Oh Lord! Cut me down to size
Give me back my innocence
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. (Rev. 12:1)
Today (Sept. 8) in Catholic Church, as well as in some of the Orthodox Churches, is celebrated the nativity of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God (the Theotokos, as the Orthodox say, using the Greek term).
Not surprisingly when I tuned into the livestream for the rosary at Fatima (the site of the last officially Catholic-sanctioned Marian apparition in 1917), I saw the shrine was decorated with many more flowers than normal. I let the livestream continuing playing after the rosary and listened in on the celebration of the mass afterwards, during the which the priest explained in Portuguese the importance of the day, all the while emphasizing that Mary is a created being, uma pessoa como cada um de nós (a person like each one of us), although in Catholic doctrine (but not in Orthodox), she was conceived without the stain of original sin. The proliferation of this idea (the Immaculate Conception of Mary) dates back many centuries but was only promulgated as infallible dogma in the year 1854. Contrary to what many, if not most, non-Catholics believe, the Pope very rarely speaks from a position of infallibility.
According to the Catholic thinking, we can be sure of that Mary was created without original sin, and that she remained as such, specifically because she bore the Living God as a foetus inside of her. She was thus, in effect, the "Second Ark of the Covenant." She also was also the "Second Eve," who by God's grace (and by her free choice in accepting it) undid what Eve did in the garden. This is why one often sees images of Mary crushing the Serpent with her foot.
Likewise, when Mary died, according to Catholic doctrine, her body was saved from corruption. Instead she was lifted bodily into heaven. Thus, unlike the rest of us, who will get our bodies back in perfect form in heaven, Mary never had to do without hers.
Many Protestants of course find the Catholic adoration of Mary quite repulsive. She did not remain a virgin after Jesus' birth but had normal marital relations with Joseph, and bore him other children. Catholics and Protestants thus argue over the meaning of the term "brother of Jesus" in the Gospels.
The Catholic dogma about Mary thus requires that only did Mary main celibate, but also that Joseph remained celibate during his lifetime (about which very little is known---much less than his wife). He is thus held up as a model not only for the celibacy of priests, but of anyone who is not in a holy marriage, including, for example, single people who struggle with homosexual attraction (i.e. gay people). Of course in the modern world, the concept of celibacy is considered perhaps to be the worst possible burden to bear, as in our material-centered world, sexuality and having experiences with the people of your preference is considered the ne plus ultra of existence.
In Catholic (and Orthodox) doctrine, all the saints are able to intercede for us, in that we can ask them to pray for us, and their prayers will be heard and will be extra potent before God. Mary is by far the most powerful as an intercessor. She is the Queen of Heaven (the Catholics believe that the woman mentioned in Revelation with a crown of twelve stars is Mary). She is the terror of demons. Catholic exorcists seem to be unanimous in their assertion that the mention of Mary's name sends the demonic spirits screeching in terror. Anything but her!
Why do the demons fear her so much. Because of her humility, which is the one virtue that the demons cannot counterfeit.
After the mass from the Fatima shrine was over, I switched over to listen to the celebration of the Nativity of the Theotokos from St. Sophia, the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Like all things Orthodox, it has a different feeling that everything Catholic. Orthodox celebrations feel different. They are less in the head than Catholic celebrations, and more in the body, if that makes sense. The Orthodox would tell you this exactly stems from the fundamental theological difference between the two branches of Christianity over the wording of the Nicene Creed in 1054, the original source of the Great Schism. As well all know, the original Nicene Creed, as agreed upon by the Council of bishops in the 4th Century, states that the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, "proceeds from the Father." For various reasons, the Bishop of Rome (aka the Pope) added "...and from the Son". The reason the Pope felt he had to do this was because of certain historical factors at the time, that were present in western Europe but not in the East.
This might seem like a minor point, and until a couple weeks ago I was convicted of the truth of the Catholic position, based on Scripture. I thought the Orthodox only objected because of the unilateral nature of the Pope's action in revising the Nicene Creed without the consensus of the eastern bishops. Not so. The Orthodox believe this is important is because by asserting that the Third Person of the Trinity proceeds from both the First (the Creator) and the Second (Logos), one demotes the Spirit to a by-product of Logos. To them this is exactly why the Catholics (and the West) went down the road of over-emphasis of Reason. To them Thomas Aquinas (whose writings laid the foundations for the rise of western thought) is the supreme example of this over-emphasis of Reason versus reliance on the Spirit.
To me, both the Catholic and Orthodox positions feel like a breath of fresh air compared to the other. I would say that Mary appreciates both kinds, but I dare not ascribe my own beliefs to the Queen of Heaven.
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