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With respect to trespassing on the precincts of blasphemy, I get that, emotionally. My relationship with Mary has not gone so much in that direction.But now that I've consecrated myself "to Jesus through Mary" who knows what new arguments may come to me?

I told you about the "ambo" (lectern? reading stand?) at the Dominican House of Studies in DC -- the one somebody was insisting was a monastery?

I think I will try to get a photo the next time I'm there. It's a sort of normal ecclesiastical brass stand but "over top of it" is a small statue of a VERY pregnant Mary -- the stage of pregnancy which comes after "puh-reg-NANT" and is usually referred to technically as "Oh. My. Gawd!"

The bearer of the Word presiding, so to speak, where the word is brought forth. I think it's perfect!

I love to be the guy who reads the Bible at Mass. I don't do it on Sundays but at weekday Masses. I have been doing it since I was 10 or 11, and the usual problem of making oneself heard and understood is not a hindrance.

I am NOT one of those readers that tries to get eye-contact with the people. It's not ME I am proclaiming, but the Word. It would be better if I were invisible or in another room with a microphone.

The Bible is so great that it survives even the execrable translation our bishops have forced upon us. And it is just such a joy to try to make it come alive --- well, no, to let the amazing life that's in it come through my mouth.

As I approach the ambo, (not this one I described, just the boring one at my church) I always commit my reading to the Word, but I also sort of, as Obama would say, give a shout out to Mary, who also brought forth the Word.

But I understand, I think, some of the -- I don't want to trivialize -- diiscomfort with Marian piety. First, I think that If I read the reading FAIRLY well, people will say, "My! You read that very well." But if I read it REALLY well, they will say, "Wow! That was a GREAT passage of scripture!"

It's nice to be praised and all, but it's nicer to hear people praise the Lord.

But when somebody of whose piety I have no doubt says a nice thing about the way I read, that's okay. I know he 'heard' the Word, so I don't have to worry that I distracted him.

It may well be that some Catholics let Marian devotion distract them. But among the folks I hang with there is admirable commitment to and love of God AND a kind of affection or devotion to Mary which is of a noticeably different kind.

It's late and I'm beginning to babble.