No mother whose son has won distinction for himself either in a profession or in the field of battle, believes that the respect paid her for being his mother detracts from the honour or dignity which is paid her son. Why? then, do some minds think that any reverence paid to the Mother of Jesus detracts from His Power and Divinity? We know the false rejoinder of those who say that Catholics "adore" Mary or make her a "goddess" but that is a lie. Since no reader of these pages would be guilty of such nonsense it shall be ignored.

Where does this coldness, forgetfulness and at the least indifference to the Blessed Mother start? From a failure to realize that her Son, Jesus, is the Eternal Son of God. The moment I put Our Divine Lord on the same level with Julius Caesar or Karl Max, with Buddha or Charles Darwin, that is, as mere man among men then, the thought of special reverence to His Mother as different from other mothers becomes positively repellent. Each famous man has his mother, too. Each person can say; "I have my mother and mine is as good or better than yours" That is why little is written of the mothers of any great men - because each mother was considered the best mother by her son. No one mother of a mortal is entitled to more love than any other mother. Therefore no sons and daughters should be required to single out someone else's mother as the Mother of mothers.

Our Lord described John the Baptist as "the greatest man ever born of woman". Suppose that a cult were started to honour his mother as superior to any other mother? Who among us would not rebel against it as excessive? Everything the critics would say of such exaggeration would be well taken for the simple reason that John the Baptist is only a man. If Our Lord is just another man or another ethical reformer or another sociologist then we share, even with the most bigoted the resentment against thinking that the Mother of Jesus is different from any other mother.

The Commandment says: 'Honour thy father and mother', its says nothing about honouring Gandhi's mother or Napoleon's father. But the Commandment to honour our father does not preclude adoring the Heavenly Father. If the Heavenly Father sends His Divine Son to this earth then the Commandment to honour our earthly mother does not preclude venerating the Mother of the Son of God.

If Mary were only the Mother of another man then she could not also be our mother because the ties of the flesh are too exclusive. Flesh allows only one mother. The step between one a mother and a stepmother is long and few there are who can make it. But Spirit allows another another mother. Since Mary is the Mother of God then she can be the Mother of everyone whom Christ redeemed.

The key to understanding Mary is this: We do not start with Mary. We start with Christ, the Son of the Living God! The less we think of Him the less we think of her; the more we think of Him the more we think of her; the more we adore His Divinity the more we venerate her Motherhood; the less we adore His Divinity the less reason we have for respecting her. We could even resent hearing her name if we had become so perverse as not to believe in Christ the Son of God. Never will it be found that anyone who really loves Our Lady as a Divine Saviour dislikes Mary. Those who dislikes any devotion to Mary are those who deny His Divinity or who find fault with Our Lord because of what he says about Hell, Divorce and Judgment.

It is on account of Our Divine Lord that Mary receives special attention and not on account of herself. Left to herself, her motherhood would dissolve into humanity. But when seen in the light of His Divinity, she becomes unique. Our Lord is God Who became Man. Never before or since did Eternity become time in a woman nor did Omnipotence take on the bonds of flesh in a maid. It is her Son who makes Motherhood different.

A Catholic boy from a parochial school was telling a University professor who lived next door about the Blessed Mother. The professor scoffed at the boy, saying; 'But there is no difference between her and my mother'. The boy answered: 'That is what you say, but there's a heck of a lot of difference between the sons'.

That is the answer. It is because Our Lord is so different from other sons that we set His Mother apart from all mothers. Because He had an Eternal Generation in the bosom of the Father as the Son of God and a temporal generation in the womb of Mary as the Son of Man, His coming created a new set of relationships. She is not a private person; all other mothers are. We did not make her different; we found her different. We did not choose Mary; He did.

But why was there a Virgin Birth? Because Christ is the Son of God, we cannot be as indifferent to the circumstances of His Birth as we would be to the birth of the butcher or the baker. If Mary told the Apostles after Pentecost about His Virgin Birth, it must have made a difference; if the Apostles put it in their Creed and teaching, it must have made a difference. Once Christ is accepted as the Son of God, there is immediate interest not only in His prehistory which John describes in the Prologue of his Gospel but also in His history and particularly in His Birth.

Is the Virgin Birth fitting....................

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -