My fundamentalist fallen away Catholic brother has been firing questions that I have difficulty responding to. 

He says that Catholics allege that Mary is the source of true holiness in the Catechism: #2030 says "…...from the church he (the believer) learns the example of holiness and recognizes its model and source in the all holy Virgin Mary."  But, Jesus said that those who hear the word of God are more blessed than Mary in Luke 11: 27-28. 

How can I respond?

Flummoxed in Fond du Lac

The problem here is that your brother has fallen in with people who don't read the Bible. They read verses from the Bible. They cannot see the forest for the trees. 

One of the great themes of the New Testament is adoption. I am destined to become part of the family which is God, the Trinity. This is what is meant by the Communion of Saints. 

Let us start with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. You know that Mary is not the first person, but the third person who was immaculately conceived. Adam and Eve were conceived without spot or stain of original sin, but they threw that precious grace away. Mary said yes and suffered heroically for it.

The first Christians understood that God was re-creating the world in Christ and thought of Mary as the new Eve through which a new world was born. They got all excited about her not because she was a goddess but because she was human. What she is, we can be - the human person that responds fully to the grace of God. "We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as he is." (1John 3:2) 

When I see God, I had better be all holy, too!  You and I will be if we correspond to the grace of God. You see she is first of His disciples, not the last.

The text to which you refer in the catechism doesn't say that Mary is the source of holiness, but that she is the source of the example of holiness. It may sound like I’m splitting hairs but I’m not.  Read paragraph 773 of the catechism which says that the Marian dimension of the church precedes the Petrine.  This is huge. It means that before there was a Peter there was Mary. 

Perhaps you remember the icon of our Lady of Perpetual Help. It shows the Blessed Mother holding the child Jesus whose sandal has slipped off. On either side there appear angels holding the instruments of crucifixion. This painting goes back to an early Christian story that Jesus had a vision as a little boy at play. He saw the angels holding the cross and nails and spear and, terrified, ran to his mother who picked Him up and held Him.. The look on her face is one of almost infinite compassion and infinite sadness. She cannot save her son from his destiny. She can only share it with him and console him.

There was a time when there was only one person in the church and that person was Mary. She was the first to accept Christ as her savior, she was faithful to him at the foot of the cross and she was filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. These things are all biblical truths. 

What the catechism means when it talks about the Petrine dimension of the church versus the Marian and that she is the all holy (immaculate) example of holiness is that if you want to know how to be the follower of Jesus, if you want to know how to be the church, don't look at Peter and the clergy. We are the weakest of men. Rather, look at Mary. 

When God looks at the church he doesn't see an organization. He sees a woman, a woman who was perfectly enfleshed by Mary of Nazareth, the first disciple of Jesus her son. We the clergy are a temporary arrangement, thank God. She, the church, the bride, the mother is forever because the family of God, the communion of saints, is forever.

Luke doesn't say that anyone is more blessed than Mary. He is saying that one is blessed not by a genetic connection to Jesus, but by being the faithful disciple. This verse is probably aimed at the relatives of Jesus who thought they should be running the church instead of the twelve. St. Paul refers to them as the "brothers of the Lord" in 1Cor. 5. The oldest tradition is that they were sons of Joseph, not of Mary. They thought they should be in charge. Who knows? 

Anyway, Jesus didn't disregard Mary. He loved and took care of her even from the cross when He asked John to take her home. Remember, all generations will call her blessed (Luke 1:48). 

Ask your brother when is the last time he called Mary blessed. The Bible says he's supposed to! 

I dare your brother to read Dr. Scott Hahn's book, Rome Sweet Home, and then his book, The Supper of the Lamb.  I double dare him!  I double-dog dare him!

Sincerely,

Rev. Know-It-All