OCR Text |
Show M I Ilott:atftolic Queries, and Answers Oereto if' ' :t ' t (Snn Francisco Monitor.) i i f Does not the Catholic devotion to Mary as a mat- I . ter of fact deilcat from the worship due to Christ? I ' I On the contrary, it is an historical fact that I iJio Catholic church, which has always cherished a I :., &reat love for the Mother of Christ, has ever been J ijic groat defender of the divinity of Jesus Christ ; ; her ton. Outride her fold, thousands of nominally i f ; Christian ministers and people deny Ihe divinity ' : ;;l -f ihe Sen of God, because, among other reasons, J i ihcir forefathers lost the true sense of the unique ; l dignity of that Son's Blessed Mother. "If look through Europe," writes Cardinal . Xewman, "we shall tind on the whole that j"t ) l : those nations and countries have lost their faith '''' in the divinity of Christ who have given up devo- ! ; i tion to His oMther, and that those on the other 1 : ' ' hand who had been foremost h her honor have if retained their orthodoxy. Contrast, for instance, ' : the. Calvinists, with the Greeks, or France with the ' north of Germany, or the rotestant and Catholic j . I '. ronimutiious in Ireland." ("Difficulties of An- j ' ' i ; iilicans,"' vol. ii, p. t2.) ! -VII prayer to Mary, indeed, is virtually and ulti- j lately prayer to God. Love o her, by its very na- ; ; tnrc, carries us to the love o God, whose master- i ; piece 5-he is. Strangers at times have entered our ' ' i k imrches and been scandalized at wliat they deemed : I rn excessive maniestation f devotion on the part i ! tf our people, who were praying douvtly before ' , tome statue of the Blessed Virgin. They forget, i : f however, that on the altar is Jesus Christ really ! j . . nreseut. and that, during Mass in the early morn- ing those same devout souls have knelt in adora- ; I lion io Him alone. Catholics ever make an in- 1 ; ! finite difference between their love for the Son i nnd the Motlier, realizing perfectly that all her f graces and privileges are from Him. If some words i ,' : or expression of devotional writings seem to eon- ; I i tradict this, let the objector remember that it is I unreasonable to insist that a devotional tract be ;'!!' couched in the accuracy of dogma. Love never ! I; ' expresses itself in the exact language of a mate- ) inatical formula. I Did not the adoration of in the Virgin Middle Ages j l tend to encourage harmful superstition by overshad- I , j owing entirely the mediatorship of Christ? j ! There has never been any adoration of the Vir-; Vir-; gin in the Catholic church. In the fourth century the heresy of the Collyridians. who paid divine J honors, was expressly condemned by the Fathers of " tiie time; for instance, St. Epiphauius (Adv. Colly-jiJians). Colly-jiJians). The love and reverence for the Mother f God which characterized the ages of faith, helped greatly to keep the doctrine of the Incarnation Incarna-tion free from all taint of hereby, and also in Ihe ; d:?ys of chivalry begot a spirit of respect for wo- , man, which could not be but beneficial in its influence in-fluence on ihe fierce manners of the period. 1 This many Protestanls and unbelievers, from ; fire controversial bias, have been forced to ad-' ad-' j . i-it. "The world." writes the rationalist Lecky. "is , ; ; rvcrned by ideals, and seldom or never has there . I j I Iwi one which has exercised a 'more salutary influence in-fluence than the mediaeval conception of the Vir- 1) ! ' fin"' ("Kationalist in Europe' ch. iii, p. 234.) I - " "There is, I think, little doubt that f;;:,' . the Catholic reverence for ihe Virgin has done . : ' ' i much to elevate anfl purify th( ideal woman, and : ; t soften the manners of men. (''History of Eu- ; roean Morals,"' vol. ii, p. 3S9.) I 1 Tlic Middle Aages had too perfect a knowledge of the unique mediatorship of Jesus Christ, who alone ''gave Himself a redemption f or all"' (I. Tim. ii, 6) ever to put a creature in the place of God. Instead of encouraging superstition, the Catholic love for Mary has ever been "productice of true. I holiness of life and purify of character' (Ruskin, "Fors Clavigera,' letter 41). by holding up Iter example for imitation and showing what human nature is capable of by the grace of God. What is the original sin? Is it not tmjuet to hold us guilty for Adam's sin? "Original sin is distinguished from actual or personal sin in this: that actus:! or pci'son sin is the sin which we personally "with our own free will commit, whilst original sin is that which our human hu-man nature committed with the Mill of Adam, in whom all our human nature is united as a branch to a root, as a child to a parent, as men who partake par-take with Adam the same nature which we have derived from him, and as members of the same ! human family of which Adam was the head." (Faa di Bruno, "Catholic Belief,-' p. 2S.) Our first parents were created in the "grace tind friendship of God, and endowed with' great gifts of soul and body, namely, immortality, immense im-mense knowledge, perfect dominion over the passions, pas-sions, freedom from sickness, pain aud labor, on condition of their not eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. They disobeyed this easy commandment and thus forfeited for themselves and their descendants sanctifying grace, all their supernatural gifts, and wounded and weakened even their natural powers. "The supernatural end or destiny of man still held good. But he lost that original gift, the exercise ex-ercise of which was to enable him to attain it. Ho became as the eagle whose home and nest is on a peak of the Andes, and whom the trapper snares and maims, until his mighty pinions will carry do no work ETAOIX" xalwaysc- sintheafSyETAO him no more. Henceforth man could do no work capable of meriting the life to come. Henceforth the life to come was out of his reach. The hild of God became a child of wrath. - Fallen man became the slave cf the devil, to be tempted in life, to be punished after death. It was from such a state as this that, man had to be saved. (Bishop Hedley, ''Our Divine Di-vine Savior," sermon iii.) The doctrine of original sin is taught by St. Paul: "Wherefore, as by one man sin entercth into this world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men in whom all have, sinucd." (Rom. v, 12.) - , It would indeed have been unjust had God imputed im-puted to us the personal sin cf another, or deprived de-prived us of something due to human nature. But "it is not the sin of Adam, inasmuch as that was personal which. God imputes, but the necessary effect ef-fect of his sin that is, the deprivation, the rejection, rejec-tion, as it were, or original justice, which Adam wilfully incurred as head of the whole human race, and which therefore, we also, as united to Adam, have incurred. In this no vestige of injustice appears. ap-pears. Men thereby do notlose anything which their nature requires." ("Catholic Belief," p. 340.) Sanctifying grace is God's free gift, which He" can give or take away on conditions laid down by , Himself alone. And though we are all todav. through Adam's sin, born , "children of wrath" (Eph. ii, 3), God in His infinite love gives every one ample opportunity of regaining the grace His only Son died on the cross to merit. |