Coming up next on Renewing Your Mind.

Who wouldn't be troubled if in the midst of their day suddenly they were visited by the appearance of an angel?

Gabriel's mere presence was enough to terrify anyone, but not only does he appear before Mary, but he speaks to her, and he speaks strange things to her ears.

Can you imagine that being visited by an angel, it must have been terrifying and amazing.

The message Gabriel brought was good news.

Mary would be the mother of Jesus.

For that reason some of elevated Mary beyond scriptural bounds, even calling her the mother of God.

Let's discover how we should understand her role. Here's our cease-fire.

The first job I ever had as a young man was working in a shoe repair shop.

My boss was a huge bear of a man who was Croatian by ancestry, and he was beloved by the boys in our town.

Everybody called him Uncle Ned.

Well, I worked as a shoe-shined boy and Uncle Ned's shoe repair shop and also helped with some menial tasks that required no craftsmanship.

But every night in that shoe repair shop, it was Ned's tradition to listen to the rosary on the radio.

I believe the program was called the Catholic Hour, and I had to listen to this every night even though I was not Catholic in my religious affiliation.

And I got so that I could shine shoes in rhythm to the rosary as we would listen to the same intonations night after night.

And they would start off with the words, Hail Mary, Full of Grace, Blessed are Thou among women, Blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus.

And then we would hear Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us sinners now, and the hour of our death, Amen.

I still see Uncle Ned every now and then whenever I go back to Pittsburgh, I always make it a point to visit Ned.

And we still joke about my discipline in the shoe shop having to listen to the rosary every night.

And I still remember a little bit of it.

But it wasn't until years later when I read the scriptures for the first time that I understood and saw that much of the language of that

had been taken directly from the New Testament.

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