I love to bring in my spring flowers to honor Mary. It reminds me of all the May processions of my childhood. Mary please inspire us with a great appreciation for the beauty of the created world that we might express deep gratitude to your Son.
O Mary, Queen of the May, pray for us!
To the anti-Catholic commenter whose post I trashed, we don't "honor" Christ; we adore Him. We honor his mother Mary because of His COMMANDMENT, "Honor your father and your mother." Do you really think He didn't honor her? Or don't you believe in the scripture?
ReplyDeleteI was raised Protestant, converted to the Catholic Faith 18 years ago. My family, most pressingly my now deceased father and elderly mother all remain Protestant. I was raised to love Jesus and the Bible and to make Jesus within the bounds of my Protestant faith the center of my life. We never thought about Catholics much, except that when the topic came up it was as if we were talking unfortunate members of an ignorant cult ... much like Mormons I suppose. There were many cults claiming to be Christian, but unlike our little non-denominational church we attended these cults, including Catholic, got the most important parts all wrong. (This may be why, on reflection, I am so sensitive to the Sede claims of gnostic revelations ... I've seen this before).
DeleteAnyway, a huge point of contention, and why my family refuses to become Catholic is on the doctrines and Dogma of Mary - Queen of Heaven and Earth. This topic is highly contentious. I admit, it was hard for me to come to grips with Catholic teaching on Mary, in full,for many years. I accepted it in faith. Full belief in understanding came later after much application.
I just had a small discussion with my mom on the topic of Mary just yesterday, as a matter of fact, I explained she was not a goddess, not Divine, what "full of grace" meant and the implications of such a thing. I asked her to consider what it might mean to be "the spouse of God, what it might mean to have God within your womb, what it might mean to have the blood of Mary flowing through the placenta into the fetal tissues of the infant Jesus - blood that would one day be shed for the world, and how could sinful blood mix with perfect blood in our Redeemer? I explained that how we see Jesus very much depends upon, hinges upon, how we see His Mother Mary. And that the Council of Nicaea (325) was convened to decide the nature of who this Jesus we worship truly is, and that thereby Mary is truly the Mother of God - *must* be the Mother of God for Jesus to be truly "consubstantial" with the Father rather than "created by" the Father ... thus was the Arian heresy defeated. And finally I explained how we are all baptized as truly children of Mary (which Protestants do not accept of course) in a similar way that we are all born as children of Eve - born in sin to Adam and Eve; re-born in the waters of baptism to Jesus and Mary who reversed the curse of the original sin ... Eve's No overcome by Mary's Yes.
How can a child of God be born without the agency of a Woman? Jesus chose to be born of Woman. So also must we. Mary is not only permissible to be venerated in the Christian faith ... it is mandatory we do so or we aren't really Christian.
Long story short: Mary will always be controversial and hated by those who are not cooperating with the grace of God. Only within God's economy of grace can Mary be loved because she is of God's Kingdom, full of grace, Mediatrix Of All Grace, at the apex of God's creation, Queen of Heaven and earth.
Thanks, Mary Ann, once again for your blog. I am sorry you get angry comments. But there is at least one Catholic out there who appreciates your work ... and a lot more than that, of course. God bless!
What a beautiful explanation of Catholic dogma on Mary. Thank you, Aqua, and also for your kind words about the blog.
DeleteDear Aqua,
DeleteIt takes a sincere heart to seek TRUTH. God loves humble heart.
As Fr. Faber wrote; 'Mary is not half enough preached. Devotion to her is low and thin and poor.... Hence it is that Jesus is not loved. Jesus is obscured, because Mary is kept in the background. Thousands of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them. It is miserable, unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to the blessed Virgin, that is the cause of all these wants and blights, these evils and omissions and decline.........an immense increase in devotion to Our Blessed Lady'.....will hasten the promised Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. To Jesus through Mary!
"Consecration to Mary', Complete Five-week preparation, by St. Louis De Montfort's True Devotion.
......prayers, daily meditations, spiritual guidance......all for the salvation of souls, the triumph of the Church and peace in the world. Amen.
Anonymous 9:29 - that is exactly right, that connection to devotional commitment or collapse to which you refer from Mary to Jesus.
DeleteI've thought of this way - and it's how I explain it to my kids:
My own mom and dad are (were) intrinsically connected in my childhood eyes; there marriage was so strong that there was never any question that they were indeed one flesh, even though as a child I didn't know what that meant. It's just that I never thought of one without thinking of the other - two sides of the same coin. Does it dishonor my dad to give my mom a Mother's Day card; to meet her in the morning with breakfast made and on th table; to write her a note of appreciation; to give her a hug, but not my dad; to take her out to coffee - just her and her son?
Or, as I say it to my own kids, does it dishonor me when you do similar things for their own mother without including me? Do they think I am bothered when they gather around her in the morning, but not me; make a coloring page love note for her, but not me? Do they think that since I am the head of the house that godlike love will render to me more signs of affection than to my wife, their mother ... perhaps I should say that *all* signs of affection should be to me and none left over for her (the proper analogy to Protestant views on devotion to Jesus being rendered less by reserving anything for His mother).
Emphatically - No! Obviously, no ... when you see it from the perspective of the personal which is the *reflective image* of the *true reality* of the heavenly kingdom. Which makes the true reality even more than what we know in conscience to be true here on earth. Rather, their love expressed in various ways to their mother does great honor to me and makes me very pleased and happy.
And, as you say, lack of loving expressions to their mother will naturally have the result of decreased signs and the reality of loving expressions and love itself to me. They go together. They love her as their mother. They love me as their father. We go together - a package deal. And when God was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became Man through Woman ... rather than descending by Himself from the clouds directly into the Pantheon itself ... He demonstrated - THIS NATURAL CREATED RELATION IS THE WILL OF GOD.
One further clarifying note on what I just wrote above -
DeleteThis all breaks down when the love shown to the mother is distorted by viewing her as the "father", the head of house, as if the roles were reversed, or without acknowledging that there is a father or even the need for one. THAT is the equivalent of *worshipping* Mary, and placing her in God's proper Divine plac.
"Mary, the Immaculate One, the beloved Daughter of the Father, is also the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, whose power overshadowed her because she had been chosen to be the Mother of the Incarnate Word. Therefore, we love and honor Mary because she is the Mother of God, the Mother of Jesus: and loving her in her relation to God, our devotion to her only makes our love for God, for Jesus, deeper and more tender.
ReplyDelete"Mater Dei, Mater Creatoris," Mother of God, Mother of our Creator...... because Mary, although a creature, is really the Mother of her Creator, the Mother of God's Son to whom she had given a human body; the fruit of her flesh and blood is the Son of God in whom and by whom all things were created......He could not raise a pure creature higher than Mary, for the dignity of the Mother of God is the highest dignity that can be conferred on creature."
~ St. Bonaventure
"O Mary, what can I offer and give you that will please you? If I offer you my will, I fear that you will not accept it, because it is not conformed to God's Will. If I offer you my intellect, it is not enlightened; if I give you my affection, it is not pure. I offer you the Heart of your only Son! and a greater gift I cannot offer."
ReplyDelete~St. Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi
"O Mary, you are that garden enclosed, which contains the Giver of Life; God Himself is within you, with heaven and all creatures. The whole world is saved by the Blood received from you. Without you, O Mary, there would be no paradise for me; without you, there would be no God for me......."
ReplyDelete~ St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi
Ave Maria gratia plena..........
Thank you, Anonymous, for all the lovely quotes from the saints. There is no saint in heaven who did not love and honor Mary and take her hand so she could lead them straight to her son, Jesus. That's what many Protestants don't understand. Mary "magnifies the Lord." Those who love Mary, learn from her how to love Jesus all the more! O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.
ReplyDelete