Before I begin, I would like to catch my breath and reflect. I would point out that I do, in fact, respect the piety of those who seek to preserve the worship of God Almighty, even in disdaining the Holy Mother; your heart is in the right place. My sarcastic and playful approach to this subject is done (I hope) in good humour. It is indeed aggravating for me, however, to watch the casual calumny tossed around at the Blessed Virgin, and I do think this is an important case to be taken up.
Regarding an e-mailed question from an acquaintance, picking up on a consideration of the last entry. . .
(. . .5.) '[Concerning John 19:26-27,] Couldn't the "giving to Mary a son" be a parable lesson, just as the other parable [Mark 3 and Matthew 12] is a parable?'
Well, due to the apparent concern laced in the passage (evidenced by the note of the disciple taking the Holy Mother into his household), this seems to be a practical matter as well as a parabolic/revelational matter. I'm certainly open to this not being 'proof' of Mary's perpetual virginity; I merely tossed it out there to show a largely potential problem. But let's take this up along the lines of your suggestion. Let's imagine for a moment that we could reduce this to the 'merely figurative'; I'm not sure (if we're trying to take up the pre-reconciled case) that would be a good move, because we then have a squirmy pre-reconciliation Catch-22 on our hands. If Jesus had no literal brothers, then the Catholic Church is affirmed in its teaching of Mary's perpetual virginity; if, on the other hand, Jesus used this as a parable lesson and was trying to communicate something (important enough to be a dying parable), what was He communicating? Along with numerous other messages, this would suggest that (in Jesus' dying moments) He was giving a Mother to the disciple who was present. If we're going to reduce this to 'just an image' - an image right before His death - we still have to deal with the imagery element of these words. Jesus' reinterpreted actions here would, along with many other potential pictures, be a typological picture of the disciple's (as in any disciple's) relationship toward Mary and/or the Church.
-Sure, in that second option, the pre-reconciled case triumpantly succeeds in 'dirtying up' Mary's reputation (congratulations and a round of applause for the mission accomplished), but suddenly the grounds for justifying (1) the 'de-emphasis' of Mary, as Pre-reconciliation has inevitably done, and/or (2) the rupture from the Church - the grounds for justifying these look exceedingly precarious for Pre-reconciliation, even more precarious than the Church potentially worshiping Mary. Basically, given the situation, the pre-reconciled case can either take full-on cannon fire or else fire its own cannons cross-ways through its own loose hull (in an attempt to take both ships down). Given either option, are we sure we want to follow this line of thought to support the Pre-reconciliation case?
1. 'Come on - ikons?! statues?! How much more closer to idolatry can you be? What, do you need a sign over it that says "This is an idol"?'
a. The Two Kings, The Two Understandings of the Kingdom
First of all, again, the Blessed Virgin, the martyrs and saints, and the angels are not worshiped. Again, I invoke the two images of the King of Kings - the Pre-reconciliation image (God as a glorious king in a concrete basement and with no servants) and the Catholic image (God as a glorious king in a glorious throne-room with servants who are dressed to reflect His glory). God is a jealous God for His people's love, but God has shown (and gives us) a love that doesn't 'compete' among the various entities of veneration; it is a plenitudinous and interconnected love - an overflowing love - in which our love for God spills out into the admiration of the Blessed Virgin and others, who bore and reflected God's grace and love. Though the statues, ikons, etc. are not the Blessed Virgin herself, they make the Blessed Virgin visibly 'present' in our lives, serving as reminders and (in the mystic sense) material portals through which we spiritually see her.
b. God Became Flesh
Second, the Incarnation changes everything. We certainly shouldn't worship the statues of Mary anymore than we would worship a cup of coffee or a teddy bear (which, incidentally, is an image of something in Creation). However, insofar as the images themselves aren't worshiped, we are living in the Revelation of the Incarnation. God commanded the Israelites to make 'no graven images' of Him or anything in Creation for worship, but (while this commandment still rings true) God Himself 'inscribed' an image for us: He took on flesh and became a very specific human being. St. John, in his prologue, describes Jesus Christ literally as the 'exegesis' (translation) of the unseen God. This does alter reality quite dramatically. In the Everlasting breaking into human history quite specifically, we see heaven and earth (seen and unseen, temporal and everlasting) being woven back together as it was in the beginning. Human bodies as well as souls have been and have begun being redeemed; images have been and have begun being redeemed; Creation (particularly, the material world) has been and has begun being redeemed.
In light of this plenitudinous ('full') salvation and weaving, it is not at all idolatrous to have images to make present the full 'communion of saints.' When we come to Mass - where we are invited to join the numbers in heaven in their unending hymns of praise; where bread and wine become the vessels for the Risen Lord to come to us - there is nothing wrong with also having in our churches the statues of those who have been perfected into the Life of God. In fact, this is a beautiful reminder and vessel for our remembrance/'spiritual-life'/awareness that we are surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses, on earth and in heaven.
2. Conclusion: No Footing, No Roots, No Authority, No Meaning
Click here for a fairly large collection of quotes (including, of particular interest to Nazarenes, one of John Wesley's) from various Protestant leaders concerning the doctrines/theologies that contemporary Pre-reconciliation groups and persons have rejected. What is my point here? 'Protestants' (by and large) aren't even true to their Protestant roots anymore! At the end of the day (in Western culture's setting sun), we have burned all the bridges in a sort of paranoid witch-hunt, and now there are no more bridges beyond a terminally-ill, individualistic conception of Christianity. Is this the world-altering Gospel, the true and unadulterated face of Christianity? I seriously doubt this is what Christ had in mind when He said the Holy Spirit would lead His disciples into all truth.
-Rick
