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Show THE INTERMOUNTAIN CATHOLIC 15 temple we dedicate, were friends; the one always the recipient of our blessed Lords honor and affection, the other of His mercy and forgiveness. And I would direct your thoughts especially to the position of the blessed Mother in her relation to the Catholic Church and in her relation to ChrisCatholic devotion; in her relation to society and social tian morals and their permanency. Do we speak of the blessed Mother in her relation to the Catholic Church, the Christian religion? We may have to meet at the very outset the objection of the modern religious purist who would claim that Mary has, or should have, no place in Christian service, in Catholic devotion for what was the blessed Mary but an humble maiden of Israel who became accidentally an instrument unto the incarnation of the blessed Lord? We will admit, they say, that she was pious and virtuous, but there were many others such as she among the women of Israel. When Christ would become man it was necessary that He be born of woman and Mary was the woman selected ; but the selection was not made with regard to the personal merit of the Virgin; it was only an act of divine condescension to one of His creatures. This, my dear friends, is the average teaching outside the Catholic Church today concerning the blessed Virgin, and if it were true, it would follow that Mary deserves no mdre than passing notice, to be ranked at best with Esther and Judith and the other good women of her race. But we may not agree with such a view, for it is false to history; it is false to fact; it is false to our Mother. True, Mary was a ceature a human being just as human as we are; and true it is also as a consequence that, as there must ever remain an infinite distance between the creature and the Creator, we may not, cannot, give to Mary or to any other creature the worship and adoration due to God alone. This we admit. Catholics the world ovef and during all the history of the Church have so held, and taught, and practiced. But while this is true, we next and with equal energy profess that Mary was not a mere accidental selection, not a mere pious woman of Israel; but that she was and, by Gods grace and the merits of the Redeemer, prepared for her high and holy mission, the highest and holiest ever performed by a human being; that she was prefigured in type and prophecy, and by the singular providence of God preserved immune from the slightest stain; that, therefore, honored by the Lord in so singular a manner and proclaimed by Him as His Mother, it becomes our pleasing duty to honor and to look to her with highest reverence and deepest affection. And for proof of these things we need do no more than open the Sacred Scriptures, these very Scriptures which the religious purist proclaims to be the sole source of his belief and the only court to which he is willing to make appeal. At the very beginning, in the very first chapter of Genesis, when the sacred writer records the history of the primal fall, the Almighty gives hope to fallen man. If the enemy has conquered, and evil is for the moment triumphant, yet between the evil one and the woman there shall be constant enmity; she, as the Vulgate says, shall crush the serpents head. So at the very dawn of history, when man emerges therefrom, though the light of Gods presence is withdrawn because of sin, yet there is a rift in the clouds, and distant though the day of redemption be, he sees through the rift the blessed promise of the coming Redeemer, Marys Child, Who was to conquer sin and death. Onward we go through the pages of the Old Testament; and whenever these pages return to the first blessed promise, when the prophets of hope arise, when the looking into the future, tell of the great day that is yet to be as the outline of the vision becomes clearer and clearer, so also do they more accurately define the dignity and prerogatives of Mary. Isaias tells of a Redeemer. How was He to come? Behold, a virgin well-bein- g, pre-ordaine- d, post-seer- s, Surprising what a difference delicious breads and the wonderful pastries and cakes for which we are famous will make to your Christmas dinner. SUGGESTIONS: igKmclrPastry Shop Genuine Dark English Fruit Cake, Delicious Plum Pudding, Mince and Pumpkin Pies. |