Who was Mary, the mother of Jesus?
Short answer
Mary was the Jewish woman from Nazareth who, according to the Gospels, conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit and accepted the angel’s announcement. She appears at the birth, at Cana, at the foot of the cross, and among those praying after the ascension. Christian traditions honour Mary in different ways.
- Written by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 6 min read
Mary appears in few scenes, and each one is short. Taken together they occupy far less room than popular imagination supposes — and that holds both for someone raised praying the rosary and for someone raised hearing that she gets talked about too much. What the Gospels give is concentrated: the angel’s announcement at Nazareth, the song at Elizabeth’s house, the birth, Simeon’s warning in the Temple, one episode from the childhood of Jesus, the wedding at Cana, the cross, and the group at prayer after the ascension.
The first scene already brings a question rather than an automatic acceptance. Faced with the announcement, Mary asks how such a thing would come about, and only then answers. Her answer is not enthusiasm: it is consent, given by someone who has just been told her life will leave its expected track. The accounts do not hide the cost — shortly after, in the Temple, Simeon announces to her a sword that will pierce her own soul.
The longest text placed on Mary’s lips is the song known as the Magnificat, and it tends to surprise anyone who only knows it by ear. It is not a lullaby. It is a poem about reversal: the powerful brought down from thrones, the hungry filled, the lowly lifted up. Anyone reading it expecting sweetness finds the politics of God instead, in the vocabulary of the prophets of Israel.
After that, Mary appears at the three moments Christians consider decisive. At Cana, it is she who notices the shortage and instructs the servants to do whatever he tells them — her last recorded words in the whole New Testament. At the cross, she is among the few who did not run, and Jesus entrusts her to a disciple. In Acts, she is in the group praying before Pentecost, that is, inside the first Christian community rather than on its margin.
It is from here that the traditions part, and the parting is real. Three points hold most of the distance: whether Mary remained a virgin after the birth of Jesus, who the people the Gospels call his brothers are, and whether it is right to address a request for prayer to her. This page decides none of the three. It sets out what each tradition holds and which text it rests on, and the note below does that side by side.
What the passages say
30And the Angel said to her: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found grace with God.
31Behold, you shall conceive in your womb, and you shall bear a son, and you shall call his name: JESUS.
32He will be great, and he will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father. And he will reign in the house of Jacob for eternity.
33And his kingdom shall have no end.”
34Then Mary said to the Angel, “How shall this be done, since I do not know man?”
35And in response, the Angel said to her: “The Holy Spirit will pass over you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And because of this also, the Holy One who will be born of you shall be called the Son of God.
The annunciation, with Mary’s question in the middle. Note the structure: the angel says what will happen, she asks for an explanation, and only then receives the answer about the Holy Spirit. The text gives her room not to understand before accepting.
38Then Mary said: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word.” And the Angel departed from her.
The consent, in one sentence. It is the verse both traditions cite with equal weight, even though they draw different conclusions from it — Catholics as a model of cooperation with grace, Protestants as a model of the obedience of faith.
46And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord.
47And my spirit leaps for joy in God my Savior.
48For he has looked with favor on the humility of his handmaid. For behold, from this time, all generations shall call me blessed.
49For he who is great has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
The opening of the Magnificat. The line about the generations that will call her blessed is on Mary’s own lips, which usually repositions the discussion: it is not a title the Church invented later, it is an expectation recorded inside the text.
3And when the wine was failing, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
4And Jesus said to her: “What is that to me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet arrived.”
5His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Cana. Mary notes the shortage, Jesus answers with a reservation about his hour, and she instructs the servants anyway. Her last words in the New Testament point to him rather than to herself — a detail both traditions tend to underline, for different reasons.
26Therefore, when Jesus had seen his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son.”
27Next, he said to the disciple, “Behold your mother.” And from that hour, the disciple accepted her as his own.
The scene at the cross, and one of the most disputed texts on this page. Catholics read in the gesture a provision that would only make sense if Mary had no other children; Protestants read a son arranging support for his mother in an extreme circumstance.
14All these were persevering with one accord in prayer with the women, and with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.
Mary’s last appearance in the Bible: at prayer, in the middle of the community, before Pentecost. The same verse mentions the brothers of Jesus present there, which places it at the centre of the disagreement about who they were.
3“Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joseph, and Jude, and Simon? Are not his sisters also here with us?” And they took great offense at him.
The verse the question about the brothers of Jesus always reaches. It names four men and mentions sisters, and it is over the reach of that word — close kin, or brothers in the ordinary sense — that the traditions differ. The note below sets out both readings.