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
The dead sai nts are busy asking God to judge this world..
Your 2 posts . . .
LOL.
Sad to observe, for sure.
WOW.
INDEED.
LOL.
INDEED!
Nor I to your pic, Dear Heart!
I might call you Blessed in The Lord, however.
I just want your body whole and healed and blessed of His healing touch!
Thankfully, we are also far too old & flawed for any Imaculate Contraptions stuff, too! LOL.
LOL.
GROSS.
LOL.
I don’t do sculptures—certainly not humans! It’s all I can manage to do a fraction of the functional pottery pieces I want to do.
I don’t even bother much with photo albums any more.
I have some photos of loved ones around—haphazardly taped here and there, that remind me to pray for them.
Most of us DO show her love and respect, we just don’t venerate her as you do.
I don't think you know how I venerate the Lord's mother, or, for that matter, how I venerate the tremendously outstanding OldTax-lady. I don't go around making assumptions about other people's prayer, because I don't figure it's any of my business - just theirs and the Deity's.
INDEED.
WHO IS CHRIST? DID HE COME IN THE FLESH, OR NOT?
THAT’S THE BIBLICAL CRITERIA.
Any diminishment of His Deity;
Any qualification/diminishment of His coming in the flesh;
Any competition for His Glory and Singular role in Creation and the earth;
All ought to be more than red flags to send any such forces and personages scurrying, IN THE NAME AND BLOOD OF JESUS.
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That's one of the main seductive DECEPTIONS FROM HELL, involved with Fatima, right there.
As Alamo-Girl says so well and persistently:
To God be the glory, not man, never man!
NEVER MAN, INDEED.
EVERY BIBLICAL EXAMPLE of any devotion directed to any object or personage but God, is fiercely proscribed, CONDEMNED, or firmly, sternly instructed away (as in the case of mortals bowing, falling prostrate to angels).
God does not and never has treated such things lightly.
Man may construe 'DEVOTION,' 'ADORATION,' 'VENERATION' and the like as wonderful weasel words side-stepping WORSHIP . . . but God does not.
FOCUS DUE CHRIST JESUS, FATHER, SON
IN GOD'S WORD's DECLARATIONS, ALL SUCH FOCUS MUST ALWAYS BE DIRECTED TO GOD ALONE--NEVER MAN.
Roman Catholics et al have been sooooooooooooooooooo indoctrinated, so brain-washed, sooooooooooooooooooo CONDITIONED [akin to the frog in the warming bucket] to have warm fuzzy FEELINGS about ALL THE MARIAN STUFF that their logic circuits seem to be more or less by-passed by anything with a white hanky associated with it.
GOD IS NOT AMUSED.
It is CONCEIVABLE, to me, that God in His graciousness, MIGHT, on occasion, overlook mild attention to Mary by folks who don't think too critically and are immature in their attractions to God.
However, on the whole, this whole sphere is a deadly serious issue of idolatry and blasphemy, pure and simple.
WHITE-WASHING the procribed focus with weasel words, rationalizations, self-justifications and the like will NOT cut any credibility nor absolution with God, at all.
HE KNOWS the focus and intents of the human heart to the nth degree. And HE HAS made ABUNDANTLY CLEAR what and WHO such focus is to be ALL ABOUT.
HE HAS DECLARED THAT Believers who fail to 'hate' father, mother, sons, daughters, siblings compared to their DEVOTION TO GOD ALONE
ARE NOT FIT FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
How much plainer could HE make it?
AMEN! AMEN!
Well put.
Thx.
THANKS.
THEY are reportedly busy with a diversity of tasks, recreations and RESTINGS.
Some [including Mary] are reportedly teaching aborted babies now as children—in Heaven, the ways of God.
“I appreciate your sense of living and understanding your Catholic friends and I also hope they (and I) reciprocate that — may God be with you, brother in Christ.”
Thank you for saying that, my brother in Christ. It is good to meet fellow Christians. I am in a family with more than a few Catholics and one, my wife’s first cousin is a Priest in Indiana. Of her cousins, he is one of my favorites.
I lived in Ireland (County Down) for 3 years and if travelling on weekends in the Republic would usually go to a Catholic Church whereever I might be. I was always blessed. I was also closely acquainted with a Church of Ireland priest who led a renewal & reconcilliation ministry there - he and an RC priest travelled together, ministered together in some of the ‘hot spots’ in the border areas. We had a Monday evening prayer & praise meeting that was often both Catholics and non- together, sometimes numbering as many as 200 people. I have witnessed marvellous, miraculous works of God in various ways, and I consider this to have been one of those.
I comment on threads such as this from time to time, with the intent that I will only offer constructive comments. I have no use for the bashers from any point of view. Thank you for all your comments. And yes, I do understand the differences in the Anglican Church. Blessings.
I was using a generic you, not you personally. I should have worded it differently. Sorry. I’m improving but have a ways to go. I’m still pretty weak. Yes, Spring HAS improved at least my outlook. God bless, Mary.
Thank you, A-G. That was a really good post.
I’m glad you’re doing better!
As a generalization, I think everyone would be better off if the “We this” vs. “You that” line of reasoning were skipped altogether. Every plural-pronoun-group is made up of invididuals, about whose beliefs we can legitimately claim to know very little.
Actually no, it was sarcasm. I thought you might have figured that out ,so my apologies for not being clearer
I have to point out here that I am quite flattered that you actually did a search on my handle and read through who knows how many of my old posts and then even went and compiled a list of them. In this act you have probably paid more attention to me than anyone else on FR or even all of the internet has ever done. I really don’t know what to say. Thank you.
You're welcome, I do this when anyone I have not encountered before posts me though -in order understand what their beliefs are
Were you edified or inspired or did you learn anything?
Sorry ,I did not. I have seen the "same ole" "same ole" that's posted around here from typical modernists and anti Catholic's
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