← LineageFeast Day for · Thursday, 15 August 2024

Mary, mother of Jesus

c. -10* – c. 50 · Nazareth

Also known as Theotokos · Miriam

Feast: 15 August

Mary, mother of Jesus
via Wikipedia

Mother of Jesus of Nazareth. Present at the crucifixion and entrusted to the disciple John; numbered among the disciples gathered before Pentecost.

Mary is the first disciple. She said yes before anyone else, watched her son die, and was still in the upper room at Pentecost when the church started. Luke clearly got his infancy material from her or someone close to her — those chapters read like family memory. The later church spent centuries arguing about her titles (Theotokos, ever-virgin, immaculate) and those arguments were never really about her — they were about Christ. If Jesus is fully God and fully man from conception, then his mother carries God in her womb, and the church had to find language for that. The Magnificat is also the most politically radical hymn in scripture.

Primary sources

  • ·Gospel of Luke 1-2
  • ·Gospel of John 19:25-27
  • ·Acts of the Apostles 1:14
Cover of On Wealth and Poverty by John Chrysostom
Daily reading

Book of the day

On Wealth and Poverty

John Chrysostom

A reading pick tied to today's figure, quote, era, or event. A direct, uncomfortable introduction to Chrysostom's preaching and social critique.

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Today: Mary, mother of Jesus — Patristic Lineage