Thanks for NUTTIN!
I wandered off into a rabbit hole of vaguely linked Youtube videos, fueled by my insatiable curiosity about what lies just beyond the bend.
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.’”
Thanks for NUTTIN!
I wandered off into a rabbit hole of vaguely linked Youtube videos, fueled by my insatiable curiosity about what lies just beyond the bend.
Got any more good Limericks? 🙃😀
Not before breakfast...
Yes, something we CAN NEVER KNOW deserves hours and hours of discussion, instead of - oh, let’s say... helping the poor, and guiding those in need.
While we argue impossibilities among ourselves evil is taking over the world.
Evil has always had the world!
We Americans merely have had the good fortune to be born in a place and a time when the view from our porches showed a lessening of it - for a while.
Breakfast? It’s almost 11 PM here. 🙃😀
Is it any wonder then how powerful is the deception of believing the ORG of Catholiciism is ‘The One True Church’? The conflation is a satanic deception which has been too successful ushering people away from Body of Christ birthed on the Day of Pentecost. Once alienated the ORG offers saints and ‘Marian dogma’ to keep the focus off of The Christ, the One True Ekklesia.
Fortunately, some of us saw through the trappings, and were able to leave the OTC in the rear view mirror. 👍
To whom, in your mind does the ‘her’ refer to?{HINT: it is not an org such as The Roman Catholic Church; it is a spiritual reference to ALL believers who have Christ as their Savior.}
Lots of words, bottom line you think it refers to your chosen ORG. Therein is the flaw in your religious reasoning.
The Church
We will have to define “church,” cuz I think we have different opinions of what the “church” means. For that matter, we need to define what we mean by “Jesus Christ.” I keep saying, it’s not enough to have faith in Jesus. We must have faith in the RIGHT Jesus.
The second set of verses you left there, have NOTHING to do with ANYTHING except church discipline. That’s all it refers to. Nothing more, nothing less.
He can’t help it, the conflation has been so dominant in his religious life that he does not comprehend there even is conflation going on.
That’s why I say we have to define our terms. “Church” means different things to different people. The most important thing, is the plan of salvation. I think the Catholic plan of salvation, is different from the Biblical plan of salvation. 😆😀👍
👍
I just wanted to show that Christians/believers are who make up the church and collectively comprise the Bride of Christ. We don't have to see an exact term used in the Bible to logically understand a concept or term is Biblical. It appeared you were challenging MHGinTN over the term.
As for the other reference, did you know it was from a cult ?
So what? All it shows are numerous places in Scripture where Israel is described as the Wife of the LORD. This "cult" didn't invent those verses from Scripture that refer to Israel as the Wife of the LORD. Did you read them?
To compose a limerick in no time flat,
Takes quite the wit and nothing to sneeze at.
But our Freeper dudes
In light-hearted feuds
Come through every time just like that.
Bravo! ... Okay guys, she’s thrown down the gauntlet.
Yes indeedy. A limerick war is on the horizon. 👍🤗
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