Attention All Catholic Nazgul Slayers!
"Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion!"
Posted on 08/03/2005 2:21:45 PM PDT by Pyro7480
Protestants call the worship we pay to Our Lady, Mariolatry. [In the preceding section, this charge has been fully answered.] The peculiar distinctive external worship of God is the offering of sacrifice. Those who have rejected the sacrifice of the Mass have retained nothing more than we offer to Mary and the saints. Consequently they are unable to perceive any distinction between what they regard as the external worship of God, and that which we render to Him in His saints – that is, a worship of prayer and praise. But we have a sacrifice, and are therefore able to distinguish between the highest honor we render to His saints, and the supreme worship we render to Him, never to any creature.
The Protestant may speak of internal sacrifices, those of a broken heart, and of inward justice, but these are only sacrifices by way of analogy, and what should always accompany the sacrifice proper. If the Protestant tells us he has in the interior homage of contrition and real submission of himself a distinct and peculiar worship of God, we tell him, in return, that then he must not call the worship we render to Mary Mariolatry, because this homage and submission, in the sense he means, we never offer her. If he has something in this interior homage that pertains to supreme worship, the worship of latria, he must bear in mind that we do not offer it to the saints, and therefore our worship of them is not idolatry; if he has not something of this sort, then he does not himself offer any worship proper to God, external or internal, and he therefore has in no sense any worship to offer to God of a higher order than that which we offer to Mary and the saints.
The worship of the saints, we conclude, is the worship of God in His works; the peculiar mystery of Mary is the honoring of God in the mystery of the Incarnation. As God in both is infinitely adorable, the honor we render to the saints or to Mary can never be carried too high, and as it is always distinguishable in kind from that worship which we render to Him for what He is in Himself, as God our Creator, Redeemer and Supreme Good, it can never be idolatry, or detract from the honor due to Him alone. We love and honor God too little, but we cannot love and honor the saints too much; we are too weak, too cold, and too languid in our love to Jesus, but we cannot be too strong and fervid in our love to Mary, for we can never love and honor her so much as God Himself loves and honors her.
We need not say that works on the love and veneration of Mary can hardly be too much multiplied, for that love and veneration cannot be carried to excess. No doubt, wherever there is strong faith and lively devotion without proper instruction, there may chance to be manifested now and then something of superstition, whether the immediate object of worship be the saints or even God Himself; for there is nothing which men cannot abuse. But superstition, except as combined with idolatry and unbelief, or mis-belief, is not one of the dangers of our times; and as the worship of Mary is the best preservative from idolatry, heresy, and unbelief, so is it the best preservative from superstition.
Her clients will never become spiritual rappers, or abettors of modern necromancy. Her devout children will not be found among those who call up the spirits of the dead, and seek to be placed in communication with devils. The devils fly at her approach, and all lying spirits are silent in her presence. She is queen of heaven and earth, and even rebellious spirits must tremble and bow before her. Demon-worship is undeniably reviving in the modern world; and there is no room to doubt that it is owing to the abandonment of the worship of her Son, the incarnate God. Where Mary is not loved and honored, Christ is not worshiped; and where Christ is not worshiped, the devils have the field all to themselves. The first symptom of apostasy from Christ and of a lapse into heathenism is the neglect of the worship of His most holy mother, and the rejection of that worship as superstition or idolatry; because that involves a rejection of the Incarnation, which comprises in itself all Christianity.
In its bearings on Christian faith and worship, then, we cherish the worship of Mary, and are anxious to see devotion to her increase. But we are also anxious to see it increase as the best preservative against the moral dangers of our epoch. Mary is the mother of chaste love, and chaste love is that which in our age is most rare. The predominating sin of our times is impurity, at once the cause and the effect of the modern sentimental philosophy. The popular literature of the day is unchaste and impure. Catholic morality is scouted as impracticable and absurd; law is regarded as fallen into desuetude; intellect is derided; reason is looked upon as superfluous, if not tyrannical; and the heart is extolled as the representative of God on earth. Feeling is honored as the voice of the Most High, and whatever tends to restrain or control it is held to be a direct violation of the will of our Creator. Passion is deified, and nothing is held to be sacred but our transitory feelings. Hence everywhere we find an impatience of restraint; a loud and indignant protest against all rule or measure in our affections and all those usages and customs of past times intended as safeguards of manners and morals; and a universal demand for liberty, which simply means unbounded license to follow our impure or perverted instincts, and to indulge our most turbulent and unchaste passions, without shame or remorse.
The last, perhaps the only, remedy for this fearful state of things is to be sought in promoting and extending the worship of Mary. Society is lapsing, if it has not already lapsed, into the state in which Christianity found it some eighteen hundred years ago, and a new conversion of the gentiles has become necessary. Christian society can be restored only by the same faith and worship which originally created it. Jesus and Mary are now, as then, the only hope of the world, and their power and their goodwill remain undiminished. The worship of Mary as Mother of God redeemed the pagan world from its horrible corruptions, introduced and sustained the Christian family, and secured the fruits of the sacrament of marriage. It will do no less for our modern world, if cultivated; and we regard as one of the favorable signs that better times are at hand, the increasing devotion to Mary.
This is marked throughout the whole Catholic world, as is manifest from the intense interest that is felt in the probable approaching definition of the question of the Immaculate Conception. (3) Nowhere is the change in regard to devotion to Mary as the Mother of God more striking than among the Catholics of Great Britain and our own country. This devotion is peculiarly Catholic, and any increase of it is an indication of reviving life and fervor among Catholics; and if Catholics had only the life and fervor they should have, the whole world would soon bow in humble reverence at the foot of the cross. It is owing to our deadness, our lack of zeal, our lack of true fervor in our devotions, that so many nations and such multitudes of souls are still held in the chains of darkness, under the dominion of Satan.
There are two ways in which the love and service of Mary will contribute to redeem society and restore Christian purity – the one the natural influence of such love and service on the heart of her worshipers, and the other the graces which in requital she obtains from her Son and bestows upon her clients, Mary is the Mother of chaste love. The nature of love is always to unite the heart to the object loved. Love always makes us like unto the beloved, and we always become like the object we really and sincerely worship. If we may say, like worshipers, like gods, we may with equal truth say, like gods, like worshipers. The love of Mary tends naturally, from the nature of all love, to unite us to her by a virtue kindred to our own. We cannot love her, dwell on her merits, her excellences, her glories, without being constantly led to imitate her virtues, to love and strive after her perfect purity, her deep humility, her profound submission, and her unreserved obedience. Her love checks all lawlessness of the affections, all turbulence of the passions, all perturbation of the senses, fills the heart with sweet peace and a serene joy, restores to the soul its self-command, and maintains perfect order and tranquility within. Something of this effect is produced whenever we love any truly virtuous personal. If this is so when the beloved is but an ordinary mortal, how much more when the beloved, the one with whom we commune, and whose virtues we reverence and long to possess, is Mary, the Mother of God, the simplest and lowliest of handmaidens, but surpassing in true beauty, loveliness, and worth all the other creatures of God!
Undoubtedly the worship of Mary is restricted to Catholics, and to those Catholics not undeserving of the name; but this is no objection to our general conclusion . we are too apt to forget that the Church is in the world, and that it is through her that society is redeemed – too apt to forget that the quiet and unobtrusive virtues of Catholics living in the midst of a hostile world are always powerful in their operations on that world; and that the world is converted, not by the direct efforts which we make to convert it, but by the efforts we make to live, ourselves, as good Catholics, and to save our own souls. The little handful of sincere and devout Catholics, the little family of sincere and earnest clients of Mary, seeking to imitate her virtues in their own little community, are as leaven hidden in three measures of meal. Virtue goes forth from them, diffuses itself on all sides, till the whole is leavened. No matter how small the number, the fact that even some keep alive in the community the love and veneration of Mary, the true ideal of womanhood, the true patroness of the Christian family, the mother of chaste love, adorned with all the virtues, and to whom the Holy Ghost says, "Thou art all-fair, O my love," must have a redeeming effect on the whole community, and sooner or later must banish impurity, and revived the love of holy purity and reverence for Catholic morality.
For, in the second place, the worship of Mary is profitable, not only by the subjective effect it has upon her lovers, but also by the blessings she obtains for them, and, at their solicitation, for others. In these later times we have almost lost sight of religion in its objective character. The world has ceased to believe in the Real Presence; it denies the whole sacramental character of Christianity, and laughs at us when we speak of any sacrament as having any virtue not derived from the faith and virtue of the recipient. The whole non-Catholic world makes religion a purely subjective affair, and deduces all its truth from the mind, and all its efficacy from the heart, that accepts and cherishes it, so that even in religion, which is a binding of man anew to God, man is everything, and God is nothing.
At bottom that world is atheistical, at best Epicurean. It either denies God altogether, or excludes Him from all care of the world He has created. It has no understanding of His providence, no belief in His abiding presence with His creatures, or His free and tender providence in their behalf. Faith, it assumes, is profitable only in its subjective operations, prayer only in its natural effect on the mind and heart of him who prays, and love only in its natural effect on the affections of the lover. This cold and atheistical philosophy is the enlightenment, the progress, of our age. But we who are Christians know that it is false; we know that God is very near unto every one of us, is ever free to help us, and that there is nothing that He will not do for them that love Him truly, sincerely, and confide in Him, and in Him only.
Mary is the channel through which her Divine Son dispenses all His graces and blessings to us, and He loves and delights to load with His favors all who love and honor her. Thus to love and serve her is the way to secure His favor, and to obtain those graces which we need to resist the workings of concupiscence, and to maintain the purity of our souls, and of our bodies, which are the temple of God. She says, "I love them that love me"; we cannot doubt that she will favor with her always successful intercession those whom she loves. She will obtain grace for us to keep ourselves chaste, and will in requital of our love to her obtain graces even for those without, that they may be brought in and healed of their wounds and putrefying sores. So that, under either point of view, the love and worship of Mary, the Mother of God, a mother yet a virgin, always a virgin – Virgin most pure, most holy, most humble, most amiable, most loving, most merciful, most faithful, most powerful – cannot fail to enable us to overcome the terrible impurity of our age, and to attain to the virtues now most needed for our own individual salvation, and for the safety of society.
In this view of the case, we must feel that nothing is more important than the cultivation of the love and worship of Mary. She is our life, our sweetness, our hope, and we must suffer no sneers of those without, no profane babblings about "Mariolatry," to move us, or in the least deter us from giving our hearts to Mary. We must fly to her protection as the child flies to its mother, and seek our safety and our consolation in her love, in her maternal embrace.
Our help is in thee, sweet mother. Oh, protect us, thy children, and save us from the evil communications of this world, lost to virtue, and enslaved to the enemy of our souls!
The word "worship" is used in the excerpt above in its "original sense." The word itself is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word weorthscipe, which means "worthy of honor."
Catholic ping!
HURRAY FOR ORESTES BROWNSON!!!!!!
An Orestes Brownson ping!
Why did God make the world? So that he could become man: to be born, suffer and die. Mary was part of all that. No mere human closer to God then she.
Thank you for the link. Most kind, sir!
New England Yankee Catholic convert bump!
bttt
But we worship Mary, not only as Saint Mary, in common with all the saints; we render her also a peculiar and much higher worship. This worship is authorized by her peculiar relation to the mystery of the Incarnation, therefore to our salvation, and is rendered in honor of that mystery itself; that is, in honor of God in His human as well as His Divine Nature. Those who reject the Incarnation can understand nothing of this worship, and have no lot or part in it; for they can neither worship God in His human nature, nor admit that He really assumed Flesh from the flesh of Mary. To them Mary is only an ordinary woman, and holds no peculiar relation to the mystery of redemption. She has, in their view, nothing to do with our salvation, and is related to the faithful not otherwise than is any other woman. They assign her no peculiar position or office in the economy of God’s gracious providence. They are offended when they hear us call her the Mother of God, and sneer at us when they hear us address her as our own dear mother. We have nothing here to say to them. The worship of Mary presupposes the Incarnation, and they who shrink from it show by that fact that they do not really believe in the mystery, and therefore do not really embrace the Christian religion, and at best make only a hollow profession of it. There is and can be no truer test of one’s active, living faith in our holy religion, in the redemption and salvation of sinners through the cross, than a firm attachment to the worship of Mary. This is, probably, [why] devotion to Mary is commonly regarded by the saints as a sign of election.
...If you concede the Incarnation, you must concede the Mary is the Mother of God; if you deny that she is the Mother of God, you must deny the Incarnation. There is no middle course possible. If Mary is the Mother of Her Son, then the relations between Mother and Son and all that those relations imply subsist and must forever subsist between them, and she must be honored as the Mother of God, and therefore of grace, the grace through which we are redeemed and saved....
The tendency of Protestants, even of those who profess to hold the mystery of the Incarnation, is to regard the union, not as the union of two natures in one person, but as a simple moral union of two persons, one human, the other God. Hence, Protestants have a tendency to "dissolve [Jesus]," and to cherish the spirit of what the apostle [Saint John] calls Antichrist....
Simply splendid ping!
It's like the old saying goes, "If you're not Marian, you're probably an Arian!" LOL!!
Great post. Thanks, pyro!
I'd say John the Apostle was closer to The Christ.
The toilets are on another thread.
Faith is a gift from God, not something we do for him.
All this Roman Catholic rigmarole becomes a giant impediment to faith.
All of this "rigmarole" is either true or it's false. If it's true, it cannot possibly be an "impediment to faith"; the truth never is.
For that matter .... breathing is a gift of God.
Though faith is God's gift .... we are required to accept it if we are to be sanctified.
The Theif crucified on the cross was asked nothing other than the belief he expressed in his last moments. You cannot deny this type shown us in scripture.
If we are to be as little children and if chldren can love God AND be acceptable in his sight then what is the use of all this doctrine and tradition Rome shovels out upon us incessantly. You heap burdens upon men's back that they are not able to bear.
Suffer the little children to come unto me for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Agreed. BTTT.
Attention All Catholic Nazgul Slayers!
"Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion!"
When He was suffering agony on the cross, Our Lord looked down and saw the two people who loved Him most: his blessed Mother, and John the Apostle. Those two, His faithful ones. He said, "Mother, behold thy son." And to John He said, "Behold thy Mother."
Do you think there was any rivalry there? Any jealousy about who was closer to the Christ? No, God forbid, what an abominable thought! Their whole shared, suffering love --- seeing that Christ was dying --- was directed toward Him, and He GAVE THEM TO EACH OTHER.
Tha is why all of us, as Christians, can call Mary our Mother. We are in Christ --- are we not? --- and His Mother is ours because of our one-ness in Him, and by His most gracious gift.
How is this love "rigmarole"?
How is this love an "impediment"?
Is your love for your own mother and father, an impediment? My heart fills up with joy when I see people who love my parents.
So how can our love for Christ's mother, whom "all generations" are to call "blessed," how can this be anything but pleasing to the heart of Christ?
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