In the end, these are intellectual exercises. My understanding of Mary is more instinctive and visceral, coming through the experience of motherhood. My first brush with it came the Christmas after my first son was born. He was premature, and at four months old, still tiny. As the choir sang “Hush, do not wake the infant king. Soon will come sorrow with the morning, soon will come bitter grief and weeping: sing lullaby”, I found myself crying. Tears splashed on his head as I realised that for all the ferocity of maternal love, I could not protect him from bitter grief and weeping. Later, as he and then his younger brother were growing up, I could no longer bear the Passion narratives, and showed my sons up on the Good Friday March of Witness, weeping when the Gospel accounts, dulled by childhood familiarity, sprang hideously to life. Mary, at the foot of the Cross. How could she stand there? How could she stand anywhere else?
This autumn my older son will leave home for university. I found myself talking at last to Mary. “You know what it’s like. Even if my son will never die on a cross, you understand that motherhood is always a sword through the heart. Pray for me.”
Crucifixion was common in the Roman world; Mary was neither the first, nor the last, mother to see her son crucified. The point of the passion narrative is not Mary’s agony over Jesus’ crucifixion, not is it the physical agony that Jesus himself suffered. When we focus our attention on the “how” of the crucifixion, we are in danger of losing our awareness of the “why?”. Mary did not die because of our sinfulness, Jesus did. Mary did not win heaven for us by her perfect obedience, Jesus did. Read the Gospel narratives and write down the things that Mary is recorded to have said. Not much! And her last comment was made to the servants at the wedding in Cana, “Do whatever He (Jesus) tells you.” I don’t mean to belittle Mary, I just don’t want to take my eyes off Jesus in order to focus so much on her. Frances Scott
In a similar vein to that of this article, the blessing of fatherhood has allowed me to more fully understand the love and grace of our Father.
Hopefully, that grace at times shows when I have to deal with my miscreant sons.
#1, I think we all come at the passion narrative from different places at different points in our lives. It always finds a new way to pierce us, and most parents I know report similar experiences of suddenly grasping the pain of Jesus’ mother and the love of his Father played out every Holy Week. I don’t know that it’s appropriate to rebuke this as somehow losing focus on Jesus.
Frances, you don’t take your eyes off Jesus when you focus on St. Mary. To look at St. Mary is to see her son. The flesh which Jesus gives us in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the flesh he received from his mother. You can’t think about the Incarnation without thinking about Mary. It’s just that particular.
It is in the Magnificat that one would wish to focus on the portrait of the Blessed Mother. The heart and soul of that young girl in humility and beautiful obedience to God is something we should never take our eyes off.
Frances, you seem to be creating a number of unnecessary dichotomies between Jesus and his mother. This is not a matter of “either or,” but one of “both and.” As an Anglican, I can say that my own faith has been immeasurably enhanced by the love and example of the Blessed Virgin, thanks in large part to the theological reflection and example of our Roman brethren.
Quite. From an Anglican perspective:
[blockquote]Articles of Religion of the Church of England
II. Of the Word, or Son of God, which was made very man.
The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, and of one substance with the Father, took man’s nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance: so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and very man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile His Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men.
http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/articles/articles.html#2%5B/blockquote%5D
But there is a fine line one needs to observe:
[blockquote]VII. Of the Old Testament.
The Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and man.
http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/articles/articles.html#7%5B/blockquote%5D
And
[blockquote]XXII. Of Purgatory.
The Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, worshipping and adoration as well of Images as of Relics, and also Invocation of Saints, is a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture; but rather repugnant to the word of God.
http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/articles/articles.html#22
[/blockquote]
Mary is the most highly favored lady and called blessed though all generations and it is fair to say that Anglicans have not always given her the right due. However praying for her intercession can border upon upstaging the authority of Christ and this is a big problem for Anglicans as are many of the Marian doctrines.
Prayer with others is a good thing, but I think one of the saddest things I heard someone say on a blog was that they felt they had to ask for the intercession of Mary and the Saints as they felt unworthy to pray directly to the Father. There is only one Mediator and that is why we address our prayers to the Father, and conclude them in the Name of the Son.
When I was a youth in Kentucky, our very low church vicar loved us to sing “Ye watchers and ye holy ones” with great regularity, the irony of which I didn’t appreciate until reflecting on it years later as an Anglo-Catholic priest myself. Verse two is very clearly a prayer to the Mother of our Lord, a Hail Mary of sorts:
“O higher than the Cherubim,
More glorious than the Seraphim,
Lead their praises, Alleluia!
Thou bearer of the eternal Word,
most gracious, magnify the Lord.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!”
To believe in the Incarnation of Jesus is to exalt Mary in her proper place as the gate of heaven, but in no wise to set her up as equal to her Son/Creator. And that’s the way it has always been in orthodox Christianity. Even Evangelical Anglicans of former centuries acknowledged that. Our problem is that most present-day E.A.s’ understanding is tinged with ideas that are foreign to their tradition.
Regarding Article XXII. Of Purgatory: Note, and this is quite important, that it refers specifically to “The Romish doctrine of Purgatory, etc.” and not on all doctrines of Purgatory. At the time the Articles were published, the “Romish doctrine” that was popular had been erroneously based on a misunderstanding of the middle volume of Dante’s Divine Comedy. That was not really about Purgatory but was an allegory on the moral, mortal life. C.S. Lewis gives a much more biblical view of what is called Purgatory by some, and the intermediate state by others.
Strict evangelical that I am, I have never the need (nor the legitimacy) of praying to Mary. But I can honor and love her as my elder sister in the faith: ‘Figlia del tuo Figlio’, as the Meastro wrote.
#8 Ian+
“To believe in the Incarnation of Jesus is to exalt Mary in her proper place as the gate of heaven”
She was certainly carrier of the Incarnation but for us she is neither a gate to heaven nor a gate-keeper. She is what she is, a blessed and revered mother to Christ, but not a part of the Godhead and has no access to a fast track to it, nor is she a Mediatrix.
#9
Well:
[blockquote] XXXI. Of the one oblation of Christ finished upon the Cross.
The offering of Christ once made is the perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual, and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said that the priests did offer Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits.
http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/articles/articles.html#31
[/blockquote]
Out went the chantries, the masses for the dead and in came salvation by Grace in the Church of England at the Reformation. I would require some convincing that either the dead go to some residual state of purgatorial cleansing or perfecting or some ‘intermediate state’ where something similar happens. CS Lewis is good on Narnia.
It appears that on those occasions when his parents tried to interfere, Christ gently admonished them:
e.g Luke 2:48-50
[blockquote] 48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” 50 But they did not understand what he was saying to them.[/blockquote]
I recollect there were other such instances.
But perhaps I misunderstand what you mean by “Mary in her proper place as the gate of heaven” Ian+
There does seem to be a difference in the Reformed and the traditional Catholic and perhaps Anglo-Catholic understandings of the workings of Grace and forgiveness both at death and in the Eucharist; that with death there needs to be a purging or refining of Sin or fallenness; and that in the Eucharist there is an incremental building of absolution rather the price “paid once for all upon the Cross”.
Not to belittle Mary, but to inteject some humor here.
The scene is John 8 – the woman taken in adultery.
Jesus says to the crowd “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
In the Roman Catholic version of the joke, a rock sails out of the crowd and strikes the woman in the head.
Jesus says (in an exasperated adolsecent voice): “Mooom! I’m trying to make a point!”
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Nevertheless, we claim to believe in the communion of Saints, and we claim that the Christian is never separated from God (and Jesus) even in death. Can I not ask the Saints and Mary, the Theotokus, to pray for me?
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of death.
Now I don’t know about you, but I can use this kind of praying because I am a sinner. And I need prayer only two times, now and at the time of my death. Jesus saves and Mary prays, a good combination.
Amen, Br. Michael, amen!
It’s funny, for I have been meditating for some time now on just this subject. Is it wrong to ask for the intercession of a saint? When we fall, or are distressed, isn’t it right to ask other Christians to pray with us? The other Christian may not be able to heal me or help me in and of themselves, but aren’t they offering us a type of earthly representation of the very intercession Christ does on our behalf in heaven?
Insofar as one is asking the saint to pray with you I see no harm in the practice. If I have denied Christ, and seek Him in my repentance, am I wrong if I ask the aid of Peter, and in remembering the example of Peter be assured that Christ can forgive even this? As in the example above, is it wrong to invoke the Blessed Mary, or even Sarah, for a little peace and comfort in the rigors of motherhood? Didn’t the authors of the very prayers and psalms of the Bible constantly appeal to past actions and promises made to the Patriarchs?
So long as the Christian realizes that the saint has no more power of intercession than his fellow brother and sister, and to direct his prayers of forgiveness, mercy, and intercession to the Father through Christ alone, then I see no harm in the practice. In other words, the saint should be seen, along with the bodily Christians who are praying with you, as a fellow pilgrim, part of a group of friends who has come with you to court for moral support.
But the second anyone, be they saint or Blessed Virgin, becomes an impediment between the believer and Christ, that is when a problem develops. The veil was torn when He spoke: “It is finished”, the High Priest has come that will sprinkle blood on the throne of the Father for all the world to see, there is no longer that which separates us from the Holy of Holies! When Peter resolved to build a temple to Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration, he was rightly rebuked by the Father, for Moses could not forgive sin and Elijah could not die for us. When John attempted to kneel before the angel, the angel forbade it saying, “I am a servant just like you” (and let’s keep in mind this is SAINT John).
It seems to me that the practice of venerating the Blessed Virgin and the Saints would actually be best suited for those brought up in a reformed tradition that emphasized salvation by Christ, while those who had to leave Catholicism to find Christ (it happens, don’t be mad. There are plenty who have to leave Evangelicalism to find a Church) would be better off not indulging in the practice.
But yeah, nothing settled to me yet, it’s just where my mind’s at. As a last little remark I can say that the more Reformed amongst us could do with a little more honoring and cherishing those saints have joined the heavenly choir, and at that not only the ones who passed away 2000 years ago.
Didymus
Recovering Baptist
The comments made on this subject are important, but sad. They remind the reader of the strange bedfellows that Catholics and Evangelicals have always been in Anglicanism. The seed of our own destruction is a lack of universally agreed doctrinal authority. This seed is being carried into ACNA and any other creation claiming to be comprehensive and based on a “classic Anglicanism” that has always been in a state of flux.
Didymus, do we not ask others to pray for us? Do we not pray for others? What, after all, is the prayers of the people? Jesus, himself prayed for both himself and for others. The NT is a constant reminder of the need for prayer and a constant reminder that the Christian, even is dead in this world, is still alive in Christ. And that at the end we will be raised with Christ.
As I can pray for you and you for me, so can Mary and all the Saints pray for us. Please Holy Mary, my mother and father and Saint Alex, together with all the Saints pray for us.
Ian+, I too love that hymn. Consider what it says: “Lead their praises, Alleluia! Thou bearer of the eternal Word, most gracious, magnify the Lord.” The saints continue to bless and praise the Lord, and asking the Virgin Mary to magnify the Lord along with with “angels and archangels and all the company of heaven” is surely good. And after all, Br. Michael, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb” is straight from Scripture.
Where the trouble comes, as Pageantmaster has indicated, is when individual Christians begin imploring Mary (or other saints) to intercede in their particular situations, as if God is not great enough to listen to their prayers to their Father as Jesus commanded them.
Katherine, I know. That’s why I quoted the Hail Mary. And that’s why I pray the rosary. I know it can be over done, but I think that we Protestants go to far in seeking doctrinal purity and we go much too far in seeking what is wrong in Rome. Let’s us use all the tools in the Christian tool box. If you don’t want to use one, that’s fine, but don’t criticize one who does.
I just attended a funeral in a Byzantine rite Roman Catholic Church and it was wonderful. To worship using the Rite of John Chrysostom was true treat. And, yes, we even asked the Saints to prey for us.
Br. Michael, I agree with you, so long as the prayers are always kept in context and within the liturgical practices of the church. This is why I am, myself, more comfortable with the Orthodox icons in the churches than I am with shrines to saints in areas and contexts where it’s so easy for this to become a magic spell in the minds of the illiterate or uneducated.
#17 Anastasios
[blockquote]The comments made on this subject are important, but sad. They remind the reader of the strange bedfellows that Catholics and Evangelicals have always been in Anglicanism. The seed of our own destruction is a lack of universally agreed doctrinal authority. This seed is being carried into ACNA and any other creation claiming to be comprehensive and based on a “classic Anglicanism†that has always been in a state of flux.[/blockquote]
Well I had always been told that. But something rather remarkable happened this year. Groups of ‘Catholics’ and groups of ‘Evangelicals’ and a number of other Anglican groups who had been separated actually decided, with quite a lot of hard work, that they actually wanted to come together and were prepared to put in the effort to make things work. That experiment which is ACNA proved to me that perhaps the mix which is traditional Anglicanism is considerably more robust than people give it credit for, and perhaps God is blessing us in the Anglican Tradition and has more work for us to do as Anglicans.
I found that enormously encouraging as well as surprising. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have to make the effort as people are doing to understand each other [as is happening in this column], but that such conversations while painful and perhaps challenging, are very important for us to have in finding what binds us together.
Br. Michael…the Church needs more men like you. To those here who are unaware of the rich tradition of Anglican devotion to Mary, please see: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/ministry/ecumenical/dialogues/catholic/arcic/docs/mary_grace _and_hope.cfm
Has anyone here even read this?!
http://somamerica.org/
http://www.walsinghamanglican.org.uk/intro.htm
Martin Luther said Mary is “the highest woman”, that “we can never honour her enough”, that “the veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart” and that Christians should “wish that everyone know and respect her”.
We should be glad for all the things we CAN believe in, not for all the shings that we shouldn’t. The fussiness of some Anglicans to always downplay veneration due the BVM is similar to the studied refusal of some to acknowledge the full-bodied and robust objective presence of Jesus in the MBS, thus watering it down.
Thank you, rob k! One wonders if the BCP’s are even a small part of the daily prayer lives of many bloggers, and if not these bloggers, what would that say for the rest of us. Perhaps everyone needs to pick up a older version of the Book of Common Prayer and pray the morning and evening prayers daily.
It is all been “balanced” for us right there.
Mary can be an idol. It depends on how one views her. And…let’s remember that Jesus said, ” The ONLY way to my Father is through ME”.
I think I’ll pray to Jesus.
bl
Br Michael: I am one of those who is blessed to know I always have people praying FOR me. It’s the [i] with [/i] me thing I’ve always needed help on. One of the things that drew me originally to the BCP and more liturgical forms of praying was the idea that I am joined with both the author and the millions that have fervently prayed the same prayer in a congregation that has no one locality and transcends time.
What makes you think that the “saints” ()now long dead) can pray for you? I simply cannot understand where this notion comes from. Certainly not from scripture? Larry