-Theotokos, “God-bearer”, icon, 16th century, Moses before the burning bush, notice the Christ seated on His mother’s lap who IS the burning bush of the OT before whom Moses kneels & removes his sandals.
In the few meaningful, thoughtful exchanges I have had with Muslims & Jews regarding the Christian belief, once in Kuwait, where a small Kuwaiti man in local attire held my hand as we walked back to his camera shop, men holding hands and walking is not a sign of erotic attraction but purely of friendship, photos of US Presidents & Saudi kings walking hand-in-hand, are plenty & current, and then with a rabbi in Chicago, the objection is NOT the Resurrection! A man rising from the dead, no problem!!! It is the Incarnation. That God would have to take a shit, Muslim objection. Let alone suffer horribly? Meekly? At the hands of his enemies? God? Is 55:8-9. Or, a Perfect Man? Not within the Jewish tradition. David, the best of Jewish heroes, was a bastard! Bathsheba was just the cherry on parfait. Apologies for any interpreted, unintended, vulgar pun. Read your OT.
“Of all the traditional titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary—e.g., “Tower of David,” “Gate of Heaven,” “Queen of Angels”—perhaps the most impressive is “Mother of God.” The transcendent omnipotence of divinity is entrusted to the gentle intimacy of maternity, even to a certain unassuming and gentle young woman. It’s not, of course, that Mary was the source of God as such (the opposite is the case). The meaning of “Mother of God” is that the person to whom she gave birth in human flesh, whom she nursed and raised, was and is God.
But the maternity of Mary is real only if Jesus is also really human, and only if he received his humanity from her. The early Church had to withstand the mistaken idea that God’s dignity cannot allow that the Word’s embodiment and suffering be more than a mere appearance. St. John writes, “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 Jn 1:7). In opposition to this error stands the Mother of God. One could apply the phrase “a body you have prepared for me” (Ps 40:6) both to the immaculate Mary and to the body that she was prepared to provide for Jesus. She is the only human being to whom Jesus had an immediate family tie. And she is the only one to whom he bore a true family resemblance. In the face of Mary we perceive something that will be reproduced in the embodied God.
There are a few texts that seem to diminish the importance of Mary’s motherhood but actually further disclose it. Once, when a woman from the crowd cried out to Jesus, “Blessed is the womb that bore you!,” He corrected her, saying, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Lk 11:27-28). The wonderful irony is that no one was more attentive to that word and more obedient to it than the mother of Jesus. What is perhaps her most distinctive utterance comes at the start of her motherhood: fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum—”be it done unto me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). In Mary’s obedience and in her meditation on the word, we begin to see the deeper meaning of her familial relation to Jesus: “My mother and my brethren are those who hear the word of God and do it” (Lk 8:21).
Called to be the mother of the Son, Mary came to share by grace in the life of the so-called divine family that is the Trinity. At the scene of the Incarnation, Mary is surrounded by the Holy Trinity: “The Lord is with you,” which arguably refers to the Father; “you will bear the Son of the Most High”; “The Holy Spirit will come upon you” (Lk 1:28, 32, 35). The Son became man in her, and in the Son Mary came to share by grace in the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4). This is the purpose of the Son’s coming: “God sent forth his Son, born of a woman . . . so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal 4:4-5). Here Mary’s motherhood is interwoven with her daughtership.
As daughter of God, Mary is the pattern of our own glorification. As mother of God, she is also mother of her Son’s body, the Church. She intercedes for us and continues to give birth to Him in our hearts. This is part of the message of today’s feast. The Church repeats to us what Jesus said to John: “Behold your mother” (Jn 19:27).”
Love,
Matthew
Summa Catechetica, "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam." – St Anselm, "“Si comprehendus, non est Deus.” -St Augustine, "Let your religion be less of a theory, and more of a love affair." -G.K. Chesterton, “When we pray we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us.” -St Jerome, "As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and poisonous sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills the soul with holy thoughts and good desires." -St. Alphonsus Liguori, "And above all, be on your guard not to want to get anything done by force, because God has given free will to everyone and wants to force no one, but only proposes, invites and counsels." –St. Angela Merici, “Yet such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him . . . God here speaks to souls through words uttered by pious people, by sermons or good books, and in many other such ways.” —St. Teresa of Avila, "I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men and women who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, and who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity… I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism, and where lie the main inconsistences and absurdities of the Protestant theory.” (St. John Henry Newman, “Duties of Catholics Towards the Protestant View,” Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England), "We cannot always have access to a spiritual Father for counsel in our actions and in our doubts, but reading will abundantly supply his place by giving us directions to escape the illusions of the devil and of our own self-love, and at the same time to submit to the divine will.” —St. Alphonsus Ligouri, "The harm that comes to souls from the lack of reading holy books makes me shudder . . . What power spiritual reading has to lead to a change of course, and to make even worldly people enter into the way of perfection." –St. Padre Pio, "Screens may grab our attention, but books change our lives!" – Word on Fire, "Reading has made many saints!" -St Josemaría Escrivá, "Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you." —St. Jerome, from his Letter 22 to Eustochium, "Encounter, not confrontation; attraction, not promotion; dialogue, not debate." -cf Pope Francis, "God here speaks to souls through…good books“ – St Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, "You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed by his progress.” -St Athanasius, "To convert someone, go and take them by the hand and guide them." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP. 1 saint ruins ALL the cynicism in Hell & on Earth. “When we pray we talk to God; when we read God talks to us…All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflection.” -St Isidore of Seville, “Also in some meditations today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions that they might do me no harm through the enmity or imprudence of any man or my own; that He would have them as His own and employ or not employ them as He should see fit. And this I believe is heard.” -GM Hopkins, SJ, "Only God knows the good that can come about by reading one good Catholic book." — St. John Bosco, "Why don't you try explaining it to them?" – cf St Peter Canisius, SJ, Doctor of the Church, Doctor of the Catechism, "Already I was coming to appreciate that often apologetics consists of offering theological eye glasses of varying prescriptions to an inquirer. Only one prescription will give him clear sight; all the others will give him at best indistinct sight. What you want him to see—some particular truth of the Faith—will remain fuzzy to him until you come across theological eye glasses that precisely compensate for his particular defect of vision." -Karl Keating, "The more perfectly we know God, the more perfectly we love Him." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP, ST, I-II,67,6 ad 3, “But always when I was without a book, my soul would at once become disturbed, and my thoughts wandered." —St. Teresa of Avila, "Let those who think I have said too little and those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough thank God with me." –St. Augustine, "Without good books and spiritual reading, it will be morally impossible to save our souls." —St. Alphonsus Liguori "Never read books you aren't sure about. . . even supposing that these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Let me ask you this: Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup?" -St. John Bosco " To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer." —St. Thomas Aquinas, OP. "Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. Both are good when both are possible. Otherwise, prayer is better than reading." –St. Isidore of Seville “The aid of spiritual books is for you a necessity.… You, who are in the midst of battle, must protect yourself with the buckler of holy thoughts drawn from good books.” -St. John Chrysostom
