Why Do We Have So Many Marian Churches?
It is easy for a person who thinks that their faith is important to get caught up in the many beautiful details of living as a Catholic. The holy water, the signs of respect, the words of the songs, the music, the many fascinating devotions… all of these make up our lives as Catholics, but they do not make us Catholic.
What does this have to do with why there are so many Marian churches? Mary understood what it means to be a Catholic, and Deacon Michael brings us back to the basics of our faith.
Written by Laura Weston, widow of Deacon Michael
IF YOU LIKE, READ ALONG AS YOU LISTEN:
The reality of our Catholic faith is that there are fewer things that we have to believe in to be Catholic than you have to believe to be a Southern Baptist. And there are probably many others that fall into that category.
Now in our family right now there is a little bit of turmoil going on and it relates to women and the way that women dress. For example, there are people who hold that exposing your arm like that basically marks you as a harlot. Now you, you almost have it right, but your collar needs to be buttoned up so that you can only see a little bit of your chin.
[There are Catholics who believe that] There are only certain ways that you should act. And within your own family context, because you are priest, prophet and king, you get to do certain things that, in fact, the Church reserves to its priests, not even to its deacons, but to its priests explicitly. [Yet there are Catholics who believe they can do these things.]
And one of the difficulties that we have in our world, in our Catholic world, is to understand what is important, and why it is important, and how so many of the other things that people get all upset about, really are very peripheral.
One of the things that caused a great deal of consternation back then, and causes consternation today, is that we no longer use Latin.
Well, the reality is, that when St. Jerome came along everything was in Greek. The preaching, everything, was in Greek. Smart people spoke Greek. If you wanted to communicate with people of the better class, and for the most part, in most parts of the Roman empire, if you wanted to communicate with people at all, you spoke Greek.
The exception was the very lowest of the low. The vulgar. The common folk, like you. The common folk didn't speak Greek.
So St. Jerome translates the Bible into the Vulgate. It is there for the vulgar people because everybody could understand it.
And so, after Vatican II, they changed it to... and I'm actually getting to a point, believe it or not... they changed, they let you put the Bible into the vernacular (he's laughing) and that was a major transformation. People were going, "Oh no! We can't do that! We can't have the Vulgate.”
Well, the funny thing is that if you read about the Council of Trent, they dealt with this exact issue. They said, "We need to translate the Bible into the Vulgate so that everybody can hear it”, meaning English, German, whatever. And at that time, they did not say, "No you can't do it." They said, "The time is not appropriate."
The time became appropriate.
So what does this have to do with the dedication of the basilica of St. Mary Major?
The basilica was built. Remember Eusebius [who we talked about] on Friday, St. Athanasius, the Arian heresy, the Gnosticism heresy, and the councils that were had after the formation of the Church where they set out and understood what the teachings of the Church were.
And it was Eusebius, and right after Eusebius they built this Church, that they promulgated that Mary is the mother of God.
Because they answered the question of "Who do you say I am?" And the answer to the question, and we see it in the Nicean Creed which we did on Friday, but we see it in the Apostles Creed and everything. Jesus is wholly human, wholly divine and what does that make Mary if that is the answer to the question of who you say Jesus is?
As reflected in the book of Revelations, that they give us today, the reading from it, we have the image of the heavenly Jerusalem. And what we see that is very crucial and important to understand, is that we see, when you read Revelation and you think about Mary, you need to think about Eve. Because Eve was the first woman and she denied God by disobeying Him. Mary is the second Eve, who obeyed God. "Thy will be done."
And so we have, in the person of Mary, a completion of this woman, this young girl, who bears the Son who is wholly human, wholly divine, who is the culmination of the first covenant. Who is the culmination of faith history from the moment of creation.
The second event occurs with Mary. Where, instead of Eve, who went around with bare arms, denying God by lying, we have Mary. This places Mary at the center of everything.
And when we look and say, "Okay, what does it mean to be Catholic?" you come back to the question, "Who do you say I am?" "I'm wholly human, wholly divine. Who is my mother? She is the mother of God."
The Eucharist. These are central things. They do not deal with whether Darlene has her arm exposed. They do not deal with the issues of, in what language do you listen or read the Bible. It does not deal with these peripheral matters. Because what is the important thing that has to be filtered out from everything is that the purpose of the Holy Catholic Church is to give everyone the opportunity, through the Church, to spend all eternity with God in Heaven, in the heavenly kingdom you find in Revelation.
It is the completion of a full circle. So when people start saying, "Well, you can't be Catholic, or if you are Catholic you have to do the following things." Mayve, it is not necessary that button the top button on you shirt. It may be advisable, but it is not required.
The same thing is, if we look in here, we see holy water, we see saints, pictures, icons. Are they, in and of themselves, necessary to be Catholic?
Is it required for you to be a Catholic to believe in devotion to the divine heart of Jesus? No. Are there certain things that you have to believe? Yes. They are in the Nicene Creed.
We have to believe that Mary is the mother of God. We have to believe that Jesus is wholly human, wholly divine. That He died on the cross for us. He rose from the dead.
But all of these other things that divert us away from the central object of our faith, that is, our ultimate goal of spending eternity in the heavenly kingdom, those are peripheral things.
Those are the things that people get all excited about, create all sorts of schisms and everything else, because, frankly, the people in Milwaukee don't celebrate the Mass correctly. They don't. Therefore there is something wrong.
Now was it Weakland up in Milwaukee? Yep. So there was something wrong. But, that is the reality of what we face. It is that we know… I'm gong to pick on Belinda because she's kind of ignoring me today… we know that when she was raised in the Catholic faith and not an English word was spoken, she still became a great Catholic.
Because the rest of it is peripheral. [What's important is] the core of the belief. And this core of the belief pivots in a very real way on the great answer that Mary gave. "Thy will be done."
That is the transition point. That is why we have the basilica. We have all these churches, this one included, dedicated to Mary. Because it is central to Our Lord Jesus Christ. And it is central to answering the crucial question that we have to face: "Who do you say that I am? Because if you say that I am wholly human, wholly divine, I died on the cross." God died on the cross for us, so we have to get back to Mary.
And that's why we have these wonderful Marian devotions. It is a recognition of a centrality, for our faith history, of moving towards Jesus and being with Him for all eternity. And it doesn't matter, on a physical aspect, whether or not you wear shorts to Mass, whether or not you have your arms exposed. The reality is that the very core is how we answer the question of "Who do you say I am" and how do you live your live in accordance with your answer to that question.
August 5, 2019