Hi, I'm Edward Sree, and welcome to all things Catholic Catholic where real faith meets real life.

What was Mary's life like before the Annunciation, before that fateful day when the angel

Gabriel came to her to announce that she would become the mother of the Messiah.

You know there have been various traditions that have developed over the centuries about Mary's childhood, her upbringing, her life before she met Joseph,

but from scripture itself there's just not a lot of detail. There's only two verses that tell us about the

pre-enunciation marriage. Just two verses. They come from Luke's Gospel

chapter 1 versus 26 and 27.

Listen to what the Bible says.

In the 6th month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth

to a virgin patrol to a man whose name was Joseph of the House of David and the Virgin's name was Mary.

That's it. That's all we've got from scripture about the pre-Anunciation Mary,

but what I want to do today in this episode is unpack those two verses for all

their worth. I admit there's not a lot of information there, but if we can

consider some of the key words in those two verses and understand them in light of the Old Testament,

is understand them in light of the first century Jewish world.

I think they can begin to paint a picture of the original Mary, the pre-enunciation Mary, and we can come and to understand who she was,

what God was asking of her better.

So that's what I'm excited to do with you and I'm particularly excited to go through this because

I have a brand new book that just came out. I've mentioned

this book a couple different times of the podcast. I've been working on this for

the intensively the last year or two, but in many ways I've been working on this for almost 20 years it's

called rethinking Mary in the New Testament rethinking Mary in the New Testament what I do

...