MARY: HIS MOTHER AND OURS

[Denise]

MARY: HIS MOTHER AND OURS

The big danger in religion is to reduce everything to abstractions; and abstractions do not need a mother. The one who kept us forever from worshipping an "abstract Christ" is Mary, His precious mother. She it was who put flesh and bone and blood on our God to make Him a lovable, huggable, kissable, caressable, touchable, tangible, edible, eatable God in our flesh. We owe it all to Mary.

It has become clear that those who have a solid love for Mary, the Mother of God, have at the same time a strong response to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The commonality between the two is the sacred humanity of the God-Man Jesus Christ. It was Mary who channeled that human soul and that human body to Jesus in the first place; and it is that same humanity, along with His Divinity that is also present under the forms of bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist.

According to St. Lawrence of Brindizi, the three greatest creations of Almighty God were: Mary's Divine maternity, the Sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ, and the Glory of Heaven. The first two were created simultaneously and the third is the joy of Jesus and Mary now, both present also with their souls and bodies for all eternity. That is what makes heaven a place: two extended bodies are there. Jesus is the first-born from the dead; Mary is the second, if indeed she did die.

I cannot even dream of a Christianity that would ignore, snub or downplay the one who gave birth to our Redeemer. He did not drop out of the sky like a meteor in the month of December. He was not plucked as we do with an apple from a tree in an orchard. No, He came as the Fruit of Her Womb. God could have conceivably made a better world than what He did; but not even Almighty God Himself could have made a better mother.

They always say: the hand that rocks the cradle is the power that rules the world. If this is true of ordinary motherhood, how much more so is it true of Divine Motherhood? The cradle that Mary rocked had God in it; and it was the voice of Mary that lullabied the Son of God to sleep. That voice of hers pleased Almighty God more than the nine choirs of angels could ever!

Mary now in heaven stands like a brilliant white star above a slimy swamp. That's why in any temptation, no matter what form that temptation may take in your life and mine, don't look to logic. We cannot reason with passions. Passions are essentially unreasonable. We look to the Mother of God: Mary, please help me! And She will too, because St. Bernard tells us that never was it known that anyone who fled to her protection was left unaided.

Because she is a human mother, she can sympathize with us. Because she is the Mother of God, she can most certainly help us. One of the surest signs that we are going to heaven is our love for, and our devotion to Mary, the Mother of God, and our Mother, too. Truly she is our tainted nature's solitary boast. Without Mary, we cannot succeed, With Mary, we cannot fail. Because she is His Mother, she cannot say she cannot. Because she is our Mother, she will not say she will not.

Praise God for our Church that truly has a Mother!

copyright Father Angelus Shaughnessy, Order of Friars Minor Capuchin
Saint Clare of Assisi Friary, 622 Delaware Avenue, Clairton, PA 15025

[KarlB]

I cannot even dream of a Christianity that would ignore, snub or downplay the one who gave birth to our Redeemer.

Yup, it is, with the Sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ, and the Glory of Heaven, one of the pillars of authentic Christianity.

Personally i think the Protestant Bible removed the Wisdom of Solomon from its text (although it remains in its Apocrypha) because it so closely envisages (in Chapt. 7) the divine character of Mary.

for in her is an understanding spirit holy, one only, manifold, subtil, lively, clear, undefiled, plain, not subject to hurt, loving the thing that is good quick, which cannot be letted, ready to do good,
23: Kind to man, steadfast, sure, free from care, having all power, overseeing all things, and going through all understanding, pure, and most subtil, spirits.
24: For wisdom is more moving than any motion: she passeth and goeth through all things by reason of her pureness.
25: For she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty: therefore can no defiled thing fall into her.
26: For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness.
27: And being but one, she can do all things: and remaining in herself, she maketh all things new: and in all ages entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of God, and prophets.
28: For God loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom.
29: For she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of stars: being compared with the light, she is found before it.
30: For after this cometh night: but vice shall not prevail against wisdom.