By dennismary.slave@gmail.com DID YOU KNOW THAT:
1. Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist was called the cousin of Mary the Mother of Jesus by angel Gabriel (Luke 1:35) because Emerentia, the Mother of Elizabeth and Ismeria, the Mother of Anne (who was Virgin Mary’s Mother) were consanguineous sisters; (daughters of Stolanus and his wife Emorun).
2. St. Anne, the mother of Virgin Mary, had an elder sister called Sobe who married and gave birth to Mary Salome. Mary Salome married Zebedee and gave birth to James and John. So, James and John can be conveniently called the brothers of Jesus; because the grandmother of Jesus (Anne) and the grandmother of these two apostles (Sobe), were sisters: (daughters of Eliud and his wife Ismeria).
3. There are four other apostles of Jesus who were even more closely related to him than James and John mentioned above. These are: Mathew (the tax Collector), Judas Thaddeus also called Jude Thaddeus, Simon (the zealot), and James (the less) who resembled our Lord Jesus Christ so much that some thought that he was another Son of Virgin Mary, and he was often referred to as the
‘brother of the Lord.’ St. Paul called James the Lord’s brother in Galatians 1:19.
The relationship is as follows:
The mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Anne,
gave birth to a daughter called Mary ( through an earlier marriage to a man who later died) before she married St. Joachim. She became barren for nineteen years before she gave birth to the Blessed Virgin Mary after much praying for a second child.
This first Mary grew up and married a man called Cleophas and give birth to a daughter whom they also named Mary (The Jews like to repeat names in the family LUKE 1:61). This is why the Bible refers to Mary the wife of Cleophas as the sister of Mary in the following words: “Standing close to Jesus’ cross were his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene”-John 19:25. Seeing the only Son of her sibling the Virgin Mary in such a terrible situation, Mary Cleophas had to stay close to her, consoling her all through that journey to Calvary.
This younger Mary Cleophas was the wife of a man
called Alpheus with whom she gave birth to St. Jude Thaddeus, Joseph, St. Simon (zealot) and St. James (the less.). Alphaeus married Mary Cleophas after the death of his first wife through whom St. Mathew was born. So Mathew was a stepbrother to these three apostles who with Jesus had the same woman (St. Anne) as their grandmother. It is common with the Jews as it is with the Ibos of Nigeria to refer to all these people as ‘brothers’ of Jesus, as if Mary had other children (Mark6:3).
For the benefit of those who conclude that because the Bible calls James, Joseph, Simon and Judas “the brothers of Jesus”, Mary must therefore be the mother of these men, let them note the following:- throughout the whole scriptures, (from Genesis to Revelation),there are only three men with
the name JAMES: One James is said to be the Son of Zebedee whose brother is John, (Mathew 10:2). The other James is said to be the son of Alphaeus (Mathew.10:3). The third James is said to be the father of Jude (full name is Judas, not Judas Iscariot), Luke 6:16.
There is however another James in the family of Joseph about whom some people are confused or not even aware of. He is a son born to Joseph by his late wife before he got married to the Virgin Mary and who is very much older than Jesus. This is why Joseph is known to be very much older than Mary when he married the Blessed Virgin, and almost old enough to be her father. Mary was only14 years old when she got married to Joseph.
Zebedee’s wife is Mary Salome, and the wife of
Alphaeus is Mary Cleophas. Everyone knows that Virgin Mary married St. Joseph and not Zebedee or Alphaeus. So how could she then be the mother of any of the three James, since the Bible has clearly told us who the parents of these three persons are; or is there another James anywhere in the entire Bible? Certainly not.
Furthermore, the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary which is the gate through which Jesus our God passed to enter this world was specially prepared and made holy for the use of the Holy of Holies Himself when He created her ‘Full of Grace’ (Luke 1:28), and so freed her from every sin, including the Original Sin of Adam and Eve (Immaculate Conception)
It is therefore unthinkable that God, who says He
tolerates no rivals (Deuteronomy. 5:9) did elevate and allow any human being to share this holy womb with Him. And He revealed and authenticated this fact in Ezekiel
44:2 where the Bible states: “This gate will stay closed and will never be opened. No human being is allowed to use it, because I, the Lord God of Israel, have entered through it. It is to remain closed”. And so, that gate (the womb of Mary) remained closed and never gave birth to any other human being after Jesus the Lord God of Israel had entered through it to arrive into the World to redeem us.
In fact, to think or believe that any person shared the same womb with God and sucked the same breast
with Him is like believing that someone can walk up to God’s throne in heaven and sit on it for a while, thus sharing the same throne with God, for Mary’s womb is the new “Ark of Covenant”, as she is rightly called by the Church in the ‘Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary’ prayer. Even here on earth, can anyone (no matter how close to him) ever go to sit on the official chair of the president of your country, even for one second? How then can anyone ever think or imagine that any created person can be elevated to the level of sharing this holy womb with our God, the Lord Jesus Christ? Here again is the warning of God in His own words: BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD, A JEALOUS GOD AND I TOLERATE NO RIVALS (Psalm 46:10; Exodus 20:5; Nahum 1:2)