# Mary: The Most Misunderstood Woman in History

An episode of [AfterMass](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1823710125), 9 Sep 2025, 17 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/1069762b8/podcast/play/107980751/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-8-7%2F407076454-44100-2-388a008261b89.mp3

Mary, the Mother of God, has been called the most misunderstood woman in history. Some see her as the greatest disciple of Christ, others accuse Catholics of worshiping her and many reduce her role to being “just a womb.” But if we want to truly understand Jesus, we have to understand Mary. In this episode, we dive into why God chose Mary, the biblical and historical truths about her role in salvation, and why devotion to her always leads us closer to Christ. Sponsored by Truthly - a Catholic AI app built to help you grow in knowledge and faith with tools you can trust. Try it for free here bit.ly/anaXtruthly and use code AFTERMASS for a free month! Have questions, topic requests, or something you’d like to share? Email me at anamunleycontact@gmail.com If this episode encouraged you, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share so others can discover the truth about Mary and grow deeper in their faith.

## Transcript

[0:00] Welcome back to Aftermath, the podcast for Catholics who want
[0:03] more than just faith on Sundays. I'm your host, Anna, and today
[0:06] we're talking about the most misunderstood woman in history,
[0:10] Mary, the Mother of God. Now, when I say the most
[0:19] misunderstood, oh, I mean it. If you think about it, there has
[0:24] been no woman in history that has been the subject of more
[0:27] debate, more confusion, more misconceptions, and more love
[0:31] than Mary. Some people put her on a
[0:34] pedestal in the right way as the greatest disciple of Christ, and
[0:38] others accuse Catholics of worshipping her.
[0:41] And yet still others treat her like she's a side character in
[0:46] salvation history, just a womb that God borrowed for nine
[0:50] months before moving on. But if we want to understand
[0:53] Jesus, we have to understand Mary.
[0:55] Because God could have saved the world in any single way that he
[0:59] wanted. He could have sent Christ as a
[1:01] full grown man. He could have bypassed humanity
[1:04] altogether. But he didn't.
[1:05] He chose to involve Mary. And when if I chooses to do
[1:09] something, it is never by accident.
[1:11] So today we're going to look at Mary not through the lens of
[1:14] cultural misunderstanding or personal bias, but through
[1:18] scripture, tradition, and the eyes of the Church.
[1:21] And I'm going to start with the most common objection that
[1:24] people bring up, because one of the most repeated lines I hear,
[1:27] if I had a dollar for every time I heard this, is that Catholics
[1:30] worship Mary. And if you've ever talked to a
[1:32] Protestant friend, or even if you yourself grew up outside of
[1:35] Catholicism, you know that this is usually the first push back.
[1:39] And when you think about it, I do get it.
[1:42] Because when you walk into a Catholic Church, you see candles
[1:45] lit before statues of Mary. You see rosaries in people's
[1:49] hands. I mean, I have a rosary right
[1:51] here. You know, you see feast days
[1:53] that are dedicated just to her, and you hear hymns sung in her
[1:57] honor. So to someone who doesn't know
[1:59] the difference between worship and veneration, it can look like
[2:03] idolatry. But Catholics do not worship
[2:06] Mary. We never have and we never will.
[2:09] Worship, like true worship, the kind that belongs to God alone,
[2:15] is called latria, and that word means adoration.
[2:18] It means sacrifice. It's what happens when we stand
[2:21] before the Eucharist at Mass recognizing that Jesus is fully
[2:26] God and fully man. He is alone worthy of our praise
[2:30] that belongs to the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
[2:34] Then we have Dhulia, which is the honor and respect that we
[2:37] give to Saints. You can think about it like the
[2:40] way that we honor heroes or role models, except this is on a
[2:44] spiritual level. We recognize their holiness, we
[2:48] recognize their example, and we ask for their prayers.
[2:52] But Mary, she is in a category that's all on her own, and the
[2:55] church calls it hyperdulia. It's not worship, but it's more
[3:00] than ordinary honor because no one else has ever been able to
[3:04] do what she did, and no one else has ever been what she is, which
[3:08] is the Mother of God. She's the only human being in
[3:11] the history of the world that gave flesh to the eternal Word
[3:14] of God, who carried in her womb the one who created her.
[3:18] And because of that, she's set apart.
[3:21] And Scripture doesn't just support this, it commands it.
[3:24] And Luke, Mary herself, she says all generations will call me
[3:28] blessed. And she doesn't say some
[3:30] generations. She doesn't say only Catholics.
[3:33] She says all generations. So honoring Mary is not this
[3:37] Catholic invention. It's not man made.
[3:39] It is biblical. When we honor Mary, we are not
[3:43] stealing glory from God. We are simply magnifying it.
[3:47] You know, if a masterpiece reveals the genius of the
[3:49] artist, then Mary reveals the genius of God's plan.
[3:53] When we say, Mary, you are blessed, what we're saying is
[3:57] God, you did something incredible through her.
[4:01] So the accusation that Catholics worship Mary blinds people to
[4:05] the beauty of God's plan. If you want to see Jesus
[4:08] clearly, look at how God prepared his coming.
[4:12] That preparation starts long before Nazareth in the Old
[4:16] Testament. And one of the biggest mistakes
[4:18] that people make when they think about Mary is that they only
[4:22] look at her in the New Testament.
[4:24] They'll read the Gospels, they'll see the Annunciation and
[4:27] Bethlehem and Cana and the cross, and then assume that she
[4:31] kind of just fades out of the story.
[4:33] Well, Mary isn't only in the New Testament.
[4:35] She's prefigured throughout the Old.
[4:38] And once you see the pattern, the new makes even more sense.
[4:42] The clearest example is the Ark of the Covenant.
[4:45] If you grew up with a little bit of Bible knowledge, or maybe
[4:48] just you watched Indiana Jones, you know that the Ark was the
[4:54] most sacred object in Israel's history.
[4:56] It was the gold covered chest that carried 3 things.
[5:00] The first one was the tablets of the 10 commandments, so God's
[5:03] word. The second is the manna that fed
[5:06] Israel in the desert, so the bread from heaven.
[5:08] And the third is Aaron's priestly staff that signified
[5:12] God's chosen priesthood. So the ark wasn't just a box.
[5:16] It was considered the holiest object on earth because it
[5:20] carried God's presence in a very unique way.
[5:23] Wherever the ark went, God's glory went with it.
[5:26] And the Israelites bowed down before it, not because they were
[5:29] worshipping wood and gold, but because the ark pointed to the
[5:33] God who made his dwelling there. Now if you Fast forward to the
[5:37] New Testament, who does Mary carry in her womb?
[5:40] Jesus, the word of God made flesh, the true bread from
[5:44] heaven and the eternal high priest.
[5:47] Everything the ark symbolized in the Old Testament is fulfilled
[5:51] in Mary. If you look at Luke and compare
[5:54] it to Second Samuel when the ark was brought to Jerusalem, David
[5:59] leapt before it, saying how can the ark of the Lord come to me?
[6:03] And then in Luke, when Mary visits Elizabeth, John the
[6:07] Baptist leaps in his mother's womb and Elizabeth cries out,
[6:11] Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
[6:15] None of that stuff is coincidence.
[6:16] That's the Holy Spirit pointing us back to the Ark.
[6:20] And it goes deeper. The Ark stayed in the House of
[6:22] Obed Edom for three months, and it brought blessings to his
[6:26] house. Mary stays with Elizabeth for
[6:28] three months, and Elizabeth's house is filled with joy and
[6:32] blessing. And then we can go to
[6:34] Revelation, where John sees the Temple of God opened, the Ark of
[6:39] the Covenant revealed, and immediately afterward a woman
[6:44] clothed with the sun, crowned with 12 stars, giving birth to a
[6:48] child who will rule the nations. The ark and the woman are shown
[6:53] together because the ark has always pointed to Mary.
[6:56] Mary is not this add on. From the beginning, God prepared
[7:00] his people to recognize her role.
[7:02] The Ark of the Old Covenant carried signs of God's presence,
[7:06] and Mary carried God himself. And that brings us to another
[7:09] title that Scripture and the church give Mary, probably the
[7:13] most controversial one, which is Queen of Heaven.
[7:16] So to modern ears, Queen of Heaven can sound blasphemous or
[7:20] even Pagan. But the problem isn't with the
[7:23] title, it's with how we understand royalty today.
[7:27] In modern monarchies, the queen is the King's wife.
[7:31] But in Israel, the king usually had many wives.
[7:34] So the queen was always the King's mother, the great lady.
[7:38] She wasn't a ceremonial figure. She held dignity, authority, and
[7:43] an intercessory role in kings with Bathsheba, who was
[7:47] Solomon's mother. She approaches the king and
[7:51] Solomon rises. He bows before her, and he
[7:54] places a throne at his right hand.
[7:57] The people brought petitions through her to the king.
[8:00] Now, if you Fast forward to the New Testament, Jesus is the son
[8:04] of David, the eternal King of kings.
[8:07] So if he is king and Mary is Queen Mother.
[8:10] So by biblical definition that's her role and scripture confirms
[8:15] it. In Luke, Gabriel says Mary's son
[8:18] will sit on the throne of David. If Christ fulfills David's
[8:23] kingship, Mary fulfills the role of great lady.
[8:28] In Revelation, John sees a crowned woman opposed by the
[8:32] dragon that is Queen Lee imagery.
[8:35] And you know it wouldn't be an episode if I don't mention the
[8:38] Fathers of the Church. They spoke this way long before
[8:42] rosaries or feast days. St.
[8:44] Ephraim in the 4th century called her Lady and Queen of all
[8:47] creation. Saint Jerome called her the
[8:49] glorious Queen of Heaven. Like hello.
[8:53] When she became the mother of the Creator, she truly became
[8:56] Queen of every creature. And the Catechism affirms the
[9:01] same thing. So when people say Catholics
[9:03] made Mary into a queen, the reality is simple.
[9:08] If Jesus is truly king, then his mother is the Queen Mother.
[9:12] Not Catholic convention, just biblical logic.
[9:17] A Queen Mother in Israel was an advocate the people approached
[9:20] with their petitions. That's why Catholics asked Mary
[9:23] to intercede. Not because she's equal to
[9:26] Jesus, but because this is how God structured his Kingdom.
[9:30] Mary at her sons right hand still intercedes today.
[9:34] But Mary's rule doesn't stop with titles.
[9:37] What makes Mary unique is that she lived this role in salvation
[9:41] history itself. At the Annunciation, Gabriel
[9:45] announces, You will conceive and bear a son, and he will be
[9:48] called the Son of the Most High. And Mary answered, Let it be
[9:52] done to me according to your word.
[9:54] That Fiat, that yes, is the hinge of salvation history.
[10:00] God didn't force himself on her. He waited for her free response.
[10:04] St. Irenaeus said that her obedience
[10:07] united the knot of Eve's disobedience.
[10:10] St. Louis De Montfort wrote that the
[10:13] salvation of the world began through Mary, and through Mary
[10:17] it must be consummated. At Cana and John, Mary notices
[10:22] that the wine ran out before anyone else and brings it to
[10:25] Jesus. Even when he says my hour has
[10:28] not yet come. She turns to the servants, and
[10:30] she's tells the servants do whatever he tells you to.
[10:34] Those are the last recorded words in Scripture.
[10:36] Saint John Paul the 2nd called them her Marian motto.
[10:40] Her whole mission summed up in one line.
[10:42] And at the cross in John, Jesus looks at his mother and the
[10:46] beloved disciple woman. Behold your son, behold your
[10:51] mother. On a human level, he ensures
[10:55] that Mary is cared for, but on a deeper level, he gives Mary to
[11:00] us. The Catechism says that Mary is
[11:03] the Mother of Christ, our head, and also the members of His
[11:08] body. Saint John Paul the 2nd called
[11:10] this Mary's second Annunciation. At the first she said yes to
[11:14] bearing Christ, and at the second she said yes to mothering
[11:18] His disciples. Mary is the New Eve at the
[11:22] Annunciation, the intercessor at Cana, and the Mother of the
[11:25] Church at Calvary. Every time she appears,
[11:29] salvation history advances. She never speaks or acts apart
[11:33] from Christ. Her whole life is a living echo
[11:36] of His will. Honoring her never takes
[11:39] anything away from Jesus. It draws us deeper into His
[11:42] plan. Now that we've got that covered,
[11:45] let's talk about Mary and spiritual warfare.
[11:48] Because spiritual warfare is real.
[11:49] Okay, sometimes we overuse it, but at the end of the day, it is
[11:52] real. The devil is after your soul,
[11:55] but God did not leave us defenseless.
[11:56] He gave us His Son, his spirit, the sacraments, and He also gave
[12:00] us His mother. Genesis actually calls this from
[12:03] the start. God said to the serpent, I will
[12:05] put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her
[12:09] seed. He will crush your head and you
[12:11] will strike his heel. But the woman is part of that
[12:14] prophecy too. Mary is the woman her yes
[12:18] opposed the serpent where Eves no cooperated with him.
[12:22] The devil hates Mary because the devil sin was pride.
[12:26] I will not serve, okay? And her life was humility, be it
[12:30] done to me according to your word.
[12:33] Pride cannot stand humility. And that is why Mary terrifies
[12:38] Satan. And the Saints knew this too.
[12:40] They said the devil fears Mary not only more than angels and
[12:44] men, but in a certain sense more than God himself.
[12:48] Because while Satan can resist God's justice, he cannot resist
[12:52] God's mercy as it flows through Mary.
[12:55] You know, they called her the terror of demons.
[12:57] Like hello, that's enough to convince me.
[13:00] And even exorcist today, they've said plenty of times that the
[13:03] name of Mary, when spoken in faith, sends demons fleeing.
[13:08] Like, that's good enough for me, one exorcist to say that that is
[13:11] good enough for me. You know, devotion to Mary is
[13:14] not this, like, sentimental thing all of the time.
[13:18] It's also strategic. So when you pray the rosary,
[13:21] when you ask for her intercession, when you
[13:23] consecrate yourself to her, you're not just doing this, you
[13:26] know, pious practice. You are putting on armor.
[13:30] You're aligning yourself with the woman whose son crushed the
[13:33] serpent's head. Like, why wouldn't you want that
[13:36] in your corner? And that's why the church calls
[13:39] her our greatest ally in battle. Some worry that clinging to Mary
[13:43] might distract from Jesus, but the truth is the exact opposite.
[13:48] The very reason she has power in spiritual warfare is that she
[13:52] always leads us straight to Jesus.
[13:54] And that is one of the biggest fears that people have.
[13:58] They always push back and say, if I focus on Mary, that's me
[14:02] taking my eyes off of Jesus. And listen, if Mary were just
[14:07] another human, that fear would be valid.
[14:10] That fear would make sense. I, you know, I completely agree
[14:13] with that. But Mary never keeps anything
[14:15] for herself. She always redirects it to her
[14:18] Son. And we see it time and time and
[14:20] time again. You know, her last recorded
[14:22] words in Scripture say everything we need to know.
[14:25] Do whatever he tells you. That is her mission in one
[14:30] phrase. She doesn't say listen to me,
[14:32] but listen to him. She doesn't say do what I want,
[14:35] but do what he wants. That's why the Saints so many
[14:40] times have called Marian devotion the shortest, safest
[14:44] and surest path to Christ, to Jesus through Mary.
[14:48] It's not just a slogan. You know.
[14:50] If Jesus is the King, Mary is the Mother who takes you to the
[14:54] hand and leads you to his throne.
[14:56] Every ounce of love we show Mary reflects right back on to
[15:00] Christ. And you can live this out in a
[15:02] very simple way. You can just pray a Hail Mary
[15:05] every day, slowly and with attention.
[15:08] You can ask Mary to help you love Jesus more.
[15:11] You know, if you pray the rosary, let it be a meditation
[15:14] and a weapon, not just a routine.
[15:16] Can consider Mary in consecration because all of
[15:20] those things are not about belonging to Mary instead of
[15:23] Jesus. It's about letting her root you
[15:26] more firmly in Him. Mary is not a detour, she's the
[15:30] most direct route. The devil wants you to believe
[15:33] that she distracts from Jesus because he knows that she is the
[15:38] fastest way to Him. Scripture, tradition, The
[15:41] Saints, they all agree. When you let Mary be your
[15:44] mother, she won't keep you for herself.
[15:47] She will bring you home to Christ.
[15:48] Mary is the most misunderstood woman in history.
[15:52] Misunderstood by those who accuse Catholics of worshipping
[15:55] her, Misunderstood by those who treat her like an accessory in
[15:59] the Gospel. Misunderstood by those who think
[16:03] that devotion to her takes away from Jesus.
[16:06] But Scripture, tradition, and the lives of the Saints, they
[16:10] tell a totally different story. She is the new Ark, the Queen
[16:15] Mother, the new Eve. She stands at the heart of
[16:18] salvation history and in the center of the battle against the
[16:22] enemy. And most of all, she is the
[16:24] mother who leads her children to Christ.
[16:26] So next time you think of Mary, think of her in that way and not
[16:30] through the misconceptions that we've heard our whole lives.
[16:34] That's all I have for today. And if today's episode stirred
[16:37] something in you, I'd love to hear your feedback.
[16:40] I'd love to hear your thoughts. You can send me an e-mail to
[16:43] theaftermasspodcast@gmail.com or you can just send me a message
[16:47] on my socials. I'll post them here.
[16:49] But thank you so much for being here.
[16:51] I am your host, Anna, and I will see you after mass.

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