Chapter 5 Study Guide - The Blessed Virgin Mary

Angel

a spiritual, personal, and immortal creature, with intelligence and free will, who glorifies God without ceasing and who serves God as a messenger of his saving plan.

Annunciation

The visit of the angel Gabriel to the virgin Mary to inform her that she was to be the mother of the Savior. After giving her consent to God’s word, Mary became the mother of Jesus by the power of the Holy Sprit.

Assumption

The dogma that recognizes the Blessed Virgin' Mary’s singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection by which she was taken by body and soul into heavenly glory, when the course of her earthly life was finished.

Betrothed

In ancient times, the beginning of the marriage process carrying the force of law.

Consecrated

a permanent state of life recognized by the Church, entered freely in response to the call of Christ to perfection, and characterized by the profession of the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

Gabriel

one of the archangels, used by God many times as a messenger, in particular at the Annunciation.

Immaculate Conception

the dogma proclaimed in Christian Tradition and defined in 1854, that from the first moment of her conception. Mary-by the singular grace of God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ - was preserved immune from Original Sin.

Messiah

Hebrew term meaning “anointed”: used in reference to Jesus because he accomplished perfectly the divine mission of priest, prophet, and King, signified by his anointing as Messiah, Christ.

Perpetual

for all time, forever.

Virginity

committed celibacy that enables people to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart in a remarkable manner.