Looking at the Marian Presence in the life and works of the Saints

I will read this article to see the method and style that Bonacci used to study the "marian presnece in the life and works of St. Ignatius. It will perhaps give me ideas for establishing my own method.

Bonacci, Louis A. The Marian Presence in the life and works of Saint Ignatius Loyola: from private revelation to spiritual exercises--the cloth of Loyola's allegiance. Dayton, Ohio, University of Dayton, International Marian Research Institute, Rome, Pontifical Theological Faculty "Marianum", 2002.

Mary, forming saints in her womb

Here are some books that have been recommended - in looking at the saints of today, and the place of Mary in their lives, one must consider her formative presence in their lives. This happens through their relating to her and receiving from her council and direction. In addition, study and prayer are primary influences, but is not the very nature of the human formed in Christ also formed in Mary. Can we find Mary in every Christian, baptized into the life of Christ are they not formed in the womb of Mary too? What should we look for? What are the signs. The study of Mary, her nature, her person hood, her anthropology, should also lead us to find her in each and every person who desires to live respond to the graces God gave them at baptism.



Jones, Barbara Horton. Empowered with Mary: affirming full person hood in the new millennium.
Gretna, Pelican, 2000.

Kropf Hylen, Karen. The symbolic importance of the Virgin Mary: an alchemical exploration into the redemptive dynamic of the feminine archetype and its service to the psyche's religious function. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2002.

Nachef, Antoine. The faith of Mary: Vatican II insights on the humanity of Mary. New York, Alba House, 2002.

New saint for Mary!

6-Year-Old on Way to SainthoodPope Approves Decree of Heroic VirtueVATICAN CITY, DEC. 18, 2007 (Zenit.org).-

A 6-year-old Italian girl who cheerfully endured the amputation of her leg and offered it in union with the sacrifices of Christ might someday become the youngest canonized non-martyr saint.

Benedict XVI approved Monday the decree recognizing the heroic virtue of Antonietta Meo, who died of bone cancer. Along with the recognition of Meo's virtue, the Pope approved six decrees recognizing miracles, and seven other decrees affirming lives of heroic virtue.
Born in 1930, Antonietta was diagnosed with bone cancer at age 5 after a fall caused by a knee injury would not heal.

The girl formed the habit of leaving a letter at the foot of a crucifix every night. At first, she dictated these notes to her mother; later she wrote them herself. The more than 100 letters and her diary reveal an intense mysticism and a surprising level of theological reflection, albeit hidden in simple phrases.

"Dear Jesus," one of the letters says, "I love you very much. I want to abandon myself in your hands [...] I want to abandon myself in your arms. Do with me what you want. [...] Help me with your grace. You help me, since without your grace, I can do nothing."

Her letters were written to God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. In a letter to Mary from Sept. 18, 1936, she said, "Dear little Virgin, you who are very good, take my heart and bring it to Jesus."

Antonietta died July 3, 1937, five months before her 7th birthday.
In 1981, the Vatican Congregation for Saints' Causes removed the norm restricting "heroic virtue" only to those who had lived a "period of maturity." The change in the norm permitted the visionaries of Fatima, Jacinta and Francisco, to be beatified in 2000.
Holiness from a wheelchair
Benedict XVI also approved the decree of heroic virtue attributed to Manuel Lozano Garrido, a Spanish journalist who spent 28 years in a wheelchair.
Lozano Garrido (1920-1971) entered the Catholic Action group at age 11. During the Spanish civil war, he distributed holy Communion to the imprisoned.
His long illness began in 1942 and just one year afterward, he began to need a wheelchair. Twenty years later, nearly 10 years before his death, he lost his sight.
From his wheelchair, with progressive paralysis affecting more and more of his body, he became a recognized writer and journalist. His professional life led to many publications, including reports for the Associated Press and nine books on spirituality. When his right hand became paralyzed, he learned to write with his left. When that hand, too, lost movement, he would dictate his words.
Decrees
Besides the decrees pertaining to Antonietta and Lozano Garrido, Benedict XVI authorized the publication of decrees of miracles obtained through the intercession of the following Servants of God:
-- Michael Spocko, Polish priest (1888-1975).-- James Ghazir Haddad (born Khalil), Lebanese professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchins and founder of the Congregation of Franciscan Sisters of the Cross in Lebanon (1875-1954). -- Maria Maddalena dell'Incarnazione Sordini (born Caterina), Italian founder of the Order of Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (died 1824).
-- Jeanne Emilie de Villeneuve, French foundress of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception (1811-1854). -- Vincenza Maria Poloni (born Luigia), Italian foundress of the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of Verona (1802-1855).-- Maria Giuseppina di Gesu Crocefisso Catanea (born Giuseppina), Italian professed nun of the Order of Discalced Carmelites (1896-1948).
The Pope also approved decrees of heroic virtue for the following Servants of God:
-- Francesco Mottola, Italian priest and founder of the Secular Institute of the Oblates of the Sacred Heart (1901-1969). -- Serafino Morazzone, Italian priest (1747-1822). -- Raphael Louis Rafiringa, Madagascan professed religious of the Institute of Brothers of Christian Schools (1856-1919).
-- Stephen Nehme (born Joseph), Lebanese professed religious of the Order of Maronites (1889-1938). -- Anna Maria Marovich, Italian member of the Sisters of Reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary Immaculate (1815-1887).-- Maria Piera De Micheli (born Giuseppa Maria), Italian professed sister of the Congregation of the Immaculate Conception of Buenos Aires (1890-1945).
[Mirko Testa contributed to this article]

What Jesus Owes to His Mother - part four

Notes continue...

33. (page 7) Fr. Spicq continues to go through the features of Christ and His characteristics. It is almost poetry in the way he describes Jesus’ characteristics that he received from his mother. He says, “It is difficult to describe adequately the ordinary berating of Christ. What charm, what delicacy, what grace were in His slightest gestures! Even as a child, His grace, his harmonious beauty, was already striking, as St. Luke notes in a description gleaned from Mary: how extraordinary must this perfect proportion, this winningness, have appeared in the flower of His man good.

34. St. Paul said, “The benignity of God has appeared on earth.” The kindliness, the goodness, the gentleness of God as seen in Jesus who received this manner and way from his mother!

35. We have only to look at Jesus to now what love looks like! “For us the smile of a mother bending over her child is the very image of love, and we know that the purpose of the incarnation was to reveal to us the mystery of divine love in terms of human symbols. …And we know that it was the Virgin Most Pure who gave her son those features, that look, hose lips. The risen Christ has kept them all, more luminous than ever, and it is this we shall first contemplate on arriving in paradise.

Mother of Beautiful Love

My reflection on the words of the Pope...(see below)
As we continue to look at the how Jesus was formed to human perfection by his mother, this "Mother of beautiful love" as Pope Benedict loves to call her, forms us, to the fullest of our potential, since that is what she did for her Son with this potentiality, so she does for us, if we say yes to her work in our lives. Mary forms the saints, men and women filled with the gifts of the spirit and aspiring to use them.

DEC 8, 2007
MARY: MODEL AND MOTHER OF LOVE FOR THE YOUNG

VATICAN CITY, (VIS) - At midday today, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Pope addressed thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square to pray the Angelus.

In his remarks, the Holy Father indicated how today's feast is a celebration of "the mystery of God's grace which, from the first moment of her existence, surrounded the life of the creature destined to become the Mother of the Redeemer, preserving her from the contagion of original sin. Looking at her we recognize the greatness and beauty of God's project for each human being: to become holy and immaculate in love, in the image of our Creator.

"What a great gift it is to have Mary Immaculate for a mother," Benedict XVI added. "A mother resplendent in beauty and transparent to the love of God." He then referred to young people of today who are, he said, "growing up in an atmosphere pervaded with messages that propose false models of happiness. These boys and girls risk losing hope because they often seem to be orphaned of that real love which fills life with meaning and joy."

After highlighting how John Paul II had often presented Mary to young people as the "Mother of beautiful love," the Pope went on: "Many experiences show us, unfortunately, that adolescents, young people, and even children fall easy victims to the corruption of love, taken in by unscrupulous adults who ... draw them into the blind alleys of consumerism. Even the most sacred things such as the human body (the temple of God, of love and of life) thus become objects of consumption; and this is happening ever earlier, even before adolescence. How sad it is when children lose their sense of wonder, the enchantment of the most beautiful feelings, the value of respect for the body which is the manifestation of the individual and of his or her unfathomable mystery.

"Of all this we are reminded by Mary Immaculate whom we contemplate in all her beauty and sanctity," the Pope concluded. "To her we faithfully address our prayer as spiritually we make the pilgrimage to Lourdes where today begins the special jubilee year for the 150th anniversary of her apparition in the grotto of Massabielle."
ANG/MARY IMMACULATE/... VIS 071210 (390)

Duns Scotus and IC

Duns Scotus: Champion of the Immaculate Conception
by Brother John M. Samaha, S.M.
The year 2004 marks the sesquicentennial of the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception of Mary by Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1854. To celebrate the centenary of the infallible proclamation of this dogma of faith, Pope Pius XII, a great apostle of Mary, declared 1954 a Marian Year; the first.

I should check into this. The year I was born was the first ever Marian year! Wow!

In 1858 Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes, France. When Bernadette asked the beautiful lady who she is, Mary identified herself in these words: "I am the Immaculate Conception." This happened four short years after the solemn definition. For the centenary of that miraculous event, the Marian-minded Pope Pius XII pronounced 1958 the Lourdes Year.

And remember, this little girl knew very little, and would not have been able to come up with a term like Immaculate Conception on her own!

Though belief in Mary's Immaculate Conception never wavered among the truly faithful, for centuries theologians were at a loss to explain adequately and with satisfactory doctrinal clarity this privilege accorded the Mother of Christ. Then in "the greatest of centuries" a humble and brilliant friar brought resolution to this knotty question: how was Mary, who was like all human beings in need of redemption, conceived without sin?

How was Mary, who was like all human beings in need of redemption, conceived without sin? This is the question that is posed to us today and one that we each need to pray, ponder, and prepare our answer.

To the keen and penetrating mind of the thirteenth century Franciscan philosopher and theologian, Blessed John Duns Scotus, all Christendom owes respect and honor. For it was Duns Scotus who plodded carefully through the maze of theological reasonings to explain clearly Mary's Immaculate Conception. His study and consideration of the disputed questions regarding Mary's conception without sin dissipated the obstacles to a complete understanding of this privilege and laid a solid foundation for the definition of this dogma.

Very little is known about the early life and family background of John Duns Scotus. Scotland was his birthplace in the year 1266. Scotus was a surname given in those days to Scots, North Englanders, and Irish. Duns was most likely his family name.

After some schooling he joined the Franciscans about 1290. As a young Franciscan he both studied and taught at Oxford, distinguishing himself in each position. After several years of teaching at Oxford, Duns Scotus left for Paris probably in 1304, there to lecture in the famed University of Paris. Holding only a bachelor's degree from Oxford, he taught admirably.
While in Paris he was presented for the doctor's degree. In his letter of recommendation the Franciscan superior general commended him as a scholar "distinguished for his ingenious and very subtle learning." Following a brief stay at Paris the youthful doctor of theology took up teaching duties at Cologne. Here he died unexpectedly in November 1308.

John Duns Scotus is commonly known as Doctor Subtilis, the Subtle Doctor, in theological and philosophical circles. This title developed out of the clever and ingenious character of his lecturing and writing.

The Subtle Doctor is justly regarded as one of the bright lights of theology in that brilliant era of scholarship that was the thirteenth century. Intellectual giants like St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, and St. Albert the Great preceded him by only a brief span of time.

During his comparatively short life Blessed John Duns Scotus produced numerous valuable writings. The majority of these written works are commentaries or treatises on disputed questions, for he was recognized as a heated controversialist — incisive in his criticism, relentless in his logic, decisive in his refutation, seemingly more adept in analyzing than in synthesizing. He left no summa or compendium of any kind.

Probably his greatest work is the Opus Oxoniensis, a sparkling commentary on the famous Sentences of Peter Lombard. The Opus Oxoniensis is noted for its orderliness and its wealth of detail. Up to the close of the thirteenth century Peter Lombard's Sentences were accepted as the basic theological reference, as later students took to the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas.

The writings of Duns Scotus are not characterized by the clarity of St. Thomas Aquinas. Scotus's works are usually appraised as abstruse (complex), critical writings couched in language that is obscure. His critics, of whom there are many, sometimes accuse him of leaning toward extremes, of dwelling on technicalities, and of being given to hair-splitting. But not all the writings that have borne his name are from his pen.

Duns Scotus's followers made additions and attached comments when gathering his works for publication some years after his death. Many incorrect and unfair notions have been circulated about the Subtle Doctor. Some of these mistaken opinions have not been challenged. Some of the unfavorable criticism may be attributed to the shortcomings of his followers. Part may have been caused by a lack of penetrating powers similar to those of Duns Scotus in the persons who appointed themselves as critics.

Since the sixteenth century a Scotist school of thought has continued to study, develop, and advocate the teaching of John Duns Scotus. The chief representatives of the Scotist school have been his brothers in religion, the Franciscans.

If the Subtle Doctor did no more than untangle the puzzling elements of Mary's Immaculate Conception, the Church would be indebted to him forever. Precisely for this accomplishment we remember John Duns Scotus.

In the attempt to unravel the theological puzzle, two difficulties had blocked the mental path to a complete understanding of our Blessed Mother's conception without sin.

First, was Mary in need of redemption if she had been conceived without stain of original sin?
Second, when, in the course of her conception, was Mary preserved from the stain and effects of original sin?
Again, these are the questions. We need to study the questions!

These obstacles had stymied many of the Church's leading theologians over the centuries — among them St. Augustine, St. Bernard, St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Bonaventure. So the great teachers of the Church hesitated to proclaim the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Meanwhile, popular belief shifted toward the acceptance of this special prerogative for the Mother of Christ. The feast of the Immaculate Conception was instituted in many parts of Europe, although it was already celebrated in the East since the seventh century.

Enter Duns Scotus into the academic arena of the controversy. Beginning with the general principle formulated by St. Anselm in the eleventh century, potuit, decuit, ergo fecit (it was possible, it was fitting, therefore it was accomplished), he jumped into the thick of the intellectual tussle. In a matter of time the Subtle Doctor dispelled all objections satisfactorily.
potuit, decuit, ergo fecit - It was possible, it was fitting, therefore it was accomplished – This was from St. Anselm, who seems to have spiritual and theological common sense!

The first hurdle in the dispute regarded Mary's need of redemption. If she was conceived in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, without original sin, was she exempt from Christ's redemption? Did she not need to be redeemed?

In his Letter to the Romans (5:12), St. Paul had taught "it was through on man (Adam) that sin came into the world, and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned." Paul is telling us that everyone inherits original sin and its consequences. Therefore Mary needed to be redeemed. But Christ had not yet come to accomplish the redemption.

The first thing we have to keep in mind is that Mary needed to be redeemed, we all do, even the Mother of God because…she is human!

Duns Scotus pushed this obstruction from the path by showing that instead of being excluded from the redemption of the Savior, Mary obtained the greatest of redemptions through the mystery of her preservation from all sin. This, explained Scotus, was a more perfect redemption and attributes to Christ a more exalted role as Redeemer, because redeeming grace, which preserves from original sin, is greater than that which purifies from sin already incurred.
So Duns Scotus is saying that the grace that touched Mary before she was infected by original sin is greater than the grace that cleanses us who have already incurred original sin.
Consequently, Christ was Mary's Redeemer more perfectly by preservative redemption in shielding her from original sin through anticipating and foreseeing the merits of his passion and death. This preredemption indicates a much greater grace and more perfect salvation.
Mary WAS redeemed by her Son Christ, she was preredeemed and this was the greatest of all types of Christ. potuit, decuit, ergo fecit - It was possible, it was fitting, therefore it was accomplished
Since Mary was a daughter of Adam, when was she preserved from original sin and its consequences? Here was another obstacle to be cleared. In resolving this second problem the Subtle Doctor cleverly saw his way clear by making the necessary distinction between the order of nature and the order of time.

Ok, she was preredeemed, but did she have the consequences of original sin? What are they? Original sin deprives us of grace, wounding of human nature, and the weakening of natural human powers. OS leaves unchanged all that humanity is by nature and potential. PPJII described it this way, “the absence of sanctifying grace in nature which has been diverted from its supernatural end.” #77 of the Compendium: “…is wounded in its natural powers. It is subject to ignorance, suffering, and to the dominion of death and is inclined toward sin. This inclination is called concupiscence.”

Previously St. Thomas and other illustrious doctors of the Church had reasoned that Mary was sanctified and preserved from sin either before animation, that is, before God infused a soul into the physical embryo in her mother's womb, or after animation. She could not have been sanctified before animation; otherwise she would not have had to be redeemed. If Mary was sanctified after animation, then she whom God was raising to be Satan's destroyer, was, at least for a very brief time, subject to the influence of the Prince of Darkness through contact with original sin. This line of reasoning was based on a time sequence.

Blessed John Duns Scotus explained that the time element was not the type of order in question, but rather the order of nature. Because physical generation precedes sanctification by God's grace, Mary was an heir to the debt of Adam before being made a child of God.

In our thinking we consider Mary first as a daughter of Adam and then sanctified as a daughter of God. But this does not necessarily place the soul of our Blessed Mother in two successive states — sin followed by grace.

With Mary conception and sanctification were simultaneous, producing a twofold situation at the first moment of existence.

At one and the same time Mary, as a human descendant of Adam and Eve, contracted the debt of original sin and became by the privileged infusion of grace a daughter of God, which preserved her from the consequences of the common lot of fallen nature by a special anticipation of the anticipated merits of the Savior.

This teaching is what is behind the dogma which says: “in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privileged of God ominipotent and because of the merits of Jesus Christ the Savior of the human race, free from all stain of original sin (thus free of ignorance, suffering, and to the dominion of death and is inclined toward sin.), is revealed by God and must be believed firmly and with constancy by all the faithful.” (1854 Pope Pius IX declaratioin of the IC)

Removing these two impediments John Duns Scotus cleared the path to a theologically sound acceptance of this Marian prerogative. By his lucid exposition and defense of the doctrine of Mary's Immaculate Conception in the womb of St. Anne as a preparation for her divine motherhood, the Subtle Doctor paved the way for its solemn definition in the later times by Blessed Pope Pius IX.

Catholicism will remember the Subtle Doctor as a shrewd philosopher and an adroit theologian, one of the most eminent of that remarkable thirteenth century.

To the ordinary Catholic, John Duns Scotus stands out as the champion of Mary's Immaculate Conception.

In praising the Immaculate Conception, we also honor Blessed John Duns Scotus.

Brother John M. Samaha, S.M., belongs to the Pacific Province of the Marianists, and is currently working at Villa St. Joseph in Cupertino, Calif. Previously he was engaged in high school and adult education in the western states and Lebanon. He is a member and officer of the Mariological Society of America. His last article in HPR appeared in March 2000.
© 2003 Ignatius Press

The virgin Without Sin by Cantalamessa

SPIRITUALITY
--------------------------------------

The Virgin Without Sin
Gospel Commentary for Feast of Immaculate Conception


By Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM CapROME, DEC. 6, 2007 ( Zenit.org).- With the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the Catholic Church affirms that Mary, on account of a singular privilege bestowed by God and in view of the merits of Christ's death, was preserved from contracting the stain of original sin and came into existence already completely holy.

Four years after being defined by Pope Pius IX, this truth was confirmed by the Madonna herself at Lourdes in an apparition to Bernadette with the words: "I am the Immaculate Conception."

The feast of Mary Immaculate reminds humanity that there is only one thing that truly lowers man -- sin. It is a very urgent message to repeat. The world has lost the sense of sin. We joke as if it were the most harmless thing in the world. The world presents its products and spectacles as sinful to make them more attractive. It talks about sin, even the gravest sins, in terms of endearment: peccadilloes, little vices, etc. The expression "original sin" is used in the advertising world to indicate something very different from the Bible: A sin that confers a bit of originality on the one who commits it!

Sin is good and goodness is sin today!

The world is afraid of everything but sin. It is afraid of pollution, the obscure maladies of the body, nuclear war, terrorism; but it is not afraid of the war against God, who is the eternal; the all-powerful; love. Jesus says, however, not to be afraid of those who kill the body, but only of him who after he has killed has the power to cast into Gehenna (cf. Luke 12:4-5).

We have no concept anymore of the consequences to sin. We are not faithful to our relationships here on this earth, we think nothing of cheating on the other, we do not relate to the other as significant in meriting our respect. The more you love something, the more you treasure it…where your heart is there you will find the treasure…this all proves true!
The end is not in our mind because the one we will meet in the end is not on our radar here and now!

This way of thinking exercises a tremendous influence even on believers who want to live according to the Gospel. It produces a sleep of conscience in them, a kind of spiritual anesthesia. There is a drug that skews our understanding of sin. The Christian people no longer recognize its true enemy, the master that enslaves it; this is because what we have is a gilded slavery.

This is a great expression: a sleep of conscience in them, a kind of spiritual anesthesia

Many who speak of sin no longer have an entirely adequate idea of it. Sin becomes depersonalized and is projected only onto institutions; we end up identifying sin with the position of our own political and ideological adversaries. An investigation about what people think sin is would probably have frightening results.

This would be a good survey to take, even though as Fr. Cantalamessa says, we would probably be shocked “investigation about what people think sin is would probably have frightening results”

Instead of liberation from sin, all efforts today are focused on liberation from regret over sin; instead of fighting against sin we fight against the idea of sin, replacing it with something very different, namely, "guilt feelings." We do precisely that which in every other sphere is considered the worst thing of all, that is, we deny the problem rather than resolve it, we push back and bury evil in the unconscious instead of removing it.

We are the master of the excuse…we always have a reason why “I did what I did and should not feel bad about it”…In some cases the excuses are real, but we as a society, myself first, have got to start taking responsibility for action and paying the consequences. There are consequences to sin…just as there are consequences to grace, which do I choose!”

It is similar to believing that we can eliminate death by eliminating the thought of death, or worrying about bringing down the fever rather than curing the sickness when the fever is only a providential revelatory symptom of the sickness. St. John says that if we claim to be without sin, then we deceive ourselves and we make God a liar (cf. 1 John 1:8-10); God, in fact, says the contrary, he says that we have sinned.

Scripture says that Christ "died for our sins" (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:3). If you take away sin, then Christ's redemption itself is made futile, you have destroyed the meaning of his death. Christ would then have been tilting at windmills, he would have spilled his blood for nothing.

“died for our sins” – how real our sins our,that Jesus would die for them. As the expression goes, “It would have been enough, ‘a drop of blood’ but Jesus gave all, to show the magnitude of our sin and the extreme magnitude of His mercy and love for us.

But the dogma of Mary Immaculate also tells us something very positive: God is stronger than sin and where sin abounds grace abounds even more (cf. Romans 5:20).

How beautiful. This is why I love the Immaculate Conception. It is God’s testimony to us that He is God and we are not! Look what our God can do! Look at Mary!!

Mary is the sign and guarantee of this. The whole Church, after her, is called to become "glorious, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, that she might be holy and immaculate" (Ephesians 5:27). A text of the Second Vatican Council says: "But while in the Most Holy Virgin the Church has already reached that perfection whereby she is without spot or wrinkle, the followers of Christ still strive to increase in holiness by conquering sin. And so they turn their eyes to Mary who shines forth to the whole community of the elect as the model of virtues" ("Lumen Gentium," 65).

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

My closing prayer:
Mary, I want to touch you and be near to you. You show me by your witness what it means to live in holiness. You give me the example of God’s mercy and your very immaculate presence tells me “who is coming” and how prepared I must be! Your Immaculate Conception is a wake up call, a strong invitation to conversion, a moment of grace. Thank you, Mary, thank you Father. Amen

* * *

Father Raniero Cantalamessa is the Pontifical Household preacher. The readings for the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception are Genesis 3:9-15, 20; Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12; Luke 1:26-38.

What Jesus Owes to His Mother - part three

17. (Page 3) Why was it absolutely necessary that Christ's body as a human should be perfect? My answer here would have been so that we would know and actually see what our perfection is to look like and thus model ourselves after his perfection. This is in essence true, but prior to that is that Jesus was "truly human" and thus his soul and body had to be united.

18. "The soul is not in the body as in a receptacle, like a sword in its sheath. Socrates and Plato considered the soul in the body like a pilot in a ship, a traveler in a hotel, a prisoner in a jail. But no. Man is formed neither of body alone nor of soul alone, but constitutes a specific being which results from the substantial union of the soul and body. Our bodies, flesh and blood that they are says St. Thomas (Ia q. 75, a.4), as much ours as our souls. I am my body just as much as I am my mind and my heart (a further reason for the necessity of a bodily resurrection)."

19. Fr. Spicq says, "IF OUR LORD'S SOUL WAS NOT IN EVERY WAY LIKE TO OURS IT WOULD NO LONGER BE A HUMAN SOUL. But this particular soul will be united to this particular body and that is what individualizes it and makes it fundamentally different."

20. What makes us different? Our body is what distinguishes one from the other and defines me differently from my neighbor. If my brain (part of my body) is well endowed then I will be more intelligent than another, or my legs longer, I will be better athlete, or my eyes, I will see better and excel where this gift is necessary... Spicq, goes on to say that our faculties affect our spiritual sense too, "All our spiritual faculties are largely conditioned by the state of our vegetative and sensible life. Granted that the soul is not absolutely and finally the prisoner of these conditions; the work of education and of virtues is precisely to bring bout a liberation from this corporal domination, but we all know how laborious - and how limited - is this work of correcting and reforming the original, defective foundation." (pg.4)

21. Now we are getting to the nut of what Fr. Spicq wants us to find. Since our souls are all equal, and since the quality of the body makes the difference in souls, we can see who vitally important it was that our Lord's body should be perfect as a formed body that is one destined to be united with a soul. (pg. 4)

22. And so it follows that for Jesus to have a perfect body, he must his Mother's body be perfect.

23. If Christ body must be perfect than so must His Mother's!

24. It is for this reason that God watched over her and preserved her from original sin all the imperfections that come with it!

25. The body of Christ was formed perfectly in the womb of Mary, we can even say, "Since, from the first moment of His existence, Our Lord had a body perfectly formed and in a state of complete integrity,it must be said that it was the only human body since Adam which existed in all its splendor." (pg. 5)

26. Mary was perfectly Jewish with no blemish. She was snot an abstract likeness of a human being, she was a real person with real hair, eyes, nose, ect. And she was Jewish. She had an
origin, roots, she comes form the davidic line. Jesus was born of this woman, formed in her, and therefore, son of Mary, looked like his holy Mom!
Fr. Spicq gives several examples of how stunning Jesus must have been - "he resembled his mother, she was the most beautiful of women, of Davidic, and there fore royal blood....He inspired immediate respect.... He also had vigorous health, Our Lord could be tired from his labor: he could be tired from his labor: He fell asleep in the middle of the day in the boat, worn out from having preached so long; He sat down, literally "just as he was (outos)" at Jabob's well, on the ground, unable to go any farther after having climbed the uplands of the Jordan all morning. But he was never ill; (cf. S.T. IIa, q.14, a.4), He never had flu, nor a cold, nor indeed any failure of his bodily resistance." (pg. 5).

27. He had his mother's eyes - eyes of love
28. eyes rich in mystery that could see into the heart of another and read what was there.
29. He looked with eyes of love...(rich young man)
30. His voice...think of when he spoke and how people reacted...
31. His grace, His harmonious beauty - same as Mary. "the benignity of God has appeared on earth"
32. His smile...He had the smile of the Virgin most pure, who gave her son those features, that look, those lips. The risen Christ has kept them all, more luminous than ever, and it is this we shall first contemplate on arriving in paradise. (page 6)

Redeemer in the Womb - Review

Redeemer in the Womb
John Saward
San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993

This is a good book that I will read as part of my research in relation to Mary as the formator of our holiness. Mr. Saward gives good references and as Fr. Thompson quotes below
""We shall not see Christ's radiance in our lives yet; it is still hidden in our darkness; nevertheless, we must believe that He is growing in our lives; we must believe it so firmly that we cannot help relating everything, literally everything, to this almost incredible reality."

BOOK REVIEW:
BY Fr. Thomas Thompsen, SM
Catholic spirituality is centered on Christ. Whereas modern thinking strives to interpret the exact words and teachings of Christ, an older spirituality and theology concentrated on the interior dispositions of Christ--his poverty, obedience, filial piety, resignation--and the events of his life. These "mysteries" or "states" of Christ's life continue into the present, and the Christian spirituality consists in reliving and participating in these attitudes and events.

Formerly of Ushaw College, Durham, and now at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, Philidelphia, John Saward presents a rich work of theology, spirituality, and ethics to consider one period of Christ's life--the nine months he passed within the body of the Virgin Mary. This "work of reclamation," as Professor Saward terms it, brings together "what early Christian writers, Christian philosophy, liturgy, poetry, and iconography" have said about this now forgotten period--the nine months of Jesus' embryonic and fetal life in Mary.

Central to the story is the Annunciation, "the chief feast of the Incarnation." Christ's birth is the manifestation to the world of what occurred at the Annunciation. Through Mary's Yes, the preexisting Son of God assumed a human flesh and a human soul. The Eastern writers, especially Maximus the Confessor, insist upon the inseparability of body and soul, the wholeness of Christ's human person from the very beginning.

Christian spirituality does not limit communication to the verbal. At the Visitation, Mary, the new Ark of the Covenant, bears within her the God-become-man who sanctifies his forerunner, John the Baptist. Jesus' mission of sanctifying others begins even before his birth. Both Elizabeth and Joseph are filled with reverential wonder in the presence of the divine within Mary. Elizabeth expresses amazement that Mary, "the Mother of the Lord" should come to her. Joseph wanted to leave Mary, not because he was ashamed of her conduct, but because he sensed the divine presence within her. Mary's Assumption is the final transfer of the Ark, the "shrine of the living God."

This indwelling of Christ in Mary's womb is a figure of Christian reality. The womb in which Christ now dwells is "wide as the world"--it is the Church, the Eucharist, the individual. In each case, Christ comes trusting and defenseless, present as an unborn child awaiting a birth.

Saward's book is the perfect Advent book--the Advent not limited to the liturgical season. Caryll Houselander, whom Saward regards as a prophet, saw Advent as a time of darkness, of waiting. "We shall not see Christ's radiance in our lives yet; it is still hidden in our darkness; nevertheless, we must believe that He is growing in our lives; we must believe it so firmly that we cannot help relating everything, literally everything, to this almost incredible reality."