Posted on 08/25/2005 3:42:57 PM PDT by NYer
Recently, I participated in an online conversation about the Blessed Virgin.
As an evangelical convert to the Catholic faith, I can empathize with the deep fears many evangelicals have about Mary. It’s a terror that runs way down into the guts and marrow of many evangelicals. It’s a deep, unreasoning and nameless fear that does not lose any of its power even when every so-called “basis” for the fear is debunked.
And like many irrational fears, it has the odd quality of distracting us from reality and clear thinking.
To illustrate what I mean, let me sum up not a few discussions I have witnessed between Catholics and evangelicals:
Evangelical: You must not worship Mary!
Catholic: Relax. I don’t worship Mary.
Evangelical: Oh, but you do!
Catholic: Actually, I think I’m the only one qualified to make that call, aren’t I?
Evangelical: But it looks to me like you worship her! You pray to her and ask her to intercede for you, don’t you?
Catholic: Yes, I do like to talk to my mother about things. But I don’t worship her and I don’t think she’s God. She’s a creature, a fellow Christian (albeit the great one). How would you feel if I said, “You worship your barber! I know you do, because you sometimes ask him to pray for you?”
Evangelical: That’s totally different!
Catholic: Actually, it’s exactly the same. Which is why Scripture says don’t judge by appearances. If you’d just ask me rather than telling me, I’d be happy to tell you what I worship. I worship Jesus Christ fully present in the holy Eucharist — body, blood, soul and divinity.
Evangelical: I don’t think the Eucharist is Jesus’ body and blood, but simply a symbol. But let’s not argue over such fine points of theology as “transubstantiation.” We both celebrate Communion in our own ways. And that’s the important thing.
Catholic: Did you hear me? I said I fall down in worship and adoration before something that looks just like a piece of bread and a cup of wine. I say “Hosanna” to it. I adore it as the very God of the Universe! The Eucharist is my Lord and my God, my salvation, my life, the very source of my being!
Evangelical: Yes. I think that’s a bit overboard, but let’s not argue about it. You have your version of communion and I have mine. Now, about Mary worship: Don’t you see how incredibly dangerous it is for you to commit the grave sin of idolizing Mary …
If this were the only time I’d seen exchanges like this, I would laugh it off as a singular incidence of obtuseness.
But, in fact, it’s not at all uncommon to see evangelicals devoting weirdly disproportionate amounts of energy to the strange task of persuading Catholics to cease doing what they are not doing while cheerfully and warmly ignoring what they are doing.
To be sure, that doesn’t mean I think evangelicals should get on the ball and start a campaign against Eucharistic adoration. On the contrary, I think Eucharistic adoration the highest duty of the human race and something that should be encouraged till the glory of the Lord covers the face of the earth as the waters cover the sea.
But I do think it mighty odd that somebody who doesn’t believe the Eucharist is Jesus Christ cares passionately that I not fall down in worship of Mary — whom I do not adore — yet shrugs indifferently when I fall down in worship of the Host.
It gives one the strong impression that there’s something other than concern about idolatry here. That something is what I call Mariaphobic Response Syndrome: the irrational terror of the Blessed Virgin that paradoxically makes her loom much larger in many evangelical imaginations than in Catholic ones.
As a recovering MRS sufferer, I can tell you that she is perhaps the single biggest obstacle facing the potential convert to the Church from evangelicalism. The papacy? Small beer! The Eucharist? Got it. Sacred Tradition? Not a problem! Mary?
Something in the gut stirs. The terror that the whole Catholic faith is a vast charade flares up in the mind. Say what they will, the “Catholic Mary” is some terrible pretty face on the worship of Babylonian deities. Must ... get ... out! Must ... escape! It’s all a trick.
Once I’m in the Church, I’ll be ushered into the secret chambers where scary Marian rites of worship take place in the secret rooms beneath the sanctuary. There’ll be no escape. I will be forced to worship the Goddess!!!!!
Then you enter the Church and reality hits you: Mary gets small. Or rather, she resumes her normal place. You discover the comic fact that nobody thinks she’s another God, as you feared. You discover the even funnier fact that a small minority of Catholics think she’s another pope.
But more on that later ...
Ping!
Say what?
Catholicism gave us the Inquisition, workhouses for unwed mothers, aristocratic bishops who "fleeced their flock," sexually deviant clergy, etc.
Turnabout is fair play. I was baptized a Catholic, but am currently skeptical of all religions.
I got a strong, southern Fundamentalist upbringing, then became tthe worst sort of anti-religionist for a few decades.
When I turned to the Church, I was a little uncomfortable with the whole Mary issue.
Perhaps oddly, as time went by I found that I was more comfortable asking her to intercede for me than I was praying directly to the Trinity in any of its Persons. I guess that may be because it's less awe-inspiring, and there is less of a feeling that my sins are on open display.
Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exilium ostende.
Catholicism today needs all the Inquisition it can get.
Oh sure, leave it to you to ping 'Biblewonk'. Not enough excitement?
Wouldn't want to read Scripture too literally now, would we? It must have taken a lot of 'study' to get to an alternative understanding of that verse.
Or just skip it altogether!
Well, NYer, as an independent on this issue, I just enjoy watching the debates on Marianology.
I once had occasion to work with some very fine homeschooling families here in Michigan concerning a law that was past in 1995. There were Evangelicals, Catholics, agnostics, Rerform Presbyterians, Charismatics...you get the picture a wide and diverse group of folks who came together and made sure we retained our freedoms in this state. Over the next few years I spoke at some of their conferences, and on a radio show hosted by a very dear lady who was a Reform Prsbyterian ; she is now deseased. One day on the phone she was very concerned having just come back from a vacation in Florida and talked to me about Catholics worshiping Mary. She knew I was Catholic but I guess had never put two and two together in her mind. The conversation went something like this:
My friend -- Catholics worship Mary.
Me--No, we don't worship Mary; we worship her son Jesus.
My friend--Yes, Catholics worship Mary I saw it when I was in Florida.
Me--What do you mean?
My friend-- There is a Church there called Mary Queen of Peace. (I think that was the name that frightened her.)
Me--No, we don't worship Mary: I am a Catholic and I can assure you the Church teaches us to venerate the Blessed Mother, to pray to the Blessed Mother but under no circumstances are we to worship the Blessed Mother.
Unfortunately I don't think she was ever convinced but decided to like me anyway.
ROFL!!!
Here!
Great story about your pastor.
I know the reason. Catholicism sees man as a creature ordered toward sainthood. Mary is the ultimate personification of sainthood. This directly contradicts the Calvinist notion of depravity of man. It therefore destroys the Calvinist self-image in a way in which Eucharistic adoration does not.
You are always welcome to come back to the Catholic faith. We are all sinners, even pastors.
Blessings to you.
Wow!
**We were standing about 15 feet from a lovely statue he kept in his backyard.**
LOL!
Thanks Salvation. Keep me on your ping list, btw.
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