This is one of the most helpful things I've read here.
Please be patient with me, I don't know how to say this:
I don't think gastric reflux is reliably indicative of anything much, except, in some cases, that the sufferer is having a strong emotional reaction (or too many jalapeno poppers.)
Specifically the strength of a reaction may be proportionate to the thing being reacted to, or it may not. On one Bob Newhart show the "wife" character freaks out at dust bunnies. SHE's going, "EEEW! EEEK! Dust Bunnies!", but everybody else is looking at HER, because the strength of her reaction seems to them to be way out of line with the admitted nastiness of dust-bunnies.
Further, we react with strong negatives to things that are good. The Rabies shot series, anyone? No, they're not fun. Yes, they are good. Try holding down your 23 month old while docs start an IV. I have a STRONG negative feeling about that. I did it anyway. It was the right thing to do.
From this I learn that my reactions alone are not to be trusted or acted on.
For fun let's take a positive affirming reaction. The boss-lady made homemade macaroons, and now I know what they eat in heaven. But if I did as my inclinations guide me I would have regretted it.
And this is important because sometimes the "direction" (or vector?) so to speak of the reaction is "correct" but the magnitude is way off. I am right to like macaroons. But my desire to eat all of 'em at once is disproportionate.
So whether or not one is right to reject Marian devotion or Eucharistic piety and Theology, it is worth noting that there is a difference, maybe an important one, between saying, "Whoa, I think I'm gonna puke here," and "Tsk, tsk: There go those Catholics with their polytheistic, pagan, cookie-worshipping ways; I wonder if there's anything I can do to help them."
One reason I'm sort of internally blocking on this post is that I learned this (or thought I did) from Calvin. The last group on earth I would have thought would give credence and then expression to their feelings would be good hard-core Calvinists! If there is any truth to "Total Depravity" (*And I think there is a great deal of truth to it) I would think it would have to be that a strong reaction to a concept or to someone who differs from us is SIMPLY NOT TO BE TRUSTED! It MAY be quite right, or it may be entirely wrong. It may be right in "direction" but wrong in "magnitude". And, (and this may be Catholic of me) if it is so strong that it hampers our ability to think and converse freely and reasonably, then MY money is on EITHER "I need to get stronger" or "That feeling is way too strong to be good for me."
Yes, I get the zeal of our Lord in the Temple or of Mattathias and the running dog of the Seleucids.
In this connection, sort of, I was talking with a friend, brought up in the Catholic Church, and trying to explain to him that along with the theological objections to what Protestants think Catholics teach about Mary, there is this persistent feeling of what I called "ickiness". It just seems, well, revolting to a lot of Protestants.
I have had to do a lot of revolting things in my time, as have many of us. YOU try sticking your hand up the back end of a ewe to free up the first of triplets who has gotten himself back first into the birth canal and has stopped it up like a cork. But then when three wet sticky lambs are staggering around on their feet, bleating, and searching for the teat while their dam gurgles lovingly to them, revolting isn't so bad. Sometimes allowing the experience of revulsion while not allowing it to control one leads to life and happiness and lambs jumping on grass.
But here it seems that a feeling, a passion, is advanced as justification for a kind of, well, conversational style which doesn't seem to accomplish much more than conveying the feeling.
I will pray about my tag line. Kolbe is one of the noblest martyrs of the last century, and he was a big fan of the "miraculous medal" ( a piece of Catholic bling which used to revolt me) and I am a big fan of the miraculous medal and my tag is on the obverse of each such medal. But maybe I can find another tag.
How's the old reflux?
Thank you for this great post. It called to mind one of my favorites Psalms—Psalm 84: “when they go through the Bitter Valley they make it a place of springs”.
I am hoping that you don’t change your tag-line. If someone doesn’t like it, he can skip over it. I find that I have to do that myself, when I see certain posters on the forum.
We have nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to loving His Mother.
A lifetime has taught me this.
Pax
ROE