Marian Musings, Part VIII

When Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred-ninety-two, his patron - the Spanish monarchy - no doubt hoped the voyage would expand its empire. And he himself hoped the enormous dangers he took on might return profits from the spice trade that could develop with India should he succeed in finding a sea passage to that land. But Columbus' venture was about much more, and modern educators are guilty of malpractice when they depict him as a Machiavellian out to exploit people he would encounter.

A middle-aged man does not set off across an uncharted ocean in three wooden vessels of questionable seaworthiness, not knowing exactly where his destination even is, unless his spirit is fired by things grander than a long-odds chance at commerce.

Columbus was a devout Christian who wrote about the faith, felt duty-bound duty to introduce indigenous populations to it, and, unlike most sailors, refrained from swearing... His first expedition's largest ship, the Santa Maria, was named after Jesus' mother... While at sea his crew sang evening vespers, and each time they turned the half-hour glass to keep track of time, they recited: "Blessed be the hour of our Savior's birth / blessed be the Virgin Mary who bore him / and blessed be John who baptized him"... After being shipwrecked on Christmas morning on the north coast of present-day Haiti, he established a settlement and named it La Navidad ("the Nativity") before sailing back to Europe in the remaining vessels.

Christopher Columbus died still believing the lands he had reached were the eastern fringes of Asia. It was those who came after who realized this was an unknown New World, one whose continents would eventually be named after another Italian-born explorer, Amerigo Vespucci. Their early ventures writ large are a topic for another time, however, for the focus of today's post centers on what happened in one particular location a quarter-century after Columbus passed away.

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In 1519, Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortez arrived at the Yucatan Peninsula and became the first European to set foot in what is now Mexico. By then the Aztec Empire was two centuries into its domination of that part of the world and its culture was notoriously violent, with human sacrifice - including child sacrifice - serving a central role.

The sacrifices were carried out frequently and often done by the tlamacazqueh (priests) cutting the living victims' hearts out of their chests; other times, the more "humane" method of decapitation was employed. The tlamacazqueh ate the hearts of the victims and sometimes wore their skins as costumes.

With conquistadors arriving in waves, the numbers ultimately favored the Spaniards and the battles between them and the Aztecs were brutal and bloody to an extent they never saw coming. Afterwards, getting Aztec people to adopt the beliefs and customs of those who had shown themselves savage enough to conquer even their warriors was a seemingly impossible task.

When Christian missionaries arrived in the conquistadors' wake and spoke of a god who was loving and merciful, your everyday Aztec knew the missionaries came from the same country as the conquistadors and saw no reason to trust them. Early attempts to evangelize met with determined resistance.

One of the Aztecs who was receptive had been born circa 1475 and named Cuauhtlatoatzin (Talking Eagle). As an adult he adopted the "Spanishized" name Juan Diego and regularly walked from his home to a mission station to receive religious instruction and perform religious duties. The route of his walk took him past Tepeyac Hill, which is today surrounded by Mexico City.

While making his commute in the early morning hours of December 9, 1531, Juan Diego encountered a beautiful young woman who spoke to him in his native language and identified herself as "Mary, mother of the true God from whom all life has come." She instructed him to ask the bishop, on her behalf, to construct a church atop the hill.

The acting bishop, Juan de Zumarraga, was a not-yet-consecrated Franciscan of Basque lineage from northern Spain. When Juan Diego told him about his encounter with the woman and the request she asked him to relay, de Zumarraga was understandably skeptical and told him to come back another time.

Mary appeared to Juan Diego on his return home that afternoon, at which time he reported his lack of success and claimed that he was of too low a station to act on her behalf, but she insisted he was the correct person and asked him to repeat the task.

When he did so the following day, December 10th, de Zumarraga did not rebuff him but instead asked him to bring some sign of proof next time. Mary appeared again on that afternoon's return home, and when he told her of the bishop's request, she responded by saying she would provide a sign the following morning. Unfortunately, when December 11th dawned, Juan Diego's uncle was extremely ill so he stayed home to tend to him.

On December 12th his uncle was still sick but noticeably better, so he opted to resume his daily trip. Not wanting to be delayed getting to the station (where he intended to request prayers for his uncle) and embarrassed by having seemingly "skipped" December 11th, he chose an alternate route around Tepeyac Hill in the hope of avoiding a fourth encounter.

He did not succeed, however, for Mary appeared and (pardon my vernacular) basically asked "what gives?" After hearing his explanation and assuring him that his uncle would be fine, she asked Juan Diego to go to the top of the hill and collect what was there.

What he found were blooming Castilian roses, a cultivated species unknown in Mexico that would have been out of season in December anyway. He gathered them in his tilma (a cloak made of agave cactus fiber) and transported them to the mission house, where he presumed they would serve as the promised proof.

When he opened the tilma in front of the bishop, the roses cascaded to the floor and the bishop reacted with awe - not only because he knew they should not be there and not be blooming, but because a large and stunning image had been imprinted on the underside of the tilma, unbeknownst to Juan Diego.

Up to now it might be easy to dismiss this as a fanciful tale of fiction. But we can't, for what's described above is just the tip of the iceberg.

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Although agave fiber decomposes within 15 to 25 years, Juan Diego's tilma survives incorrupt to this day, 494 years later, despite a notable lack of preservation efforts having been made.

For its first 115 years the tilma was kept in the open air and subjected to soot, dust, incense smoke, candle smoke, candle wax, insects, moisture, touching, and who knows what else. If anything, that should have caused it to decay in less than the usual 15- to 25-year span; however, when it underwent its first scientific examination in 1789 (i.e., 258 years after after Juan Diego encountered Mary) the examiners were shocked to find that it showed no signs of decay at all, not even basic wear and tear.

Move forward to 1921, when the Mexican Revolution was in full swing and a terrorist tried to destroy the tilma by detonating a dynamite bomb hidden beneath it in a flower pot. The explosion broke windows in the church and other buildings as well, made ruins of the marble steps to the altar, and bent backwards this brass cross now known as Santo Cristo del Atentado - yet the tilma and thin plate of glass that was its only covering remained unscathed.

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As stunning as the tilma's longevity and indestructibility are, the image imprinted on it is even more stunning, and that only starts with (cue the Shroud of Turin comparisons) science being unable to even speculate how the was image was made or what it is made of. There is no paint, no dye, no brush strokes, no sketch marks, no interwoven "other" materials. Instead, there is an image where none should be, colors and details where nature would place nothing but a blank surface of beige. And how breathtaking those details are!

The image is of a pregnant woman, with obstetric proportions indicating she would be about two weeks shy of her expected delivery date. That should cause eyebrows to raise when you consider that the image was imprinted 13 days before December 25th.

On her belly is the constellation Leo (a lion) and by her heart the constellation Virgo (a virgin) - which should cause eyebrows to raise when you consider that Mary was a virgin and her child Jesus was called the Lion of Judah.

Her hair is parted in the middle and worn loose below her mantle, which in Aztec culture was symbolic of virginity. Plus, she wears a black tie at her waist, which in Aztec culture was a noblewoman's maternity girdle. Thus, the image broadcast to natives the otherwise unthinkable concept of a virgin with child, and also broadcast that the child had authority simply by virtue of being conceived.

Also appearing on the virgin's tunic and directly overlying her womb is a four-petaled jasmine flower, which in Aztec culture symbolized divinity. Thus the image conveyed to natives that her child was actually a (the) god (God).

The image further shows the woman standing in front of and largely obscuring the sun, which in Aztec culture was the symbol of their chief god, Huitzilopochtli. Thus it conveyed to natives that their until-then exalted figure was being supplanted by the fruit of the virgin's womb.

All of which demonstrates that Aztecs would have swiftly grasped the Mother of God imagery that felt automatic even to non-Christian Europeans. But as you might have guessed, there's more.

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That same image which communicated so well to people of the sixteenth century also communicates to us twenty-first century humans, in ways that could not have worked with our forebears.

The virgin is depicted draped by a blue mantle decorated with gold stars, which sit in the precise positions where the constellations would have appeared above Mexico City in the morning hours of the very day Mary appeared to Juan Diego - if they were viewed that day not from our vantage point of Earth but from the sun, a vantage point available only to God.

Further, her held is tilted forward at angle of 23.5 degrees, the precise angle at which Earth tilts toward the sun on its axis. Being forced to nod to the sun because of its gravity, versus feeling moved to nod to the Son because of his glory - could a comparison be more obvious, especially given the simple fact that Mary's head being tilted with eyes turned down projects submission and prayer?

Then there is something that only became possible to discern in the modern age of magnification: The realism of Mary's eyes. So stark are they that when renowned photographer Ivan Esther (an agnostic) was hired to photograph the image and zoomed close in on those eyes, he stumbled from the ladder and exclaimed: "She's alive!" Shortly afterwards, he became a Christian.

Mary's eyes are barely open, with ever so slight spaces under her drooping lids providing only a scant glimpse of anything that would be presumed to represent the eyes themselves. At first glance, they are almost imperceptible; a person looking at the tilma would be justified to assume there is nothing there for eyes at all, except a pair of minuscule, monochromatic dabs.

Under magnification, however, microscopic details spring forth. The pupils contract when light is shined on them, then re-dilate when said light is removed, and the Purkinje shift (a triple refection that occurs in the structure of living, human eyes but not on flat, dead, 2D images) is shown to be active. This has been confirmed by multiple ophthalmologists who have studied it, not all of whom are believers.

Also confirmed by ophthalmologists is the presence of a scene which appears on both eyes, and displays the exact proportions and inversions from one eye to the other that would occur when human eyes look upon something. The scene in the virgin's eyes contains 13 people - a figure that is especially noteworthy when you consider that tradition has long said 13 people were watching when Juan Diego opened his tilma in front of the bishop. Presumably, that microscopic scene on the tilma shows us exactly what living eyes in that location would have seen (did see) at the exact moment the image was created.

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The image on the tilma is known as Our Lady of Guadalupe. The tilma hangs on a wall in this Mexico City basillica at the foot of Tepeyac Hill, near (if not at) the spot where Mary first appeared to Juan Diego. It is on public display and is the most visited pilgrimage site in the world.

After word of Mary's appearance and the miraculous image spread, millions of Aztecs converted to Christianity on a scale that was previously unthinkable and probably unprecedented. Other natives converted in the wake of the mass Aztec conversion, so that Christianity gained a powerful foothold in the New World, and, as we know, from there it only grew.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of the strongest evidences for God's existence that he has given us. It spoke directly to both of the cultures immediately present when it was first revealed, and likewise it speaks to modern cultures that are able to use science and technology to glean insights from it that sixteenth century people could not. Who knows what other secrets it holds, waiting to be unlocked in the years to come?

It shows that those of us who aren't Catholic should be open (dare I say wide open?) to Catholic claims that God uses Mary to draw humans to him, and that her role in salvation history is both active and integral.

Note: The prior posts in this series are as follows:
    Part I: Introduction
    Part II: The New Eve
    Part III: Genesis to Revelation
    Part III-b: The Ark of the New Covenant
    Part IV: Historical Perspective
    Part V: Perpetual Virginity
    Part VI: Prayer
    Part VI-b: Worship
    Part VII: Involvement and Femininity

A Carol Born

When it comes to carols, I have always found “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” to be especially poignant (if you're not familiar with it, you can listen to it here.)

It did not begin as a song, but as a poem written on Christmas morning by America’s greatest poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, more than 150 Christmases ago. At that moment in time America was torn apart and battling itself in the Civil War – a war that still stands as the one in which more Americans died than in any other.

When dawn broke that morning, Longfellow was despondent. During the war his son Charles had been horrifically wounded when a bullet passed through part of his spine, leading to a long and excruciating recovery. And as if that wasn’t dark enough, his wife Frances had died as a result of burns sustained when her clothes were set on fire by dripping sealing wax, which she was melting with the intention of using it to preserve some of their daughter’s trimmed curls.

But despite that sorrowful backdrop, as Longfellow sat in his Massachusetts home on Christmas and heard the ringing of local church bells, his faith in divine promise started to stir and he was moved to put pen to paper. The resulting poem was transformed into a hymn nine years later, when John Baptiste Calkin composed the music to which it was set.

The poem’s words absolutely speak for themselves. Since some of them are excluded from the carol we normally hear this time of year, here they are in their entirety:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

Winter Solstice

Here are some thoughts about the year’s coldest season on this, its first day:

I love how it begins with evergreen boughs on mantles, lighted trees in village squares, carols on the radio, and people knowing that life’s greatest joys come from giving rather than receiving.

I love its chilly mornings when fog clings to the surfaces of ponds.

I love sitting outside on those mornings drinking hot black coffee.

I love the memories of winter vacations from not too long ago, of Sarah trying to catch flakes on her tongue and of Parker shrieking with delight during his first slides down a tubing hill.

I love driving across California’s High Sierra between snow drifts so deep they soar above cars and turn roadways into tunnels of white.

I love walking through Appalachian forests that are barren of leaves but laden with snow, and therefore have the appearance of black-and-white photos come to life.

And finally, I love that I can spend a whole day outside in Florida without feeling the need to shower every hour.

So for those who curse the cold: Remember that every season brings beauty, so long as we stop to notice it.

That Christmas Feeling

 I published this post 15 years ago, when Sarah was a kindergartner and Parker was, like I said, "resting snugly in Erika's womb" ... Tomorrow she graduates from college, and he is now a freshman in high school. They obviously know the truth about Santa, and, more importantly, the real reason for Christmas. Although my marriage did not survive to the present, the friendship between me and their mother has  ... I think I will grin every time I re-read this post, so I'm re-publishing it today as we all go barreling into the last fortnight of Advent: 

As long as I can remember, I have spent the Thanksgiving-through-New-Year’s season feeling buoyant and hopeful. On December mornings like today’s, when the temperatures are below freezing and the grass is coated with frost, I have always found it easy to catch the Christmas spirit.

But even for people like me, the appreciation we feel for this time of year is increased many times over when we become parents. Watching our children’s faces light up with wonder, we remember how we felt at this time of year when we were kids. Surely, even the most jaded adult must have fond recollections of Christmas Past and hope that today’s tykes are enjoying Christmas Present.

When Sarah was two, I am pretty sure she remembered Christmas from when she was one, but I know she remembered it when she was three. That was the year we got a flat tire while driving to the annual Christmas Eve party for my extended family. It was dark and cloudy and we were stranded for some time on a rural road -- a circumstance that would usually lead to bad moods and quick tempers. But when the lights of an airplane tracking through the clouds became visible, I pointed to them and told Sarah it was Santa’s sleigh. Her face immediately lit up. She pointed at the lights and wiggled and shrieked to Erika: “Mommy! Mommy! It’s Santa! It’s Santa!” And a potentially bad experience was transformed into a golden moment that will never be forgotten.

Exactly one year later, when she was four, getting her to go to bed on Christmas Eve proved next to impossible. For what seemed like hours, she kept getting up every few minutes and running into our room, laughing and jumping and swearing that through her window she had just seen Santa’s sleigh in the sky. Then she started saying that she thought she heard reindeer on the roof. And she kept getting up and making these claims over and over and over again…

When she was five, we took her to Disney World on December 23^rd, and the Magic Kingdom was decked out in holiday splendor. After night fell, as we made our way down Main Street USA with Sarah on my shoulders, she broke into song and belted out “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.” Then artificial snowflakes started to shower down, blown from the tops of the storefronts, and the day came to a picture-perfect end.

The next night saw more classic, Christmas Eve moments. Sarah claimed she saw Rudolph’s nose in the sky on our way home from the annual party. Before bed she made a trail of cookies in our driveway to lead the reindeer to our door. At the end was a marshmallow snowman cookie, along with a note on which she wrote: “Rudolph only.”

Finally, inside our home on her own small table by the tree, Sarah left milk and cookies, and an unfortunately broken candy cane, out for Santa. We disposed of the food and drink before she awoke, and Erika was sure to leave cookie crumbs on the plate next to the empty glass. Erika also composed a thank you note from Santa to Sarah. We had already turned this into a tradition, and Sarah reveled in it again.

Sarah is now six. For the third December in a row she is rising before the roosters every single morning, opening her Advent Box and finding where the Elf on the Shelf has moved to. She is smart as a whip and I did not expect her to still believe in Santa last year, but now it is a whole year later and she continues to believe.

We have always told her that Christmas is to commemorate the birth of Jesus, and is about giving rather than receiving, and she seems to get it. Two years ago, when we told her that after opening her gifts she had to choose one to give away to the poor, she countered by asking if she could give away ten of her old toys rather than one of her new ones.

When Sarah was born, we actually said that we would not even do the Santa thing, specifically to avoid the dreaded conversation in which we would have to admit (there’s no delicate way to put this) that we have been lying to her all these years. Then Christmas came and we did the Santa thing anyway, and although I have some reservations, I don’t have any regrets when I watch her enjoy herself. Her excitement heightens mine and Erika’s, and I am serene in my confidence that she will look back on these days with happiness. After all, one of my fondest memories of Christmas Past is of the year my parents broke the news to me that Santa is not real. The memory involves a chalkboard, but that is a story I will share another time, perhaps another year.

The bottom line is this: I love Christmas to begin with, but I love it even more because of my little girl. Erika and I can not wait to keep making new memories with her and her little sibling, who right now is resting snugly in Erika's womb.

Never Forget

Today is the 84th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, so let us all pause and recall what happened eight decades ago.

The day after the bombing, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed Congress on December 8, 1941, to request a formal declaration of war. His speech was simulcast to the country at large via the radio. In it, he said:

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our secretary of state a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack…

Yesterday the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Wake Island.

And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island…

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves…

Always will be remembered the character of this onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory…

With confidence in our armed forces – with the unbounding determination of our people – we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.

Pearl Harbor was attacked because it was where the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet was headquartered. The bombing, which killed more than 2,400 people, began shortly before 8:00 on a Sunday morning.

Five of our eight battleships were sunk, the other three were badly damaged, and multiple other naval vessels were destroyed.

The majority of the American war planes based in Hawaii were destroyed as they sat on the ground.

In addition, most of the American air forces based in the Philippines were destroyed during the nighttime attack on that nation, which FDR also mentioned in his speech.

By crippling our Pacific defenses, the December 7th attack left us extremely vulnerable in the face of an aggressive enemy to our West – an enemy that had signaled its intent to rule the entire Pacific basin by subjugating other nations to its will.

This came at a time when we had not responded to the fact that Nazi Germany to our East had already declared war against us, had already brought most of Europe under its thumb, and had signaled its own intention to rule the world by way of an Aryan resurrection of the old Roman Empire.

Such circumstances would have spelled doom for the vast majority of countries throughout the course of history. With their foundations based on the accidents of ethnicity and geography, most countries would have simply surrendered; or, in a distinction without a difference, entered into “peace” negotiations under which they would have to accept the aggressor’s terms and after which the lives of their citizens would most certainly change for the worst.

But the United States is a nation based on ideals. Our foundation springs from the knowledge that there are things greater than us, things which are greater than the transient circumstances which exist on any given day. We have always found strength in the conviction that our nation exists to support and advance those greater things, to the benefit of people all over the world, and this sets the United States apart from all other nations in all other times.

Taking heed from FDR’s appeal to “righteous might,” reflecting what Abraham Lincoln earlier referred to as the “faith that right makes might,” the American people of 1941 summoned the invincible courage to rebuild and fight at the same time they were under fearsome siege. They did this despite the fact they were still suffering through an unprecedented economic depression that had started more than a decade before.

Let us pray that those qualities – that will to power and that unwavering belief in the sanctity of human freedom – have not been lost as new generations of Americans take the baton from the great ones which came before. For as has been said, those who forget the past will be forced to repeat it.

It would be shameful if history were to record that we squandered what was handed down to us by people like Larry Perry, and as a result we failed to transfer freedom’s blessings to our descendants... And since you probably don't know who Larry Perry is, I recommend you look here and find out. 

The Real Saint Nick

History provides many examples of actual people who have, over time, become so melded into the popular imagination that we tend to forget they were real. Saint Nicholas is one of them.

Born sometime around 280 A.D. in the town of Patara, in what was then part of Greece but is now part of Turkey, Nicholas was the son of wealthy parents who died when he was young. Having been raised as a devoted Christian, he spent his life using his inheritance to help those in need, and in addition to his charity he became known for harboring great concern for children and sailors.

Down through history, one particular story about his generosity has persisted. In those days, women whose families could not pay a dowry were more likely to die as spinsters than to get married. It is said that when Nicholas learned of a poor man who was worried about his daughters’ fates because he lacked money for their dowries, Nicholas surreptitiously tossed gold into the man’s home through an open window, and the gold landed in stockings that were drying by the fire. Much later, this inspired the modern tradition of hanging stockings by the chimney to receive gifts from Santa on Christmas Eve.

Nicholas became Bishop of Myra, a city on the Myros River near the Mediterranean coast of what is now southern Turkey. He was imprisoned during the anti-Christian persecutions carried out by the Roman Emperor Diocletian.

He was present at the Council of Nicaea (whose 1,700th anniversary was this summer) at which Christianity's fate hung in the balance due to the metastasizing belief in Arianism within the Church. It was at this council that Arianism was officially determined to be a heresy, and at which Nicholas famously confronted Arius face to face.

Nicholas is considered a saint by both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Based on the stories of his life, he is deemed to be a patron saint of orphans, archers, sailors, travelers, repentant thieves, the wrongly imprisoned, and many other categories of people. Churches were constructed in his honor as early as the sixth century A.D.

Today marks the 1,682nd anniversary of his passing, for Nicholas died on December 6, 343. His remains were buried in the cathedral church in Myra, which became a pilgrimage site. In 1087 many of them were moved to Bari, a seaside city in southeastern Italy, where they are still housed in this cathedral. Others are dispersed as relics in places throughout the world.

For generations now, kids and adults alike have used the names Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, and Saint Nick interchangeably, without giving it a second thought. But there was an actual Saint Nicholas, a decent man who is obscured by commercial renderings of Christmas. We should not allow that fact to be forgotten.

Note: The photo at the beginning of this post is of a window depicting Nicholas, taken this May at Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Tarpon Springs, Florida. This cathedral contains one his relics - specifically, a tiny bone fragment displayed in a glass reliquary at the front of the nave.

et ceteras

107 years ago today, the Armistice of Compiegne effectively brought World War I to an end, in recognition of which November 11th came to be an annual celebration known as Armistice Day in many countries.

71 years ago - nearly a decade after a whole 'nother world war was fought and brought to its conclusion - November 11th came to be recognized in this country as Veterans Day.

17 years ago today, I published this short post about Veterans Day. Looking back at it now, one particular line stands out: "Within a generation, military service went from being a duty that was performed by most American men to being one that was performed by a small minority. In turn, the country has become one where a shrinking percentage of the population puts their lives on the line to defend the rights of an increasingly unappreciative majority." That's even more true today, and I'm tempted to tack on a few more adjectives alongside "unappreciative" - but I shall refrain and instead simply offer my gratitude, for whatever that is worth.

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Here is an excellent (but not short) video by Melissa Dougherty, one of my favorite YouTubers. Everybody who values freedom and civility, regardless of whether they're a conservative or liberal, atheist or theist, etc., will hear something in it that they need to hear.

This is a good video by a Catholic regarding last week's release of Mater Populi fidelis, and this is a good one by a Protestant regarding the same.

If you're wondering what Mater Populi fidelis even is, you can read it for yourself here. But if you're short on time, which you probably are, the CliffsNotes version is that it's a Vatican document which affirms veneration of Mary while discouraging the use of certain titles to refer to her.

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My most recent post said some good things about Charlie Kirk and heaped a lot of criticism on the institutional Left. It also heaved criticism at the institutional Right, presented largely as a warning to fellow conservatives that we must police our own side of the aisle if we intend to keep it from descending to the same level of madness that attacks our country from the other side.

Based on feedback I've received, I know some conservatives acknowledge the troubles that are manifesting on the Right, and I know some liberals are unaware I even criticized the Right because they stopped reading. It is what it is.

Anyway, I bring that post up again to say that the biggest problem currently facing the conservative movement is one I didn't even mention: The fact that some camels have put their noses into our tent and started blowing them in an effort to infect our ranks with the world's oldest and most persistent bigotry, namely anti-Semitism.

They have attempted, with an alarming amount of success, to gain sway on the Right by gaining platforms in media and in respected institutions such as the Heritage Foundation. Predictably, they mask their prejudice by claiming only to be criticizing "the government of Israel," or "the Netanyahu administration," or "Zionists." Those claims are false, and I say that categorically.

Some who make those claims or enable others to make them may well believe the claims, but believing them does not make them true. In a world where the Holocaust began less than a century ago, and in a country where one of the two major political parties has aligned itself with forces that would welcome another Holocaust, we must not allow the other major political party to fall under that same ancient spell.

I cannot do the topic justice in this lone blog post, so I won't give it the short shrift by trying to. But I will say that the threat of anti-Semitism gaining ground on the Right, under the faux respectability of "just asking questions" or "having a big tent," is an existential one that needs to be treated as such. I am very happy the Heritage Foundation's staff has pushed back against its recent complicity and thrown its leaders off-balance, but the fight has just begun.

Crossroads

It has now been 49 days since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, an act of evil - make no mistake, it was evil - woven of so many threads that writing about it feels daunting.

The day it happened, the only words I wrote were the following, posted on Facebook: Since we do not yet know anything about the shooter, I will withhold commentary for now other than to say what should be obvious: Murder is bad. Prayers for his widow and two kids.

I do not blog nearly as much as I once did, and the focus of this blog isn't quite what it once was, but after (reaches for smelling salts) 17 years opining in this space, I cannot allow this assassination to go unremarked about here. After all, my descendants might one day read this blog after I have died and am no longer here to speak, and I don't want to leave the impression that I had no particular thoughts about an event that might prove to be a turning point (no pun intended) in Western civilization, so here I am.

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A major difficulty in commenting about Kirk's killing is deciding what angle to approach it from.

One could write a whole piece dwelling on the question of whether it deserves to be called an assassination (it does) or "simply" a murder like so many others.

Or a whole piece dwelling on whether Tyler Robinson acted alone.

Or, in a JFK'esque approach, asking if Robinson was just a patsy for someone else. 

Or in a related approach, asking if Robinson did it at all, or was instead expertly framed.

Or flat-out saying he was either innocent or a conspirator, then speculating about what nefarious forces  pulled the strings (George Soros acting as puppeteer to stoke social chaos? Donald Trump acting as puppeteer to justify crackdowns against political foes? Whatever floats your boat, let your freak flag fly!).

One could gloss right over the killing and dwell instead on the question of whether Kirk was a good person (he was) or a hateful one (an adjective I've seen deployed repeatedly on social media).

Or, one could write a whole piece dwelling on how Kirk's young daughters have had their lives thrown into the kind of terror and turmoil no child should have to experience (on a human level, this is what's most important).

In the grand scheme, however, Kirk's assassination was intended to roil the waters with social impacts in the hope that they will flow downstream and have political impacts. And as it turns out, social and political effects have been by far the most observable over the last 49 days, so it is there to which I turn.

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Charles James Kirk was Christian and conservative, but his most galvanizing trait was neither his Christianity nor his conservatism: It was his two-fold ability to persuasively articulate principles and address counter-arguments without chasing red herrings down rabbit holes.

Kirk encouraged critical thought and used it to advance Christianity. He also used it to advance conservative political ideas, which are not always or automatically Christian, but do have more overlap with Christianity than liberal political ideas do.

Most galling to those who disagreed with him, Kirk enjoyed unprecedented success bringing young people into the conservative fold and inspiring already conservative young people to speak their minds in the face of slander. He was so good at this that he was loathed by the Left. Not begrudged, but loathed.

Leftists - not to be confused with mere liberals - would have scorned Kirk even if he was unsuccessful at debating them, but he was successful, and exceptionally so, and that was something they could not tolerate in the face of their ongoing inability to score a win. Thus Leftists hated him viscerally, and personally, and a critical mass of the Left came to genuinely want him dead.

When news of the killing first broke that Wednesday afternoon, my immediate thought was: They couldn't beat him, so they killed him. And I was not alone, for I would later learn that even Chris Alar, who is almost invincibly joyful by nature, uttered those exact words from his Stockbridge, Massachusetts pulpit.

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But that We-They-Us-Them reflex is not healthy, is it? Especially when Kirk's raison d'etre was to talk out differences and understand them rather than come to blows over them. And even more so when there remain many gaps in what we know about September 10th.

Yes, I do think it is unhealthy. Sadly, however, the hive mind of the Left - and to repeat myself, Leftists are not to be confused with mere liberals - shows that normal people may no longer have a choice no matter where they fall on the political spectrum. The Left desires for those who don't genuflect to its dogmas to remain silent, and those who openly dispute its dogmas to be silenced.

Why do I say this? Well, much as I generally oppose philosophizing by meme, a particular one whose circulation skyrocketed after Kirk's killing - we'll call it the "We Are Not the Same Meme" - has proved to be appropriate as the intervening month and a half has unfolded. It shows images of the praying and candlelight vigils that proliferated in response to Kirk's killing, juxtaposed with images of the rioting and destruction that always seem to sprout up in response to every liberal cause celebre; then it supplies the five-word phrase "We Are Not the Same."

Is that meme provocative? Yes. 

But is it true? Judging by what I've witnessed in public and private and quasi-private forums over the last month, it is.

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Violence is a human trait, not a political one, and neither side of the aisle has a monopoly on it. But the Left's tendency to openly excuse and even romanticize violence is so pervasive that it bears full responsibility for things having reached fever pitch at this moment in American history.

The American Left's infatuation with orchestrators of political murder goes way back regardless of whether we're talking about individuals (Vladimir Lenin, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro) or organizations (PLO, Weather Underground, Black Panthers). I cannot think of a single corollary in which the American Right has ever excused, much less celebrated, any similarly violent figure.

Looking back over just the past half-decade, it was Senator Chuck Schumer who threatened Supreme Court justices by name; the Left that did not rebuke him but instead engaged in Schumersplaining; a leftist (Nicholas Roske) who traveled cross-country and tried to assassinate one of those justices, then was granted a breathtakingly light sentence by Judge Deborah L. Boardman partly because of his announcement that he wants to be a she; the Left that neglected to condemn Roske; the Left that neglected to condemn either of the attempted assassinations of Donald Trump; a leftist (or so I deduce from him shouting "Free Palestine") who murdered two young Israeli Embassy staffers on the streets of D.C.; the Left that neglected to condemn him; another leftist (or so I deduce from his professed hatred of conservative Supreme Court justices as well as Jews, Catholics, and ICE) who was arrested with more than 200 explosives outside a D.C. cathedral before a Mass that the justices were expected to attend; the Left that neglected to condemn him; liberals who creepily swooned over Luigi Mangione while the Left encouraged their swooning and neglected to condemn his murder of Brian Thompson; Virginia Delegate Jay Jones who openly fantasized about killing a Republican and about the killing of the Republican's children; that same Jay Jones who is now running to be Virginia's attorney general, and did not lose a single endorsement after his fantasies became public; and, deja vu alert, it is the Left that neglected to condemn him.

The chilling thing is not the fact of violence being committed, for that is a story old as time. The chilling things are: 1] the complete failure of one side's leadership to speak out against the violence being committed in its name, and 2] that side's concomitant failure to discourage its rank-and-file from accepting said violence. As long as those failures hold, things will continue to devolve and it will become harder for - here comes that adjective again - normal people on the other side to dissuade its lunatic fringe from responding in kind.

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That other side is of course the right wing of America's political spectrum. Those of us who are on that side have long taken comfort in the thought that proactive violence is anathema to us but not anathema to the Left. That thought is comforting, in large part, because factual events bear it out and give us reason to believe it is true.

But deep down, we know Solzhenitsyn was right when he wrote: "The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart - and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years."

And because we know he was right, we also know (but rarely say) that "our" crazies are unlikely to be kept at bay forever. The odds say at least one of them will spill innocent blood and claim to have done it on our behalf.

When that happens, we can protest all we want that for every act of political violence by a putative conservative there are fifty acts of political violence by a putative liberal. And we can protest all we want about the mainstream media imputing a killer's sin to conservatism despite having never imputed a killer's sin to liberalism. But such protests will not matter.

What will matter is whether we hold right-wing crazies just as accountable as we hold left-wing crazies, and, perhaps more importantly, that the American Center sees us do it and trusts us to do it. Which brings us to a classic chicken-or-egg conundrum: Do they need to see our behavior first in order to trust us, or do they need to trust us first in order to see our behavior?

It's probably some of both, which brings us head-on into an uncomfortable question too few of us are asking: What should we do now that a president who has done things we admire - e.g., appoint great justices to the courts, castrate Iran's nuclear weapons program, reverse the tide of illegal immigration, enable the defeat of Hamas - is using our military to kill unknown human beings by destroying private, manned, non-combatant boats in the waters off South and Central America, without proffering the slightest evidence that any of them were being used to do anything wrong?

Donald Trump's boat-sinking spree began 57 days ago. Charlie Kirk was assassinated 49 days ago, at which time nobody knew the boat-sinking would become a spree rather than a one-off. Kirk has not been here to see what's become of it.

As of three days ago, 43 people had been killed in the spree. As of right now, the number of dead has grown to 57. Looking at these attacks with a legal eye, they are unconstitutional, and looking at them with a moral eye, they are unconscionable.

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I'm no military expert, but it's a safe bet our armed forces should be focused on real enemies in places like the western Pacific and Middle East, not small-fry boats that are not even alleged to be en route to our shores.

What would we be saying if Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, or Joe Biden was ordering strikes like these? Especially at a time like this when China is ascendant, growing its military by leaps and bounds, and scheming to dominate? The question answers itself.

Broadly speaking, conservatives usually hold the high ground because we have legitimately earned it over the long course of many years. But we can lose it very quickly if we don't keep doing what it took to earn it in the first place - and lose it we will if we cannot stir ourselves to call a spade a spade when there happens to be an R after his name.

Neglecting to condemn the contemptible has always been a quality of the Left. It is within the Right's power to make sure it remains a quality of only the Left, and I wish I was confident in the Right's ability to pull that off, but I have to be honest: The crickets I'm hearing about these so-called "drug boats" give me no confidence at all.

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I appreciated Charlie Kirk, but at 23 years his senior, I was not influenced by him. The youth, however, were, and what influenced them was his willingness to speak truth no matter how discomforting it felt.

We owe it to them, and our principles, to keep that legacy alive by not being mute about this slaughter on the seas. For the cock will eventually crow, and if we are silent all the way up to then, the youth will take note of our silence and judge us accordingly.

Silence might very well result in us squandering all those once unthinkable gains Kirk helped us achieve.

Marian Musings, Part VII

An iconostasis in a Greek Orthodox cathedral in Florida has a small adornment symbolizing the Trinity. It consists of a front-profile dove in flight (signifying the Holy Spirit) with suffering Jesus over its left wing and a downward-reaching hand (signifying the Father) over its right. The hand's index finger is extended to touch the head of the dove.

A more-common representation shows a dove (again, Holy Spirit) in the lower right corner and lamb (Jesus) in the lower left with a hand raised in benediction (Father) centered above them. Often, as in the linked example, this triangular arrangement is accentuated by an upside-down triangle in the background to evoke the Star of David.

I am not aware of any representation of the Trinity that contains a figure of human womanhood. Some may wave that off by observing that God is neither man nor woman and thus there is no reason for us to focus on imagery, or by pointing out that there is something suggestively feminine about a dove, but let's be honest: Such hand-waving falls a bit short when contemplating the creator of all.

God crafted humanity in his "likeness" (Genesis 5:1), and in so doing created "male and female" (5:2) to complement one another. Broadly speaking, just as humanity cannot biologically survive without male and female acting reciprocally, so it cannot flourish when the masculine and feminine regard themselves as separate wholes rather than complementary halves. So, with God having chosen to take human form as "the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5, emphasis added) it is reasonable to wonder what gives... and this is where the significance of Mother Mary comes to the fore.

Describing "a magnificent statue of Our Lady" in this D.C. cathedral, Catholic author Carrie Gress writes: "She is not standing serenely; instead, her posture is one of action frozen in time - it captures the very act of her bridging the gap between heaven and earth. She is bending down, her right hand extended as if she is reaching for humanity, while her left hand is reaching up to heaven...it concretizes what Mary wants to do for us every second of the day - connect us with God, whether it is through our prayers, our sacrifices, or even our brokenness."

Her participatory role in salvation should not be underestimated by those of us who hail from Protestant or non-denominational precincts. Like I already detailed in the first four posts of this series, Scripture itself presents Jesus and Mary as a kind of package deal without blurring the line between his divinity and her lack of it, thus the early Church was right to emphasize her venerability, and I believe we children of the Reformation are wrong to de-emphasize it.

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Many of Christianity's modern critics accuse it of denigrating or suppressing women, although, to the contrary, it does the exact opposite. That so-called feminists refuse to acknowledge this is, shall we say, curious.

From the dawn of time, around the globe and across cultures, women were for all practical purposes treated as subordinate and/or inferior to men. Even in the small number of matrilineal societies that based clan membership on the mother's lineage, men were the chiefs and rulers; and pantheistic faiths, which believed in actual goddesses, viewed them as creatures replete with human flaws, not creators replete with true love.

When Jesus arrived on the dusty road between Galilee and Jerusalem, he overturned the apple cart by accepting women as disciples and treating them no differently that he treated men. He engaged with the woman at the well, intervened for the adulteress, and publicly praised the faith of the woman with the hemorrhage. After the Resurrection he chose to appear to women before he appeared to men, and after the Ascension women were present when the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost - including Mary, who is mentioned by name in Acts 1:14, as depicted in this painting:

The elevation of respect for women occurred only in the wake of Mary being revered by Christians and their faith proliferating. This is no small thing, and, given how intricately God understands humanity, it is not kookiness to suggest that her having this effect was part of God's plan.

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As stated by William Lecky, the great historian from Dublin, in his 1865 book History of Rationalism: "No longer the slave or toy of man, no longer associated only with ideas of degradation and of sensuality, woman rose, in the person of the Virgin Mother, into a new sphere, and became the object of reverential homage, of which antiquity has no conception...a new kind of admiration was fostered."

Since I already quoted Carrie Gress in the first section of this post, I might as well quote her again: "If one were to ask where the radical notion that women are equal to men came from, where do you suppose we would find our answer? It didn't come from the Greeks: Aristotle and others called us 'deformed males.' It didn't come from Judaism: though given some status, a broad movement to promote the dignity of women never materialized, and the practice of polygamy remained. Asian religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism, didn't start it. And it certainly hasn't come from Islam."

To which I would add: It also certainly hasn't come from the inherently cold shoulder of atheism.

Now, back to Gress: "It might seem that equality among women and men is obvious, a simple intuition any thinking person would have. But if so, why didn't any other religious movement see it? Because it was Mary who turned the sins of Eve upside down and allowed this now-commonplace notion to take root. Christianity, though largely abandoned by secular culture, remains the source for this profound insight."

This overall arc of history is so clear that, once it is pointed out, even devout atheists cannot deny it. What they do deny, however, is that there was any divine hand or divine will behind it. Instead they chalk it up to human superstition and gullibility having accidentally produced a good result.

Perhaps it would be easy to accept that contention if there were not so many credible, well-attested instances of Mary herself engaging with humanity and interceding on its behalf down through the centuries, but there are many such instances. There are so many that they're practically innumerable, and for the atheist contention to be true, literally every single one of them must be either a hoax, hallucination, or colossal misunderstanding. It takes only one being true to disprove the entire opposition.

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Forget atheism, however: More relevant to this series is that it takes only one instance of Marian intervention to wash away the foundation of Protestant arguments against Mariology, and since we children of the Reformation are supposed to be Christians first, not Protestants first, we should keep this in mind and take it very seriously.

To reject the Catholic (and Orthodox) view of Mary's role in salvation history is to:

Assert that every inexplicable healing involving water from Lourdes over the past 167 years has a purely material explanation that all of humanity is too dumb to figure out.

Deny that anything remarkable occurred in Fatima in 1917, Pontmain in 1871, Zeitoun in 1968... or in any of the other places where visions of Mary and wonders associated with her have been affirmed.

Claim that every individual who has ever reported an intercessory prayer to Mary being answered is either a loon or liar.

Irrationally deny that God could or would use Mary to draw people to him... even when a feminine figure is precisely what the task calls for.

See Donald Calloway's Christian testimony, one of the best ever, and pronounce him a fraud.

Look at the string of bewilderingly improbable events that have happened adjacent to the Black Madonna, and claim that crazy coincidence is the only non-crazy explanation.

Cite the warning in 1 John 4:1 as a reason to automatically believe appearances of Mary are actually demons pretending to be her... while simultaneously ignoring the instructions in 1 John 4:2 that tell us how to discern if an appearance is true.

Ignore that there has never, in all of history, been a single report of a Marian event having a less than stellar outcome - an already extraordinary fact that would be exponentially more extraordinary if any of those Marys were, as the "1 John 4:1 Onlyists" claim, demons in drag.

There is only so much denying that can happen before you have to ask yourself if the denying is being done by reflex rather than because of reflection.

Note #1: The prior posts in this series are as follows:
    Part I: Introduction
    Part II: The New Eve
    Part III: Genesis to Revelation
    Part III-b: The Ark of the New Covenant
    Part IV: Historical Perspective
    Part V: Perpetual Virginity
    Part VI: Prayer
    Part VI-b: Worship  

Note #2: The photo at the beginning of this post, and the one in the middle, were taken at St. Mary & St. Mina Coptic Orthdox Church in Clearwater, Florida.

V-J Day

80 years ago today, the bloodiest war in human history came to an end when Japan accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. The announcement of Japan's surrender set off celebrations around the globe, including the one in Times Square during which this iconic picture was taken.

After six years, during which more than 60 million people from 27 different countries were killed, World War II was finally over. In the United States, August 15th came to be known as V-J Day, for Victory in Japan Day, since our European enemies had surrendered three months earlier.

Despite the fact that America was brought into the war when it was bombed by Japan, and despite the fact that atomic weapons were used to hasten its end, and despite enormous cultural differences, the two countries became strong and lasting friends whose alliance is now one of the more dependable on Earth.

That is a direct result of the respectful and helping way America dealt with Japan after the war ended: One of the reasons we are unique in world history is that as conflicts conclude, we always seek to befriend our antagonists and better their lot as well as our own. That fact needs to be burned into the hearts and minds of those who believe America is always the aggressor.

In my younger days, V-J Day was noted on calendars. Today it is not. This is not how it should be.

The Greatest Generation is rapidly passing to the other side of eternity's veil. It has now been more than a year since the last remaining survivor of the USS Arizona was laid to rest. Before its members are gone, may the rest of us thank them for the freedom they transmitted to us. And may we resolve that their sacrifice shall never be forgotten, and that it shall not have been made in vain.

Marian Musings, Part VI-b

My prior post in this series dove into the topic of praying to Mary. I took that dive with a bit of trepidation not because I was afraid of it, but because it's the kind of water that can sweep you off course when you're trying to keep the focus on her.

Once you start commenting both about her as a person and about prayer as a practice - especially if, like me, you're a "cradle Protestant" with an assumed audience of other cradle Protestants - you'll need to spend time delving into questions like what it means to "pray to" somebody and why we should talk to Mary when the Bible never says to. In other words, your eye gets taken off the ball.

Anyway, 14 days ago I cut myself off after handling the two questions I just mentioned, and now I'm back because of a nettlesome feeling I need to do more. Where those questions came from are others that are of sincere concern to Christians acting in good faith from Protestant and non-denominational settings, and good faith concerns deserve a good faith response.

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Last time around, in addition to explaining that the very way we Protestants tend to define "pray" deviates from how it has always been defined by Catholics and Orthodox - and even by the dictionary! - I wrote: "I understand the frequently voiced Protestant concern that some individuals might take Marian prayer too far and start treating her as being on par with or even higher than God. That concern is valid. However, any individual who does such a thing would be in clear violation of church teaching, so I do not share the frequently voiced Protestant opinion that Marian prayer is wrong."

Adjacent to the misunderstanding about the definition of "pray" is a misunderstanding about the definition of "worship," for the standard Protestant conception is more straitjacketed than the historical Catholic and Orthodox one. Having touched briefly on that in another post four years ago, I might as well just quote myself:

If you consult Catholic doctrine itself and hop a little further back in linguistic history, you will find that it explicitly defines how it regards Mary (versus other figures) using a Latin term plus two late middle English terms rooted in Greek.

Specifically, the highest honor is called latria and is "given to God alone" because he is "infinite" and "obviously He is our just judge." (emphasis mine, and please note that "judge" is singular)

Below latria is dulia, which is "honor given to all the good angels and to all the saints," while Mary is granted hyperdulia because she "is so highly blessed and endowed by God that she stands alone in her class." Although hyperdulia outranks dulia, it is indisputably less than latria. 

Fyi, those definitions came from here.

What I did not know then, but am unsurprised to have learned since, is that the Orthodox churches also have an explicit delineation between how they regard God and how they regard Mary. As with Catholics, the highest honor given by Orthodox is reserved for God alone and goes by the almost identical term latreia, which comes from Greek rather than Latin. Beneath that is lesser honor called proskynesis, which applies to both Mary and the other saints.

The former is more akin to interior adoration and the latter to outward presentation such as kneeling, and if you want definitions that are more clinical and crystal clear, you are bound for disappointment because Orthodoxy is esoteric to its core. You'll have to trust me when I say those clinical definitions don't exist, and we both have to trust the Orthodox when they say latreia is superior to proskynesis. As stated with delicious candor in a 2024 article on the web site of Saint John the Evangelist Orthodox Church in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania: "In English, the two might seem identical; however, the language of the Church clearly differentiates them. And we must politely insist that those who critique Orthodoxy do the same."

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Seeing as how I have previously explained what I believe are sound reasons for, yes, venerating Mary, part of me feels like I'm in danger of being repetitive with this post. Nevertheless, I am keenly aware that lots of well-meaning Christians get hung up on the idea of worship being divisible, and that many of them, particularly among those raised in charismatic and evangelical settings, intend to extol God when they react skeptically to academic-sounding words from unfamiliar traditions. I know they desire to experience the fullness of Christ, and because I've come to believe that minimizing Mary serves as an impediment to that experience whereas embracing her serves as an aid, I think it's important for them to know what thoughts Catholic and Orthodox believers have voiced outside of tossing around terms like latria, latreia, dulia, hyperdulia, and proskynesis.

Though all Christians agree that the church (note the lower case "c") is the body of Christ, most many would fumble for words if asked to explain what that means. Not so for Catholic apologist Karlo Broussard, who in this 78-page pamphlet writes that "the saints participate in Christ's unique mediation because they're members of the mystical body of Christ...Christians are united with each other in the body by virtue of their union with the head, Jesus. This union with Christ enables the intercessory prayer of Christians to bring about effects in the lives of other members in the body. Viewed this way, we see that intercessory prayer of one member of Christ's mystical body for another no more takes away from Christ's unique mediation than my nervous system aiding my fingers to type takes away from the life that is uniquely mine."

Broussard continues: "The saints in heaven are still members of Christ's mystical body. We know this because Paul teaches in Romans 8:35 and 8:38 that death is among his list of things that cannot separate us from 'the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.' And the saints are not just average members of Christ's body; they are 'the spirits of just men made perfect' (Heb. 12:23). This matters because St. James tells us that 'the prayer of a righteous man avails much' (James 5:16). Since the saints in heaven are perfected in righteousness, their prayers will bear much fruit."

Later in the pamphlet he circles back: "Since the saints in heaven are still members of the body of Christ (death doesn't separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus - see Rom. 8:35, 38), we can infer that we ought not reject their help that's offered through their intercessory prayer. We should employ it."

In The Faith Explained, Leo Trese illustrates: "When we pray to our Blessed Mother and to the saints in heaven (as we should) and beg their help, we know that whatever they may do for us will not be done of their own power, as though they were divine. Whatever they may do for us will be done for us by God, through their intercession. If we value the prayers of our friends here upon earth and feel that their prayers will help us, then surely we have the right to feel that the prayers of our friends in heaven will be even more powerful. The saints are God's chosen friends, heroes in the spiritual combat. It pleases God to encourage our imitation of them and to show his own love for them by dispensing his graces through their hands. Nor does the honor we show to the saints detract one whit from the honor that is due to God. The saints are God's masterpieces of grace. When we praise them, it is God - who made them what they are - whom we honor most. The highest honor that can be paid to an artist is to praise the work of his hands."

The web site of St. Mary & St. Moses Abbey, a monastery of the Coptic Orthodox Church located in southern Texas, sums things up by saying: "For two thousand years the Church has preserved the memory of the Virgin Mary as the prototype of all Christians...St. Mary is also our model because she was the first person to receive Jesus Christ...In obedience to God's clear intention, our Church honors St. Mary through icons, hymns, and special feast days. We entreat her as the human being who was most intimate to Christ on earth, to intercede with her Son on our behalf. We ask her, as the first believer and the mother of the Church, for guidance and protection. We venerate her, but do not worship her."

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Before I sign off, allow me to close by quoting Peter Kreeft from his 2017 book Catholics and Protestants: "Each of the Catholic teachings about Mary is centered on Christ, not on Mary. During her life on earth she was wholly relative to Him. She is His mother. When the servants at the wedding at Cana wondered what to do, she pointed to Him...That is precisely what makes her the greatest saint: she points most completely beyond herself to him. She is like the moon, reflecting only the sun's light (the Son's light). Her total subordination to Christ is her glory, and her glory is her total subordination to Christ."

Here's hoping that Part VII will see me back on track, focusing more on her.

Note #1: The prior posts in this series are as follows:
    Part I: Introduction
    Part II: The New Eve
    Part III: Genesis to Revelation
    Part III-b: The Ark of the New Covenant
    Part IV: Historical Perspective
    Part V: Perpetual Virginity
    Part VI: Prayer          

Note #2: The photo at the beginning of this post was taken at Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church in Land O Lakes, Florida.