Posted on 03/14/2010 12:14:46 PM PDT by NYer
Romano Guardini wrote in his book on the Rosary, “To linger in the domain of Mary is a divinely great thing. One does not ask about the utility of truly noble things, because they have their meaning within themselves. So it is of infinite meaning to draw a deep breath of this purity, to be secure in the peace of this union with God.”
Guardini was speaking of spending time with Mary in praying the Rosary, but David Mills, in his latest book, Discovering Mary, helps us linger in the domain of Mary by opening up to us the riches of divine revelation, both from tradition and Scripture. Mills, a convert from the Episcopal Church, former editor of the Christian journal Touchstone and editor of the 1998 book of essays commemorating the centennial of C.S. Lewis’ birth The Pilgrim’s Guide: C. S. Lewis and the Art of Witness, as well as the author of Knowing the Real Jesus (2001), has written a rock-solid introduction to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and done so with intellectual rigor and an affable tone.
His book begins with an introduction in which he describes how he came to discover the riches of the Church’s teachings on Mary: “I began to see how a sacred vessel is made holy by the sacred thing it carries,” he writes. “I began to feel this in a way I had not before. I found myself developing an experiential understanding of Mary and indeed a Marian devotion. Which surprised me. It surprised me a lot.”
Unfortunately, he notes, he did not learn about Mary from contemporary Catholics, nor in homilies, “even on Marian feast days.” It seems he learned on his own by reading magisterial documents and going back to Scriptures in light of those documents.
This book shares the fruit of that study. Mills examines the life of Mary, Mary in the Bible, Mary in Catholic doctrine, Marian feast days and the names of Mary. He includes an appendix full of references to papal documents and books on Mary.
Most of the book is done in a question-and-answer format, which usually works well, although at times it feels awkward. Would someone really ask, for instance, “What is happening in the liturgy on the Marian feast days?”
But most of the questions are natural. “What is the point of Marian devotion?” Mills asks. It is “to live the Catholic life as well as we can,” he answers. “This means going ever more deeply into the mystery of Christ, to become saintlier, more conformed to his image, by following Mary’s example and by turning to her for help and comfort.”
Next question: “Does devotion to Mary detract from our devotion to Christ?”
“Christians since the beginning of serious Marian devotion have been careful to emphasize Mary’s subordination to her son,” Mills replies. “In fact, they have said it so often that the reader begins to expect it. In the fifth century St. Ambrose put it nicely: ‘Mary was the temple of God, not the god of the temple.’”
David Mills, with the same radical clarity he showed in Knowing the Real Jesus, has written what has to be one of the best, if not the very best, short introductions to Catholic teaching on Mary, the Mother of God. Discovering Mary is ideal for those wanting to know more about her, whether they be skeptics, Protestants, or Catholics who don’t know the Mother of the Church well enough.
Franklin Freeman writes from Saco, Maine.
DISCOVERING MARY
Answers to Questions About the Mother of God
By David Mills
Servant Books, 2009
148 pages, $12.99
To order: servantbooks.org
Your father was right.
Your proper theological education lies between the words "In the beginning" and "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen" Coupled with a good bible-believing, gospel preaching church, denomination unimportant.
Religion is the tool of the enemy.
Hope you are feeling better friend, I prayed to God for his grace for you !
Please don’t call names.
You said God had a Mother. I said God does not. You agree. I’m not the idiot here.
I salute the authentic Mary.
The caricature concocted in hell is quite something else.
I don’t know of any Protty ‘going after’ the authentic Mary, at all.
I’ve not considered you to be spiritually dead. We all may have some blind spots here and there but I’d never characterize you as spiritually dead.
How would my hostility to satan’s corrupting the image and personage of the authentic Mary with a counterfeit caricature
cause anyone in their right mind to consider me spiritually dead in any respect?
You don't have to struggle, my friend! That's really what I want to say here.
Just out of curiosity, have you really read papal encyclicals?
I was gonna let it go, but I can't. What proof is in the prophecies of Fatima?
I was gonna let it go, but I can't. What proof is in the prophecies of Fatima?
I know. Me too. Bated breath, etc.
Perhaps a break from this thread would be wise.
I am not convinced that
JESUS THE CHRIST
HAS
A MOTHER per se currently.
He HAD a mother as an earthly human being.
That period is past.
Jesus The Christ existed before Mary was more than an awareness in some conceptualized something in God’s mind or knowing before the foundation of the world like all the rest of us.
Jesus was God long before Adam, much less Mary existed in human form.
In that sense, Mary was NOT his ‘originating’ mother in any way shape or form.
She ‘merely’ birthed His human form for His human form’s 33 years on this earth.
Job done.
Fini.
One can fantasize until the cows come home about some super miraculous super God-like relationship with SUPER MARY for all eternity.
However, such is NOT Biblical.
In FACT, Scripture records Christ’s indicating quite starkly that the typical affection and relationship between Him
AND ALL HIS BLOOD RELATIVES—was SUPERCEDED BY, encompassed by, subsumed in THOSE WHO DO THE WILL OF THE FATHER.
Roman Catholics et al love to slippery step by that passage. However, it is there FOR A PURPOSE. And that purpose is clearly NOT to assign to Mary nor His blood brothers and sisters
THE LEAST BIT OF A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM.
That’s plain Scripture.
The Vatican edifice spends a LOT of time, money ink and wood pulp disagreeing with the wording, the context and the import of that passage.
To the dreadful misdirection of millions of folks in the pews.
Bette, none on this side go after Mary...What I go after is those religionists that falsely claim Mary is the Mother of God...
Jesus was very careful to make it very clear that no one, including his mother could not and would not be elevated above a sinner needing grace to be saved...
INDEED.
Well said.
“In the beginning was the Word...”
INDEED.
Betty, do you fear for my salvation because I do NOT believe that the apparition if Fatima was Mary?
Gotta go for now
THANKS for your kind words and reply.
Baited breath... Been ice fishin' then?
; )
I don’t mind if you call me Bette, just don’t call me Shirley...
LOL! Or late to dinner?
I wish :-)
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