the vessel that delivered Christ is the god. So, we could pause there for a moment, but that's that's kind of the Luke one exegesis as it were. Yeah.

Shannon: A couple of things. I put several of the post from your thread up in the nest, and you can, if you see those dots there, that's how many different posts I put up there. You can sort of swipe to the right to sort of go back and see some of the previous ones. I've wanted to give a a quote from Saint Hippolytus, like you said, Draco, and there's a lot of quotes about this from the fathers. He said, somewhere around the year February or so, give or take a decade or so, that at that time the savior coming from the virgin, the ark, he specifically uses that word, brought forth his own body into the world from that ark which was gilded with pure gold within by the word and without by the Holy Ghost.

So that the truth was shown forth and the ark was manifested, and the savior came into the world bearing the incorruptible ark, that is to say his own body. So he talks about coming from that ark, Mary, that's just one of, like you said, there's a bunch of them.

Drago: Yeah. Absolutely right. And so, look, it's it's it's it's really interesting, if you look at the comments in the thread. I mean, some people get it. Even some people are open to it and actually recognize it.

Right? And they say even protestants like, yeah. Okay. I see what this actually seems interesting. Of course, I don't believe that the Catholic dogmas, all this stuff, but okay.

But what what's really interesting is there's a lot of people experiencing cognitive dissonance. They actually got angry about this. They get angry about pointing to this parallel, which is a very interesting thing because, you know, I mean, it's I'm sure it it's challenging their worldview in in some sense. Yeah, all we're doing is quoting and and cross referencing the Bible so that, you know, surely that should not offend, a Christian brother or sister. But, I will say, I think a lot of this has to do with, this concept of playing a role in salvation.

I I screenshotted four comments, and then there's even more afterwards where people said that that almost, like, forbade them. Mary has no role. She can't be the ark because she has no role because somehow she was the ark. She has a role in salvation. So, you know, we could put I could put that in the jumbotron.

But but here's the thing. Right? If if Mary had a role in the incarnation and if the incarnation has a role in salvation, well, then, therefore, Mary had a role in salvation. You know, I mean, it it's just as simple as that. Now I understand, and and this kind of will be a broader topic.

But I understand even as a protest when I was a protestant, there's a great hesitancy to acknowledge human cooperation with God. Because in some sense, there's a feeling that that takes away from the glory of God that somehow God's not getting the credit. And I had some people, you know, say that, say, oh, like, okay. But Mary shouldn't get any credit. And, you know, I understand.

It's the paradox. It's the mystery of human cooperation. When we say yes to god and even if we do acts of mercy, you know, feed the poor, you know, take someone to church, right, whatever we're doing, we we're cooperating with God's grace in us. It's because of Christ's life in us, living in Christ, that we're doing these things. God gets the glory, but he's he is using our cooperation in a mysterious way.

And so I think what it really comes down to is the the the Protestant system, it doesn't have a a sufficient integration or understanding with how humans can cooperate in the divine life of god without getting the credits. Just because a human cooperates doesn't mean that all of a sudden they're responsible and, like, that they're so awesome. It's god that's awesome because god is working through the humans, but it's also true that the human is freely cooperating. And so and that is a mystery, but I think that's the philosophical stumbling block for why, some of our Christian, friends hesitate with this, you know, saying Mary is the new ark.

Shannon: Well, that's that's why threads like yours are are so helpful because you're laying this out, you're giving examples, you're giving scripture, you're showing the parallels, and people who aren't Catholic have never heard never heard this stuff. They've they've heard anti Catholic stuff, anti Mary stuff. And so a lot of times, I was reading today about some famous converts to Catholicism and JD Vance, the incoming vice president, is one of them. He converted six years ago, said there was there was no magic moment. It was sorta I just knew that I didn't have to give up my reason, and it was just sort of like little by little over time.

So so every thread you do, every post any Catholic does is posting the truth on this is contributing in some way, hopefully, to someone's future conversion. I I wanted to mention because I saw that you got a reply from the great Patrick Madrid. Tell us about that.

Drago: Yeah. Well, he linked to, an article he wrote. So, you know, I think, yeah, he's just connecting to work he's done, which is good. It's it'll be useful for people to see. So, he promoted that, but which which is great.

I mean, hey. If if Patrick Madrid wants to comment, you know, I meant to that. And then interesting with him, you know, I let him know that, his book, Pope Fiction, was was pretty, pretty helpful for me when I was discerning Catholicism and struggle with the papacy. So to your point, it's, it's multilayered. You know, it takes time, especially if you transition and convert as an adult.

It's one thing if you're born in an environment and you just receive, in some sense, passively the faith of your parents or your community because you haven't heard anything else. But when you are in, a community and, obviously, you, Shannon, as a convert. I see our friend Lucas here, convert. And so, the it's it's more of a, you could say it's more of a struggle because you're wrestling with it. You're an adult.

You have an existing system that you have to reconfigure. But, you know, once you do make those changes, it's super powerful because you voluntarily assented and and and made the faith your own in in some sense. And and what you said about JD Vance and your example of, hey. Like, reason is no longer gonna be in my way, and I can now have faith. I think it's the same thing with atheists.

You know, it's not that it's not that when when you do apologetics, it's not that you logic your way into Jesus Christ as my savior. Yeah. I mean, you can, you can make arguments and and through logic, you can remove all the obstacles. We can remove all the obstacles with logic. That's what we're doing.

But ultimately, that this leap of faith, that decision, that a sense of the heart, you know, it's it's a mystical thing. It's a spiritual thing that somehow just clicks, and there's a moment. And and and God, you know, works in us, in our hearts. And so same thing, you know, for Protestants concerning Catholicism, no one can force you, to, become a Catholic by brute force logic. Because at the end of the day, if you don't wanna see the patterns, you're just gonna close your eyes to the patterns.

Right? That's what it comes down to. Because if either Catholics are reading way too much into these stuff, you know, Peter with the keys to the kingdom of heaven and, you know, Mary, the ark, and, Jesus, eat my flesh. Right? Either that's what Catholics are guilty of or Protestants aren't noticing the patterns.

They're not appreciating the beauty. And then the same way, atheist. Right? Atheists, they say all that exists is atoms and and and flesh and physics and and things. And you might describe to them a beautiful poem, a movie.

You might, take them up to the peak of a mountain, and you say, wow. Do you experience this phenomena, this awe, this adoration, this beauty that's real? But to the atheist who does not want to see that, they're just gonna say, isn't that cute? Chemical reactions. You have chemical reactions in your brain right now.

Oh, how cute. You know? And and and completely dismiss what's actually happening. And so that's really, you know, the open heartedness, that's required in discernment to let god's beauty touch you because there is such a deep layer of mysteries and and a participation in the divine life that he makes accessible to us.

Shannon: I wanna welcome to the stage the great Imperator, my friend from the land down under Australia. Hello, my friend.

Imperator: How How's it going, Catholic frequency and Drago? Great to talk to you again and be on the space again.

Shannon: It's good. I don't know at what point you came in. I just sort of glanced down and saw you, but, Drago did a thread, a day or two ago on Mary as the new arc. Got a quarter of a million views, which is super, super, super. And, anyway, we're talking sort of about the parallels between what Luke wrote and sort of how the parallels between that and and back in Samuel with the, parallels with the with the original arc.

So, anyway, we're just sort of talking about this title as Mary as the new arc.

Imperator: No. It's very important. The other thing is as well, what most people don't realize, and that's awesome that Droga, you got that sort of impressions because I think that's, in order to truly understand Catholicism or just, you know, Christianity more broadly, you have to understand the the Jewish roots of Christianity because just like, I think it was, Bram Petrie wrote a great book on that. You can't understand Catholicism or Christianity without the the contextual information on Judaism. So, obviously, if you understand the importance of the ark of the covenant, that also leads to the importance of Mary.

And if you discount one or the other, you have an incomplete theology.

Shannon: Yeah. I I read his book, the, Jesus and the Jewish roots of the Eucharist, but I think he had one on on Mary as well, didn't he?

Drago: Yeah. No. And and I have that in my library, but I haven't opened it up, myself. So for sure, would would, I'd definitely benefit from that. I think it's interesting that on the one hand, as Imperator said, Catholics might have a a closer connection to Jewish tradition and understanding, Jews pre Christ, right, I mean, as the fulfillment.

Because then you really see how the Catholic church fulfills so much of the old testament. It's like on steroids compared to the, Protestant system. But then, ironically, like, post Christ, you know, protestants are accused of, maybe relying too much on, like, Judaism that emerged, post Christ, especially when you look at the canon and you look at, you know, some of these other, methods of of believing. So I do find that interesting. So, yeah, pre pre Christ Jewish tradition, definitely will have signs pointing towards Catholicism.

Shannon: Go ahead and press one.

Imperator: It's not only that. It's even something so simple as the significance of Mary within Christianity. When you understand the the Jewish roots of Christianity, you would understand that within the the Davidic, you know, pre, kingdom, the mother of the queen the mother of the king is always the queen, not his wife because as we know, they have they have polygamy within, the Old Testament. So you can't have the queen being the wife of the king because there are so many wives of the king. So always historically, the mother of the king is the queen.

So if Jesus is the Davidic king, which he is, that makes Mary the queen. So if Jesus is the king of heaven and earth, that would, by extension, make Mary the queen of heaven and earth. But, again, if you don't understand the Jewish context of of the Old Testament and in the New Testament, all these powerful symbols just are completely lost on you.

Drago: Right. That's a great point. And even to highlight the decision for the individual listening to this, what what it imperative to say. In the old testament, Davidic king and then, you know, closely coupled with that is mother of the Davidic king. In the new testament, you would agree Jesus is the Davidic king.

He's the fulfillment. And now it's not it's not a stretch at all to say, well, what are the other attributes of Davidic king? One of those attributes is the king's mother, which is the queen. So either you see that and you say, wow. That is so rich.

Or you say, woah. Woah. Woah. You know, Jesus is the Davidic king, but let's not, you know, do these other attributes. Let's you know, I'm not gonna give him the attribute of having the mother queen.

What why? I mean, yeah. Yeah. In the old testament, there was the mother queen of the Davidic king, but why should I carry that forward into the new testament? And this goes back to, what we were saying earlier is if you don't wanna see the similarity, no one's gonna force you to see that.

It it's a pattern recognition. But if you want to reject the pattern and and refuse to see it, well, you know, that that's that's gonna be your prerogative, but the pattern is there to connect those dots.

Shannon: Yeah. Protestants don't like the title. When we start talking about Mary as the queen of heaven, she's known as the queen of apostles, the queen of confessors, the queen of martyrs, the queen of patriarchs, Queen of Virgins, that that title does have a is a challenging one. But I'm a Protestant convert, Drago, you are too. That was that was a stumbling block for me before I became Catholic.

How did you sort of get past that?

Drago: Yeah. Even when I became Catholic, I'll I'll be honest. You know, I did not I I I did remain cautious and and stayed away from the Mary stuff for at least a couple years. I think one thing that helped me was when I read the My Heart Will Triumph, the the, autobiography or biography of Mariana Soldo with. And and I know people have different views on that.

But, yeah, I it's just it I think, emotionally, it takes time to understand that Mary doesn't take any glory for herself. That it's not like if I direct my intentions towards her, she sucks it in some vacuum and and somehow Jesus is robbed on the side cold, you know, left alone and and because somehow Mary is stealing the spotlight. This is not how it works. It's everything that Mary receives, she gives to Christ and and and and and it's such a richer experience to see Christ everywhere. You know?

Yes. Christ is in Christ. I I can have an image of Jesus Christ, and that's Jesus Christ, obviously. But Christ is also in Mary. I can see Christ in the saints.

You know? I I I I I posted something the other week where when you look at the, great artworks, right, you know, Mona Lisa, the the statue David, when you appreciate those, you really look at the artist behind them. And so, once I finally understood that, it just made complete sense. You know, you could just see Christ everywhere. And, the the the world and the treasures of the faith just completely open up.

You know, the the gates just get open and the floods come in.

Shannon: That was another fantastic thread you you did. I encourage everybody to be following Drago as well as Imperator and our friend Lucas who's joined the panel. Hey, man. What's up?

Lucas: Hey. How are you doing?

Shannon: Good.

Lucas: Good. No. Yeah. I I I thought what, what Drago was saying about my Mary and pointing to Christ. You know, because Barry, I yeah.

As you mentioned, I'm, convert as well. Well, but hopefully later this month, you guys came in your prayers.

Shannon: Meaning meaning you have you you've yet to be you're gonna be confirmed this month. Right?

Lucas: That's the goal. Yep. Wonderful. Yeah. Yeah.

So for me, it was faith alone, right, that made me realize that Protestantism wasn't, viable. And Mary was a huge stumbling block to me. I think other people have shared that as well. And, you know, I'm I'm ashamed to admit this, but I just I think maybe maybe it would help other people. But I I didn't, I wasn't one of those protestants that would, like, denigrate Mary, and I know we've all seen those type of posts on Twitter.

I thought that was kind of just obnoxious, but I also didn't really think much of her. She was just kind of the the birthing vessel. She was a vehicle for the Messiah, and she wasn't much more. She, you know, she's just some, just some girl in in in first century Palestine that god, randomly chooses to to bring about this great miracle of the incarnation. But that's really all she does for for Protestants generally.

So as I was discerning, you know, trying to reevaluate these Marian dogmas and different things like that, this, Marenite deacon, gave me a paper he wrote on Saint Ephraim the Syrian. Saint Ephraim, fourth century theologian, who was very familiar with, you know, he he grew he was living in a what what after the fall of Jerusalem became sort of the pinnacle center of of the world, Middle East. So he was very familiar with these typologies and everything. And what he wrote a series of hymns from Mary's perspective. Now, you know, I I don't think he claimed that the this came from Mary or whatever, but just it's it was kind of, this experiment to, like, considering the gospel from her perspective.

And that just completely changed everything for me. Mary, like so it's like as an example, in one of the hymns, she Mary is, singing to baby Jesus and is like, you know, I'm I'm giving you sustenance. I'm nursing you, but it is actually you that sustains me. You are the sustenance of the world, and I have the privilege of nursing you. And it's just like and all this I read that line and it just everything kind of fell into place.

Like, she knew before anybody else who Jesus was, which then when I read John two, the wedding of Cana, that became the oh, man. So, like, so I I I know because so Mary goes to Jesus all the route of wine. Jesus says, you know, woman, it's not my time. And what's so interesting is she and I never noticed this before. She doesn't argue with Jesus.

She doesn't say, oh, come on. Like, she she doesn't he rebuffs her, tells her no. She turns to the servants and says, do whatever he tells you. So she she doesn't accept Jesus' response. It is just like I just you know, I know my son's gonna do this.

Just just do what he tells you. Which just, you know, because she because, again, she knew who he was, like, and knew and knew how to intercede for us even at that stage and and not, like, not accepting those, like, oh, man, was it like so instead of her just being a a birthing vessel or just some other random woman from that time period, now she's she for me, she's like she's like the real first theologian. Right? She understood what all the prophets and kings before her were looking forward to the incarnation, but not quite understanding how this was all gonna play out. And everybody after her looking to her and Jesus to learn the incarnate.

She she's at the pinnacle of understanding salvation, understanding the incarnate incarnation, everything. She's so far from me being this, you know, like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm just I'm smarter than than no. Actually, she's you know, I'm never gonna reach her level of of understanding our lord, and just it sure her which she so it was it was through, saying Ephraim, the Syrian, but yeah. Just and just really met. And it's like, oh, yeah.

No. The the Marian dogmas that the Catholic church promotes really helps you understand all oh, and and fills in so many gaps. Yes. I don't want it rainable, but, yeah, that it's it's it's become very important to me. Where whereas it was a roadblock, it they've become very important to me now.

Shannon: Amazing. Imperator.

Imperator: What you said was absolutely correct because people don't real everyone has this false preconception that, you know, everyone in the ancient world was illiterate and no one knew what they were doing. And then, you know, one of the things that I absolutely love the show chosen. I never thought I would love it, but I absolutely love it. Especially after Passion of the Christ, you kinda say in your head, you know, I can't picture, you know, Jesus is anyone else but Jim Caviezel, but it's a fantastic show. The only problem I have with that show is that they kinda make out like Mary has no idea what's going on.

She's kinda like, oh, Jesus. What are you doing? You know? As you said, Lucas, and God bless you for, you know, joining the church and everything. Welcome.

Mary understood all of this. Mary grew up in the temple. She was a temple virgin. All the all the Jews of the times, they memorize sacred scripture. They could read the Psalms and say the Psalms, you know, from the top of their head.

They learn it, verbatim. So to to consider or to think that they didn't know what they were talking about, they absolutely know. So that's why even when, you know, when you read the gospel and and, you know, and Jesus is up on the cross and he has, he says, my lord, my, my god, my god, why have you forsaken me? It's we read that and we go, oh, okay. Jesus just said this random word or this random phrase.

But what he is actually doing is he's he's reciting the Psalms in Hebrew, and that's why the the Pharisees didn't realize it at the time. And then they it clicks in the hand. They're like, oh my goodness. We just killed the Messiah. Because in saying those first few lines, what the what the writer is actually saying, which is Matthew and John, they're actually saying that Jesus is now basically saying the Psalm because they could recite them by heart.

So it's kinda like I know most of you guys are Americans. It's kinda like me if I said, before George watch I know this isn't historically accurate, but, like, before George Washington laid down his life, he said, oh, say can you see? Like and and then you go dot dot dot. Like, obviously, he's singing the star spangled banner. Like, obviously, I know he didn't sing that, but anyone who's American would be like, oh, yeah.

That makes sense. I get the reference. He's singing that song. So when you, when when in the New Testament, there's these references to the Psalms, the the author isn't gonna write the whole Psalm. He just writes the first few lines, and then he puts it on the audience to then go, oh, yeah.

I know what you're saying. You're saying Psalm 53. Because all of the Israelites were expected to be able to recite the Psalms by by heart. That's why we say a 50 hail Marys, in a rosary. When you say a full rosary, there's a 50 Psalms because during the middle ages, a lot of people, you know, couldn't read and couldn't say the Psalms.

So we, it was replaced by the hail Marys. So the the direct correlation between the Psalms and the hail Marys because all the Israelites could say the Psalms. So to think that Mary, a temple virgin who also has these, you know, almost supernatural attributes because she doesn't have original sin, to think that she doesn't understand the Psalms and doesn't understand what's going on around her, in my opinion, is a very, you know, I don't wanna say ignorant, but it's a very misinformed position. She absolutely knew. Again, like Lucas said, she didn't know the particulars, you know, like, that, you know, maybe god will be incarnate and he'll you know, he didn't know she didn't know the absolute specifics, but she knew.

Okay? She absolutely knew.

Shannon: If you're just joining us, welcome. We're talking about Mary as the new arc of the covenant. I encourage you to repost the space. Okay, Drago. We've heard from Lucas and some great follow-up from Imperatora come back.

Circle back around to you on this this whole idea of people seeing Mary as queen and the new arc of the covenant.

Drago: Yeah. I mean, some really excellent contributions, with both Lucas and Imperator. I, yeah, I like that. I like this, my god, my god, why have you forsaken me, comparison to, oh, say, can you see? So every I think every time I'm gonna read that passage in the gospel, I'm forever gonna be thinking of George Washington.

So thank you, Imperator, for that. So, yeah. And then and then Lucas, right, with the the wedding at Cana, you have, even when Jesus called her woman, as a Protestant, I'm like, oh, cool. Like, I don't know. They told me, like, Jesus is disrespecting his mom, like, putting her in her place or or something.

Right? Like, I I don't really know what I was thinking. But, you know, I think, this is established as woman as, like, you are the type you know, typological woman. You are the new woman. You are the new Eve.

And and that's that's a separate thing. I know we're talking about the new arc, but, of course, there is Mary as the new Eve. Now, yeah, I look. I I get it. I I understand that from a Protestant perspective, they're, it's easy to misinterpret what's happening with Catholics and thinking that Catholics are seeing in Mary some sort of ontological attributes intrinsic to her that are separate and and removed from God.

As if there's this human walking around, and then God saw her and, like, wow. What an awesome human. Let me let me choose her. And because she's so awesome, which that is not the Catholic theology, obviously, because, you know, even from the very beginning, the birth of Mary, it is God who prepared her and granted her, you know, the freedom from original sin. That is not something Mary earned.

That is not something, you know, it's entirely God's gift and God's grace. It always is. It's always God's grace, grace of Christ. So, you know, I just yeah. Again, when we when when we look at Mary, we look at the work the workmanship of God.

We look at wow. Like, look at look at what God did in in this woman in a way that no other human has experienced. Like, no other human has had that level of intimacy with Jesus Christ. There is no way any one of us here, as close as we might be with Christ, there's just absolutely no way we can ever claim to say that we we have a closer relationship with Christ than than than Mary did with them and does. So, that's not like, by saying, wow.

What a relationship between Mary and Christ. That's not an idolatry. That's not taking away from God. It's to God's glory. It's to see, wow.

Look at look at what's possible. Look at what sanctification looks like. Look at what saying yes to the Lord looks like courageously, compassionately. And, and so, you know, it's, yeah, I for anyone here who's not a Catholic, I just encourage you to consider what we're saying.

Shannon: Also, for anyone that's not Catholic, we're doing something every weekday morning at eight this week called rosary for newbies, where we're kind of explaining step by step what the rosary is. And we were talking earlier, I think Drago mentioned it too that the the extra time maybe it takes for Protestants to get there on the Marian dogmas versus some of the other teachings of the church. I became Catholic in 02/2009. Guess when I kinda started doing the rosary? About a year and a half ago.

So it took took me a lot longer than than these other guys. So they're they're smarter than me but, and now because I I really did sort of think that, you know, that it was too far. And and so my approach was this is a private revelation, but but it is confirmed by the church, but it's it's not a dogma. You don't have to pray the rosary if you're Catholic, but what tremendous treasures in your life if you do. And so that's what we're doing, rosary for newbies.

God has a sense of humor because it took me so long. Now I'm posting a rosary every weekday morning. Alright. We're coming close to the end of our time. The as I mentioned at the beginning, this this was a kind of an impromptu space.

We just decided to do it actually a couple of hours ago, but Drago, gonna kinda kinda wind it down. Do you wanna sort of, put the flaps down and and put your tray table up and take us in?

Drago: Yeah. I mean, look, praise God for, the work he's doing in us, and what a mystery for, cooperating in in the grace of god and in the life of Christ. And so that's what this is all about. That's what this is all about. And looking at Mary is just looking at cooperation, which god enables through the infused virtue of faith.

And so, you know, I I will I do wanna plug, since I'm working on holy habits, if you wanna cooperate with God's grace better, you can get daily text reminders for whatever habits that you're working on and and and things that, you might be keeping track of. But, no. I appreciate you tuning in. I appreciate, our friends here in Peritor, Lucas, coming up and some of you in the audience as well. And, Shane, and, yeah, thanks for co hosting this with me.

Shannon: Around the horn, really quickly, final comments, Imperator.

Imperator: I would say that, even on x, I I've I've I've made a post a few times when I was talking about, you know, for example, Protestantism and things like that, and people took, like, a lot of offense to that. And it wasn't an attack on individual people. The only reason why I get, I guess, defensive is, as Drago mentioned is, I I'm all for people having, you know, different Christians, having different beliefs, etcetera, Eastern Orthodox Anglicans, Calvinist, Catholic, whatever. The one thing that I do find very strange is when you have this almost, like, militant attack against the blessed virgin Mary. I just I don't understand where that mindset comes from.

You you know, I don't I'm not espousing this belief, but if you wanna say, like, you know, for example, you know, the pope is corrupt or bishops are corrupt or the catholic church did x y and z in the middle of your age. Okay. Whatever. Like, that's there is some sort of, like, legitimacy to those claims, but to just go start attacking the blessed Virgin Mary, like, I don't understand what would possess someone to say that. Well, I do understand what it is, but you know what I'm saying?

I I don't understand that. And the one thing I would say to American audiences is you gotta understand that there is sort of like almost a historical bias against Catholicism deeply entrenched within American, you know, Protestant culture. And that's not an attack against Protestants. It's just addressing the fact that that is a historical sort of, you know, rivalry or, you know, conflict that's been there. So a lot of Americans tend to see Catholicism as, like, an existential threat and almost like a cultural threat against them.

Like, to be American means you can't be Catholic because, like, that's that's a Spanish thing or that's that's a colonial thing or, you know, to be to be Catholic is to be, disloyal to America. Like, you can be both Catholic and American. Like, there's no there's no, they're not mutually exclusive. So I I find, like, that's the only thing that I see on x that's a bit strange is that sort of, like, anti Mary, anti Catholic sort of rhetoric from Protestant Americans. And again, I'm not attacking Protestant Americans.

I love you guys. My audience is Protestant Christian, and I love you guys. And I pray that one day our churches will be reunited, but this is one thing I just don't understand. Perhaps you guys being American will be able to, you know, give me some more insight as to why that's the case.

Shannon: Yeah. In in territory, by the way, I love it when you do those those questions where you say, I'm Catholic, ask me anything. If you if you do that again, let us know. If you go down and read a lot of questions from Protestants, a lot of people learn a lot of things. Just as a Protestant growing up in the American South, of course, you know, Catholics settled some parts of America, California, Florida, Louisiana, but the original, colonies from Britain, of course, all English.

My home state is the state of Georgia, which is right above Florida from a city, a very beautiful city, called Savannah. It was illegal to be Catholic in the colony of Georgia under the days of James Edward Oglethorpe, who's the the founder of, of that colony for for the British. And I just think a lot of Protestants, because again, the British came over, the, you know, the British colonists in what the seventeen hundreds, that's not that long after the the, you know, the protestant revolution. Right? So there's just from generations to generations 200 through 200 ago, Protestants have been taught by their pastors that the church is evil, and I think that's it's just kind of in the DNA.

It takes a lot of a lot of, I think gentleness and kindness and just sorta, you know, sorta like people like Drago. They're sorta like zen and chill. He can sort of explain it. He doesn't get, like, wrapped up like, you know, you have to do this rosary. You're a Protestant.

You have to accept this right now. It's it's a journey for some people, and some people it takes longer, and we shouldn't, you know, criticize people that they're not quite where we are we are yet. Lucas, final thought.

Lucas: Yeah. I was I I would just echo what you said. I think in in response to Imperium's question, well, you know, what's what's ironic so I I come from, my my my, Protestant faith tradition is is Calvinism, which traces itself to American Puritanism, the English Puritans, the Westminster Confession of Faith of the 1600s, right? So they had they felt that the Anglicans didn't do enough from breaking away with the Catholic church, and they were still too, Popish like, the the the reason they were called Puritan is because they needed to get to the pure essence of scripture alone and gospel alone and everything. So it was their responsibility to revive the ancient pure way that had been adulterated by Rome or whatever.

So there is a deep so I think, especially in that tradition, a deep aversion to organized religion and organized Christianity because the Puritans were heavily persecuted, of course, by the by the Anglican British, and that's why they came to settle in America. So, yeah, it's there's if you consider Catholicism, yeah, there I think that is something that people have to consider is this sense of betrayal that comes from us. Like, well, your ancestors, you know, went across the ocean blue to get away from this, organized corrupt institution, and you're just gonna you're gonna you're gonna go back and abandon everything that we fought for. So, yeah, I I do I do think there's something to that. Yeah.

Everyone's gotta deal with it in their own way.

Shannon: Yeah. And and just a thought, Protestants who are criticizing this, you know, are, you know, are there some bad faith ones, of course, but they think they're defending God. They think they're they're doing the right thing. It's just there's a they haven't been taught that. Right?

They haven't been taught that. In fact, they've been taught that this they've been taught Catholics worship Mary instead of Jesus. And so that's that's their mindset. They had sort of a natural, you know, reaction to wanna defend Jesus. That's a good thing.

But again, it's just about learning. So, Lucas, we are in the final seconds, but go ahead. Twenty seconds.

Lucas: So, yeah. Sorry. The other thing too is there's a lot of Catholics who left the Catholic faith, so there's the anti Catholic Catholic. You know, my mother, born and raised, confirmed Catholic church and abandoned it when she felt that she had found a more, real relationship with Jesus in a Protestant setting. So, that man, what what I have to talk about that sometime.

I'm sure people have their stories. Like, I had a it was like a three hour argument argument with my mother over the claims of the Catholic church versus Protestants and everything. Like, it's so there's that element as well. You know, there's been a a group of people who have left the Catholic faith for a variety of reasons, and they espouse certain things. And they're like, well, I grew up in it.

So I can tell you from firsthand that, you know, I know and we've all seen the meme. But that's another thing too is there's a depend especially depending on the region of The United States. Yeah. I'm in the Upper Midwest, which is culturally Catholic. So there is a lot of that the anti Catholic Catholic that you have to grapple with as well.

Shannon: Yes. Sometimes the anti Catholic, former Catholic is is the most anti Catholic of all, but people are Catholic by their baptism. So they're actually still Catholic and they're one confession away from coming back to the one holy Catholic and apostolic church.