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A Masterpiece on the Immaculate Conception
The Catholic Thing ^ | December 8th, 2021 | Michael Pakaluk

Posted on 12/08/2021 2:19:08 PM PST by MurphsLaw

s it possible for a memorandum to be a masterpiece? A few paragraphs long, dashed off ex tempore, for a friend, not polished? Various columns in TCT have appreciated masterpieces – a poem, a painting, a musical work. But could a memorandum ever be accounted a “masterpiece”?

I have in mind Newman’s “Memorandum on the Immaculate Conception” – written off by the Cardinal,” his editor says, “for Mr. R. I. Wilberforce, formerly Archdeacon Wilberforce, to aid him in meeting the objections urged by some Protestant friends against the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.”
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That’s it, “written off” – a memorandum is something written off, dashed off, tossed off.

Surely a master can “dash off” a masterpiece: witness the Gettysburg Address, a Shakespeare sonnet, a Scarlatti sonata. And so we look to Newman’s “Memorandum” without worries as truly a spiritual masterpiece.

Newman begins: “It is so difficult for me to enter into the feelings of a person who understands the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and yet objects to it, that I am diffident about attempting to speak on the subject.” He adds, “I was accused of holding it, in one of the first books I wrote, twenty years ago. On the other hand, this very fact may be an argument against an objector – for why should it not have been difficult to me at that time, if there were a real difficulty in receiving it?”

Already, astonishing brilliance. He imagines someone raising difficulties, and his task would be to understand those difficulties and reply to them. But he can’t see any difficulties. Maybe he’s incompetent even to speak on the subject?

He turns this concern on its head. Many years ago, as a young Anglican minister, long before the pope’s definition, Newman had already come to hold that doctrine, naturally and easily. But he couldn’t have done if it had involved difficulties. So he has the requisite competence, which is to speak to the naturalness of the doctrine!

Here is that earlier passage, from the Parochial and Plain Sermons:

Who can estimate the holiness and perfection of her, who was chosen to be the Mother of Christ? If to him that hath, more is given, and holiness and divine favour go together (and this we are expressly told). . . .What must have been her gifts, who was chosen to be the only near earthly relative of the Son of God, the only one whom He was bound by nature to revere and look up to; the one appointed to train and educate Him, to instruct Him day by day, as He grew in wisdom and stature? This contemplation runs to a higher subject, did we dare to follow it; for what, think you, was the sanctified state of that human nature, of which God formed His sinless Son; knowing, as we do, that “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and that “none can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?”

Then come a series of devastating arguments as to why there are no difficulties in the doctrine. If there is no difficulty in saying that Eve was created without sin – if there is no risk of turning her into a deity – what is the great difficulty in saying that Mary was created without sin? If we hold that John the Baptist was cleansed of original sin in the womb, then why not Mary from an even earlier point in the womb? If there is no difficulty in saying that you and I are cleansed from original sin at some later point in our lives by baptism – if our saying so in no way detracts from the merits of the Lord – then wouldn’t Mary’s being cleansed even earlier in her life make her even more dependent on the Lord?

"We do not say that she did not owe her salvation to the death of her Son. Just the contrary, we say that she, of all mere children of Adam, is in the truest sense the fruit and the purchase of His Passion. He has done for her more than for anyone else. To others He gives grace and regeneration at a point in their earthly existence; to her, from the very beginning."

Newman then considers the antiquity of the doctrine. Why? Because “No one can add to revelation. That was given once for all; – but as time goes on, what was given once for all is understood more and more clearly.” You might wish to copy out these lines as proof of what Newman meant by “development of doctrine.” It did not allow for any new revelation. What it means, rather, is this: “The greatest Fathers and Saints in this sense have been in error, that, since the matter of which they spoke had not been sifted, and the Church had not spoken, they did not in their expressions do justice to their own real meaning.”

He focuses on the contrast between Mary and Eve in the earliest writings of the Fathers, and especially the proto-evangelion: “See the direct bearing of this upon the Immaculate Conception... There was war between the woman and the Serpent. This is most emphatically fulfilled if she had nothing to do with sin – for, so far as any one sins, he has an alliance with the Evil One.”

Newman’s masterpiece concludes: “I say it distinctly – there may be many excuses at the last day, good and bad, for not being Catholics; one I cannot conceive: ‘O Lord, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was so derogatory to Thy grace, so inconsistent with Thy Passion, so at variance with Thy word in Genesis and the Apocalypse, so unlike the teaching of Thy first Saints and Martyrs, as to give me a right to reject it at all risks, and Thy Church for teaching it. It is a doctrine as to which my private judgment is fully justified in opposing the Church’s judgment. And this is my plea for living and dying a Protestant.’”



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To: delchiante
Unto the woman He said, I will greatly increase your sorrows, and your conception,. In sorrow will you bring forth children, and your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.

--GOD (But I'm gonna make an exception for Mary in the future.)

121 posted on 12/10/2021 7:51:31 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Campion
Nothing in Scripture teaches that original sin is some sort of disease transmitted exclusively by fathers to their children.

HMMMmmm...



122 posted on 12/10/2021 7:54:27 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Grey182
God saved her from falling into Original Sin & helping her avoid sin throughout her life.

Surely there is some way to PROVE this assertion.

I understand that Rome has compiled a Book that is really helpful in explaining these matters.

123 posted on 12/10/2021 7:56:58 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: ebb tide
No thanks to the protestants.

It wasn't US who came up with this non-scriptural dogma!

124 posted on 12/10/2021 7:58:05 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: boatbums
So we should just ignore the Scripture that states ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God?

Why the HELL not?

The 'call no man father' thing sure has been tossed under the bus!

125 posted on 12/10/2021 7:59:08 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: ebb tide

SHHHhhh!

Don’t let the Prots see us fighting in public!

—Catholic_Wannabe_Dude(Hail Mary!!)


126 posted on 12/10/2021 8:00:23 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: moonhawk
Perhaps it should have been directed to the Catholic Forum.

Ya THINK!!??!!

It could have gotten 10-11 replies by now.

127 posted on 12/10/2021 8:02:01 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: moonhawk
But i see a lot of anti-Catholic snark around here..

Any of it undeserved?

Make crazy assertions; expect crazy replies to them.

128 posted on 12/10/2021 8:03:24 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: moonhawk
Maybe, as a former Protestant, that’s just me.

When Catholics switch to being Protestant, the chorus proclaims "Poor catechism teaching" as the culprit.

To what do you ascribe your switch to following Rome?

129 posted on 12/10/2021 8:05:31 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie
It wasn't US who came up with this non-scriptural dogma!

Sure you did. You came with "sola scriptura" which is non-scriptural.

130 posted on 12/10/2021 8:05:53 PM PST by ebb tide (Where are the good fruits of the Second Vatican Council? Anyone?)
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To: moonhawk; ebb tide

But i see a lot of anti-Catholic snark around here, and more of that than I do Protestand baiting..

 

Look a little closer...


Why does Jesus Christ’s Mother provoke you so much?

68 posted on 12/10/2021, 12:19:53 AM by ebb tide (Where are the good fruits of the Second Vatican Council? Anyone?)


131 posted on 12/10/2021 8:08:49 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: grey_whiskers; ebb tide
Where does the bolded part (I assume you’d meant to bold it) say that Mary is the equal of the word of God?

Let's back up, shall we? I said:

    It’s not Mary - the Biblical Mary Protestants love and respect - but Catholicism’s version of her and their insistence that everything they declare is truth IS truth and every Christian MUST accept it or be damned to hell. Even when there is no Biblical proof, or worse when there is contradiction with Scripture, Catholicism declares she is equal to the word of God.

Apparently, ebb tide jumped to the wrong conclusion (not unusual for ET), took what I said out of context and then ran with it to then accuse me of lying about Mary being "equal to the word of God". It should have been plain to see that the "she" I was referring to - and which the Catechism confirms - is Catholicism and "her" declared Traditions are equal to sacred Scripture, not Mary. The Catechism DOES state on the chapter "The Relationship Between Tradition and Sacred Scripture", that As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, "does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honoured with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence." This was what I was talking about. In Catholicism, specifically the Immaculate Conception, having a Scriptural basis for the doctrine doesn't matter since Catholicism has declared it to be true and to be accepted de fide - held as an obligatory article of faith. Hopefully that clears up the confusion.

132 posted on 12/10/2021 8:08:55 PM PST by boatbums (Lord, make my life a testimony to the value of knowing you.)
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To: ebb tide

Are you off the wagon again?


133 posted on 12/10/2021 8:09:24 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: ebb tide
And 100 percent of traditional Catholics who receive Holy Communion on the tongue, while kneeling, believe in the Real Presence.

Just like they did in the Upper Room.


Heck; even St. Paul scolded folks for not doing it right.


And the the WHOLE Church sent off a letter (Acts 15) to some believers that laid out the law EXACTLY on how to receive communion.


Yessir - no excuse today!!

134 posted on 12/10/2021 8:12:24 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie
Polly Elsie want a cracker?
135 posted on 12/10/2021 8:16:31 PM PST by ebb tide (Where are the good fruits of the Second Vatican Council? Anyone?)
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To: Elsie

Wait until you reach post #90!


136 posted on 12/10/2021 8:17:04 PM PST by MHGinTN (A dispensation perspective is a powerful tool for discernment)
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To: ebb tide; MHGinTN
Why does Jesus Christ’s Mother provoke you so much?

Why does disagreement with Catholicism's Mary dogmas provoke you so much?

137 posted on 12/10/2021 8:17:27 PM PST by boatbums (Lord, make my life a testimony to the value of knowing you.)
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To: one guy in new jersey
Both Eve, and the new Eve, were pure, unstained by sin. Full of grace.

Not both, but neither.

There is no NEW Eve as Rome teaches.

138 posted on 12/10/2021 8:19:06 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: one guy in new jersey
Full of grace.

Acts 6:8 Douay-Rheims Bible
And Stephen, full of grace and fortitude, did great wonders and signs among the people.
 
 
 
Mary, full of grace - didn't.

139 posted on 12/10/2021 8:19:29 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: MurphsLaw; MHGinTN
Seeing as the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is such a beloved remembrance for Catholics, could you not have found an article to Caucus that didn't mention Protestants?
140 posted on 12/10/2021 8:21:09 PM PST by boatbums (Lord, make my life a testimony to the value of knowing you.)
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