Mary, Mother of the Son, Volume II: First Guardian of the Faith

Mary, Mother of the Son #2

by Mark P. Shea

First Guardian of the Faith explains the biblical and apostolic roots of Mary s title as Theotokos, her Perpetual Virginity, Immaculate Conception, and Assumption into heaven.

Genres: Catholic, Theology, Religion

201 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Mark P. Shea is a popular Catholic writer and speaker. The author of numerous books, his most recent work is the Mary, Mother of the Son trilogy (Catholic Answers). Mark contributes numerous articles to many magazines, including his popular column “Connecting the Dots” for the National Catholic Register and his regular feature on InsideCatholic.com. Mark is known nationally for his one minute “Words of Encouragement” on Catholic radio. He also maintains the Catholic and Enjoying It blog. In addition, Mark is Senior Content Editor for CatholicExchange.com. He lives in Washington State with his wife, Janet, and their four sons.

Reviews

[Naomi Young]

In the previous volume of the trilogy Mary, Mother of the Son, Mark Shea addressed common Evangelical misconceptions about Mary's role in the church, and introduces the reader to the Catholic Church's understanding of sacred tradition and its modes of interpreting of Scripture.

In this volume, Shea takes on the four defined Marian dogmas. He explains clearly, simply, and with humor the antiquity and the foundation for these concepts. Where this book transcends other apologetic works about Mary Is the Way, Shea shows how each Marian dogma, properly understood, can guard us, as Catholics, from falling into common errors of our culture. Taking each of the dogmas in the order they were defined (although they were introduced much earlier as he is already shown). He demonstrates:

-That honoring Mary as the Theotokos can keep us from devaluing the material world or being caught in a too-literal dualism of flesh versus spirit.

-That the perpetual virginity of Mary underscores our inability to save ourselves and the value of both virginity and marriage.

-That the Immaculate Conception promotes human dignity, helping to defend us against materialism and social Darwinism.

-That the Assumption of Mary gives us a reason to look forward to a final destiny that is both tangible and positive.

If you can't quite make out how he gets from the dogma to these philosophical observations, you really owe it to yourself to read the book.

[Patrick Gruber]

Mark Shea's book on Mary is a welcome addition to the theological reflection's on Our Lady. This book covers four of the most basic dogmatic teachings of the Church on Mary, namely, Mary Mother of God, Her Perpetual Virginity, Her Immaculate Conception, and Her Assumption. It gives some explanation to the meaning of these dogma's and of the history behind them.


What makes this book really special, however, is how he shows, in a very unique and valuable way, how these Marian dogma's are important for us today.

With a very valuable overview of modern secular philosophy, he shows that Marian Dogma, particularly the immaculate conception and assumption run full force against the secular message the we are purposeless accidents of nature meant to indulge our carnal nature. Rather, in Mary, we see what humans truly are created to be, and what is truly natural, namely, to be totally devoted to God.

In addition, there is much in marian dogma to refute the subtle Gnosticism in many Christian Communities.

Excellent book. Great book if you have the question "What difference does Mary Make?"

[Jason Hall]

This is an excellent historical survey and common-sense explanation of the bases and importance of the four Marian dogmas. For non-Catholics, I would highly recommend reading Volume I: Modern Myths and Ancient Truth before reading this one. In Volume I, the foundation is laid for the arguments outlined in Volume II.

[Matthew]

Good explanation of what the catholic church actually believes about the Virgin Mary. By addressing the four essential teachings of the church re mary Shea does a fantastic job of clearing matters up for people like me who have a partial education, if any, on such thing.