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aussieannie
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I thought I would start a thread for this paragraph that is in the first chapter of True Devotion as it is so significant to us - her children. With it are some bible quotes that support the paragraph.
True Devotion wrote:
| 32. "This one and that one were born in her." According to the explanation of some of the Fathers, the first man born of Mary is the God-man, Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ, the head of mankind, is born of her, the predestinate, who are members of this head, must also as a necessary consequence be born of her. One and the same mother does not give birth to the head without the members nor to the members without the head, for these would be monsters in the order of nature. In the order of grace likewise the head and the members are born of the same mother. If a member of the mystical body of Christ, that is, one of the predestinate, were born of a mother other than Mary who gave birth to the head, he would not be one of the predestinate, nor a member of Jesus Christ, but a monster in the order of grace. |
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When I first read the True Devotion, my husband had emphasised this paragraph - it is one that has stuck to my mind all these years. It helped me understand how Mary could really be my mother.
My husband would explain to me that the spiritual order is higher/greater than the physical order and if the Bible (St Paul) tells us that we are part of the mystical body of Christ with Christ as the head then we must mystically/spiritually have Mary as our mother by the understanding of St Louis in paragraph 32. We are not talking about *nice feelings* - I just feel Mary is my mother or I really want her to be - no, she really is.
Then recently someone impressed upon me this passage from the Apocalypse:
Apocalypse Chapt 12:verse 16-17 wrote:
| 16 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the river, which the dragon cast out of his mouth. 17 And the dragon was angry against the woman: and went to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. |
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'The Woman' being Our Lady-the New Ark of the Covenant, revealed at the beginning of Chapter 12. If you read the last few paragraphs of Chapter 11 and then read on to Chapter 12 as if there were no chapters (and St John did not place his writings in chapters.) it becomes clearer, rather than just reading the new chapter as if St John had changed the subject.
The woman - her seed - who keep the commandments of God - and bear the testimony of Jesus Christ - Mary's seed is the predestinate!
If we go back to Genesis and look also to this Douay Rheims quote plus it's commentary in red:
Genesis, Chapt 3, verse 14-15 wrote:
14 And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. 15 I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.
15 "She shall crush"... Ipsa, the woman; so divers of the fathers read this place, conformably to the Latin: others read it ipsum, viz., the seed. The sense is the same: for it is by her seed, Jesus Christ, that the woman crushes the serpent's head. |
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There it is mentioned again, 'The Woman' many saints believe that this is Our Lady and think how we depict her in so many images, crushing the serpent's head - it is a common, ancient belief.
Jesus referred to her as 'Woman' in the New Testament and it is not a brusque term for her Son to use as I have heard some people suggest!! It would seem that Jesus is referring to her, from beautiful biblical references, those already written and those yet to be written - it is an incredible theme that runs from Genesis to Apolcalypse.
Then this quote ties the other biblical quotes together, Our Lord's own words:
Gospel of John, Chapt 19,verse 26-27 wrote:
| 26 When Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, he saith to his mother: Woman, behold thy son. 27 After that, he saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own. |
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St John would represent the predestinate - Jesus is giving her to us all. It is one of the seven last words of Jesus on the cross that has great importance to everyone, not just a historical point.
I think that the above quotes are extremely important to Marian Devotion, 'The Hidden Treasure' (that Helen has so well named this board) - is there 'hidden' in the Bible, the same treasure St Louis is explaining to us all - Mary is truly our mother. Hidden due to Mary's humility (paragraph 3 & 4) but also Our Lord's own words would explain it:
Gospel of Matthew, Chapt 13, verses 10-16 wrote:
10 And his disciples came and said to him: Why speakest thou to them in parables?
11 Who answered and said to them: Because to you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven: but to them it is not given. 12 For he that hath, to him shall be given, and he shall abound: but he that hath not, from him shall be taken away that also which he hath. 13 Therefore do I speak to them in parables: because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. 14 And the prophecy of Isaias is fulfilled in them, who saith: By hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand: and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive. 15 For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
16 But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.
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Philothea
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Something that popped into my head reading this is that Mary's "Yes" to God's grace gave birth to our ability to say "Yes" to God's grace.
Sorry if that's not very profound, but I really struggle with this whole idea, coming so recently from protestantism, so each little nugget is like a gift to me and I wanted to write it down.
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Helen
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Philothea wrote:
Something that popped into my head reading this is that Mary's "Yes" to God's grace gave birth to our ability to say "Yes" to God's grace.
Sorry if that's not very profound, but I really struggle with this whole idea, coming so recently from protestantism, so each little nugget is like a gift to me and I wanted to write it down. |
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Philothea, that is very profound!
Thank you for sharing it. I hope you will share more of your little nuggets.
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Helen
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When I read Amy's introduction at the welcome thread, earlier in the day I had read this passage from
Devotion to Our Lady by Fr. Manelli, FI
(This is a short, little book, it could be a good first book before True Devotion)
Fr. Manelli wrote:
Beside our cradle
“When is it that Our Lady becomes our Mother, and we her children?
It is in holy Baptism. With the reception of baptismal grace into the soul we are born again ‘in water and in the Holy Spirit” (Jn 3:5), becoming children of God and of Mary and brethren of Jesus.
St. Leo the Great had good grounds for his statement that every baptismal font is where the holy Virgin becomes a Mother. We ought to conclude from this that every Christian emerges from his rebirth in Baptism, as a devotee of Our Lady, for he is then born a child of Mary, and a child’s devotion towards his mother is instinctive.
Together with the natural mother, watching beside every baptized child’s cradle there stands the heavenly Mother.
While the natural mother is a true mother, the heavenly mother, Mary, is even more so, because Mary is the Mother of the spiritual life, whereas the natural mother brought forth only the life of the body. Our Lady is as much more of a real Mother to us as the supernatural order surpasses the natural.
Thus Saints like St. Joseph of Copertino rightly considered our earthly mother to be a mere ”nurse”, in comparison to the Mother of our spiritual life. St. Cajetan’s mother consecrated him to Our Lady from his birth and regarded herself as only the boy’s “nurse”; and she used to call him “Mary’s Cajetan.” |
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(Academy of the Immaculate)
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Nina Murphy
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Oh, Helen, even though this wasn't directed to me, I love this so much!
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~~Nina
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and 2 yet-to-be-met
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aussieannie
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Philothea wrote:
| Something that popped into my head reading this is that Mary's "Yes" to God's grace gave birth to our ability to say "Yes" to God's grace. |
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This is so true! Philothea, coming from your protestant background, I would love to ask - can you share some of the things about Mary that most attracted you to her or helped you understand her and what did you stuggle most with, if anything?
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Philothea
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aussieannie wrote:
Philothea wrote:
| Something that popped into my head reading this is that Mary's "Yes" to God's grace gave birth to our ability to say "Yes" to God's grace. |
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This is so true! Philothea, coming from your protestant background, I would love to ask - can you share some of the things about Mary that most attracted you to her or helped you understand her and what did you stuggle most with, if anything?
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My biggest struggle was with the idea that Christ is enough -- i.e. we have no need of Mary, and attention given to Mary detracts attention from Jesus, who is the truly important One. Also, I thought her Immaculate Conception made her unattainable and irrelevant -- like, since I was born with original sin, I shouldn't even think about being like Mary, because she had an unfair advantage. But then I realized that Eve had the same advantage and threw it all away, so that was a dumb argument/excuse on my part.
When I converted, intellectually Mary was one of the ideas I had to just set aside and take on faith, because I had been convinced of Church authority and I had to become Catholic at that point, whether I understood Mary or not.
But I did have an interesting experience the night of my "heart conversion," as I call it, when Mary came to me in a dream (I'm still not sure I was ever really asleep, but it was dreamlike). She didn't say anything with words, it was more like an understanding she passed on to me that the Communion of Saints was a wonderful thing, and that the way I could feel her presence in the dream was like the way the saints really and truly are present around us at all times. And I knew she was praying for me and that she would be patient, that I could reconcile myself to her when I was ready and that she had all the time in the world to wait for me, that she had been waiting and praying for me my whole life and that she wasn't going anywhere. It was an amazing sense of peace. And then that same night I had a dream about Adoration (which I had never been to at that point) where I was sitting there before the Blessed Sacrament and Jesus was just THERE. I could feel Him. Like an old friend, just sitting with me, not needing to say a word. It was more intimate than the feeling I got in my highest mountaintop experiences as a Protestant, but it was found in dreaming of the everyday run-of-the-mill occurence of sitting in front of a Communion Host. The whole experience was incredible and when I woke up, I knew I would be Catholic.
Since that time, I have eased into a relationship with Mary, one that grows when it needs to grow with long stretches of quiet in between. I struggle mightily to understand the fullness of truth about Mary, but the things I have realized are precious to me -- chief among them the idea that in order to be like Jesus, one must first be like Mary, because she is the embodiment of what it means to follow Christ perfectly. She is the perfect Christian. She is what we could be if we cooperated fully with God's grace. And it is because of her that we are able to strive for that goal -- her yes makes our yeses possible.
I know that Mary prays for me and loves me and I am learning to trust and rely on her for intercession and support. I have put my very anti-Catholic family of origin into her loving care and am hoping for a miracle -- and I believe I will see one very soon in my Dad, who is all of a sudden asking serious searching questions about the Catholic faith.
Anyway, I find the entire Mary discussion here fascinating and I can't get enough of hearing all you cradle Catholics and veteran converts discuss the things you know about our Mother. I am only just getting to know her and I find such joy in seeing what kind of beautiful relationship is possible for me if I persist in seeking it. God bless you all.
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chicken lady
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Philothea God bless you your openess is sucha witness to me.
BTW I love your name what is its meaning and orgin?
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aussieannie
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Philothea wrote:
| But I did have an interesting experience the night of my "heart conversion," as I call it, when Mary came to me in a dream (I'm still not sure I was ever really asleep, but it was dreamlike). She didn't say anything with words, it was more like an understanding she passed on to me that the Communion of Saints was a wonderful thing, and that the way I could feel her presence in the dream was like the way the saints really and truly are present around us at all times. And I knew she was praying for me and that she would be patient, that I could reconcile myself to her when I was ready and that she had all the time in the world to wait for me, that she had been waiting and praying for me my whole life and that she wasn't going anywhere. It was an amazing sense of peace. And then that same night I had a dream about Adoration (which I had never been to at that point) where I was sitting there before the Blessed Sacrament and Jesus was just THERE. I could feel Him. Like an old friend, just sitting with me, not needing to say a word. It was more intimate than the feeling I got in my highest mountaintop experiences as a Protestant, but it was found in dreaming of the everyday run-of-the-mill occurence of sitting in front of a Communion Host. The whole experience was incredible and when I woke up, I knew I would be Catholic. |
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Simply wonderful Philothea! This board has given as our fair share of goosebumps and I'm getting them with this one. What a beautiful 'conversion of heart' story.
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Philothea
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Philothea means "a soul in love with God." It is the name St. Francis de Sales (my confirmation saint) gave to the person he wrote to in "Introduction to the Devout Life." Philothea is really a combination of all the people he interacted with as a Bishop and Priest who were very much in the world but asked him how they could serve Christ anyway. Since I have a political background, live in a big, sinful city, and am very worldly in many ways myself, this book speaks to me like no other.
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aussieannie
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Philothea wrote:
| I know that Mary prays for me and loves me and I am learning to trust and rely on her for intercession and support. I have put my very anti-Catholic family of origin into her loving care and am hoping for a miracle -- and I believe I will see one very soon in my Dad, who is all of a sudden asking serious searching questions about the Catholic faith. |
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My experience too, in handing over our loved ones or prayer hopes to Mary is so powerful, so fruitful and great peace comes with it - a relief almost - it is no longer in my poor, weak hands, there in Our Lady's. I pray that your Dad will receive the beautiful gift of faith you have been given.
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aussieannie
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I can see that now - my husband's name is Philip - lover of horses - and the 'thea' - God - what a beautiful name, it has a lovely sound in pronouncing it.
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Philothea
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aussieannie wrote:
Philothea wrote:
| I know that Mary prays for me and loves me and I am learning to trust and rely on her for intercession and support. I have put my very anti-Catholic family of origin into her loving care and am hoping for a miracle -- and I believe I will see one very soon in my Dad, who is all of a sudden asking serious searching questions about the Catholic faith. |
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My experience too, in handing over our loved ones or prayer hopes to Mary is so powerful, so fruitful and great peace comes with it - a relief almost - it is no longer in my poor, weak hands, there in Our Lady's. I pray that your Dad will receive the beautiful gift of faith you have been given.
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Thank you for your prayers. I appreciate them more than you can know.
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Philothea
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aussieannie wrote:
| I can see that now - my husband's name is Philip - lover of horses - and the 'thea' - God - what a beautiful name, it has a lovely sound in pronouncing it. |
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It is not my real name, just to clarify for everyone. My given name is Kirsten, which I like very much, but it's no Philothea. 
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aussieannie
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It is a bit like me and my 'annie' - my name is Anne but 'annie' is my affectionate nickname from time to time and therefore I treasure what it means to me - Kirsten is a lovely name but I believe Philothea would make a beautiful christian girl's name!
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Martha in VA
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Philothea wrote:
But I did have an interesting experience the night of my "heart conversion," as I call it, when Mary came to me in a dream (I'm still not sure I was ever really asleep, but it was dreamlike). She didn't say anything with words, it was more like an understanding she passed on to me that the Communion of Saints was a wonderful thing, and that the way I could feel her presence in the dream was like the way the saints really and truly are present around us at all times. And I knew she was praying for me and that she would be patient, that I could reconcile myself to her when I was ready and that she had all the time in the world to wait for me, that she had been waiting and praying for me my whole life and that she wasn't going anywhere. It was an amazing sense of peace. And then that same night I had a dream about Adoration (which I had never been to at that point) where I was sitting there before the Blessed Sacrament and Jesus was just THERE. I could feel Him. Like an old friend, just sitting with me, not needing to say a word. It was more intimate than the feeling I got in my highest mountaintop experiences as a Protestant, but it was found in dreaming of the everyday run-of-the-mill occurence of sitting in front of a Communion Host. The whole experience was incredible and when I woke up, I knew I would be Catholic.
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Philothea, this is just BEAUTIFUL. Thank you for sharing that wonderful account. I, too, am unsure about what it means for me to know Mary. I'm trusting in time that it will become clearer.
Blessings to you and your dad.
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4dds,miracle son 4/09, 2 in heaven
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4Real Forums : Hidden Treasure
Topic: How we KNOW Mary is our Mother
