Mary - Mother in Mind and Body

As a Protestant, I found two verses in Sacred Scripture which dispelled in my mind the Catholic idea that the Blessed Virgin Mary was, well, anything special.  I thought Almighty God just looked down from heaven one day and found a good, young woman (teenager, even) and decided she would "be the one."  These are the golden "proof texts" which I, and others, believe prove that Mary was just...ordinary:

"Then his mother and his brethren came to him, but they could not reach him for the crowd.  And he was told, 'Your mother and your brethren are standing outside, desiring to see you.'  But he said to them, 'My mother and my brethren are those who hear the word of God and do it.'"

(Luke 8:19-21)

"As he said this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, 'Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked.'  But he said, 'Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!"

(Luke 11:27-28)

 After converting to Catholicism,  and reading and studying numerous books on Mariology,  I found this quote, from a sermon by St. Augustine, the most concise and most pleasing refutation of my old misconceptions:

Stretching out his hand over his disciples, the Lord Christ declared:  "Here are my mother and my brothers, anyone who does the will of my Father who sent me is my brother and my sister and my mother."  I would urge you to ponder these words.  Did the Virgin Mary, who believed by faith and conceived by faith, who was the chosen one from whom our Savior was born among men, who was created by Christ before Christ was created in her - did she not do the will of the Father?  Indeed the blessed Mary certainly did the Father's will, and so it was for her a greater thing to have been Christ's disciple than to have been his mother, and she was more blessed in her discipleship than in her motherhood.  Hers was the happiness of first bearing in her womb him whom she would obey as her master.

Now listen and see if the words of Scripture do not agree with what I have said.  The Lord was passing by and crowds were following him.  His miracles gave proof of divine power, and a woman cried out:  "Happy is the womb that bore you, blessed is that womb!" But the Lord, not wishing people to seek happiness in a purely physical relationship, replied:  "More blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it."  Mary heard God's word and kept it, and so she is blessed.  She kept God's truth in her mind, a nobler thing than carrying his body in her womb.  The truth and the body were both Christ:  he was kept in Mary's mind insofar as he is truth, he was carried in her womb insofar as he is man; but what is kept in the mind is of a higher order than what is carried in the womb.

The Virgin Mary is both holy and blessed, and yet the Church is greater than she.  Mary is part of the Church, a member of the Church, a holy, an eminent - the most eminent - member, but still only a member of the entire body.  The body undoubtedly is greater than she, one of its members.  This body has the Lord for its head, and head and body together make up the whole Christ.  In other words, our head is divine - our head is God.

Now, beloved, give me your whole attention, for you also are members of Christ; you also are the body of  Christ.  Consider how you yourselves can be among those of whom the Lord said:  "Here are my mother and my brothers."  Do you wonder how you can be the mother of Christ?  He himself said:  Whoever hears and fulfills the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and my sister and my mother."  As for our being the brothers and sisters of Christ, we can understand this because although there is only one inheritance and Christ is the only Son, his mercy would not allow him to remain alone.  It was his wish that we too should be heirs of the Father, and co-heirs with himself.

Now having said that all of you are brothers of Christ, shall I not dare to call you his mother?  Much less would I dare to deny his own words.  Tell me how Mary became the mother of Christ, if it was not by giving birth to the members of Christ?  You, to whom I am speaking, are the members of Christ.  Of whom were you born?  "Of Mother Church," I hear the reply of your hearts.  You became sons of this mother at your baptism, you came to birth then as members of Christ.  Now you in your turn must draw to the font of baptism as many as you possibly can.  You became sons when you were born there yourselves, and now by bringing others to birth in the same way, you have it in your power to become the mothers of Christ. (Office of Readings for November 21)

Mary is the mother of Christ both in mind and body.  She is mother of the Church and our mother.  We, too, become mother and brother and sister of Christ, by virtue of our baptism and our "yes" to Almighty God.  A lifetime isn't enough to meditate on these beautiful truths. 

Today is the Feast of the Presentation of Mary.  You may read about it here.

Fidelity to Error is not a Virtue

Dietrich von Hildebrand, begins his book, Transformation in Christ, quoting St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, and states that all must pass through this gate if we wish to reach the goal set before us by God:

Put off the old man who is corrupted according to the desire of error, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind:  and put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth.  (Eph. 4:22-24)

von Hildebrand says, that the man who has a supernatural readiness to change, seeing his life by a supernatural light and not merely by natural standards, is conscious of his wretchedness, and will not sink into resignation: "for he possesses a supernatural zeal for perfection, expecting the supreme fructification of the talents which God has in reality entrusted to him from his transformation in Christ, rather than from his own effort alone."  He continues:  "Whatever his nature be like, he will know that it is possible for him to become another man if he is rightly disposed for being created anew by Christ - mindful of the words which the king in the parable addresses to his guest:  'Friend, how camest thou in hither not having on a wedding garment?'  (Matt. 22:12).   The state of fluidity in relation to Christ, and the readiness to leave behind everything, particularly one's own self - such is the tissue of which the festive garment is woven."

von Hildebrand states that this state of fluidity can be obstructed when people adhere to errors, by attributing value to what is not genuine virtue.  He says:  "What claims our faithfulness is the presence of genuine values.  Fidelity is but a manifestation of that continuity by virtue of which we pay consideration to the immutability and the eternal significance of truth and of the world of values.

"To abide by a thing inflexibly, merely because we have once believed in it and have come to love it, is not in itself a praiseworthy attitude.  It is only in reference to truth and to genuine value that unswerving loyalty is an obligation, and a virtue.  In regard to all errors and negative values (that is, evils in the widest sense of the term, but particularly in a morally relevant sense) we have, on the contrary, the duty to break with what we formerly cherished and to withdraw our allegiance from them, once we know them to be false and negative in value.  Indeed, the obligation of fidelity in a formal and automatic sense must not hamper our readiness to separate ourselves from such ideals or convictions, once we have serious reasons to doubt their validity.  There is only one fidelity to which we are absolutely committed:  that is, fidelity towards God, the epitome of all values, and towards everything that represents God and is instrumental to us in approaching Him."

Who is Dietrich von Hildebrand?

Born October 12, 1889 in Florence of German parents, Dietrich von Hildebrand was an original philosopher and religious writer, a brave anti-Nazi activist, an outspoken Christian witness, and a unique representative of Western culture - truly a great figure in twentieth century religious, political, intellectual, and cultural history. As the son of a famous sculptor, von Hildebrand grew up in an unusually rich aesthetic milieu, receiving a formation that allowed him to become an eminently cultured man. He was, quite literally, a Renaissance man.

Von Hildebrand studied philosophy under Edmund Husserl, who declared his dissertation to be a work of genius. He was profoundly influenced by his close friend, the brilliant German philosopher Max Scheler, who helped to pave the way for von Hildebrand's conversion to Catholicism in 1914.
 
When Hitler rose to power in 1933, von Hildebrand was among the first to recognize and denounce the evil of Hitler and Nazism. A persona non grata in Germany, he left everything and went penniless to Vienna where he founded an anti-Nazi newspaper. With the German occupation of Austria in 1938, von Hildebrand became a political fugitive. Fleeing through Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, France, Portugal, and Brazil, he eventually arrived in the United States in 1940 where he taught for many years at Fordham University in New York City.

Read the entire story at the HildebrandLegacy.org.

I have been so touched by his story, and the story of his wife, Alice.  I have been blessed during the many hours which I have spent watching and listening to interviews with Alice on the EWTN series,  A Knight for Truth:  Transformation in Christ.  I have become a student of Phenomenology and von Hildebrand's philosophy of Personalism,  joining St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)  and Blessed Pope John Paul II as students of this philosophy.  I am equally blessed to be studying his books, especially his book of the same name,  Transformation in Christ.  Both Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have commented on the greatness of this twentieth century philosopher and religious writer: 

Pope John Paul II called Dietrich von Hildebrand "one of the great ethicists of the twentieth century." Pope Benedict XVI said this about von Hildebrand, "When the intellectual history of the Catholic Church in the twentieth century is written, the name of Dietrich von Hildebrand will be most prominent among the figures of our time." 

von Hildebrand begins Transformation with man's need and desire to change.   He contrasts the idealist's natural optimism and readiness to develop and perfect himself by his own power with the Christian who knows the "essential inadequacy of all natural morality, as well as the incomparable superiority of virtue supernaturally founded,"  which is the virtue of holiness.

von Hildebrand says:  "His readiness to change will differ, therefore, from that of the Christian, above all in the following respects.  First, he has in mind a relative change only:  an evolution immanent to nature.  His endeavor is not, as is the Christian's, to let his nature as a whole be transformed from above, nor to let his character be stamped with a new coinage, a new face, as it were, whose features far transcend human nature and all its possibilities.  His object is not to be reborn:  to become radically - from the root, that is - another man; he merely wants to perfect himself within the framework of his natural dispositions . . . whereas, with the Christian, it refers to a basic transformation and redemption of things human by things divine:  to a supernatural goal."

von Hildebrand continues:  "The idealist's readiness to change is aimed at certain details or aspects only, never at his character as a whole.  The aspiring man of natural morality is intent on eradicating this defect, on acquiring that virtue; the Christian, however, is intent on becoming another man in all things, in regard to both what is bad and what is naturally good in him.  He knows that what is naturally good, too, is insufficient before God:  that it, too must submit to supernatural transformation — to a re-creation, we might say, by the new principle of supernatural life conveyed to him by Baptism."

I hope you join me on this journey of discovery - discovery of the von Hildebrands, of St. Edith Stein, of Blessed John Paul the Great.  May you be as blessed as I have been.

New Name - New Focus

This, my friends, is Step Two on the little ladder of my life.  I've given up Rantings on the Bay,  but I must admit I won't miss her although she served me well, when I needed her.  Here, I hope to share my passion for Jesus Christ and my beloved Catholic Church.  I will be passing along Catholic news,  information about the Church, the Saints, EWTN, prayer, and my favorite topic Phenomenology.  I will spend much time passing on the teachings of Dietrich von Hildebrand and his wife, Alice.  I hope you enjoy, are blessed, and will pray for me.

Step Two

A friend of mine told me recently that I was ready for Step Two.  That my unceasing days of depression and lack of self confidence (ahem, esteem) were over.  That I have more talent in my little finger than he does in his entire body.  WELL.  What to do with THAT?  I did not really believe my friend, but listened and tried to stop the depressive tears which I had been wiping away all day long. 

I had been pondering the responses to a post I made over in Facebookville.  I said: 

how do you feel when you are no longer needed?  when your children leave the nest...when your spouse dies...when you divorce...when you are fired from your job and can't find another in your field...when you become ill and can no longer work as you once had?  how do you feel when the worth you once had is...gone?

I was very surprised at the responses.  My dear friend AC told me I was "so needed".  Another dear friend told me she had suffered similar losses.  Another said,  "I was laid off from my job and have been applying for jobs every day with no luck...".  One priest totally surprised me with:  That is not the voice of God or of faith speaking.  (((Bummer)))

So, here I am blogging again.  I have crashed and am beginning to rise again.  I believe my friend's "Step Two" line, and am talking myself into the "I am confident, I am worth something, I can do something" thing.  When I made the post in Facebookville,  I wasn't making the, "I'm crying out-suicidal-Post"...I wanted to know how others felt when they felt their "worth" had changed. 

I still wonder about my "worth", but I'm giving the Step Two a try.