Gregory MussmacherFiled under: 1
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Prayer to the Blessed Virgin
Composed by Pope Pius XII
O Virgin, fair as the moon, in whom the Heavens rejoice, upon whose face the blessed gaze, and
whom the Angels acknowledge as their model; make us, thy children, like unto thee by shedding upon our souls a ray of thy beauty such as will not grow dim with passing time, but will shine for all eternity.
O Mary, thou mystic sun, reawaken life wherever there is death, and cast thy light on souls where shadows fall. Let thy image be mirrored in the faces of thy children, and grant us to reflect thy light and thy ardor.
O Mary, powerful as an army, grant victory to our ranks. We are so weak, and our proud enemy unceasingly rages against us. But under thy standard we have the sure hope of conquering him, for he knows the power of thy heel and trembles at the majesty of thy countenance.
Save us, O Mary, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, powerful as an army set in array, whose strength lies not in hate but in the most glowing love. Amen.
January 17, 1956Sphere: Related Content
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Matthew 5:43-48
Daily Reading & Meditation
Tuesday (6/16): “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”
Scripture: Matthew 5:43-48
43 “You have heard that it was said, `You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Meditation: What makes Christians different from others and what makes Christianity distinct from any other religion? It is grace – treating others, not as they deserve, but as God wishes them to be treated – with loving-kindness and mercy. God is good to the unjust as well as the just. His love embraces saint and sinner alike. God seeks our highest good and teaches us to seek the greatest good of others, even those who hate and abuse us. Our love for others, even those who are ungrateful and selfish towards us, must be marked by the same kindness and mercy which God has shown to us. It is easier to show kindness and mercy when we can expect to benefit from doing so. How much harder when we can expect nothing in return. Our prayer for those who do us ill both breaks the power of revenge and releases the power of love to do good in the face of evil. How can we possibly love those who cause us harm or ill-will? With God all things are possible. He gives power and grace to those who believe and accept the gift of the Holy Spirit. His love conquers all, even our hurts, fears, prejudices and griefs. Only the cross of Jesus Christ can free us from the tyranny of malice, hatred, revenge, and resentment and gives us the courage to return evil with good. Such love and grace has power to heal and to save from destruction. Do you know the power of Christ’s redeeming love and mercy?
Was Jesus exaggerating when he said we must be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect? The original meaning of “perfect” in Aramaic is “completeness” or “wholeness – not lacking in what is essential.” God gives us every good gift in Jesus Christ so that we may not lack anything we need to do his will and to live as his sons and daughters. He knows our weakness and sinfulness better than we do. And he assures us of his love, mercy, and grace to follow in his ways. Do you want to grow in your love for God and for your neighbor? Ask the Holy Spirit to change and transform you in the image of the Father that you may walk in the joy and freedom of the gospel.
“Lord Jesus, your love brings freedom and pardon. Fill me with your Holy Spirit and set my heart ablaze with your love that nothing may make me lose my temper, ruffle my peace, take away my joy, nor make me bitter towards anyone.”
Psalm 51:3-6,11,16
3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in thy sight, so that thou art justified in thy sentence and blameless in thy judgment.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
11 Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy Spirit from me.
16 For thou hast no delight in sacrifice; were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased.
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(c) 2009 Don SchwagerSphere: Related Content
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Monday, June 15, 2009
Hail Mary,
Full of Grace,
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary,
Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now,
and at the hour of death.
Amen.
Mary’s Universal Mediation during her Earthly Existence
We shall see fIrst of all in what this mediation consists and what are its principal characteristics. After that we shall examine the two ways in which Mary exercised her mediation during her life on earth, by her merits and her satisfaction.
Article I
MARY’S UNIVERSAL MEDIATION IN GENERAL
Our Holy Mother the Church approved during the pontificate of Benedict XV the proper Mass and Office of Mary, Mediatrix of all Graces. [1] Many theologians consider that the doctrine of Mary’s universal mediation is sufficiently contained in the deposit of revelation to be one day proposed solemnly as an object of faith by the infallible Church. It is taught by the ordinary magisterium of the Church through the liturgy, through encyclical letters, through pastoral letters, in preaching, and in the works of theologians approved by the Church. Let us see first what is meant by this mediation and then inquire if it is affirmed by tradition and proved by theology.
What is meant by Mary’s Universal Mediation?
St. Thomas says, speaking of the mediation of the Savior (IIIa, q. 26, a. I): ‘It pertains to the office of a mediator between God and men to unite them.’ That is, as he explains in the following article, the Mediator offers to God the prayers of men, and most particularly, sacrifice which is the principal act of the virtue of religion, and distributes as well to men God’s sanctifying gifts, light from on high and grace. There is, thus, a double movement in mediation: one upwards in the form of prayer and sacrifice, and the other downwards in the form of God’s gifts to men.
The office of Mediator belongs fully only to Jesus, the Man-God, Who alone could reconcile us with God by offering Him, on behalf of men, the infinite sacrifice of the Cross, which is perpetuated in Holy Mass. He alone, as Head of Mankind, could merit for us injustice the grace of salvation and apply it to those who do not reject His saving action. It is as man that He is Mediator, but as a Man in Whom humanity is united hypostatically to the Word and endowed with the fullness of grace, the grace of Headship, which overflows on men. As St. Paul puts it: ‘For there is one God, and one Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: Who gave Himself for a redemption for all, a testimony in due times’ (1 Tim. ii, 5-6).
But, St. Thomas adds (loc. cit.): ‘there is no reason why there should not be, after Christ, other secondary mediators between God and men, who co-operate in uniting them in a ministerial and dispositive manner.’ Such mediators dispose men for the action of the principal Mediator, or transmit it, but always in dependence on His merits.
The prophets and priests of the Old Testament were mediators of this kind, for they announced the Savior to the chosen people by offering sacrifices which were types of the great sacrifice of the Cross. The priests of the New Testament may also be spoken of as mediators between God and men, for they are the ministers of the supreme Mediator, offering sacrifice in His Name, and administering the Sacraments.
The question arises, is Mary, in subordination to and in dependence on the merits of Christ, universal mediatrix for all men from the time of the coming of the Savior, in regard to obtaining and distributing all graces, both in general and in particular? Does it not appear that she is? Nor is her role precisely that of a minister, but that of an associate in the redemptive work, in the words of St. Albert already quoted.
Though non-Catholics answer the question with a denial, the Christian sense of the faithful, formed for years by the liturgy, which is one of the voices of the ordinary magisterium of the Church, has no hesitation in maintaining that, by the very fact of her being Mother of the Redeemer, all the indications are that Mary is universal mediatrix, for she finds herself placed between God and men, and more particularly between her Son and men.
Since she is a creature she is, of course, altogether below God Incarnate. But at the same time she is raised far above men by the grace of the Divine maternity, which is of the hypostatic order, and by the fulness of grace which she received even from her Immaculate Conception. Hence, the mediation attributed by the liturgy and the Christian sense of the faithful to Mary is, strictly speaking, subordinated to that of Jesus and not co-ordinated; her mediation depends completely on the merits of the Universal Mediator. Nor is her mediation necessary [for that of Jesus is superabundant and needs no complement: it has however been willed by God as a kind of radiation of the Savior's mediation, and of all radiations the most perfect. The Church regards it as most useful and efficacious to obtain from God all that we need to lead us directly or indirectly to salvation and perfection. Last of all, Mary's mediation is perpetual and extends to all men, and to all graces without any exception whatever.
The above is the precise sense in which universal mediation is attributed to Mary in the liturgy, in the Feast of Mary Mediatrix, and by the theologians who have recently treated the question at great length.
The Testimony of Tradition
Mary's mediation was affirmed in a general and implicit way from the earliest centuries by the use of the titles, the New Eve, the Mother of the Living. There is all the more reason for so understanding tradition in that the titles were attributed to her not solely because she gave birth physically to the Savior but because she co-operated morally in His redemptive work, especially by uniting herself very intimately to the sacrifice of the Cross. [2] From the 4th century onwards, and notably in the 5th century, the Fathers affirm clearly that Mary intercedes for us, that all the benefits and helps to salvation come to us through her, by her intervention and her special protection. From the same time too she is called mediatrix between God and men or between Christ and us. Recent studies have thrown much light on this point. [3]
The antithesis between Eve, cause of death, and Mary, cause of salvation for all men is repeated by St. Cyril of Jerusalem, [4] St. Epiphanius, [5] St. Jerome, [6] St. John Chrysostom. [7] The following invocation of St. Ephrem deserves to be quoted in full: ‘Hail, most excellent mediatrix of God and men, hail most efficacious reconciler of the whole world.’ [8]
St. Augustine speaks of Mary as mother of all the members of our Head, Jesus Christ. He tells us that by her charity she co-operated in the spiritual birth of all the faithful who are Christ’s members. [9] St. Peter Chrysologus says that Mary is the mother of all the living by grace whereas Eve is the mother, by nature, of all the dying. [10] It is evident that he considers Mary as associated with the Divine plan for our redemption.
From the 8th century we may quote the Venerable Bede. [11] St. Andrew of Crete calls Mary Mediatrix of grace, dispenser and cause of life. [12] St. Germanus of Constantinople says that no one has been saved without the co-operation of the Mother of God. [13] The title of mediatrix is given by St. John Damascene also, who asserts that we owe to her all the benefits conferred on us by Jesus. [14]
In the 9th century we find St. Peter Damien teaching that nothing is accomplished in the work of our redemption without her. [15] The teaching of St. Anselm, [16] Eadmer, [17] and St. Bernard in the 12th century is the same. St. Bernard speaks of Mary as: gratiae inventrix, mediatrix, salutis restauratrix saeculorum. [18]
From the middle of the 12th century the explicit affirmation of Mary’s co-operation in our redemption becomes quite common. Her co-operation is looked on as consummated by her consent to her sacrifice at the Annunciation, and its accomplishment on Calvary. Among names that may be cited are those of Arnold of Chartres, Richard of St. Victor, St. Albert the Great, [19] and Richard of Saint- Laurent. St. Thomas seems to be of the same opinion. [20] It is found quite explicitly in St. Bernadine of Siena, St. Antonine, [21] Suarez [22], Bossuet, [23] and St. Alphonsus. St. Grignon de Montfort is one of those who, in the 18th century, did the most to spread the doctrine by bringing out its practical conclusions. [24]
In the encyclical Ad Diem IlIum, Pius X stated that Mary is the all-powerful mediatrix of the world before her Son: ‘Totius terrarum orbis potentissima apud Unigenitum Filium suum mediatrix et conciliatrix.’ The title of mediatrix has been consecrated by the institution of the Feast of Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces, on January 21St, 1921.
Theological Arguments
The theological arguments invoked by the Fathers and still more explicitly by theologians are principally the following:
Mary deserves the title of universal mediatrix, subordinated to the Redeemer, if she is an intermediary between Him and men, presenting to Him their prayers and obtaining benefits from Him for them. But that is precisely Mary’s role. For, though a creature, she reaches by her divine maternity to the frontiers of the Divinity , and she has received a fulness of grace which is intended to overflow on us. She has, too, co-operated in saving us by consenting freely to be the Mother of the Savior and by uniting herself as intimately as possible to His sacrifice. We shall see later that she has merited and made satisfaction for us, and we know from the teaching of the Church that she continues to intercede for us so as to obtain for us all graces that contribute to our salvation. These different offices pertain to the exercise of her maternity , as we have already seen.
Thus Jesus is the principal and perfect Mediator, in dependence on whose merits —- and they are superabundant and sufficient of themselves —- Mary exercises her subordinate mediation. [25] But Mary’s mediation has nevertheless been willed by God because of our weakness and because God wished to honor her by allowing her the exercise of causality in the order of salvation and sanctification.
The work of redemption proceeds therefore entirely from God as First Cause of grace, entirely from Jesus as principal and perfect Mediator, and entirely from Mary as subordinate mediatrix. These three causes are not partial and co-ordinate —- as are three men who drag the same load —- but total and subordinated: the second acts under the influence of the first, and the third under the influence of the second. An example which may make the point clear is that of the fruit which proceeds entirely from God the Author of nature, entirely from the tree, and entirely from the branch on which it grows. It does not proceed in its different parts from different causes: neither is our redemption the work in part of the Divinity, in part of the Humanity, and in part of Mary. [26]
It is worth noting how becoming it is that Mary who was redeemed by the Savior in a most excellent manner and preserved from all sin, Original and actual, should co-operate in this way in our justification and our final perseverance.
Mary’s mediation is of a much higher order than that of the Saints, for she alone has given us the Savior, she alone was so intimately united to the sacrifice of the Cross, she alone is universal mediatrix for all mankind and for all graces in particular —- even for that grace which is of all the most particular, the grace of the present moment which assures our fidelity from instant to instant.Sphere: Related Content
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“After He Killed Him, He Cut Off His Head:”
—Cyprian (third century)
“After He Killed Him, He Cut Off His Head:”
David, Goliath, and Sacred Violence
For Sunday June 21, 2009
Lectionary Readings (Revised Common Lectionary, Year B)
1 Samuel 17:1a, 4–11, 19–23, 32–49 or I Samuel 17:57–18:5, 10–16
or Job 38:1–11
Psalm 9:9–20 or Psalm 133 or Psalm 107:1–3, 23–32
2 Corinthians 6:1–13
Mark 4:35–41
Caravaggio (1573-1610).
Those of us who went to Sunday School as kids remember flannel graph stories about David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17). David was the youngest “little brother” of Jesse’s eight sons, relegated to errand boy status, while his older brothers battled the Philistines as manly soldiers. Twice the writer describes David as “only a boy.” The narrator pictures David as “ruddy and handsome,” hardly the traits of a warrior. When his brothers berated him when he delivered reinforcements to the front lines, he responded plaintively, “Can’t I even speak?” (17:29). Saul’s armor was so big on him that he couldn’t move. Then, of course, there was his famous slingshot that he wielded — whap! — to slay the nine-foot Goliath who had “defied the armies of the living God” (17:26).
The punch line about David and Goliath was something to the effect that God uses insignificant people and unlikely means to accomplish improbable feats. That is certainly true (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:18–25; 3:18–23). But there’s one horrifying detail in the story that my Sunday School teacher skipped. David “took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the scabbard. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword” (17:51). David then displayed Goliath’s head in Jerusalem, brandished it before King Saul, and kept his sword in his tent as a souvenir. By decapitating Goliath, David wanted to “show the whole world that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by the sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands” (17:46–47).
This story made my mind ping to the decapitation of Nicholas Berg in May 2004, and to numerous other expatriots and Iraqi citizens. In their book The Next Attack (2005), Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon show how decapitation (still a form of capital punishment in Saudi Arabia) and the signature ear-to-ear throat-slitting by extremists are ways to traumatize and terrorize your enemy. They are “spectacles for ogling,” and “participatory events” for those who download replays of the horrific act on the internet. MIT’s Technology Review (February 2005) reported that videos of the Berg beheading were downloaded 15 million times, crashing many servers. But decapitation — and this takes us back to David and Goliath — is also a “public sacrament,” a “way of making the violence holy,” and, write Benjamin and Simon, “an act redolent with the sense of sacrifice and the literal execution of God’s law, which to the jihadist means death for infidels and apostates.”
Caravaggio (1573-1610).
Years later, as a poet and song writer David returned to this theme of sacred violence as proof of God’s favor. In his acrostic psalm for this week (each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet), he insists that his cause is righteous, and that his enemies are the enemies of God. He prays for God to rebuke, destroy, blot out, annhilate, and to vanquish his enemies with “endless ruin.” As if to erase the least vestige of their humanity, he prays for “even the memory of them [to] perish.” He concludes his prayer, “Strike them with terror, O Lord!” (Psalm 9).
How should we read these two texts of terror? You might dismiss the decapitation of Goliath as patriotic fiction or legend, but that takes the easy way out; for some reason, the Hebrews included this story (and other disturbing ones) in their sacred canon. There are also reasonable caveats and qualifications that might mitigate the sacred horror — maybe we have here a case of historical description of something that happened, but that does not mean that God approved of it; primitive cultures back then were more barbaric than ours; divine retribution for truly wicked people and nations is a necessary part of humanity’s moral compass and calculus; war and its tragic consequences seem to be an inevitable and inscrutable aspect of the intersection of human history and divine sovereignty; later progress in God’s revelation of himself supercedes earlier stories like these; and maybe poetry like Psalm 9 is just angry exagerration or emotional overstatement.
Whether ancient or modern, violence in God’s name knows no boundaries. All religions have engaged in sacred terror, including widow burning, child sacrifice, caste systems, mass suicide, female genital mutilation, witch hunts, ritual abuse, ethnic cleansing, suicide bombers, and apartheid — the list is depressingly long. Christians killed thousands in the Crusades and Inquisitions, defended slavery, were complicit in the Holocaust that killed six million Jews, ravaged the Native American peoples, and have murdered abortion doctors and gays.
Phillip Ratner, David and Goliath.
I’m not sure how to read the Bible’s texts of terror, but here are two suggestions.
Whereas the Old Testament contains violence that is divinely sanctioned, at least according to its writers, in the New Testament I can think of only two examples when the followers of Jesus wanted to use violent means for his cause — when James and John wanted to call down fire upon the Samaritans because of their unbelief (Luke 9:51–55), and in the Garden of Gethsemane when his disciples tried to prevent His arrest (Mark 14:47). In both instances Jesus rebuked those who tried to show their allegiance to him through violent means. Instead, he insisted that his Father in heaven causes his sun to shine on both the wicked and the righteous. He told us to love our enemies and to do good to those who persecute us, because in the end the ultimate measure of my love for God is my love for my neighbor.
I can’t recall anyone who made this point better than the German pastor Martin Niemoeller (1892–1984), who protested Hitler’s anti-semitic measures in person to the fuehrer, was eventually arrested, and then imprisoned for eight years at Sachsenhausen and Dachau (1937–1945). He once confessed, “It took me a long time to learn that God is not the enemy of my enemies. He is not even the enemy of his enemies.” When God hates all the same people that you hate, you can be absolutely certain that you have created him in your own image (Lamott).
Second, we should not remain silent when we see attempts to legitimize sacred violence, but instead name it for what it is. We should learn the warning signs that religion has become evil and evil has become religious:
* Fanatical claims of absolute truth. I do not mean the belief that absolute truth exists, but the doubt-free and uncritical confidence that one understands such absolute truth absolutely.
* Blind obedience to totalitarian, charismatic, and authoritarian leaders or their views that undermines moral integrity, personal freedom, individual responsibility, and intellectual inquiry.
* Identifying and rationalizing “end times” scenarios in the name of your religion.
* Justifying religious ends by dubious means.
* Any and all forms of dehumanization, from openly declaring war on your enemy, demonizing those who differ from you, construing your neighbor as an Other, to claiming that God is on your side alone.
* Pressure tactics of coercion, deception, and false advertisement.
* Alienation, isolation and withdrawal from family, friends and society, whether psychologically or literally.
* Exploitation and all forms of unreasonable demands upon one’s time, money, resources, family, friendships, sexuality, etc.
Often one or more of these danger signs combine.1
Gustave Dore: David and Goliath.
We should judge religions by their most authentic examples rather than by their worst corruptions. There is also a difference between evil committed by people who happen to be religious, and evil promoted in the name of religion. Some people overstate the connection between religion and violence, as when Charles Kimball writes that “more evil [has been] perpetrated in the name of religion than by any other institutional force in human history” (a distinction that probably goes to Soviet and Chinese atheism). Sometimes the connection between religion and violence is tenuous, sometimes it is explicit. Sacred terror is almost always complex and bound up with other causes (social, historical, economic, cultural, political, etc). But at the end of the day we must admit that there is far too much violence in the world that is fomented with a specifically religious rationale, motivation, or justification. Christians should commit ourselves to do whatever we can to stop it.
For further reflection:
* What has been your experience of religious violence?
* Contemplate the powerful words of Martin Niemoeller.
* Can you identify any of the eight warning signs in contemporary American Christianity?
* See Charles Kimball, When Religion Becomes Evil, and Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of ReligiousSphere: Related Content
