Tag Archives: Mary

2022-09-12 · 4:00 am

Maternal warriors who sing: Hannah, Anne, Mary Immaculate. What’s in a name?

Above is an icon of Saint Anne with Immaculate Mary, her infant daughter, who is already by vocation Mother of God, respected as such by the Holy Angels.

Anne in Hebrew is Hannah, חַנָּה‎. Most translate this name as grace, favor. That’s appropriate, since Saint Gabriel’s greeting to Mary so as to announce to her that she is to be the Virgin Mother of God, was this: “Rejoice, you who perfectly continue to stand perfectly transformed in grace since the instant…” [in context, that Mary’s vocation to be the virgin Mother of God was received, that is, at the first instant of her conception].

I first heard this explanation – grace, favor – of the name Hannah when I was slogging through the propaedeutic year of languages at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. But with me being freaky pedantic, I sought philological extravaganzas and, the next day, raised my hand to ask Sister Timothy Elliot, our professor, whether or not there was another possibility for the name Hannah, say, perhaps “womb”, indeed, “mercy.” She thought for a second and, eyes bright, said yes. Emboldened, I added a few philological notes, and she waxed poetic on that philology for a minute, confirming my findings.

Anyway, you’ll remember that Hannah is the prophet Samuel’s mother. She was granted the mercy of being a mother by God Most High, and she brought her little son to the temple to grow up there. “Here I am, Lord. I come to do your will.” Hannah sang about her experience, a hymn of praise and thanksgiving which, we can be quite sure, had been memorized and sung by another Hannah more than a thousand years later, the mother of Immaculate Mary. And surely Mary heard this, memorized this, carried this, sang this, the song of a Maternal warrior:

  • “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in the Lord. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in thy salvation. There is none holy like the Lord, there is none besides thee; there is no rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world. “He will guard the feet of his faithful ones; but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness; for not by might shall a man prevail. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; against them he will thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.” (1 Samuel 2:1-10)

Sound familiar? Let’s see how Immaculate Mary, The Warrior Woman of Genesis 3:15, recast this for her own circumstances as Virgin Mother of God, Jesus being the fulfillment of the new priesthood which Samuel, son of Hannah, put into motion back in his day:

  • “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity for ever.” (Luke 1:46-55)

To sing with such humility, truth, reverence, praise, with a military edge, demands of any singer, Hannah/Anne/Mary, an experience of suffering.

And that brings us to Mary’s name, Miryam, מִרְיָם, “bitterness” and “sea”. We recall once again the Lamentations:

  • “Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see! Is there any sorrow like mine, which was inflicted on me, which the LORD made me suffer on the day of His fierce anger?” (Lamentations 1:12)

Back to Miryam, Mary. When I lived atop the cave of Elijah atop Mount Carmel for a month, I would sometimes look over the sea. I wondered out loud to my guardian angel what it is that Elijah saw coming out of the sea as a sign that the terrible drought of years was now over, you know, upon his praying seven times. The Hebrew is ambiguous, simply mentioning that his servant reported to Elijah that a small cloud (laden with rain) was seen arising from the sea, a cloud like a man’s hand/foot. הִנֵּה־עָ֛ב קְטַנָּ֥ה כְּכַף־אִ֖ישׁ עֹלָ֣ה מִיָּ֑ם

Forget translations, which often say “hand”. I think not. I think it was a small cloud laden with rain looking like a man’s foot. Why’s that? Because the cloud laden with rain as salvation for Israel is arising out of the bitter sea, that is Miryam, Mary. The first image of salvation we see in the Sacred Scriptures is in Genesis 3:15, whereby salvation is being brought by the initiative of the Savior to reach out His heel to crush the head of the great serpent, the ancient dragon, Satan, with that Redeemer/Savior Himself being crushed as indeed we saw with the crucifixion of Jesus, Son of Miryam, Mary, that Bitterness immense as the Sea under the Cross.

The moment I had asked my guardian angel about that cloud laden with rain back in the Book of Kings, a small cloud laden with rain immediately formed directly in front of me, over the sea, directly in front of Elijah’s cave. That’s the picture I took of that cloud above. Yikes!

7 Comments

Filed under Immaculate Conception, Mary

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

2022-09-10 · 3:07 pm

තිස්ස බාලසූරිය, ten years dead, an enemy

The name Father Tissa Balasuriya was brought to mind in the past week. He was a “liberation theologian” from Sri Lanka, an Oblate of Mary Immaculate, excommunicated for a while because of his many and disgusting heresies regarding our Blessed Mother. He died in early 2013, a week or so after Pope Benedict XVI did what he did (whatever it is that he did). It was Cardinal Ratzinger who had published the excommunication so many years earlier (1997). Here’s an excerpt:

“A fundamental aspect of the thought of Father Balasuriya is the denial of the dogma of original sin, held by him to be simply a product of the theological thought of the West (cf. pp. 66-78). This contradicts the nature of this dogma and its intrinsic connection to revealed truth. The author, in fact, does not hold that the meaning of dogmatic formulas remains always true and unchangeable, though capable of being expressed more clearly and better understood. [In contrast, I was able to demonstrate the “mechanism” (well, God’s justice precisely in view of how He created us), regarding the transmission of original sin not by imitation but by propagation, showing the inescapable logic of this from the Hebrew text, a first as far as I can tell after a quite exhaustive examination of millennia of commentary on the matter.]

“On the basis of these positions, the author arrives at the point of denying, in particular, the marian dogmas. Mary’s divine motherhood, her Immaculate Conception and virginity, as well as her bodily Assumption into heaven, are not recognized as truths belonging to the Word of God (cf. pp. 47, 106, 139, 152, 191). [In contrast, in my own work, I demonstrated how all these dogmas are necessary upon the examination of the text of the Sacred Scriptures, again, a first as far as I know in the history of Judeo-Catholicism.] Wanting to present a vision of Mary free from «theological elaborations, which are derived from a particular interpretation of one sentence or other of the scriptures» (p. 150) [In contrast, I demonstrated how Genesis 2:4a–3:24 is a tightly scripted equation, a syllogism], Father Balasuriya, in fact, deprives the dogmatic doctrine concerning the Blessed Virgin of every revealed character, thus denying the authority of tradition as a mediation of revealed truth. [In contrast, I demonstrated the revealed character of all the present Marian dogmas, and more, that is, regarding Mary as Advocate, Mediatrix, Co-Redemptrix.]

“Finally, it must be noted that Father Balasuriya, denying and relativizing some statements of both the extraordinary Magisterium and the ordinary universal Magisterium, reveals that he does not recognize the existence of an infallibility of the Roman Pontiff and of the college of Bishops cum et sub Petro. Reducing the primacy of the Successor of Peter to a question of power (cf. pp. 42, 84, 170), he denies the special character of this ministry. [In contrast, I have attempted, as a courtesy, to correct Francis’ assertions of power as an attempt to control Sacred Tradition (he taking up Balasuriya’s heretical assertions), pointing Francis instead to correct philological exegesis of Matthew 16 regarding the limits of infallibility apart from Sacred Tradition. This is speaking with parrhesia, with charity. I must say, this has been quite the exhaustive, comprehensive examination, though spread out over very many articles over very many years.]

“In publishing this Notification, the Congregation is obliged also to declare that Father Balasuriya has deviated from the integrity of the truth of the Catholic faith and, therefore, cannot be considered a Catholic theologian; moreover, he has incurred excommunication latae sententiae (can. 1364, par. 1). [In other words, the automatic nature of the excommunication was now also declared, therefore having external penalties imposed and supervised.]

“The Sovereign Pontiff John Paul II, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect, approved this Notification, adopted in the ordinary session of this Congregation, and ordered it to be published.

“Rome, from the offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 2 January 1997, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Joseph Card. Ratzinger Prefect” [So, that’s weird. I think the multiple dates here refer, perhaps, to the approval, and/or the signing, and/or the publishing.]

A year later, in 1998, this excommunication was lifted upon Tissa’s admission that there might be “perceptions of error” in his writings, whatever that means. While teaching in major seminaries in Australia a few years later, I saw a BBC interview with Tissa in which, if I remember correctly, he mocked this decision of the foolish Holy See rehabilitating him. I was intent on getting him excommunicated once again (with full encouragement of the Holy Office), and so contacted the BBC to get a DVD copy of the interview (which they advertised at the end of the program). To their credit, they responded and took my phone calls. But they got nervous and said that sharing a copy was, in this case, forbidden by the interviewee. Who would’ve guessed? The BBC guy was super nervous, as denial is against government policy (the BBC being a government agency). Anyway, you can fool what is now called the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith some of the time, but not Jesus, not Mary at any time. One way or the other, now Tissa knows the rest of the story, with great clarity. I hope he turned around before he died. I don’t wish anyone any harm, even with the infliction of penalties which are medicinal in nature. For the eternal repose of Tissa’s soul (We’re to pray for our enemies, right?): Hail Mary…

Whatever the perception of Tissa as a full-on heretic, he did get due process. That’s charity, right?

Leave a comment

Filed under Immaculate Conception, Mary

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

2022-07-06 · 10:00 am

“My encounter with Mary during the TET offensive, 1968, Huế, Vietnam”

[[This was first published in the National Catholic Register under it’s previous ownership, and is presented under the title THE HAND OF MARY by one of the writers of the NCRegister, Tom Hoopes. It is USMC Michael Lambert, who has been visiting my parish in WNC these past weeks, who sent in this story. I’d like to give it a bit more visibility. The picture above is of the church he describes below.]]

Michael Lambert already had a devotion to the Blessed Mother before that day in Vietnam. “I had studied as a seminarian for the Marist Fathers,” the native of Georgia says. “I had been dedicated to Our Blessed Lady as an infant by my mother.” But he would have an even greater devotion later, when he came to understand what had happened to him there.

It was February 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War. The Tet holiday, New Year’s festivities celebrated by families throughout Vietnam, had begun on Jan. 31. To honor it, combatants had called a truce — until North Vietnamese defense minister Gen. Nuygen Giap, defense minister for North Vietnam, launched a countrywide “general uprising.”

Communist forces attacked major cities and military bases throughout South Vietnam at the very moment many South Vietnamese troops were on leave with their wives and children. 2d Lieutenant Michael Lambert was serving as a platoon leader with Company H, Second Battalion, Fifth Marines. When the Tet attacks began, the Battalion was ordered into Hue’ (pronounced “whey”) on February 2. The mission was to attack the North Vietnamese Army Forces that had taken the city during the early morning hours of January 31. Hue was a city that was both strategically and psychologically key to the communist’s plans to take control of South Vietnam. It was home to over 110,000 souls and Vietnam’s most honored city. Hue’ had been the capital of Vietnam. It was the location of the former emperor of Vietnam’s ancient fortress, known as the Citadel.

The Catholic faith had been brought to Vietnam over a century prior to the French by Jesuit Missionaries. Vietnamese Catholics had suffered persecution by Vietnamese emperors for generations prior to the arrival of the French.

The journey by truck convoy to Hue from the combat base at Phubai was strange and silent, Lambert remembers. “Usually, on a trip into a South Vietnamese city, children begging for food would swarm the trucks,” he said. “The marines would toss ‘c ration’ meals and candy bars to the kids.” The young marines would laugh at the resulting melee.

“This time,” he said, “the only ones on the side of the road were the bodies of dead South Vietnamese and American soldiers.” As the convoy headed into the French section of Hue called the new city, “the scene began to resemble a Wild West movie,” he said. “We began receiving heavy machine gun fire from the steeple of a Catholic church west of the highway.” “Big green tracers flew high over the truck beds … no one was hit.”

Once they got to the MACV (military assistance command Vietnam) compound in Hue, they learned what had happened. The North Vietnamese had slipped into the city by night, occupying it and massacring thousands. The Marines would have to take it back.

And they would have to do it block by bock, house by house, on the Communists’ terms. “Urban warfare was a totally new experience for us,” said Lambert. “The vicious house-to-house and room-to-room tactics demanded a unique aggressive spirit.”

The fighting was intense. It took the Marines six days to clear six blocks. “After six days, we had developed a routine that consisted of violent assault supported by heavy automatic weapons fire,” he recalled. “Once the enemy return fire was suppressed, a fire team of five marines would rush into a building and run from room to room tossing in fragmentation grenades and spraying each room with automatic fire from their M-16 rifles. After many days without sleep and little food, these assaults became mechanical. Many of us were like walking dead.”

The horror of the war, the stench of unburied bodies, the total confusion of combat, the physical exhaustion of the soldiers and the deadening of the soldiers’ sensitivity to killing are hard for most people to understand, Lambert said. But these elements also make Mary’s intervention in the carnage, violence, and filth of that particular battle all the more extraordinary, he added.

Lambert’s reinforced platoon, which had started out with 65 marines, had dwindled to 20 effectives in six days of continuous fighting. That’s when H Company Commander Captain Ron Christmas gave Lambert the order to clear a Catholic church near the Phu Cam canal. The church was suspected of being the location of the machine gun nest that had fired at the convoy a week earlier. “I issued a brief order to my three squad-leaders to clear the churchyard and check the church itself,” said Lambert. “I gave special attention to the bell tower.” Lambert ran into the church with his assaulting fire team. He noticed a basement staircase descending from a low door in the back of the church. He decided to check that out himself.

“I removed an M-26 grenade from the left front pocket of my flack jacket and tucked my M-16 rifle under my right armpit,” he said. “As I descended the staircase, I readied the grenade. I placed my left index finger into the safety ring and began to ease the pin out of the arming mechanism of the hand grenade.”

Lambert easily could have thrown the grenade into the room at the bottom of the stairway, but he didn’t. Instead, “I felt a gentle hand touch me and lay over the grenade,” he said. “In one of those inexplicable moments in time, I instantly knew I was to re-safe the deadly grenade.” He did, returning it to his flack jacket.

Stepping off the stairway landing, he entered the crypt of the Church. “There in the darkness, I saw a sea of lit vigil lights with Vietnamese huddled over them praying the rosary,” he said. “The parishioners of the church had taken refuge in the basement.” He led them out into the light of day and sent them to the refugee center.

After four more days of fighting, Lambert was wounded, treated and sent back into combat. The battle for Huế lasted 26 days for the Marines. In the rush of events, he forgot all about the incident in the Church basement. Until 25 years later. He began having nightmares about the fighting in Huế during Tet 1968. Then a father of six, he heard about a priest in Slidell, Louisiana, who had the reputation, like Padre Pio, of reading souls in confession.

“On impulse,” he said, “I made an appointment with that priest.” They traveled from Atlanta and each family member made a general confession. Lambert was the last. The priest knew nothing of his past or identity, and at the end of the general confession he asked Lambert if there was anything bothering him; if he had anything else to discuss.

“I mentioned that I was experiencing troubling dreams about my experiences in Vietnam,” said Lambert. “You mean about the church in Huế?” asked the priest. “Yes, Father,” said Lambert. Answered the priest: “That was the Blessed Mother’s hand that stopped you from throwing the hand grenade.” The church was named Our Lady of Perpetual Help. The priest, Fr. Joe Benson, was pastor of Margaret Mary Alacoque parish.

Post Script: The area of the city that Lambert fought in was the “New City” on the south bank of the Perfume River. The Phu Cam district had been settled by Vietnamese Catholics that had fled North Vietnam following the 1954 Partition after the Viet Minh – French war. The Catholic refugees that resettled in Huế built their church in Phu Cam. The church was dedicated to Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

Following the Tet 1968 battle lasting 26 days, mass graves were found. Most of the 5,000 victims had been buried alive by the communist soldiers. They had been convicted by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong and summarily executed. Their crime was being “reactionary”. Many were catholic former refugees from the north who had seen the tragedy of the communist state. This under-reported event is referred to as the Huế Massacre by Vietnamese ex-pats. The current government either denies that it ever happened, or blames it on the evil U.S. Marine Corps. So much for revisionist history!

[[My comment: Notice the power of the Rosary, and the power of Confession.]]

3 Comments

Filed under Military, Rosary

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

2022-06-22 · 8:28 pm

Flowers for the Immaculate Conception (random thoughts on Mary’s Assumption, ed.)

Those are Mountain Laurel above, which I picked, so to speak, for Mary Immaculate on the way home from the Day Off yesterday. Hours later I got a text asking about the Assumption of Mary. As I just did for the virginity of Mary – Flowers for the Immaculate Conception (random notes on virginity, edition) – here are some random thoughts as fast as I can type.

  • The phrase The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Soul and Body into Heaven does not appear in the Sacred Scriptures just like that. That doesn’t mean it’s not true. Thus, the phrase The Most Holy Trinity doesn’t appear in the Sacred Scriptures just like that. But we do read about the Creator, about YHWH Elohim and about the Holy Spirit throughout the Old Testament, and then, very specifically, in the New Testament, the Jews are not at all scandalized at Philip speaking in this manner, but are upset that he said that they were also guilty of the blood of Jesus. Also, there’s the great commission to preach to all the nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Can anyone deny the Most Holy Trinity, Three Persons, One God, because the word “Trinity” or Tri-Unity doesn’t appear. So, let’s dismiss that gotcha rubbish. God made us smarter than doing up gotcha rubbish.
  • Would it be appropriate for Mary to go to heaven, seeing that she was so much in solidarity with her Son, risking getting stoned to death if Joseph would have turned her in, risking giving birth to Jesus in Bethlehem where in fact Herod killed all the male children two years old and under trying to kill Jesus, having to go into exile in an arch-enemy country (pure hell for years), witnessing the inept and brutally idiot apostles for years, standing alone under the cross until John came back, witnessing her Son ripped to shreds in front of her? Yes. But that appropriateness would not be a proof.
  • Would it be appropriate for Mary to go to heaven, soul and body, because, you know, her Son Jesus went to heaven, soul and body, and she, like, you know, was mother of that biological part of the human nature of the divine Person of Jesus, who was entirely God and man in one divine Person? Yes. But that appropriateness would not be a proof.
  • There seems to be a rock-solid tradition that Mary was assumed soul and body into heaven that goes waaaaaaaaay back to the beginning, very soon had references in the liturgy, and was uninterruptedly part and parcel of the belief of the Christian people everywhere: Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est – What everywhere, always and by everyone is believed. But that’s not gonna convince anyone. They’ll just say that that’s stubborn entrenchment. And that’s because the certainty of this faith is more obviously true than that you see your hand in front of your face rests on something else, and that something else is feared.
  • It is Mary’s Immaculate Conception which is proof of the Assumption of Mary, soul and body, into heaven. So, let’s take a look at Mary’s having been immaculate conceived in the Sacred Scriptures, Old and New, and see if the consequences such an event inescapably bring us to admission, ever so joyfully, mind you, of the assumption of Mary soul and body into heaven…

GENESIS 3:15 — I wrote a thesis on this. I wish people would read it. But anyway, in short, the Redeemer, YHWH Elohim incarnate, is to be born of The Woman sometime future to the writer of Genesis 3:15. He will be her seed. That’s biologically weird, right? Women don’t have a seed. Men do. But the Son will be her seed. What this refers to in context is that she is not part of Adam’s seed, Adam’s progeny of original sin. She is apart from the sin of Adam. Her progeny is, absolutely, hers. If she is not destroyed by original sin, if she is would stain of that sin, without that macula, she is immaculate in her conception. She’s the Immaculate Conception. But what does that have to do with the Assumption? Hold on. Let’s see Luke.

LUKE 1:28 — Here the angel’s salutation is written down by Luke as inspired by the Holy Spirit. That greeting, Κεχαριτωμένη, is a perfect participle. Sorry to be pedantic here, but it’s important. In biblical Greek, the perfection of the perfect “tense” is actually perfect. The angel literally said: Rejoice you who perfectly continue to stand perfectly transformed in grace from the time when [fill in the blank from context] until now. Text without context is pretext. The context is that the time whence Mary was perfectly transformed in grace and perfectly continued in that perfection until now is when she first received her vocation to be the virgin Mother of God, that is, from eternity, but practically received when she was conceived by Joachim and Ann by an intervention of the Holy Spirit.

So, great! Mary was immaculate conceived. What does that have to do with the Assumption, even as a proof of the Assumption of Mary soul and body into heaven? Glad you asked. Buckle up!

Original sin dumbs us down with weakness of mind, weakness of will, emotions now chaotic because no longer following but always attempting to lead reason, suffering distraction, suffering the violence of others, and there’s sickness and death. Mary was free from all that, right? Yes and no. Personally, yes, but because her immaculateness provided purity of heart, agility of soul, clarity of vision, profundity of understanding, and, in so lightly yet so intensely and so lovingly following the will of God, walking with God’s Truth, a Temple of the Holy Spirit, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, the Mother of the Son, the Daughter of the Father… because of all that she also saw, in contrast, ever so clearly, all the sin of all mankind in all of its horror vomited upon her Son as He was shred to death, tortured to death in front of her. Whereas even a smidgeon of understanding of what even what one of our slightest sins actually was before the holiness of God would crush us to death because of the weight of the glory of God’s justice overwhelming us, so weak are we after original sin, Mary was able to stand in solidarity with her Son in His trials. She suffered more than all put together. Look you who pass by the way and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow!

Well, there is a sorrow like her sorrow, that of Jesus in the agony of the garden, where the will of His human nature was in dichotomy from the will of His Father, not because He was a wimp and didn’t want to suffer the death we deserve for original sin and our own rubbish sin and so, standing in our place, Innocent for the guilty, would have the right in His own justice to have mercy on us… He was constrained until He could enthusiastically suffer the baptism for which He came, in His own blood. And there He was, sweating a baptism of His own blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. He didn’t want to His Immaculate Mother suffered the greatest suffering of seeing Him tortured to death in front of her, thus seeing clearly all the sins of all mankind from Adam until the last man is conceived, even seeing that such a redemption wrought by her Son also brought that immaculate conception to her. She was redeemed but not saved. Get that? Now then…

Sin brought death into the world. Jesus died, totally innocent. Just because she died doesn’t mean she was a sinner and died because of that. Why did Jesus die? From the crucifixion? Sure, I guess. Kind of. Not really. He would have, if you left Him there long enough, He insisting to stay on the Cross for us. But it was a surprise that He only lasted three hours. He died because of the massive heart attack which would have accompanied the sweating of blood, the stress of His love for His mother, not wanting her to witness His suffering. That heart attack, it is said, literally breaks the pericardium, the outer part of the heart, which would have filled with blood, that blood then separating into blood and “water” overnight, quite un-survivable, and He would have died more of that than the scourging and crucifixion so quickly as he did.

Meanwhile, back to Mary. I contend it is because of her Immaculate Conception and the subsequent suffering under the Cross which that brought to her (see argumentation above) that she also suffered the same kind of massive heart attack, her pericardium breaking, but she appropriately surviving until at least Pentecost. That she would die even though not part of any consequence of original sin is most appropriate in her solidarity with her dear, dear Son. But then it would be time for her to go be on her way to heaven, in all justice. And God is just.

That she would have to be assumed into heaven regardless of any death (recall the “being changed in the twinkling of an eye mentioned by Saint Paul for souls at the end of time) is obviated simply by the fact of her immaculate conception: It’s God’s justice. Can she who is the Ark of the Covenant Incarnate not join her Son in Heaven? Impossible. Can she rot in the tomb, she who is the mother of the Author of Life, while He goes to Heaven leaving her behind? That’s impossibly unjust. But God is just. If Jesus, who is without sin, cannot rot in the tomb, neither can she, who is without sin, rot in the tomb. It’s not right. It’s impossible in justice to leave her dead, she who is the mother of the Author of Life. But God is just.

So, there it is. I’m typing too fast. I fear carpal tunnel syndrome. I’m sure I missed plenty. And I feel badly about that. I’m inept. Did I miss anything? I guess it comes down to Jesus’ love for His mother. I mean, for myself, if I were Jesus[!], and I ascended into heaven soul and body, and there was Mary, her own body rotting in the grave but me all good to go, I would feel really awkward. And I know that ♬ feelings ♬ are no way to do theology or biblical studies, but the logic of God’s justice is absolutely inescapable. Don’t underestimate Jesus’ love for His mother. Jesus loves His immaculate mother.

It’s because she is immaculate and cannot be put down by sin that she must live even if she dies momentarily as did Jesus. She must bodily rise immediately as did Jesus. Satan did not win over her or over Him. And she had to go to heaven body and soul as He ascended body and soul because that’s the fulfillment of the redemption though not salvation she received. The logic is absolute. To put it more strongly: to deny her entrance to heaven would be a sin on Jesus’ part. That ain’t gonna happen.

Just as Jesus said that if we love Him we should be happy that He is going to the Father in speaking of His ascension, you know, because He successfully obeyed the Father, suffering so very much for us, just so if we love Him, who loves His mother, she who also did the will of the Father and who also suffered so much for us… we should be happy that Jesus’ mother is assumed soul and body into heaven. It’s a family thing. And we long to join the two of them.

I’ll just stop here and press publish. Again, sorry for spelling mistakes and run-on sentences. I’m typing waaaay too fast.

5 Comments

Filed under Flores, Mary

Tagged as , ,

2022-04-16 · 8:22 am

“Our Lady of Revelation” 75th anniversary: Pontificide & Assumption of Mary

12 April 1947 – 12 April 2022. Some years ago Rachel Lanz had an account at the NCRegister about Bruno Cornacchiola, a wanna-be assassin of Pius XII. Bruno was baptized Catholic, but then joined the anti-clerical marauders in Italy. He re-verted back to the Catholic Church by way of Our Lady of Revelation, who appeared at Tre Fontane on the outskirts of Rome, where Saint Paul had been beheaded.

At the time, Pius XII who was wanting to say something about the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, soul and body into heaven, and would do so with an infallible pronouncement three years, six months later, in 1950. Bruno saw Our Lady with his three children. She was dressed in white, wearing a green mantle with a pink band, holding the Scriptures. She had a message for Pius XII that Bruno himself had to deliver: “My body could not decay and did not decay. My Son and the angels took me to heaven.”

But there’s more to the story

In my own years of studies at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, and in my years of using the library of the PBI for my doctoral thesis, I ran across a volume of the proceedings of the 1948 get-together of the just-then-founded and ever disgusting Associazione biblica italiana. Their very first symposium was effectively an answer to Pius XII’s inquiry about the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, soul and body into heaven. They did everything in every way, every angle, to destroy any possible biblical foundations for what Pius XII wanted to do. They didn’t succeed, of course. But Mary saw this coming a year before it happened.

Just my opinion, but what Mary accomplished at Tre Fontane as Our Lady of Revelation was directed against a particular cardinal who had everything to do with destroying the Catholic Church on all levels throughout the last century. He had everything to do with this get-together of the ABI, everything to do with rehabilitating the modernist heresy, everything to do with false ecumenism, everything to do with the absolute worst ambiguities of various sentences in documents of Vatican II, everything do do with the destruction and disrespect for Sacred Scripture, you know, that Cardinal, who shall remain nameless here, for even today, now more than 53 years after his death, he is still protected with extreme emotion at “Ecumenism” and the Secretariat of State in the Roman Curia. I have personal experience with that many times over, right to the top.

While this apparition brought about the re-version of Bruno, who was set on murdering the Pope, this apparition was also meant to be a wake-up call for that Cardinal, who was set on controlling the Pope, and not for the good.

So, notice this: Jesus’ good mom is out to convert lost souls. It worked in the case of Bruno, but did it work for the Cardinal? I don’t know. What I do know is that not all of us want to go to heaven. What I do know is that our Lady would want that we make it to heaven if we want to repent of our sins.

2 Comments

Filed under Mary

Tagged as , , ,

2022-03-28 · 10:14 am

“What is worse than seeing bad people falling into hell?”

What’s worse than seeing bad people fall into hell?

Wrong question. First of all, it’s not a bad thing at all to see bad people falling into hell. It’s devastating, surely, for us here while we’re still on earth. I get it. The saints speak about being wrecked after having seen a vision of hell. Just look at the Fatima kids after they saw a vision of hell. They’re wiped out.

But remember what Jesus answered to Saint Teresa of Avila when she asked how she could be happy in heaven when she knew that her relatives were in hell: You will be happy to praise my justice. Yep. That’s right. Because those in hell want to be hell. They wouldn’t come out of hell if they had the chance to go to heaven. They are so filled with arrogance and hatred that they want to be in hell to spite God. So, good riddance. I want to go to heaven (and it’s a good and holy thing to rejoice in the hope we are given), and I don’t want all of hell torturing me in heaven. Nope. They can go to hell if that’s where they want to be. While they are here on earth I will pray that people convert and don’t go to hell. Great! But if they’re already in hell, well, I will respect God’s justice. The Fatima kids didn’t lament that people were in hell, but that there were so few to pray that the living don’t end up in hell, so much so that they were falling into hell like snowflakes in a blizzard.

So, what’s the worst thing ever?

In this world, there are terrible emotional sufferings, terrible physical sufferings, terrible spiritual sufferings as one is dragged through the dark nights as Saint John of the Cross describes them. But we can recognize that we’re with Jesus, that He has us, through all of that.

So, what’s the worst thing ever?

Could it be that I would think that if I myself went to hell that that would be the worst thing ever? No. That wouldn’t happen. Those in hell want to be there. And they would immediately start up to add to the aggression of what is actually the worst thing ever.

Do you want to know where the heart of a priest is concerning the worst possible thing? Let’s jack up the stakes here. Let’s talk about bad sins, really bad, say, of a Pope. That’s what my interrogator, a layman, did. Could it be sexual abuse? Could it be desecration of the Blessed Sacrament? Could it breaking the seal of Confession? Could it be idol worship? Could it be abortion, abortifacients, infanticide, euthanasia, promoting an abortion-tainted “vax”? Could it be leading others into sin on a world scale? Fill in the blank. He did, with many more entries.

If we want to know what the worst thing ever is, perhaps we should ask Jesus. What He thinks is important, right? He had a discussion about all this with His Heavenly Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. Remember that? When He was in His agony, when He was sweating great drops of blood, when His human nature was shaken, when the will of His human nature was tempted to be diverse from the will of His Heavenly Father, so much so that He had to insist, out loud: “Not my will, but Thine be done.”

Was His passion and death, being tortured to death, you know, the pain of it all, the worst thing ever? After all, this is God. He’s innocent. This is the sin, right? But that’s us proclaiming that, like an answer to an academic question. But, as I say, let’s go to the heart of a priest, the Sacred Heart of The High Priest, Christ Jesus, to find our answer.

For Himself, Jesus couldn’t care less about the pain and sufferings of such a death. He said He longed to be baptized with the baptism for which He came, that baptism in His own blood. He’s a man’s Man, Divine. He just want’s to get the job done, standing in our place, the Innocent for the guilty, having the right in His own justice to have mercy on us. He laid down His life for us with enthusiasm, while we were yet sinners. All sins will be forgiven against the Son of Man, he proclaimed.

But the sin against the Holy Spirit? No. For instance, if someone sins all the way to hell while arrogantly, blasphemously presumptuously despairingly mockingly shrieking that ♬ God forgives everything ♬ even the rejection of His forgiveness ♬ Ha ha ha ha hah. ♬, well, that person will not receive forgiveness because they don’t want that forgiveness. They just want to continue sinning with the purpose of not being forgiven. That’s a sin against the Holy Spirit.

But is the unforgivable sin the worst thing possible?

Perhaps the worst thing ever, unbearably too awful for mankind to bear, is the truth, what some have somehow started to call a manifestation of conscience. It’s too awful for mankind to witness their sins as they are. We would all be crushed by the truth of it.

But that’s not the worst thing ever.

Again, let’s ask Jesus what He really thinks is the absolute worst thing.

I think it’s His dearest Immaculate Virgin Mother having to see Him, her dearest Son, tortured to death right in front of her. Her Immaculate Conception (see Genesis 3:15 and Luke 1:28) gave her such agility of soul, such purity of heart, such clarity of vision, such profundity of understanding, such a super-abundance of love, that she would see such an offence for what it truly is, all of the sin from Adam until the last man is conceived vomited out on her Son, her Innocent Son. She would crushed more than any of us and all put together could possibly be crushed by knowing our sin. We are so obtuse.

To see His Mother suffer because of Him being tortured to death right in front her, that’s the worst possible thing.

2 Comments

Filed under Fatima, Hell, Jesus, Mary

Tagged as , , ,

2022-03-25 · 7:23 am

Immaculate Mary as Earth of Heaven?

I don’t know the intentions of Pope Francis with the use of the phrase Heaven’s Earth. I wasn’t the author of this. I’m in the remote back-ridges of Appalachia. But let’s take up some hypotheses:

  • I remember as a little kid in the back end of a station wagon going on the all American iconic two-week family vacation. We were trying to hit all the States. My dad really loved the mountains. When we would come out of a tunnel high up in the mountains and come upon a stupendous view of the mountain ranges below and far and wide dad would exclaim, “God’s country! This is God’s country!” We were so close to heaven over such a beautiful creation of God with this earth! I loved it. I couldn’t get enough of it. And I love hearing my dad say this. This lifted heart and soul. And I was only like four years old. But this means the same thing: “Heaven’s earth!” When you apply that to Mary it speaks to her as being Immaculate, as being transformed in grace from the first instant of her conception. Her very earthly body (and that not being bad and evil) belongs to heaven, for she is to be the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God Incarnate, Jesus, He who is also “Heaven’s earth” for also His body is holy, sacred, not bad and evil just because it is made of the earth. It is God’s wisdom and joy to make the dust of the earth belong entirely to heaven, “Heaven’s earth.”
  • The lost to their cynicism nay-sayers say that what Pope Francis surely meant was Pachamama, you know, that demon idol who is said to be mother of the earth. But this is exactly, precisely NOT the case. Pachamama is from below, entirely, only: that’s the point with Pachamama, the most self-referential demon idol ever. It’s all about her, the ultimate “Karen”: EARTHLY EARTH. Entitled brat. Nothing to do with heaven. That’s not “Heaven’s earth.” It’s not. That’s just stupid and an assault on the Little Flock of Jesus to say that. Think for one second and you know that this is no reference to a demon idol. Pfft.
  • Others have seen very telling inferences, references recalling the great traditions of the Eastern Rites in their great hymns about the Virgin Mother of God. There’s lots of earth references with heaven. And I think this is also correct, as with the first point above. In this Consecration of especially Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary we want to give a nod to the profound and absolutely correct liturgical culture of the East. This is essentially helpful to conversion of Russia and Ukraine. Get it?

Look. We mustn’t be afraid of the material creation or our bodies made from the dust of the earth. The beauty of creation and our bodies is that such lowliness can belong entirely to heaven.

No! the naysayers shriek:

  • The world and the flesh go along with the devil always and in every case! Bad! Evil! Mary is bad and evil because she has a body! Jesus, the Word Incarnate is evil because He has a body. The Eucharist is bad and evil, too!”

Here’s how bad it is. Prepare to be scandalized. Jesus died and was laid in a tomb. Dead. Mary appeared among pig-sh#t in the grotto of Lourdes.

But then Jesus rose from the dead. Mary was brought to heaven.

1 Comment

Filed under Fatima, Mary, Pope Francis

Tagged as , ,

2022-03-25 · 5:56 am

Archangel Gabriel, גַּבְרִיאֵ֕ל, God-is-my-Warrior, greets Immaculate Mary

24 March is the traditional feast day of the Archangel Gabriel, you know, on the Vigil of the Annunciation, 25 March. His name in Hebrew, גַּבְרִיאֵ֕ל, means God-is-my-Warrior. In two verses in Daniel 10:13.21 we see that Saint Michael the Archangel “helps” Saint Gabriel the Archangel. Question: If one helps the other, which one is greater? You could see that both ways. Wrong question. They are both Archangels, both so different from each other, it being that they are spiritual beings. It’s just the wrong question. However, their names tell us something about their roles. Raphael = God’s doctor. Michael = Who is like unto God. Gabriel = God is my Warrior.

Many think of Michael as the warrior, and he is that. But it just seems to me that Gabriel is the epitome of warriorship. The reason for this is that it’s he who’s chosen to announce to Mary that she is to be the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God, you know, because she is The Warrior after Jesus her Divine Son.

She is singled out in Genesis 3:15 as the one who goes up against Satan. God, speaking to Satan, says: “I will put enmity between you [Satan] and the woman [the Mother of the Redeemer].” Only after this does God say that He will but enmity between Satan’s followers and “her seed” (her Offspring, Jesus and those who belong to Him). Since she is be The Warrior, The Queen Mother, Queen of angels and men, Saint Gabriel must be the one who is at the head of all the heavenly armies.

Fra Angelico, artist of the image above, seems to have had a progression in his very many representations of the Annunciation, though I haven’t researched the dates for each. But I’m imagining that he starts with Gabriel standing and ends with him fully taking a knee. And that’s only right, for in the next seconds he will be in the presence of the Eternal Word Incarnate, before whom all take a knee, in the heavens, on the earth, and under the earth.

But more. Just my imagination. I imagine Gabriel coming in from fierce battle to announce to his Queen, the Leader of the Heavenly Hosts, that God Himself, as The Warrior who is to crush Satan completely, is to be conceived and borne of herself. She is The Warrior by way of her maternity of the Head of the Body and us, the members of the one Body of Christ.

In the far upper left… is that Michael we see, chasing fallen Adam and his wife out of paradise? Yes, I think it is. Even while Gabriel is getting ready for the announcement of the true Eve, the Immaculate Virgin Mother of Jesus.

Leave a comment

Filed under Angels, Mary

Tagged as , , , , ,

2022-02-23 · 5:10 am

🤯 Jordan Peterson: Christ Crucified ✝️

Really good references to Mary in this. Tremendous.

By the way. Any suggestions, hints, about any next Two Hearts Rosary mystery?

6 Comments

Filed under Jesus

Tagged as , ,

2021-09-15 · 6:47 am

Co-Redemptrix unnecessary for faith? Un-architecting “relational signifiers”

jesus faces

[[ This post was published a couple of years in the past about a future of writing about our Lady that has not yet come to pass. Re-posting this just keeps it on a burner on the stove as it were. Plus, I like the snarkiness of this post to this day. ]]

A rather anthropologically inhumane comment arrived to the blog stating “co-redemptrix as a title […] is not necessary for the faith,” and that “‘Co’ seems to be too strong of a relational signifier.” – That’s from a doctor of philosophy in theology, as it were, so to speak, who’s trying to architect Catholic faith with big words. Oooo! Big words! So, he says:

  • The “‘Co’ [of co-redemptrix] seems to be too strong…”

I guess he’s a man of his time. Are we all supposed to be absolute individualists, with no “relational signifiers” that are, you know, too strong, nothing that would disturb our faith so much as to be, like, actually related to others, to God?

Bwahahahaha…. Sorry. This is actually sad.

Let’s see what Saint Paul says about what kind of “relational signifiers” are appropriate:

  • “He gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ, so that we may no longer be infants, tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery, from their cunning in the interests of deceitful scheming. Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, with the proper functioning of each part, brings about the body’s growth and builds itself up in love. So I declare and testify in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance, because of their hardness of heart, they have become callous…” (Ephesians 4:11-19 nab)

Get that? No? Try this:

  • “He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he himself might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things for him, making peace by the blood of his cross (through him), whether those on earth or those in heaven. And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind because of evil deeds he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through his death, to present you holy, without blemish, and irreproachable before him, provided that you persevere in the faith, firmly grounded, stable, and not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, am a minister. Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church, of which I am a minister in accordance with God’s stewardship given to me to bring to completion for you the word of God, the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past. But now it has been manifested to his holy ones, to whom God chose to make known the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; it is Christ in you, the hope for glory. It is he whom we proclaim, admonishing everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. For this I labor and struggle, in accord with the exercise of his power working within me.” (Colosians 1:13-29 nab)

Let’s see, Christ the Head, we the members, one Body of Christ, Mystici corporis Christi.

But all those “relational signifiers” – like “he” – are jussst toooo haaaard!

But wait, that one line there… “Filling up what is lacking…”

Let’s pray about this:

“And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself.” (John 12:32)

I mean, that’s on Calvary, during the Redemption, Jesus on the Cross, and we’re supposed to be with Him on the Cross. We, with Him, on the Cross. What’s Jesus talking about? It’s as if while He is laying down His life, the Innocent for the guilty, so that He might have the right in His own justice to have mercy on us – He is also laying down our lives, like His whole Body, Head and members. There’s a highly “relational signifier” if I ever saw one. But, here’s the methodology of it: “Blessed is he who takes no offense at me” (Luke 7:23), and “He must deny himself and take up his cross daily” (Luke 9:23 – passim…)

But let’s go back to the outrageous Saint Paul, just to make sure we understand and it’s not tooooo haaard. I mean, “relational signifiers” is certainly tooooo haaard for me.

  • “God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to bring to light the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of (Jesus) Christ. But we hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.” (2 Corinthians 4:6-12 nab)
  • “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take Christ’s members and make them the members of a prostitute? Of course not! (Or) do you not know that anyone who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For “the two,” it says, “will become one flesh.” But whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Avoid immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the immoral person sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:15-20 nab)

So, let’s go back to Genesis, where the Mother of the Redeemer is singled out in battle with Satan. Then there is a parallel of sorts in the battle between her Seed and Satan’s seed, that is, her Son and those who belong to Him, over against Satan and those who belong to him. Lot’s of “relational signifiers” going on there. If you want to know about who crushed the serpent on the head, see my conference and thesis.

It really is the Mother of the Redeemer’s Son.

Sometimes the “relational signifier” was in the feminine, so that the Mother of the Redeemer is presented as crushing the head of the great deceiver. This points to how our lives are laid down with that of the Redeemer, whose heel is crushed (and He dies) and we with Him. One Bread One Body. All that.

I would love to see an advance in artwork. I would like to see Mary crushing the serpent on the head with her heel (not just a gentle caress with a couple of toes), and I would like to see how the serpent’s head is being crushed even while that serpent is crushing the heel of Mary in all violence. More on that in a Flower for the Immaculate Conception…

Anyway, to those who think they can quote Cardinal Ratzinger from the Seewald interview, think again. At the time the great Cardinal was burdened with his utter rejection of original sin, and therefore his complete misunderstanding of the import of the Immaculate Conception. You can read about that in a homily reprinted in In the Beginning…’: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall. Get the German. For him, at that time, it’s all about original sin not as original sin, not with propagation, but by way of imitation. This isn’t hard. Moving ahead – and this is all a long story which deserves to told at length – now Pope Benedict XVI gave his Angelus address in Lourdes on Sunday, September 14, 2008, Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. Suffice it for now to say that he reversed a lifetime of thought about original sin and the immaculate conception. Follow the French. Stare at it long and hard, repeatedly. It’s inescapable. Really. This goes to the heart of a lifetime of thought for him. This is not a small thing. He just didn’t get how close it is that Christ makes us members of His Body. But since then, he does. A gentleman. A scholar. Does he himself quote Saint Paul as I have. Yes. But, at that time, a bit from the outside. But no longer.

Look. Christ is our Redeemer, alone. I know that. But try to go deeper into the intimacy in which He unites us with Himself, His Body. There’s a couple of pages in the thesis dedicated to the great Cardinal. I made it easy for you in the link above. You don’t have to go to the Pontifical Biblical Institute to peruse it, after you get your degrees there.

I can’t resist, one more from Saint Paul, as I just can’t get over this guys usage of “relational signifiers”:

  • “For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the church, he himself the savior of the body. As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. So (also) husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “For this reason a man shall leave (his) father and (his) mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the Church. (Ephesians 5:23-32 nab)

Talk about “relational signifiers”… HAH!

When someone says that such closeness with humanity is just too much, I think of Islam, which is scandalized by the Cross, for God could NOT love the world so much as to send His only Son so that He might make us one with Himself to give us as a gift to our Heavenly Father, through, with and in Himself, again… He having stood in our place, the Innocent for the guilty, so that He might have the right in His own justice to have mercy on us:

  • For the sake of His sorrowful passion (justice)
  • Have mercy on us and on the whole world (mercy)

For Islam, God is tooooooooooo hoooooooooly for such love. But God is love. Jesus does make us one with Himself. When He lays down His life, he lays down our lives with His.

To think any other way is to prostitute oneself to the world. And by the way, the prostitute doesn’t need to be accompanied in her “job”, she needs to be gotten out of that.

And that’s, analogously, why I write such things, also for Pope Francis. I had the time to study at the Pontifical Biblical Institute. He didn’t. We help each other out.

All this is encouraging me to do up the popular version of the thesis. I know that the time has come when people say that it is imprudent to speak of the Redeemer and the Mother of the Redeemer.  (More “relational signifiers” there, btw.) /// end of rant

8 Comments

Filed under Mary, Pope Francis

Tagged as ,