An Unexpected Message from Heaven from Mother Mary
In the 18th century, a prophet, Emanuel Swedenborg had a vision (one of many over the course of his life) of Mother Mary, who gave birth to Jesus in the flesh. Here is what he said she wants us to know…
Here I will add something previously unknown. On one occasion I was given an opportunity to talk to Mother Mary. She happened past, and I saw her in heaven over my head in white clothing apparently made of silk. Then, stopping for a while, she said that she had been the Lord’s mother in the sense that he was born from her, but by the time he became God he had put off everything human that came from her. Therefore she adores him as her God and does not want anyone to see him as her son, because everything in him is divine.
—Emanuel Swedenborg, True Christianity #102 [3]
In Swedenborg’s private journal, which was later discovered and published by others after his death, he jotted down this experience before it was published in True Christianity…
Mary, who had been the mother of the Lord, was seen, appearing a little from behind, clothed in white, and she spoke but little, saying only this about the Lord: that she now worships Him as God, and that He was born from her, but that He became God and has put off all maternal humanity. And thus she has entirely turned away from anyone recognizing Him as her son, because in the Lord, everything is Divine.
—Emanuel Swedenborg, Spiritual Experiences #5834
In both records, the message is the same: she doesn’t want to be worshiped or venerated at all, but wants all attention to go towards the Lord, so much so that we shouldn’t even think of him as her son.
Swedenborg goes on to explain
There is a belief that the Lord in his human manifestation not only was but still is the Son of Mary. This is a blunder, though, on the part of the Christian world. It is true that he was the Son of Mary; it is not true that he still is. As the Lord carried out the acts of redemption, he put off the human nature from his mother and put on a human nature from his Father. This is how it came about that the Lord's human nature is divine and that in him God is human and a human is God. The fact that he put off the human nature from his mother and put on a divine nature from his father - a divine human nature - can be seen from his never referring to Mary as his mother, as the following passages show: "The mother of Jesus said to him, 'They have no wine.' Jesus said to her, 'What do I have to do with you, woman? My hour has not yet come'" (John 2:4). Elsewhere it says, "Jesus on the cross saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing next to her. He said to his mother, 'Woman, behold your son.' Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold your mother'" (John 19:26-27). On one occasion he did not acknowledge her: "There was a message for Jesus from people who said, 'Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, and they want to see you. ' Jesus said in reply, 'My mother and my brothers are these people who are hearing the Word of God and doing it'" (Luke 8:20-21; Matthew 12:46-49; Mark 3:31-35). So the Lord called her "woman," not "mother," and gave her to John to be his mother. In other passages she is called his mother, but not by the Lord himself.
And later in his journal, he reiterates these proofs:
The Lord put off the Human from the mother so that He was not her son,
These are proofs:
1) He rejected the name mother and said “woman,” [John 2:4].
2) He called her “woman” from the Cross, and not “mother” [John 19:26].
3) He also said when she and His brothers stood outside, that she was not His mother [Matt. 12:46-50, Mark 3:31-35)
4) He was not the son of David [Matt. 1:25, Luke 1:34, 35]. Everywhere in the Evangelists where “mother” is said, it did not come from the mouth of the Lord.
5) Mary spoke with me also and said that He was not her son, because He was entirely Divine, see above n. 5834.
Mary is now the Lord’s daughter, like all other daughters of God, who are spiritually born
Since she is in heaven dressed in silky white, it is obvious they continue to love each other, but Mary is no longer Jesus’ mother. She was his physical mother who birthed him while he was on earth, but his physical body was progressively transformed and glorified, made one with the Father of Heaven, so that it’s no longer the case that she is his mother.
It may seem like we have sort of a “I’m my own grandpa” situation going on here, but we actually don’t because of the difference between what is physical and what is spiritual. Mary was Jesus’ physical mother, but Jesus is her spiritual father — or, her Lord.
I think we have to realize that things can get a bit difficult to comprehend when we try to think about the divine, because the divine is infinite, and we’re not able to fully comprehend what is infinite. There is actually a branch of mathematics whereby you can do arithmetic on symbols that represent infinity, but we can only do math on the symbols, we simply can’t count up all the numbers at once in our memory. The most we can do is conceptual mathematics. We can understand that a finite being, Mary, cannot give birth to an infinite being, the spiritual part of the glorified Jesus. She can only give birth to the physical part. So now that Jesus has become one with the infinite, he is no longer her son.
With this in mind, it makes sense why Mary was “entirely turned away.” Who wants to think of their father as their son? The idea is backwards. Many Catholics may also pray to Mary for fertility or other blessings, which is not a blessing that she can give, it being totally outside of her purview.
Swedenborg goes on to explain why misunderstanding this point is so problematic:
In the Christian churches of today it is common to call the Lord our Savior “the Son of Mary;” it is rare for people to call him “the Son of God” unless they mean the eternally begotten Son of God. This is a result of Roman Catholics putting Mother Mary’s sainthood above the rest and setting her up as the goddess or queen of all their saints.
Yet in fact, in the process of being glorified the Lord put off everything from his mother and put on everything from his Father, as we will fully demonstrate later on in this work [102-103]. Because the phrase “the Son of Mary” has become a common expression on everyone's lips, many horrendous things have poured into the church. This is especially true of those who have not taken into consideration things said in the Word about the Lord — for example, that the Father and he are one, that he is in the Father and the Father is in him, that all things belonging to the Father are his, that he called Jehovah his Father, and that Jehovah the Father called him his Son.
The horrendous things that have poured into the church from our calling him “the Son of Mary” instead of “the Son of God” are that we lose the idea of the Lord's divinity and we lose everything in the Word that is said about him as the Son of God. Furthermore, this concept lets in Judaism, Arianism, Socinianism, Calvinism in its original form, and finally materialist philosophy. Materialist philosophy brings with it the extreme position that the Son of Mary was Joseph’s child, or that his soul came from his mother, and as a result he is called "the Son of God," but truly he is not. All people, both clergy and laity, should check to see whether the idea they have spawned and nurtured of the Lord as “the Son of Mary” is any different from the idea of him as a mere human being.
The Lord taught in the Gospels that he alone should be the focus of our prayers and our veneration, and never the saints, apostles, or prominent figures in the Bible such as Mary.
But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.
And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.
He also made it clear that Mary didn’t have a special position in heaven beyond anyone else simply because of their blood relation.
While He was still talking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with Him. Then one said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.
But He answered and said to the one who told Him, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”
And this doesn’t just apply to mothers
As mentioned above, Jesus said…
And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.
This is explained in True Christianity as well, helping us understand that it’s okay to call your father by “father” in a physical sense, but not in a spiritual sense.
Jesus says, “Do not be called teacher, because your teacher is the One, the Christ. Do not call anyone on earth your father, for your father is the One in the heavens. Do not be called governors, for your governor is the One, the Christ” (Matthew 23:8-10). Without a body of teaching we might think we were forbidden to call anyone teacher, father, or governor. From a body of teaching, however, we come to know that doing this is acceptable in its earthly meaning, although it is not acceptable in its spiritual meaning.
In the spiritual sense, by honoring father and mother is meant venerating and loving God and the Church. In this sense, father means God, who is the Father of all, and mother means the Church. Children and angels in heaven know no other father and no other mother, since they are there born anew from the Lord by means of the Church. The Lord therefore says,
“Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven” Matthew 23:9.
This was said for children and angels in heaven, but not for children and men on earth. The Lord teaches the same thing in the common prayer of the Christian Churches, “Our Father, who art in the heavens, hallowed be thy name.” In the spiritual sense, mother means the Church, because, as a mother on earth nourishes her children with natural food, so the Church nourishes her children with spiritual food. In the Word, therefore, the Church is everywhere called mother.
We Shouldn’t Call the Pope “Holy Father”
What Jesus said in Matthew 23 wasn’t so much about the literal words we use, but about what we interpret them to mean internally when we say them. The overarching principal is that spiritual authority over our lives is the Lord’s alone, not our earthly father or mother. We nonetheless shouldn’t call the pope, “Holy Father,” because we know that the word “father” has two meanings: our physical father who birthed us on earth and our spiritual father who birthed us in heaven. Since those two roles are already taken by two people who carry the title, “father,” there is no room for the pope to hold the title of “father” as well, because he is neither our physical nor or spiritual father. Considering that the pope is not our physical father, most would call him “father” in the spiritual sense, but this is not allowed by the Lord.
Nor should we think of any apostle or prophet, including the Apostle Paul, Swedenborg, or others, as being a father or our faith, nor should we call the founders of our country and its laws our “Founding Fathers,” because doing so leads us to the same problem as with the pope. We must only consider what all of them wrote as true insofar as the Holy Spirit confirms it to us from the Word, since the Holy Spirit is the Lord himself who teaches us while we read the books they wrote, insofar as what they wrote, came from Him.
Neither is the pope the source of holiness. He is simply a servant of the congregation he presides over, nothing more.
Sometimes angels, prophets, and apostles are called holy in the scriptures, but the inner sense comes with the understanding that they are not holy from themselves, but only because of the Lord’s truth within them. In this sense, the pope is no more holy than you or I, because he has no more special ability to carry the Holy Spirit within him than we, when we read and ponder the scriptures and act on it.
They are called “saints” who live according to the truths of the Word; not that they are holy, but the truths in them are holy, and they are holy when they are in them from the Lord; and the Lord is in them when the truths of his Word are in them… That no one is holy from himself, not even the angels, may be seen in Job 15:14, 15, but from the Lord, because “the Lord alone is holy.”
I think we should also be careful when calling our preacher our “pastor” that we don’t think of him as our spiritual authority, because we have only one Shepherd, Christ. We can receive our pastor’s words into our physical ears, but must always check what he says against the Word before accepting it into our spiritual ears. It would be better to call him simply “preacher” or “priest” to help reminds us of this. If we do call him our pastor, remember that he is only an authority over the earthly things of our church, not of its spiritual things, and acknowledge him as a first receiver of spiritual truth from the Lord but not of spiritual authority; spiritual authority to accept truth into our life must come from the Lord directly.
