I can do without Mary?

Appended below is a talk i gave to some of the legionaries and their friends in NUS....
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I can do without Mary?

We know that Marian devotion is central to the official teaching of the Church. Every encyclical issued by Popes would contain a hymn to our Lady or a prayer. John Paul II himself was a great promoter of devotion to the Blessed Virgin, writing an entire encyclical entitled Mother of the Redeemer or Redemptoris Mater devoted to her, putting M on his coat of arms, the first of a kind for any pope and even attributing his very survival in the 1981 assassination attempt to the intercession of the Virgin of Fatima.

In Singapore, devotion to our Blessed Mother is strong. Novena Church as the recent Catholic News reports, attracts, thousands of people every week, all believing that the Blessed Virgin will be their mother and assist them in their needs.

Yet we hear the objection very often that Catholics place to much emphasis on the Blessed Virgin. And these days, it is not only Protestants who are objecting. I would like to sketch in this short paper, 3 objections and also attempt to at least respond in some part to these objections. Hopefully, what follows would provide material for a fruitful discussion.

The first objection comes of course from our separated brethren. Many Protestants see devotion to the Blessed Virgin as unbiblical and detracting from the unique mediation of Jesus Christ.

Many actually believe that we worship her, are uncomfortable with the statues and processions, seeing this as a lapsing into a certain form of idolatry, forbidden in scripture.

At best, Protestants who consider Catholics Christian see Marian devotion as an unnecessary distraction from the real business of worshipping God. You probably would have heard this said many times “If you can go directly to Jesus, why do we need to go to Mary?

The second objection actually comes from Catholics. These Catholics like to see themselves as influenced by the so called “spirit of Vatican II”. For those present unfamiliar with Vatican II, it was a Church council held from 1958-1963 which sought to renew the Church to better meet the challenges of proclaiming the Gospel in the modern world. The so called “spirit of Vatican II” Catholics tend to see Vatican II as a radical break from the unhappy Catholic past and a new beginning from which to construct an “authentic” Christianity. They believed that the council called for a de- emphasis on Mary so as not to offend Protestant and ecumenical sensibilities and to find common ground with Protestants on common Christological beliefs.

There are also another group of Catholics who were very much influenced by liberation theology. In a nutshell, liberation theology attempted to use the ideas of Marx and synthesized that with the Gospel. They saw Jesus Christ not so much as a saviour from personal sin but rather a revolutionary who had inspired the poor of his time to resist their oppressors. They reinterpreted much of so called traditional Christianity. For example, many saw the traditional corporal works of mercy performed by conscientious Catholics as “non transformative”, justifying an inherently oppressive Capitalist system and not going to the roots of the problem which was that of the evils of Capitalism itself.

This group of Catholics tended to see Marian devotions as non-transformative. “Too devotional” is their constant refrain, with an excessive concern with one’s private salvation and with no real impact on the world and its unjust sinful structures. The only thing of some value to the liberationists is the single verse of the Magnificat “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly”. The rest of Marian devotion seems to many liberationists as what Marx himself would describe as the “opiate of the people”.

The third objection comes from people whom we can loosely define as feminists of various degrees of extremity and various degrees of religious persuasion. They usually take as their bone of contention the all male celibate hierarchy of the Catholic Church, seeing it as an unjust structure of male domination. To the reply from the Church that the Church honours no human creature more than the Blessed Mother, they rejoin that the values promoted by traditional or official portrayals of the Blessed Virgin are in the final analysis demeaning and dehumanizing to women.

French feminist Simone de Beauvoir fumes “I am the handmaid of the Lord. For the first time in the history of mankind, a mother kneels before her son and acknowledges, of her own free will, her inferiority. The supreme victory of masculinity is consummated in Mariolatry: it signifies the rehabilitation of woman through the completeness of her defeat.”

Other feminists see Our Lady’s perpetual virginity as an affront to woman, a denial of the sensual and sexual part of being female.

Against this 3 pronged objection, what then is the response of the Church?

In a nutshell, Mary matters and a Catholic cannot do without her.

Against the Protestant rejoinder that Mary does not matter. The Church essentially teaches “if Mary does not matter, than neither do you.”

At the crux of the Protestant objection is what I think are confused and erroneous understandings of human freedom and Divine Predestination. Protestant reformer John Calvin held that mankind, after the fall is totally depraved and incapable of goodness. It is only through the irresistible grace of God that someone is saved. In other words, a person is saved by virtue of divine election with his human freedom playing a minimum or almost non existent part in his salvation. Martin Luther furthered argued that in his doctrine of justification that the justified human person is like “snow covering dung”. The person is still rotten but is covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. When God the Father judges, he sees the blood of Christ and the person gains salvation, even though internally, he continues to remain rotten.

From this, it would logically follow that since we don’t really matter in our being saved, Mary does not matter very much either.

The Catholic understanding of both freedom and predestination is quite different. We are not totally depraved, we remain capable of freedom, wounded as we are, we can cooperate with divine grace. Divine election is a free Yes to God, God does not coerce us. If that is the case, then Our Lady’s “Yes” is a free Yes to God empowered of course by his Grace. It was not forced or coerced. St. Louis Marie de Montfort puts it very well in his “True Devotion to Mary when he says”

With the whole Church, I acknowledge that Mary being a mere creature fashioned by the hands of God is, compared to his infinite majesty, less than an atom, or rather is simply nothing since he alone can say, I am he who is. Consequently, this great Lord, who is ever independent and self-sufficient, never had and does not now have any absolute need of the Blessed Virgin for the accomplishment of his will and the manifestation of his glory. To do all things he has only to will them. However I declare that, considering things as they are, because God has decided to begin and accomplish his greatest works through the Blessed Virgin ever since he created her, we can safely believe that he will not change his plan in the time to come, for he is God and therefore does not change in his thoughts or his way of acting.

In other words, since Mary matters in God’s plan, we also matter. God could have saved the word without Mary’s help but he chose to do it through Mary. And he choses to do it through us today when we share the good news with our friends. In other words, as a title of a book puts it, Mary is: “God’s Yes to Man”, God believes in man that even if man was responsible for his fall, man through the person of the Blessed Virgin cooperating with His divine grace can also be saved.

To the charge that images of Mary are a slip into idolatry, the Church insists that since God has made his countenance known in the person of his Son Jesus Christ, it is only right and proper that art be allowed to depict Him and the saints. “But bowing down to images and touching the feet of saints” can cause a slip into idolatry”, I have heard one person said. Now it is true that the use of images can be abused. Then again, Bible study can also be abused, with everybody coming up with their own interpretations. But should we forbid people from reading the Bible? Of course not. What is needed is a correct understanding. The same principle should be applied to the use of images.
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Against the downplaying of some Catholics towards Marian devotion, the church reaffirms that to transform the world, Marian devotion is absolutely vital. Some Catholics misunderstand ecumenism. They see ecumenism as simply Christianity at the lowest common denominator. If Protestants cannot agree about Mary, then it is better not to mention her and focus on the essentials. That would be incorrect. A correct understanding of ecumenism would be for Christians to come together, talk and share about what unites them but also to share in a respectful manner what divides them. In a spirit of friendship, walls of mistrust can be broken down. Christians should be united by a common search for truth and share the desire of Our Lord that “all may be one”.

Against the charge that Marian devotions are “non transformative” and “too devotional”, the Church insists that sin is first and foremost personal and not simply “out there.” Sinful social structures, of which a preeminent example is that of “the culture of death” alluded to by John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae lies first and foremost in the hearts of individuals. If sin lies in the hearts of individuals, then rooting it out first in our own hearts is a necessary precondition for social transformation. I was reminded of Black US Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas’ biography “My Grandfather’s Son”. His grandfather, recounted Judge Thomas, went to Church and prayed the rosary in a still very racist southern state of Georgia not because he was a weak man. He went, in Judge Thomas’ words “to cage the beast” of anger and hatred towards such oppression, to be transformed so that he will have the strength to endure racism and to ensure a better future for his grandchildren by working hard and providing for them. Judge Thomas on the other hand, during the 1960s wanted to “release the beast” of anger and hatred and was involved in social radicalism typical of that generation. Did it actually help his people? His answer was no.

And indeed we see the same also in Latin America. While large segments of the Catholic Church turned towards a Marxist tinged liberation theology, Catholics were leaving in great numbers and flooding to the evangelical and Pentecostal sects which promised the comforts of a faith in touch with the supernatural and also a standard of ethics and community for the poor.

Indeed, Marian devotion can also be seen as a form of cultural resistance. Witness the rise of Poland’s first independent trade union “Solidarity” where the Black Madonna, Our Lady of Czechtohowa played a prominent role in reminding Poles of their true identity, in Christ and not godless Communism. If you watched the movie “John Paul II” by John Voigt, you would probably remember a scene where Bishop Karol Wojtyla’s secretary Dsiwiz informed him that the communist authorities do not allow religious images to be publicly carried in procession, thus putting in jeopardy the annual procession of the Black Madonna. Bishop Wojtyla thought to himself and said, “well they said that images are not allowed so…” He proceeded to have the procession, complete with the traditional songs to the Black Madonna but this time with carrying an empty frame without the image. Everybody knew what it meant. The communists have been outwitted by this clever bishop.

Finally, the Church insists that Mary is vital for the development of a new an authentic feminism.

In his encyclical “Redemptoris Mater”, the Pope insists that the profile of the Church is Marian before it is Peterine. What does the Pope mean by that? Essentially, it means that the Church puts “being” before “doing.” All members of Christ faithful are called to be Marian first and foremost. How so? By allowing the word of God to penetrate so deeply into their hearts that it bears fruit and divine life. That essentially was what Our Blessed Mother experienced and lived at the annunciation and all throughout her life and that is what all Christians are called to live prior to anything else he may intend to do for God’s glory. It is only with a Marian spirituality, that of being totally receptive to the will of God that the Peterine, or the function of ruling, governing and activity will make sense. Yes indeed, Peter was called to be the head of the Church. But the head of the Church, when he neglected prayer decided to swing his sword wildly at the garden of Gethsemane and eventually deny his master three times. It was activity no doubt. But activity rooted not in “being” but in “doing”.

Which bring us also to the consideration of Our Blessed Mother being both “Virgin” and “Mother”. She is both virgin and mother because both these vocations are an equally legitimate way of living out the Christian’s call to holiness, in married life and in celibacy for the kingdom of God.

In the Blessed Virgin, women are not simply reduced to their biological values, valuable only when she is able to have children. A woman is still in her spiritual depths a mother and a daughter even if she is not biologically a mother. Likewise, in the Blessed Virgin, women are also not estranged from their biology. They are not hostile towards their procreative and live giving power but seek to understand it and in hope, praise the creator for their gift of femininity. Indeed, it is through the birth of a child that the world is saved.

So in the final analysis, who holds the treasure of being which without it would make all activity useless? Women and preeminently Mary the Mother of God. The Mother of God attests to the fact that the ultimate paradigm of human existence is that of love and not power, of receptivity to the will of God and not grasping and snatching at happiness from a Creator who cannot be trusted.

I have sketched both the objections towards the person of Mary and the responses to these from the teaching of the Church. I hope that as we grapple with these ideas at this patrician meeting, it can bear fruit in our lives.

Mary our hope, seat of wisdom, intercede for us.