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Locked on 12/11/2015 9:03:03 AM PST by Jim Robinson, reason:
Last word on the issue at post 435. |
Posted on 12/09/2015 1:36:26 PM PST by NYer
Can a hymn cancel Christmas? Can the lyrics of a song, if true, make Christmas not true — that is to say, un-real? Oh, yes!
Now, it is a given that honorable people may disagree about which piece of music is more suitable to reverence the birth of Christ. (I myself prefer Handel’s Messiah to “The Little Drummer Boy.â€) And while there are any number of “secular†Christmas songs that ignore Christ altogether, they are just distractions. What I have in mind is a song that, if taken seriously, makes impossible what Christians celebrate at Christmas. I might even call that song a “hymn†because I once heard it sung in a parish at Christmas Eve Mass. I am writing about it now for that reason, and also because I’ve heard so many Catholics speak so effusively about it, especially when it is sung at Christmas masses. I’m speaking of a song made popular by former American Idol star Clay Aiken: “Mary Did You Know?â€
While the song has the merits of prompting its hearers to reflect on Mary beholding her Divine Son, lines from the very first stanza actually bring Christmas to a screeching halt. Here are the problematic lyrics:
“Did you know that your Baby Boy has come to make you new? This Child that you delivered will soon deliver you.â€
Now, those lines make sense if Mary is another sinner just like us, who needs to be delivered from sin. You see, if Mary is a sinner who like us needs a savior, then the lyricist’s play on the word “deliver†(sense 1: “deliver†= “give birthâ€; sense 2: “deliver†= “liberate from sinâ€) is both clever and theologically sound. But if Mary is a sinner in need of a savior, then she cannot be the worthy vessel in whom the All-Holy God takes on human nature as the Word-Made-Flesh. In other words the lyrics depend upon the dogma of the Immaculate Conception being false. If Mary needs a Savior, then she cannot be the vessel of the Incarnation. And “No-Incarnation†= “No-Christmas.†How ironic that a song sung with so much gusto as a Christmas hymn logically precludes what it claims to celebrate!
Let’s take a look at the Apostolic Constitution, Ineffabilis Deus, promulgated by Pope Pius IX on December 8, 1854, which defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Pius begins by summarizing this ancient doctrine: “From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only begotten Son a mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world.†Mary was not, and could not have been, just any woman, just any sinner, selected by God to be the mother of His Only Begotten Son.
Pius reflects on the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in a way that shows that sound theology can be eloquent, even poetic:
The Virgin Mother of God would not be conceived by Anna before grace would bear its fruits; it was proper that she be conceived as the first-born, by whom ‘the first-born of every creature’ would be conceived. They testified too that the flesh of the Virgin, although derived from Adam, did not contract the stains of Adam, and that on this account the most Blessed Virgin was the tabernacle created by God himself and formed by the Holy Spirit … she is beautiful by nature and entirely free from all stain; that at her Immaculate Conception she came into the world all radiant like the dawn. For it was certainly not fitting that this vessel of election should be wounded by the common injuries, since she, differing so much from the others, had only nature in common with them, not sin. In fact, it was quite fitting that, as the Only Begotten has a Father in heaven, whom the Seraphim extol as thrice holy, so he should have a Mother on earth who would never be without the splendor of holiness.
How much more beautiful, sublime, and awe-inspiring is the Immaculate Conception as the prelude to Christmas — far more so than the well-intentioned but erroneous sentimentality of the lyrics of “Mary Did You Know?â€
Pius sums up the dogma of the Immaculate Conception with this definition:
We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.
We are now in the second week of Advent. Prepared or not, we will soon find ourselves in the Christmas season. To find the truth of Christmas, to find the great gift of God which is the real “reason for the season,†we cannot avoid, forget or deny the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. No piece of music, not even Handel’s Messiah can express all of the wonder of Incarnation and the glory of Christmas. Silly, secular songs can distract us from Christmas. Some songs, like “Mary Did You Know,†even if very affecting in a sentimental way, actually preclude Christmas. This Christmas season, let’s give our family and friends the gift of Christmas truth. “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!â€
The Catholic Church has never suggested that she didn’t need a savior.
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Wrong. The article says that Catholics claim she was conceived without sin. Anyone who can pull that off doesn’t need a savior.
“My soul praises the Lord; my heart rejoices in God my Savior, because he has shown his concern for...”
Mary called him “God my Savior,” in her song because she recognized her need of a savior as well.
And she wasn’t without fault; Jesus had to correct her / rebuke her at the wedding when he turned water into wine.
She was far better than average, but not perfect.
Total Goddess worship, it’s bizarre.
To postulate that Mary was born sinless is to say God DIDN’T need Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, His death and propitiation, for...if God was able to save Mary without the crucifixion, He could have saved EVERYBODY without the crucifixion!
And, to say Jesus couldn’t have been born in a sinful vessel, well, did that mean Elizabeth, Mary’s mother, was ALSO born sinless? If Mary needed to be born sinless to hold Jesus, then Elizabeth ALSO needed to be born sinless to be a vessel for Mary’s birth!
And Elizabeth’s mother, didn’t SHE also, need to be born sinless??
Total absurdity...
Ed
Personally, I would probably end up browning off the perfect-Mary Catholics a bit by pointing out that Mary couldn’t quite resist being the proud Jewish mother at the wedding at Cana. She was “full of grace” which usually kept that kind of thing constrained (and a good thing too, or she would have been quite the trial and nuisance to her Son) but nobody said sinless. Looking at how God’s grace addresses sin is one of the largest wonders in the world. This gave an example of it, without overdoing it.
“the lyrics depend upon the dogma of the Immaculate Conception being false”
Yep! Good song.
The Kenny Rogers version of “Mary Did You Know” was popular 30 years ago. It is also lovely.
I far prefer it over Aiken, because all I can see of the man is his male “partner” and baby, the opposite of the mother-father family even the divinely created Jesus was raised in.
“But if Mary is a sinner in need of a savior, then she cannot be the worthy vessel in whom the All-Holy God takes on human nature as the Word-Made-Flesh.”
The truth: Mary is a sinner.
The truth: God chose a sinner to be the month of His Son, Jesus Christ.
The truth: If Mary was sinless (as Catholicism teaches), then would not her entire lineage have to be sinless? All the way back to Adam and Eve, who we know were not sinless?
The teachings of Catholicism are very strange.
Because they think it somehow disparages Mary, which it doesn't.
On this point, my Catholic friends and I disagree.
I like the song. A lot.
actually, like all OT women, she was found righteous in childbirth.
Tossing out a big chunk of red meat to us poor protestants. I hope no one takes the bait.
I wouldn't use the word fault so much as ignorance and presumption (yes, a sin.) There were several instances when she and Joseph second guess their Lord in his mission: when he was teaching in the temple as a child and they chided Him; when they sought him out to take him away from teaching the multitudes, saying he had lost his mind; and the wedding event that you mentioned.
And we cannot forget the words from the lips of Jesus himself: "Who is my mother?" "These...."
She was indeed conceived without sin. That’s how God saved her. She didn’t “pull that off” herself.
What is wrong with asking the questions? what if they are rhetorical? Or could they just have been written in the form a question for people find the truth?
Wow, the song is that old? I thought maybe a few years...
The angel Gabriel said to her, “Hail, full of grace.”
If one is ‘full of grace’ that means that there is no sin within them, for grace is there in its place.
You might want to go back and read Luke 1 again.
You've made a valid point there, fwdude.
Jesus was and is Mary's Savior, as she said. Yet ever before she conceived Him in her womb, she was "full of grace" (as God's angelic ambassador called her, Kecharitomene) --- "she who has already been fully graced". Gabriel described her as full of grace, not full of sin.
What can we reasonably conclude from this apparent paradox? It's that God's co-eternal Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, had a way to save Mary before Her took His flesh from her, and before she even came into existence.
"He who is holy has done great things for me!"
It would have to have been when she received her human nature, as every one of us does, at conception. Because her human nature --- which she shared with her Son --- was a pure and perfect human nature, like that of primordial Adam and primordial Eve in Eden, not yet ruined by sin. Jesus is perfect in His Hiumanity as well as in His divibity.
Rgus Mary had to be uniquely pure in her human nature: as the Angel Gabriel said, "Kecharitomene."
Chapter and verse, please?
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