[Quix]

HOWEVER, MD,

1. The words chosen
2. The phrases constructed
3. The sentences constructed
4. The “hymns” written to Mary . . .

. . .

. . .

leave Prottys with little room to construe it otherwise than

DRUM ROLL

BRAZEN PLASTERED ON BLASPHEMOUS OMNISCIENCE.

I can’t construe it any other way—IF—the RC org’s words mean anything the least bit consistent with linguistic integrity, AT ALL.

[Mad Dawg]

It's all so sad, really. It was the memorial of Aloysius Gonzaga the other day and we read a letter he wrote to his real, live, sho' 'nuff mother in which he consistently referred to her as "most honored lady". What is normal rhetoric in one age is viewed as excessive in another. Do you really think that a good Jesuit would think his mother to be more honored than Mary? Yet he calls her "MOST honored lady."

(BTW a lot of us have taken to skipping colored threads, which may have something to do with the lack of response you.)

We don't always "talk theology" in our hymns and such. Just as my daughter calls babies "adorable" (which irritates me, but I tolerate it) we go overboard rhetorically with Mary. "Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra"? I have said "Sweet Jesus", and meant it, and I place all my hope in Him who is my life, and THE life. But I "get it" when I sing or say that to Mary, and I assume she does to.

But really some of this has to do with what I call temporal chauvinism. Rhetoric which would be cloying coming from my mouth seems apt coming from some 11th century mouth.