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Show THE MOTHER OF GOD. Our present civilization, the governments of the world, the enlightenment of the people and their geperal morality are based absolutely on Christianity. Christian-ity. It was the advent of Jesus Christ in the world that inaugurated the Christian era, and it has been in this era that the people have advanced from darkness into light. No matter what religious profession pro-fession you may make, whether you see eye to eye with us or not in doctrinal matters, or whether you disagree with the Catholic Church in all its professions profes-sions of faith, these things cannot be successfully denied. The evidence in profane and sacred history his-tory is one long, unbroken chain of facts which establish es-tablish beyond peradventure a truth that nobody with the ordinary gifts of reason will attempt to deny or dispute. It being plain that the civilization, the governments, govern-ments, the enlightenment and general morality of the people of the world are based on Christianity, the thought naturally suggests itself, on what is Christianity based? For it must be more than a mere code of morals and a mere man-made system of government perpetuated through many centuries centu-ries by authority drawn from man alone. Christianity Chris-tianity is based on Christ, the Divine Son of God. born ot the Virgin .Mary. J here are those so-called Christians who attempt to deny the Divine Nature of the Son of God, and to place our Lord in the same category as Confucius-thatvof a great teacher. teach-er. But when they do this they strike at the very foundation of Christianity, for if Jesus Christ was not the Son of God then Christianity is not what it purports to be, and any worship of a mere man becomes be-comes a sacrilege. The Catholic Church bases its belief in the Divinity of Christ and worships the Son of God and venerates His Holy Mother as they have a right to be worshiped and venerated, and as it is the duty of all mankind to worship and venerate. ven-erate. All orthodox Protestant churches admit the divinity di-vinity of Christ. It h one of their tests of orthodoxy. ortho-doxy. While holding that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, by some process of reasoning that is not clear, our Protestant friends seem to have an aversion to turning the relation re-lation of the Mother and Son around, for in none of the denominational churches do we ever hear the Blessed Virgin spoken of as the Mother of God. Especially do our Protestant friends seem to dislike dis-like the Catholic nomenclature which always pre-fixesthe pre-fixesthe "Blessed" when reference is made to the Mother of our Lord. This is especially noteworthy because in the Protestant version of the Bible (Luke i, 43) appear the words "from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." In the light of their own version of the Bible, it seems strange that objection could be taken to the veneration given to the Blessed Virgin by the members of-the Catholic faith. The only reasonable explanation seems to be that they fear the Blessed Virgin may become of more importance in the minds of the people than God Himself, yet such a fear would never enter the mind of a Catholic child talcing its first communion. No matter how highly exalted the Mother of God may be in the minds of Catholics, the fact that she is not God, but merely the instrument of God the Father Fa-ther by which God the Son was brought into the world, is always perfectly clear. We honor the Blessed Virgin Mary because she is the Mother of God, and because of the intimate association which must have existed between the Mother and the Son during all the years that our Lord was upon the earth teaching the people in the way appointed by His Father. It is a most beautiful beau-tiful tribute to the Mother of Christ, and emphasizes empha-sizes the attitude of the church toward motherhood in general, for are we all not the children of God, made in the image of God, bearing the likeness of God, and gifted with immortality |