Postscripts From The Catholic Spitfire Grill

Since Behold Your Mother is doing a Mary Moments Carnival on the rosary, I thought that nowmight be a good time to re-post this for those of you who haven’t seen it before.

The husband of one of our members at the Catholic Spitfire Grill (you’re welcome to join us!) has opined that the fact there are more Hail Mary’s than Our Father’s is “proof” that the Rosary is “Mary Worship.” He is not the only person in this world to express this opinion. In fact among Protestants who are not familiar with the rosary other than simply the mechanical aspects of the prayer (say one Our Father, ten Hail Mary’s…..) it is not uncommon at all. In fact, I have seen websites where the exact percentage of “Mary Worship” praying a rosary actually reflected as determined by the ratio of Hail Mary’s to Our Father’s was declared. If someone is out there reading and has the statistical and mathematical inclination, I’d love to see a well done parallel to this calculation. What percentage of the rosary is taken directly from Sacred Scripture? Since the Our Father is 100% scripture, the Hail Mary about 50% so, and ALL of the mysteries (15 or 20 depending on how you want to count) are also taken from the Bible, I am confident the number would be pretty high. But I digress….

Why does the rosary have more Hail Mary’s than Our Father’s? I don’t know for sure. How’s that for an answer?

I can tell you about the scriptural origins of the rosary. The origins of the practice are traced to the early days of the church when very devout religious (monks, priests, nuns) made it a practice to recite all 150 Psalms daily. Many laypeople wanted to imitate that practice but memorizing all 150 Psalms without being able to afford a copy of them, much less find the time to say them daily was simply beyond reach. What evolved was the practice of saying simple prayers 150 times instead…usually the “Our Father” or a “Hail Mary”. In order to keep track, rocks or stones were placed in one pocket and moved to the other throughout the day as the prayers were said. Eventually, this lead to the knotting of cords, or stringing of beads and of course, some figured out that one needn’t have all 150 on a cord just say 10 (a decade) 15 times etc. Things from other sources also converged to make the Rosary what it is today as well. Many theologians, particularly in the Middle Ages believed that each of the 150 Psalms was reflective of particular events in the life of Jesus and his mother. So underlying the discipline of saying all 150 Psalms daily was the idea that it was a meditation on the life of Jesus and the path to Salvation. Now tie in St. Dominic, who was a primary figure in fighting some of the heresies that were particularly troublesome in the late 12th century and early 13th century. He had a vision that one of the ways to strengthen the church against these heresies was to teach people to meditate on the life of Jesus and his mother so what was once just an underlying idea became the principal idea. One more idea that certainly helped me bring it all together was that in a world that was dominated by the Church and in the absence of clocks…prayer was the principle method of keeping time. The Liturgy of the Hours or the specific prayers said during the day, marked each period of the day as clearly to someone at that time as saying 3 pm would to someone in ours. Likewise, so would telling someone that it would take about 10 Our Fathers as a means of telling them how long it would last. Now put all of the pieces together and you can kind of see where the modern form of the Rosary came from.

That still doesn’t answer the question about why there are more Hail Mary’s than Our Father’s. After all it could have gone the other way. We could say one Hail Mary and 10 Our Father’s, or all Hail Mary’s or all Our Father’s…or some other combination. Somewhere out there, there may be a definitive and historical answer. I’ll be honest. I didn’t even look for it. The Rosary is about resting in the Gospel. Praying the rosary is about meditating on Sacred Scripture and asking Jesus to speak to us. It’s about claiming the promises. It’s about imitating the lives of Our Lord and Our Lady. Over the years a big picture of sorts has developed for me, and I am only comfortable in saying that this is my personal understanding of the rosary. I do not wish to impose my understanding on anyone else who prays the rosary since they may have a different and equally valid understanding. This is how Our Lord speaks to me through this prayer at this place in my spiritual journey. I am also equally comfortable in saying that I have only scratched the surface of what the rosary has to offer in the way of other spiritual treasures.

To explain, let me start with a prayer that is commonly said at the end of the recitation of the rosary:

“O God, whose only begotten Son, by his life, death and resurrection, has purchased for us the blessings of eternal life, grant we beseech thee, that by meditating on the mysteries of the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

I put it in bold. The nutshell explanation of why there are so many Hail Mary’s. May “we imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise” 

Why is that? First, it’s important to understand what Mary means in the Catholic understanding of the gospel. Often Catholics are accused of ascribing divinity to Mary and of being less than candid when we say that we do not believe she is divine. I tell you honestly that it is because she isn’t divine that she means so much to Catholics. In Mary’s fully-human-not-at-all-divine example of obedience, we see the possibilities for us! By a supernatural, unmerited, unearned GIFT to her, God preserved her from original sin in the Immaculate Conception. She was saved by the One Perfect Sacrifice of Her Son on the Cross, just like we can be. As His Gift to her, God, who is not bound by time, granted her the gift of salvation made possible by the Son she would bear from the moment of her conception. Her salvation, prefigures our own! She is the first Christian and her reward for faithful obedience in heaven (Revelation 12) foreshadows our own reward in heaven. Her response to Word of God is the perfect example of how we should submit our free will to the will of God when she declares, “Let it be done to me according to thy word.” (Luke 1:38) When in humility she goes to assist her aging cousin, the Holy Spirit speaks through Elizabeth when she declares ”Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished.” (Luke 1:45) It is these two events that are captured in the scriptural portions of the Hail Mary. It is also important that the only command Mary gives that is recorded in Sacred Scripture is “Do whatever He tells you.” (John 2:5) Keep all that in mind and we’ll come back to it in a minute. 

The next thing that it is important to fix in your mind is the Catholic attitude toward Sacred Scripture and the Gospels in particular. They are literally the words of God. When the Gospel is read in church, we stand to listen to the words of Our Lord. The Mysteries of the Rosary are taken from Sacred Scripture. When we meditate on the words of the Gospel, it is our Lord speaking to us directly from the printed page. The Our Father are Christ’s instructions to us for prayer taken directly from Sacred Scripture. They are the things He has directed us to request from the Throne of Heaven. The Mysteries and the Our Father are the words of Our Lord. He is speaking to us through the gospels while we meditate on the words of Jesus…..and with those words in our mind, in our heart, and often literally on our lips we pray (I am putting the words of the Hail Mary in bold italic print)….

Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with you. (Luke 1:28) …my response to His words should be in imitation of Mary, “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to thy word.” Her yes, allowed life for the world a literal “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.” My yes to our Lord, will allow Him to work through me and continue to bring His Kingdom here on earth. Was our salvation dependant on Mary? In a certain sense I think it was (although I certainly believe that if she had said ‘no’ God would have found another way). Her “yes” mattered to God. Her “yes, parallels our own yes to the Lord. Could we be saved without our own ”yes” to God? Like her, I ask the Lord for the grace to say to His Words “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to thy word.”….imitate what they contain. 

Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. (Luke 1:42) …and I remember “Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished.” Trust in the Lord to accomplish all that He has promised in the Gospels…obtain what they promise.

Holy Mary, Mother of God…He is My Lord, fully human and fully divine.

Pray for us sinners now…I am a sinner in need of Him just as those at the wedding in Cana needed Him where He turned the water into wine, prefiguring His Precious Blood that would bind us to Him as part of the Bride of Christ…Do whatever He tells you…imitate what they contain.

And at the hour of our death…obtain what they promise.

The rosary is a prayerful conversation. The Lord speaks through Sacred Scripture (in the mysteries and the Our Fathers) and we seek to listen, to imitate, to obey, and to trust in Him for all those things. In the Hail Mary we find our response in Mary, who prefigures our faith, she has gone first. She listened and submitted. Her reward (Assumption and Coronation) prefigures our own reward and we trust in Our Lord just as she did. The Mysteries (the Gospel, the plan of Salvation) and the instructions of how we are to pray from Our Lord himself, remain foremost in our mind as we rest in the Gospel and while we rest and mediate, we recite the Hail Mary which is all about our response to those words. I think there are more Hail Mary’s than Our Fathers because the words of Our Lord don’t leave our mind while we pray about our response to them and I don’t know about you, but I need all ten of those Hail Marys (and probably a few more) because sometimes I don’t hear very well.

Excellent on-line articles about the historical origin of the rosary: Paternoster Row: Historical Rosaries and Paternosters; St. Dominic and the Rosary at Catholic.net; a different article with same name St. Dominic and the Rosary

WikiHow: How to say the rosary. 

Online interactive/multi-media rosaries: The Holy Rosary; Virtual Rosary; Daily Rosary; Fatima Online Rosary (chant); St. Philip Neri Newman Center; Catholic Calendar Rosary Page

Make your own rosary to keep or to give away: Rosary Army; Our Lady’s Rosary Makers; RosaryWorkshop.com (this site also has some interesting historical information and pictures of antique rosaries)

The Holy Rosary; Virtual Rosary; Daily Rosary; Fatima Online Rosary (chant); St. Philip Neri Newman Center; Catholic Calendar Rosary Page

Make your own rosary to keep or to give away: Rosary Army; Our Lady’s Rosary Makers; RosaryWorkshop.com (this site also has some interesting historical information and pictures of antique rosaries)

Recite the rosary while you are driving, or doing housework by getting one of the many versions of the rosary available on audio CD or on MP3. I particularly like the scriptural roasry on audio CD not only because it is well done but because if I have to momentarily tune out to attend to my driving, I know exactly where I am when I tune back in. You can purchase the scriptural rosary on audio here.

60. There is but one Mediator as we know from the words of the apostle, “for there is one God and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a redemption for all”. The maternal duty of Mary toward men in no wise obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows His power. For all the salvific influence of the Blessed Virgin on men originates, not from some inner necessity, but from the divine pleasure. It flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on His mediation, depends entirely on it and draws all its power from it. In no way does it impede, but rather does it foster the immediate union of the faithful with Christ.

61. Predestined from eternity by that decree of divine providence which determined the incarnation of the Word to be the Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin was in this earth the virgin Mother of the Redeemer, and above all others and in a singular way the generous associate and humble handmaid of the Lord. She conceived, brought forth and nourished Christ. She presented Him to the Father in the temple, and was united with Him by compassion as He died on the Cross. In this singular way she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope and burning charity in the work of the Savior in giving back supernatural life to souls. Wherefore she is our mother in the order of grace.

62. This maternity of Mary in the order of grace began with the consent which she gave in faith at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, and lasts until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this salvific duty, but by her constant intercession continued to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. By her maternal charity, she cares for the brethren of her Son, who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and cultics, until they are led into the happiness of their true home. Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked by the Church under the titles of Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix, and Mediatrix. This, however, is to be so understood that it neither takes away from nor adds anything to the dignity and efficaciousness of Christ the one Mediator. For no creature could ever be counted as equal with the Incarnate Word and Redeemer. Just as the priesthood of Christ is shared in various ways both by the ministers and by the faithful, and as the one goodness of God is really communicated in different ways to His creatures, so also the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a sharing in this one source. The Church does not hesitate to profess this subordinate role of Mary. It knows it through unfailing experience of it and commends it to the hearts of the faithful, so that encouraged by this maternal help they may the more intimately adhere to the Mediator and Redeemer.

63. By reason of the gift and role of divine maternity, by which she is united with her Son, the Redeemer, and with His singular graces and functions, the Blessed Virgin is also intimately united with the Church. As Saint Ambrose taught, the Mother of God is a type of the Church in the order of faith, charity and perfect union with Christ. For in the mystery of the Church, which is itself rightly called mother and virgin, the Blessed Virgin stands out in eminent and singular fashion as exemplar both of virgin and mother. By her belief and obedience, not knowing man but overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, as the new Eve she brought forth on earth the very Son of the Father, showing an undefiled faith, not in the word of the ancient serpent, but in that of God’s messenger. The Son whom she brought forth is He whom God placed as the first-born among many brethren, namely the faithful, in whose birth and education she cooperates with a maternal love.

64. The Church indeed, contemplating her hidden sanctity, imitating her charity and faithfully fulfilling the Father’s will, by receiving the word of God in faith becomes herself a mother. By her preaching she brings forth to a new and immortal life the sons who are born to her in baptism, conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of God. She herself is a virgin, who keeps the faith given to her by her Spouse whole and entire. Imitating the mother of her Lord, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, she keeps with virginal purity an entire faith, a firm hope and a sincere charity.

65. But while in the most holy Virgin the Church has already reached that perfection whereby she is without spot or wrinkle, the followers of Christ still strive to increase in holiness by conquering sin. And so they turn their eyes to Mary who shines forth to the whole community of the elect as the model of virtues. Piously meditating on her and contemplating her in the light of the Word made man, the Church with reverence enters more intimately into the great mystery of the Incarnation and becomes more and more like her Spouse. For Mary, who since her entry into salvation history unites in herself and re-echoes the greatest teachings of the faith as she is proclaimed and venerated, calls the faithful to her Son and His sacrifice and to the love of the Father. Seeking after the glory of Christ, the Church becomes more like her exalted Type, and continually progresses in faith, hope and charity, seeking and doing the will of God in all things. Hence the Church, in her apostolic work also, justly looks to her, who, conceived of the Holy Spirit, brought forth Christ, who was born of the Virgin that through the Church He may be born and may increase in the hearts of the faithful also. The Virgin in her own life lived an example of that maternal love, by which it behooves that all should be animated who cooperate in the apostolic mission of the Church for the regeneration of men.

Imagine then, showing up with a baby for the ritual purification after childbirth. Imagine the kind of guts it would take to show up with apparent evidence of that vow having been broken. I wonder if that’s how Anna and Simeon knew that Jesus was the Messiah. They knew that the Messiah would be born to a virgin and they knew Mary would never break that vow. They had the courage to believe the impossible even when all reasonable explanations suggested a very ordinary reason for her to be carrying that baby. I’m guessing that Anna and Simeon were the exceptions and I wonder if she went home a cried at the end of the day.

I heard this today. I won’t bother with a source, because it isn’t necessary. I’ve heard similar sentiments before and from many places and the quote is only a springboard from which I would like to give my perspective.

Is it not true that Mother Mary is worshiped and revered by many?  Many carry around beads and charms with her name and image on them.  This seems strange to me and dangerous I think.

What frustrates me is that this sort of judgment is often made of Catholics without ever bothering to ask them about it. I wear not one but two images of Mary around my neck. Those images have been given “the look” to the point where I have quietly slipped them under my clothes because it was so very clear that I was making someone uncomfortable with my jewlery choices. Not once though, never, not one single time has anyone ever asked me why I have chosen the jewlery that I have other than to jump to the obviously-clear-conclusion-that-I-am-worshiping-Mary. This is what I wear around my neck:

Purchased from Vatican Gift. I have never had a bad experience with any purchase I have made from them.

(ETA: CAUTION! WARNING! Click on the link to Vatican Gift at your own risk. I have been informed that clicking on that link consitutes a near occasion of sin. You will note however, that I am only telling you this and not removing the link…..you know you want to…..why should I be the only one guarding my wallet….?) 

I wear it because it is a picture of Jesus and Mary and it reminds me of the importance of my vocation as a mother. Of the love between the two of them and how very much I want to love Him and serve Him as she loved and served Him and part of that is being “just” a mother when I would very much like to be winning worldly approval with a high-powered career.

I also wear this:

From James Avery….lovely jewelry!

This an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Again, many people see that image and think. Mary. Poor deluded Catholic she’s got her focus all wrong.

In fact, when I think of Our Lady of Guadalupe I think of not just a picture of Mary. There is considerably more to the image than just that. [Link opens PDF] You see, the image is a sort of gospel tract written just for the Aztec people. A gospel tract that was so effective that 10,000,000 people converted from paganism to Christianity in the ten years following the miracle…and people still convert to Christianity today because of it. Since we are such a people of written words we forget sometimes that most of the world at all times and places has been illiterate. The Aztecs were such a people. The written langauge understood by most of the common people was images and not written words and the image on the tilma of Juan Diego was written to bring them a very specific message. (Although there was plenty in it for the Spanish as well.) The lady in the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is looking down. This is Aztec image-speak to convey the fact that she was not divine because in their iconography Gods faced forward with their eyes wide open. She is standing on a moon which told the Aztecs that she is more powerful than the god of night but being carried by an angel which conveyed that she was royalty along with the color of her garments. The girdle or bow around her waist is a sign of her virginity, but it also has several other meanings. The bow appears as a four-petaled flower. To the native Indians this was the nahui ollin, the flower of the sun, a symbol of plenitude. The cross-shaped flower was also connected with the cross-sticks which produce fire. For them, this was the symbol of fecundity and new life. The high position of the bow and the slight swelling of the abdomen show that the Lady is “with child”. The light that surrounds her is also a sign of the power of God who has sanctified and blessed the one who appears. The rays of the sun would also be recognized by the native people as a symbol of their highest god, Huitzilopochtli. Thus, the lady comes forth hiding but not extinguishing the power of the sun. She is now going to announce the God who is greater than their sun god. The God who is greater than their sun god is the child that she carries even though she is not God and a virgin.

The Aztecs were expecting this sort of knowledge of the True God because God had prepared them. In 1509 the sister of Montezuma fell ill, dropped into and coma and was thought to be dead. Arrangements were being made for her state funeral when she came to in her coffin and began screaming demanding to be let out. When she recovered she told her brother about a strange dream that she had. A creature all of light and marked with a black cross took her to the eastern coast of the empire and told her that men would come from across the water in canoes marked with black crosses and would bring the people knowledge of the True God. The was another prophecy that had circulated for centuries among the Aztecs. The Aztecs marked time in 412 year cycles. The Aztecs believed that every night the sun sturuggled with the powers of darkness in the underworld and rose triumphant each morning. According to their beliefs any night could be the world’s last and it was to help the sun in the nightly struggle that the Aztecs offered human sacrifice for the survival of the world. At the end of one of these 412 year cycles, the mother of the sun god would appear and give definitive birth to the sun god thus ending the need for human sacrifice. The apparition of Mary to Juan Diego occurred at dawn at the end of one of those 412 year cycles. The mother of True God-True Man, Jesus appeared to give them precisely the True Hope that they were expecting but in Truth and not in a continuation of their pagan beliefs.

I won’t even go into the other miraculous aspects of this image from the fact that you can’t paint such a sophisticated image on cloth made from cactus fiber….not hard to do. Can’t. Nobody in the last 500 years has done it. Or that fabric of this type disintegrates withing 50 years if it is really well cared for and St. Juan Diego’s tilma has lasted for 500 years and for most of that time did not reside in the protective case it now does. Or that the image maintains body temperature no matter what the surrounding temperature. Or that there are no brushstrokes to indicate that the image was painted at all. Or that miraculously survived a bomb blast.

What is breathtaking here is 10,000,000 million brought to Christ in ten years. A miracle so stunnning that we should be shouting it from the rooftops and frankly the only reason I think it isn’t, is because so many people think that all of those Aztecs converted from one form of paganism to another because Catholics aren’t really Christians. A whole people rescued from the terror of human sacrifice and the horror of going to sleep every night wondering if this night the sun would lose the struggle. I think of the HOPE and the LIFE that the Child of this woman brought to those people and to me. Because you see, Jesus is there in that image. She’s pregnant with Him. She OBEYED even though she knew it would cost her her reputation, her standing in the community, and maybe even her life she said “Let it be done to me according to thy word.” Her yes to God mattered. My yes to God matters.

This medal also says that I am Catholic. Something I am proud of having spent more of my life as a vitriolic anti-Catholic than Catholic. This medal was given to me by my best friend and for that reason I wear it too.

It’s not a charm. It’s not Mary-worship. I wear it for a lot of reasons but they all have to do with Jesus….except for the part about my best friend giving it to me. I like my best friend a lot but I don’t worship her either.

The author, Heidi Hess Saxton, is also a convert to Catholicism. Like me, she struggled with the idea of asking Mary to pray for us and names herself as possibly the most stubborn and contrary of all her adopted children. I beg to differ. That would be me. In fact, she starts her book of meditations with a a story that had me rolling because I could so relate. I hope she doesn’t mind telling me at least some of it here. I promise I am leaving out an hysterical punchline and you MUST buy the book in order to hear the end. Heidi was lonely and wanted someone to sit with in church. A Catholic friend of Heidi’s had suggested telling Mary about her loneliness and desire to have a friend to sit with in church an idea that didn’t sit well with Heidi at all…..

That Sunday my eyes fell on the medal as I drove into the church parking lot. Almost gingerly I picked it up. It was still cold with winter chill. Closing my eyes, I said, God, I don’t know if I should be doing this. If this isn’t something I should be doing, don’t let anything happen today that I could take as a sign that this is OK.” I pasued, then took a breath and spouted out, “Mary-if-you-can-hear-me-I’d-like-someone-to-sit-with-inchurch-today-Amen.”

I entered the church, went to my usual pew, piled my coat and purse beside me (on the aisle, so no one could slip in while I wasn’t looking), got down on the kneeler, and began to pray.

When the Pastor told us to turn and greet people, I looked up to find a woman about my age standing next to me. “Hi! Can I sit with you? I just moved here a month ago and don’t know anyone yet.” Dumbfounded, I moved my coat and let her slide in.

It’s a fluke, I told myself.

The next week I repeated the same routine, asking God to keep me from error, sending up a quick reminder to Mary that I wanted someone to sit with, then going into the church and barricading  myself in the pew. When I looked up that time, an older woman was standing there. “Can I sit with you dear?”

The third week I knew what was going to happen. “I mean it God. I’m going to keep doing this if You keep sending me pew mates……”

Because God has a raucous sense of humor, I will tell you that a punch line follows. But the big punchline is what happens when a reader of the first edition of this book prays much the same as Heidi did. You GOTTA read that.

Highly recommended reading. I also highly recommend Heidi’s blogs: Behold Your Mother and Streams of Mercy which just “happened” to have an entry today that I think will nicely round out this review.

Finally, a gentle warning. Jesus warned that unless we become like little children, we cannot see the Kingdom of God. It took God many years and quite a number of strippings and humblings before I was willing to say,

I don’t have the answers, Lord. Only questions. You are God, and I am not … You are pure mystery, and my mind is blinded by prejudice, ignorance, and error. Help me. Guide me each step of the way, and take these blinders from my eyes and help me to truly see.”

This is a dangerous prayer, but a necessary one. It’s not enough to read the Bible … one must interpret it correctly as well. We do this not in isolation, but in union with Christians going all the way back to the first apostles. We must not “proof text” isolated Scriptures to harden our hearts and minds, but invite the Holy Spirit to open us to ALL the truth God wants us to understand. Almost inevitably, He does this through the treasury of wisdom that is available to us through the teaching authority of the Church (the Magisterium) and the saints.

And buy the book would ‘ya?….make it worth Heidi’s time to send me another one.

It’s been a crazy week around here. I feel like sometime on Monday the rocket sled I didn’t know I was standing on took off at warp speed and I have been hanging off the back trying to climb back on ever since. The big topic of the week on that homeschooling forum was Mary…again…and it ended up in a “discussion” about how Catholics were clearly in violation of scripture if they knelt and prayed with a statue in sight. It was such a productive conversation. “Do too.” “Do NOT!” You DO SO!!”….etc. I have suggested repeatedly that those who wish to see me leave the Catholic Church would make more headway if they didn’t waste their time trying to convince me that I am really doing something that I adamantly hold that I am not doing rather than just  starting with an area that I of acknowledged disagreement. Anyway…as the conversation was winding to a close I put up a summary of what I believe with respect to the bowing down to statues issue and it seemed like it fit here. Perhaps it will make up for the paucity of blogging for the rest of the week.

First let me start by sharing my personal experience. Today is Ash Wednesday (but who knows when I will finish this and post it) and because of a commitment that I made to my pastor, I had to be present (before and after) at all of the services where ashes where distributed and for the two Masses. My home is not terribly close to our church and at some times of the day it can take 30 minutes to drive that distance and there isn’t much point in driving home instead of waiting at the church for 60+ minutes for the next service. Anyway, I had considerable time to spend at church today without any assigned occupation.

In the early morning, it was very cold and windy outside (although Minnesota residents would beg to differ) and I do not do cold without a great deal of whining. As soon as I was able, I made a beeline for the church to pray.  I had just over an hour to pray in the quiet church…what a blessing! I went to my favorite prayer spot in the church (see the x on my diagram) and I knelt in prayer. Could I have prayed elsewhere? Sure. Would our Lord have heard me? Of course! Was it special to me because it was in the quiet of the church? Yes. The church itself was an aid to my devotion. Sitting in the church it was easier for me to meditate on our pastor and his needs, the needs of the congregation, and even to pray and mediate on the Sacrifice that Jesus made for me and for them. After praying for some time, being the mortal human that I am…or perhaps, just not advanced enough in prayer….I found my mind wandering. 

At this point it is necessary to describe the floor plan of my church. In the front and center of our Church is the tabernacle where the Eucharist is kept in order to be able to take Holy Communion to those who are unable to come to church. That is the central focus of the church and the architecture (early 20th century) supports that. You can see behind the Tabernacle though and there is a walkway that goes behind it that connects the vesting rooms (see diagram). In the wall behind the Tabernacle is a niche on each side and in those niches are statues. From the spot where I customarily sit, you can see a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In the really crummy pictures I scanned from our church directory, you can see a little arch of brown behind the ficus (yes really) on the left. That’s where the statue is. The other niche, which I cannot see from my favorite spot, is one of Mary.

X marks my favorite place to kneel and pray

1. Tabernacle

2. Sacred Heart of Jesus statue

3. Mary statue

4. Altar

5. Ambo (pulpit) 

6 Presider’s chair

(Sorry that it’s such a bad picture…it came from our church directory.)

Back to my mind wandering. Today there were no plants or flowers of any kind in the church because it is the start of Lent which is a “desert time” liturgically; thus, no flowers or plants. This had the effect of making the statue more visible that it is customarily. As I knelt in prayer and my mind wandered, I caught sight of the statue and I began to think about the origin of the image portrayed in the statue. I thought about St. Mary Margaret Alocoque and how she had been written off as insane and a kook for most of her life. She was horribly maligned by her fellow sisters in her convent. I thought about France at the time she was living and how the awesome holiness of the Lord had been emphasized almost to the exclusion of the Love and Mercy of Our Lord. I thought about how her perseverance in spreading the message of the Mercy of Our Lord was a gift to me. That without her, I might not have the privilege of praying in church in preparation for receiving Holy Communion as a lay person on an ordinary day. (Holy Communion was received only infrequently by the laity at the time because of their sense of unworthiness.) These and many other thoughts went through my mind as I knelt in prayer before that statue. And as a result of that meditation I returned again to my prayer to Our Lord in thanksgiving for those who persevered in obedience and for the Precious Gift of His Mercy that welcomes me even when I am unworthy. Was I praying TO the statue? No. Was I as unmistakably close to the statue as the people in the picture? No. But I was close enough that if someone had seen my gaze they might have snapped MY picture and put it on the internet as further proof of Catholic-statue-worshipping. It was an aid to my devotion. Period. It was an aid both to meditation and prayer. Could I have been closer and done the same thing and had it look more “incriminating”? Probably. Does the distance from the statue matter in this case? If I am 10 yards from the statue am I not bowing to it, but I am if I am 5 feet from it but using it in the SAME WAY as if I was 10 yards away? 50 yards?

Later that day while I was waiting for a service to finish, I occupied myself by pulling weeds in the church’s landscaping. At one point, I was down on my knees in front of a statue of St. Francis looking for weeds. I looked up and realized where I was and almost looked around to see if anyone had a camera. Fortunately, I was all by myself and there were no Jesus-is-Lord spies there. I also took a few minutes to think about the life of St. Francis, the joy with which he served Our Lord and what He taught us about appreciating God’s creation. Again, a statue served as a visual reminder that drew me into meditation about God’s gifts to us.

Now contrast this aid to devotion to my behavior at another time. Our church has an Adoration chapel. What that means is that the Eucharist is exposed in a monstrance 24 hours/day. People at our church take turns spending an hour before the Eucharist in prayer and Adoration. We do this in response to the scripture in which Jesus asks His disciples, “Could you spend an hour with me in prayer?” On Tuesday mornings, I rise in the wee hours of the morning and head to church. As soon as the person I relieve leaves, I veil myself, remove my shoes, and I prostrate myself in Adoration and Worship before the Blessed Sacrament. (I wait until the other person leaves because I really don’t want anyone thinking that I do this for show.) There is no question in my mind what I am doing. This isn’t an aid to Worship. This isn’t to help me think about Our Lord.  This is Worship. It isn’t the primary act of worship which is the Mass but in a spiritual way, I unite this time that I spend in Adoration with the Mass.

Now I am not a Hebrew scholar but I do know that there is more than one word for “bow” used in the OT and since I DO bow in worship and it looks different both in my heart and in my body, I can’t help but think that the Hebrews were lucky enough to have a word for “bow” that looks like what my “bow” does in Adoration and one that also translates “bow” that looks like what happened in the church and in the garden. I have had people that I trust tell me that my understanding is correct.

That’s just my experience and indicative of nothing except how my understanding of scripture plays out in my devotional life. If that leaves me open to the charge of intellectual duplicity because it “looks like worship but isn’t” well then I stand convicted. It is my opinion that it “looks like worship” because of the very different understanding of worship that exists outside of the Catholic Church.  For the Catholic the central and most important act of worship is what Jesus declared it to be in the New Covenant at the Last Supper. Catholics believe that during the Mass we enter into the eternal worship of heaven itself.  It is not hyperbole when a Catholic compares marital intimacy to receiving Holy Communion. Holy Communion is the Sacrament that renews the New Covenant just as marital intimacy renews the marital covenant.

That leads me to my next part. There has been a lot of discussion [on that forum] about this picture:

This picture was originally found on The Sacred Immaculate Heart of Satan page on the Jesus-is-Lord website.

In conjunction with these verses:

Exodus 20:4-5 “You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their fathers’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation”

Deuteronomy 5: 8-10  “You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishments for their fathers’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation but bestowing mercy, down to the thousandth generation, on the children of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

So first, I would like to ask the reader if they pray in their closet? Well why not? Sacred Scripture says CLEARLY….in no uncertain terms, from the words of our Savior himself….

Matthew 6:6 “But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.”

But you say….the context of the passage in Matthew is that we aren’t supposed to do things for show! It didn’t mean that you should literally go into a closet.

Yes I say, and the context of the passages in Exodus and Deuteronomy is that we should not worship things that are not the Creator of the Universe. And bowing in and of itself, is not worship.

And so we are left with a debate like all the other debates that have split Christianity into countless and counting denominations. Each Christian reserving unto him or herself the right to interpret Sacred Scripture as seems best to that individual. Is that what Jesus intended? Should scripture be interpreted by an individual or within a community? Which community? By whose authority? How does a new Christian determine which church is the correct church if they have not developed appropriate spiritual maturity?

And where did this book that we call the Bible come from? It did not drop from Mount Sinai leather bound with gilt edges. The first books of the New Testament were not even written for decades after Pentecost…..the Apostles guided the first Christians you say….well that’s true. But were there more than 12 communities of Christians? What did the communities without Apostles do? Did the Apostles lay hands on some and bestow them with the same kind of authority? If they did, why doesn’t that authority continue to this day? And who has it? Who picked the books of the Bible? When? The New Testament canon was not finalized until almost 400 AD. That’s over 300 years without a Bible. Some churches before that preach as scripture from books that did not make the New Testament canon, and some churches refused to teach as scripture from some books that did not make it into the canon. Most churches were able to afford only a few of the books anyway. How did Christians pass on the faith in the centuries that followed the adoption of the canon without their own copies of the Bible (that they couldn’t read since most were illiterate)? And why is it that the same people who had the authority to set the canon that is accepted by so many Protestants without question, not have the authority to explain what it means?

The canon set at the Councils of Hippo (393 AD) and Carthage (397 AD) was set by the authority of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and the men that were so full of the Holy Spirit that they were able to establish the canon that remains to this day not only believed that using visual aids to devotion was acceptable, they also believed that same Church rightly reserved to herself the authority to provide a definitive interpretation of those same scriptures.

Someone on that homeschooling forum I hang out on has asked “Just reading through this thread and wondering….Why is important for RCCs to believe that Mary is sinless?  I don’t agree with that I’m not really looking for an argument about whether she is or now, but just wondering why that is important?  It doesn’t change who Jesus is if she had sin, does it?

It wouldn’t be the first time the Church had affirmed the nature of Jesus by what it teaches about His mother. The reason the Catholic church teaches that she is the Mother of God is because of his fully human and fully divine nature. The two are directly tied. The Nestorian heresy was fought with by adding the phrase, “Mother of God” into common Catholic speech and into a prayer known as the “Angelic Salutation”….although that prayer is more commonly known as the “Hail Mary.”

Part of the scriptural basis for teaching that Mary was immaculately conceived is that Jesus is that as the Bread of Life, He is the fulfillment of Manna. As the Eternal High Priest, He is the fulfillment of the Aaronic priesthood and He is the fulfillment of the law. Each of these items was symbolized by something that was in the old Ark of the Covenant. Manna, the rod of Aaron, and the stone tablets of the law were all in the ol Arl of the Covenant. The Ark of the New Covenant (according to Catholic teaching is Mary). The old ark was made of incorruptible (that is it’s symbolism) accacia wood, the new ark was made (as a gift of God not by any merit of hers) of incorrupted flesh. Just as the Catholic Church asks “If Mary isn’t the “Mother of God”, why not? Is it because Jesus isn’t divine?” Remember that the Catholic Church’s memory is long and diverse, very often she has learned that those who would deny the divinity of Christ or His bodily resurrection or some other essential part of Christological doctrine, start by dissing His mother. (Of course, not always.) In parallel, in the eyes of Catholic theology if Mary is not the new Ark of the Covenent, why not? What part of the contents of the old ark was not fulfilled in her Son, Jesus?

So I think that’s why (in part) in the eyes of Catholic theology, to deny the Immaculate Conception is to call into question the nature of Jesus.

As for why God chose to give her that gift? I don’t think that there is any official reason for that. Certainly there is the perspective that many have being that Jesus needed to occupy a sinless vessel but it’s one that I buy. I don’t think Jesus needed to occupy a sinless vessel at all….after all He seems to be able to embrace and love US in our sinful state. On the other hand in my reflection and meditation on this mystery (and believe me, as a convert to Catholicism, I’ve had to do a LOT of reflection and meditation) has led me to the Old Testament. Time and again, we see that to come into the unveiled presence of God was deadly. Look what happened to those who touched the old Ark of the Covenant. To see the face of God was to die! Even in the New Testament, we see that eating and drinking the Body and Blood of our Lord unworthily causes dam*ation (death). Imagine then, carrying the Living God in your body…the Word of God, the Second Person of the Trinity within your body. How could she have borne it without the gift that God gave her?

No I think that the gift of the Immaculate Conception was to equip Mary for the task for which she was chosen.

You might be interested in these resources. Here is the declaration of the Immaculate Conception  and here an article about the dogma that you might find interesting.

Often without even realizing it, Catholics say things all of the time that set the Protestant hair on fire. Most Catholics I know have a pretty good idea that Protestants think we worship Mary but they don’t really realize what it is that “we” say that gets them all riled up about it. Just start talking about Mary as a ‘channel of grace’ and watch them get really tense. Now I am not advocating purging this from our Catholic vocabulary but I am suggesting that we be prepared to toss a little water on those flames when we are given the opportunity.

How many of us have run into someone who is either about to purposefully jump into flagrant sin or is already there and is “enjoying” so much they don’t care to quit just then? The excuse given is that they will repent at some future point. Ignoring the fact that this is a sin of presumption on the Mercy of Our Lord, and ignoring the fact that we are not guaranteed a future in which to repent (I am reminded of the angel’s advice to the sinner in The Great Divorce….all moments are present in this one.) this is a dangerous course to chart because we become what we do. We cannot commit acts of selfishness and become selfless. We cannot commit acts of untruthfulness or uncharitableness or faithlessness and not have them cloud our conscience and prevent even the desire for repentance down the road. To deliberately turn away from Grace changes our souls. It wounds. It disfigures. Eventually we become like the sins we commit. (Please note that I am not saying that any sinner is beyond hope of salvation. Only that by deliberately turning away from God as I have described above so wounds us and so clouds our conscience that we become less able to even see the need to repent.)

I think it works in reverse as well. For example, the act of bearing a child transformed me into a mother. As another example, I have the privilege of being an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. I assist the priests and the deacons in distributing Holy Communion at Mass and to those who are unable to attend Mass during the week. I have noticed that Our Lord has taken this thing that I do and used it to change what I am and this blog is part of that transformation. Just as Our Lord has allowed me to distribute His Body and Blood in the Eucharist, He has blessed that ministry and multiplied it like the loaves and the fishes to every part of my life. I bring Jesus in the Eucharist with me in other ways all of the time as I talk to people about the joy of being Catholic. The physical actions of what I do as a Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion has somehow been imprinted on my soul and I have become what I do. Does everyone who acts a Eucharistic Minister become one in other ways? Probably not. I am sure that it is possible to close oneself off to the grace that God would bestow. I know it is certainly possible to bear a child without truly becoming a mother. I also know that there are extraordinary means of transformation as well. Some people become mothers without physically bearing a child in their wombs. And I am equally sure that there are many Catholics who spiritually bring the Eucharist to others without having ever performed the act physically at Mass. Nevertheless, I think there is a profound connection and I personally observed a marked transformation in my own life that began with my becoming a Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. 

How much more so for Our Lady? She bore Jesus in her womb. She shared Him with Joseph. She shared Him with the shepherds right after giving birth. (If you’ve ever given birth, think about the depth of that sacrifice!) She shared Him with Anna and Simeon in the Temple. She had Magi dropping by the house unannounced. She shared Him with the Apostles, the disciples, and all of those whose lives He touched while He lived on earth even though she probably could have used His help at home. She shared Him with all of us when He dies on the cross. What kind of transformation must have been etched on her soul in these acts of charity and obedience? She had a lifetime of sharing with others the Word of God, and the Source of All Grace. She was a channel of that Grace in life as she etched upon her soul and become what she did. Perhaps God could have and would have used another means to bring Our Lord into the world had Mary said “No.” The fact remains that she said, “Yes.” Through the disobedience of Eve, sin entered the world. Through the obedience of Mary, the God’s Son took flesh and dwelt among us and she was the channel of that Grace. If God’s Son was the source of all Grace, that she is the channel by which that Grace became man and dwelt among us. She lived a life of sharing that Grace with others on earth.  She became what she did and is privileged to remain so for eternity.

I’ve been “asked”…challenged is a better word…to show how what Catholics believe about Mary comes from Sacred Scripture in order to prove that these are not “man-made doctrines.”

As a non-Catholic, I was completely oblivious to what scriptures taught about Mary because I was looking for trees and missing the forest. What Sacred Scripture taught about Mary became clear when I switched the process, I looked at the forest and suddenly I could see the trees with clarity. The Catholic Church teaches that Sacred Scripture is a unity. People and events in the Old Testament prefigure events and people in the New Testament. As a non-Catholic, I understood clearly how the liberation of the Hebrews from Egypt prefigured our own salvation, but for some reason I never looked too far beyond that. What is only dim shadow when looking at only the words of Sacred Scripture, becomes quite clear when you take a few steps back and look at what the people and events of the New Testament as the fulfillment of what is prefigured in the Old Testament implies in its fullness. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks to the unity of the Old Testament and the New Testament and in my opinion, this is was a crucial change in perspective for me with regard to understanding the Catholic Marian Doctrines….although not JUST those.

The unity of the Old and New Testaments

128 The Church, as early as apostolic times, and then constantly in her Tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two Testaments through typology, which discerns in God’s works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of his incarnate Son.

129 Christians therefore read the Old Testament in the light of Christ crucified and risen. Such typological reading discloses the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament; but it must not make us forget that the Old Testament retains its own intrinsic value as Revelation reaffirmed by our Lord himself. Besides, the New Testament has to be read in the light of the Old. Early Christian catechesis made constant use of the Old Testament. As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.

130 Typology indicates the dynamic movement toward the fulfillment of the divine plan when “God [will] be everything to everyone.” Nor do the calling of the patriarchs and the exodus from Egypt, for example, lose their own value in God’s plan, from the mere fact that they were intermediate stages.

So with the concept of ‘typology’ in mind, what do Catholics see revealed about Mary in the Old Testament?

1. Mary is the New Eve. Jesus is a New Adam (Romans 5:14; 1 Corinthians 15:45) and Mary is the New Eve. Eve was tempted by the words of a fallen angel bringing words of death. The obedient angel Gabriel brought words of life to Mary and her obedience is the source of New Life for the world. Through Eve’s disobedience, sin and death entered the world. In Genesis 3:15 it is prophesied:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.

It is the Son of the woman who will crush the serpent’s head (and calls to mind the number of times in the NT where Jesus refers to His Mother as “Woman”). If it is Jesus who crushed the serpent’s head, and I think that most Christians would agree that this is true; then, the woman must be Mary. Throughout the OT we are reminded of women (types of Mary) who crush the heads of Israel’s enemies (types of Satan). In Judges 4:17-22, Jael drives a tent stake through the skull of Sisera and in Judges 5:24, we see her describes as “most blessed of women.” (Foreshadowing the words of Elizabeth to Mary in Luke 1:42). In Judges 9:50-55 a woman drops a millstone on King Abimelech. In Judith 12-13, Judith beheads the Assyrian commander-in-chief and is praised in Judith 13:18:

“Blessed are you, daughter, by the Most High God, above all the women on earth; and blessed be the Lord God, the creator of heaven and earth, who guided your blow at the head of the chief of our enemies. Your deed of hope will never be forgotten by those who tell of the might of God.”

But Jesus and Mary together (just as we must work TOGETHER with the saving Grace of Our Lord) crush the serpent’s head and David (who prefigures Jesus) cuts off Goliath’s head with Goliath’s own sword (nice touch in my I-think-God-does-vengeance-really-well sort of opinion) in Samuel 17. Note also that the place of the crucifixion is called skull-place in all four gospel accounts. And again I will call to your attention that Jesus refers to his mother from the cross as “Woman.”  Mary is the “woman” of the Genesis prophecy, the “woman” on John 2 when Jesus begins his public ministry, and the “woman” of Revelation 12 who with her Son is victorious in the battle against the Serpent.

2. Mary is the New Ark of the Covenant. In the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant carried Aaron’s rod (symbol of the Aaronic Priesthood), the written word of God in the stone tablets of the law, and a container of manna. In the New Testament Mary carried in her womb, the living word of God, the Eternal High Priest, and the Bread of Heaven. Mary is clearly shown to be the New Ark of the Covenant in Revelation 11:19-12:1-18. The OT Ark of the Covenant was made of incorruptible acacia wood and plated inside and out with gold. Even touching the Ark of the Covenant carried the death penalty executed by God himself (2 Samuel 6:6-7)

Catholics believe that the language and description of the NT writers of Mary further develops the parallels between the OT Ark of the Covenant and Mary as the New Ark of the Covenant. In the OT we see in Exodus 4:34-35 and Numbers 9:15 a cloud of glory covering the Tabernacle. In the Luke 1:35 we are told that ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.‘ The OT Ark of the Covenant spent three months in the house of Obededom (2 Samuel 6) and in the NT Mary spends three months in the house of Zechariah (Luke 1). In 2 Samuel 6:9, King David asks “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?” and in Luke 1:43 Elizabeth exclaims “And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Finally David in 2 Samuel 14-16 leaps and dances in the presence of the Ark of the Covenant just as John the Baptist leaped in the womb of Elizabeth in the presence of the Mary (Luke 1:44)

Solomon, the son of David, built a temple that housed the Ark of the Covenant. Jesus, the son of David, also builds an eternal Temple which houses the New Ark of the Covenant in Heaven. (Revelation 11:19-12:1-18)

3. Mary is the Queen Mother. In many respects, the Old Testament kings prefigured Jesus who is called the King of Kings (Revelation 19:16) in the NT. Even the imperfect kings in David’s line especially prefigure Jesus’ perfect Kingship. In 1 Kings 2:19-20 we the importance of the King’s mother:

Then Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah, and the king stood up to meet her and paid her homage. Then he sat down upon his throne, and a throne was provided for the king’s mother, who sat at his right. “There is one small favor I would ask of you,” she said. “Do not refuse me.” “Ask it, my mother,” the king said to her, “for I will not refuse you.”

The king’s mother, not his wife, had an official position in Israel. We know this from historical records, but we also see it reflected in 1 Kings 15:13.

He also deposed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother, because she had made an outrageous object for Asherah. Asa cut down this object and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

NT Jewish Christians who understood Jesus to be the promised King of the Jews would naturally have understood Mary to be the Queen Mother. The typology Mary as Queen Mother would have led them to seek her intercession with the King just as we see Adonijah do. We see this reinforced at the Wedding of Cana where Mary’s intercession is sought. And finally we see in Revelation 11 & 12 the culmination of the OT, the Gospels, with Mary as the Queen of heaven. She is the Ark of the Covenant in 11:19 who gives birth to the son who will “rule all nations” and together they defeat the serpent.  She is crowned with 12 stars giving further credence to her as Queen of Heaven.

The cultural expectation of the Jews and the teaching of the typology of Sacred Scripture makes what were formerly shadows to me as a non-Catholic, explicit statements statements indeed about Mary and her role. When you combine what Sacred Scripture teaches us through the typology of Jesus and Mary in the Old Testament with the other implicit statements of Sacred Scripture (and I will get to those on another day) what the Catholic Church teaches about Mary becomes quite clear. In fact, rather than say that Sacred Scripture, doesn’t say something explicitly enough I am left with the expectation that unless Jesus or the New Testament writers gave an explicit exception to the typology that the only appropriate understanding of implicit statements is that which fully harmonizes with the typology of the Old Testament.