Happy feast of the Immaculate Conception. I did a search for images for the feast, and they were mostly Mary as an adult, in the clouds, with angels. Or with her and the child Jesus. I wanted a picture with Mary and her mother, since the feast is about them.
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ReplyDeleteJean, I wasn't aware of that "multi-directional" medieval notion of time. It seems pretty pre-scientific. Maybe it is lurking in the theological notion that the Incarnation was the culmination of the history of creation and human history, such that everything which came before (Hebrew/Israeli/Judean history, the Law, prophets, et al) must be understood in the light of that event, and the same is true of everything which has happened afterward.
DeleteIt's kind of hard to square with the notion that there will be an end to history at the eschaton. But maybe to a medieval, that event also could "flow backward"?
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DeleteSorry, did not mean to give offense.
DeleteI don't know that I think time is circular. But I definitely think it isn't linear, especially as we think of it in the hereafter. I don't understand quantum physics at all, but those who do claim that time doesn't flow the same in all circumstances.
DeleteFunny how subjective time passes. I could easily spend two hours sitting here, dinking around with my tablet on the internet, and it wouldn't seem that long. The same amount of time sitting in the dentist chair, being worked on, would seem like an eternity.
Jean, I wish you hadn’t removed your comment. I have only trad quickly, and had wanted to reread it because much of what you said resonated with me. We know by now that the active members of this group offer a range of understandings of God, religion, spirituality in general - different yet all with Catholicism as the foundation. The differences keep the discussions interesting. Since I am no longer an active catholic, I especially appreciate the ideas that you bring to the discussions- interesting because you aren’t a cradle catholic, often convey heterodox views that party arise because of your religious environment when you were younger,, views which either comfort me ( Helps to know that I’m not alone) or challenge my thinking. The group here are all open enough in their thinking to not take offense because of ideas that don’t conform to the catechism.
DeleteRead, not trad; partly not party
DeleteAnd I'm scratching my head, thinking "Huh? What did I miss?"
DeleteI guess I missed a comment. Jean, please don't take my reply to your initial comment as my being offended. Far from it; I was fascinated by your observation and was just "thinking out loud". Would love to hear whatever further thoughts you have on the circularity of time.
DeleteFrom what I can remember, I thought Jean's comment was interesting and did not see it as offensive.
DeleteIt was a pretty low-key Immaculate Conception today. Our parish had two morning masses, which I wasn't able to attend, and no evening mass this year.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure I *love* this feast day. But it at least gets me a little excited. Somehow, among the parish staff, I got a reputation as the guy with the Marian devotion, which isn't really particularly true, although I may have a little more fervor than some of the other staff members. For a lot of years I was asked to present the "Mary session" for RCIA. I did my best. There certainly are people in the parish that live out a much more fervent devotion to Mary than I do - I'm thinking of the daily rosary crowd. God bless them.
We had a vigil Mass Monday evening, a school Mass Tuesday morning, and a Tuesday evening one. K always assists with the school Masses, usually they are on Friday. And I always worry he will catch Covid there, because kids are germ factories. Even though though they are wearing masks and are distanced, with half the group in the cafeteria for livestreaming.
DeleteAnyway what I love about Marian feasts is the music. Not necessarily the music in the missalettes, but ones such as The Angel Gabriel From Heaven Came, There Is No Rose of Swych Vertu, and Maria Through the Thornwood Walked. But nobody but me knows those. So I played Hail Holy Queen and Immaculate Mary for the vigil Mass, one verse each, entrance and exit. Some of my group were there to sing. The crowd was pretty sparse downstairs, but they knew the first verse by heart and sang through their masks.
My mom, being a convert who grew up Baptist, had a bit of an uneasy relationship with Mary. But she had a devotion to St. Anne, and took Anne as her confirmation name.
Katherine (and anyone else) - let me know if this kind of thing is your cup of tea. Spanish medieval Marian songs.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ios-NT0fNI
Jim, yes, I like that a lot. Especially once I got past the Gregorian chant (sorry chant lovers, not my thing). The ancient instruments were really interesting, and some beautiful vocal harmonies. I didn't listen to the whole thing, it looks like it's about an hour and twenty minutes. I skipped around a bit. But I will book mark it to listen to later.
DeleteThis CD, Ancient Noels, is one of my favorite selections of instrumental Christmas music. One of my sons gave it to me a couple of years back, after I dropped a broad hint. Looks like the whole thing is on youtube now. The third track is my favorite.
DeleteCorrection, this link is only the third track, not the whole thing.
DeleteKatherine, many thanks. Very nice. I can see that it would be acquired taste, though :-)
DeleteThe Immaculate Conception was very important to me when I was young. To honor the one hundredth anniversary of the declaration of the doctrine Pius XII declared the first Marian year which was observed from December 8, 1953 to December 8, 1954 with a lot of fanfare and attention. I would have been twelve in May 1954, and in sixth grade.
ReplyDeleteIn the summer of either 1952 or 1953 one of the seminarians that taught summer school in our parish (we did not have a school) introduced some of us boys to Gregorian chant. Previously I had been bored with church, and catechism. However Gregorian chant was like rocket science. (I was into astronomy).
My best friend had been an altar boy for a couple of years; I gave in to his pleas to become one. Older altar boys taught younger altar boys the Latin responses. During the spring of either 1953 or 1954 we built “May altars” in our homes which we were encouraged to do in Catechism class. They were much like the side altars in the parish church, shrines never used for celebration of Mass. My friend and I played priest and server at ours.
I began to think that there must be some ritual prayers that we laity could say at our home altars that were liturgy, though I did not know that word yet. So I began to construct “Ceremonies” collecting prayers from various prayer books. It is interesting that many of them like the Te Deum and Magnificat were from the Divine Office although I had not heard of it yet.
My home altar expanded to include a whole alcove of my room which Mom curtained off. She made beautiful antependia for the altar in various liturgical colors and vestments for me which were in the form of copes of various colors. I had no idea that copes were the vestments for the Divine Office, I just liked them better than chasubles, and of course they were used for Benediction which was a form of ritual prayer.
The home altar was solemnly dedicated at either the beginning or ending of the Marian year. I had never heard about blessing or consecrating altars. However since that Popes were decreeing dogmas and Marian years, I simply wrote out a Solemn Decree of Dedication and read it out before the altar!!! That would obviously accomplish the deed.
In the course of obtaining new prayer books for my “Ceremonies” I came across the Short Breviary which Saint Johns had published for the benefit of religious women who wanted to pray the office. When I read the introduction I realized that I had been trying to reinvent the wheel. So I gave up my ceremonies and began to celebrate the Divine Office in my home chapel.
The statue of Mary still exists in the frame build by my father and painted by my mother. It is high up on the wall of my great room with its cathedral ceilings. It is opposite the stone fireplace over whose center hangs a tapestry of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Below, the fireplace has been completely covered with a large computer monitor where we welcome monks, Anglicans, and Francis celebrating. I have moved from the patroness of the USA to the patroness of the Americas, from a chapel to a house church.
When I was a kid I used to have a place I considered my chapel in the woods behind our house. It was pretty minimalist though, no art or anything like that. I didn't tell my brothers about it because I didn't want to share it with them.
DeleteOne of my brothers was an altar server. He was mad because he had just learned the Latin responses when the Vatican II changes came about.
Sometimes the comments here really enlighten me as to how differently we cradle Catholics of the 50s and 60s (and Jim in the 70s) responded to the feast days, the religion we were taught, the masses we attended as children. At my parochial school, May was Mary month and we all decorated statues to add to the classroom display. It was a contest, and I never won because my mother wasn't into that kind of thing. Good thing we never were asked to do dioramas, as my kids had to do. Their mom wasn't into that kind of thing either and they never won either.
DeleteAnyway, we never had a home altar. I remember little of the Dec 8 activities except that we had mass. To this day I don't know the difference between a chasuble and a copse. Or any of the other vestment items. I've always liked Gregorian chant, but not for religious reasons - I just like how it sounds. I was a bit arrogant in high school because I had studied Latin and didn't need the bi-lingual missal to follow along.
As a woman in my 30s and 40s I became more and more disenchanted with the Marian teachings of the church. They started to seem to me to be holding up an ideal which is not only not reachable by normal humans, but not even desirable. The "blessed Mary ever virgin" is among the worst, as it implies that nobody who has had sex can be "pure" - can be "immaculate". It also holds up the Holy Family as an un-ideal ideal - a couple that never consummates their marriage (grounds for annulment) and has only one child (according to the RCC if not according to Scriptures), a woman whose "obedience" is considered the most important thing about her, along with her virginity. However, I think that the picture that the church paints about Mary is wrong, both factually and in how it implies she's passively obedient. There are other understandings of Mary that I find more interesting and likable than the RCC's version. Of course, the feast on Dec 8 is commemorating that Mary was free or original sin - making her not really a normal human, at least if you accept the doctrine of original sin as taught by the RCC (which I don't). So holding up a woman who is not really like normal human beings according to the RCC (no original sin) is holding up an ideal that is simply not attainable by real women - by real people in general.
Anne, your critique (which I can sympathize with!) reminds me of the wedding custom during which the bride goes and kneels in front of a statue of Mary while "Ave Maria" is sung. The idea of praying to Mary ever virgin on, of all things, the bride's wedding day. I've never considered it my business to inquire just what the brides are praying for, but it's always struck me as a little odd. Of course, maybe they are praying for their new husbands ...
DeleteJack, I've spoken to several priests from your generation, asking them, "When did you first hear the call to the priesthood", and to a person, the answer has been, "I used to play at being a priest in my garage / basement / backyard when I was a little boy." I know you were in seminary for a while. I just read your Cabin in the Woods meditation, but I didn't completely understand where seminary fit into that life narrative. Was that before you went off to graduate school?
DeleteIn the fifties Catholicism in the US was very sectarian emphasizing its differences with Protestantism. We went to Mass on Sunday and did not eat meat on Friday. Priests and nuns were in very visible leadership roles. Catholic laymen were not in very visible positions in public life either on the national or local levels. So many talented boys at that time were attracted to the priesthood and girls to the religious life. This was due in large part because there were not a lot of visible competing alternatives.
DeleteFor example I was attracted to the Benedictine priests who said the extra Masses at our parish because they were college teachers. Once I became a National Merit Finalist, it was natural to think of the Jesuits even though I had never met a Jesuit. I entered the Jesuit novitiate right out of high school. At least half the novices also were right out of high school but in most of their cases it was a Jesuit high school.
The only college educated people I knew were my high school teachers. But I had no desire to teach in high school. I hated high school; it was boring. When I went to a Catholic college after novitiate , I was able to see more clearly that I had always wanted to by a college professor, and never desired to be a diocesan priest. My ideal of being a Jesuit had been to be a college science professor who said Mass on Sunday at some parish and who counselor students.
Altar boys were part of the Pre-Vatican II system that groomed boys to consider the priesthood. The dialogs in Latin between the priest and server (the server represented the people) and the ritual actions meant that you learned the priest’s role at the same time that you learned the server’s role. So it was natural for boys to play priest. That same relationship no longer exists in our more flexible Mass rituals in English.
My reaction to Mary has always emphasized her motherhood. Maybe that is very natural for boys who often have better relationships with their mothers than do girls. I could image a newly married woman praying to Mary that she might also be a good mother.
ReplyDeleteThe Byzantine title for Mary is Theotokos, literally God-bearer. The tapestry of Our Lady of Guadalupe is of a pregnant woman, really a very good icon for Advent. Both these images are very human (i.e. motherly) but also very Christological.
Mary as the Immaculate Conception seems to me now to be a part of Victorian piety and women religious piety. Both put women on pedestals while keeping them in their place.
Jack, I don’t much like the emphasis on Mary as mother either. When I got married, I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to have children. I was unaware of the church’s demand that all couples who marry in the church marry with the assumption that they will have children. Not sure what I would have done if I had been forced to promise that I would try to get pregnant. Maybe get married in my husband’s Protestant church instead. Obviously I changed my mind, but we did not have our first until we had been married for six years. As far as I’m concerned, being a parent is the absolutely hardest vocation out there. Many people are not suited for the role and are not great parents even though they are “nice” people. The church makes young couples go through all kinds of hoops in order to marry in the church. It would be better if it insisted that married couples who are contemplating becoming parents go through even more extensive hoops and undertake a very honest self-assessment as to how compatible their inborn natured are with the demands of parenting.
DeleteAlso, women are so much more than maternal, just as men are so much more than paternal. The church doesn’t insist that being paternal is THE most important and defining aspect of masculinity,, but does imply that being maternal is the defining aspect of feminity.
Jack, the focus on Mary's maternity is also problematic for women because Mary had one sinless - perfect- child. This did not spare her heartbreak and worry, but it did spare her the everyday trials of dealing with less-than-perfect children!
DeleteAbout 20 years ago I began reflecting on the "joyful mysteries" of the rosary I decided that only men would call the "joyful mysteries" of the rosary "joyful". Maybe for humanity, but not for Mary. Imagine being a 13 or 14 year old girl, engaged to a much older man (who arranged that marriage?) and being presented with the proposal that she allow herself to be impregnated by an invisible spirit - in a culture where betraying her fiance could bring the penalty of being cast out of the community, or even the possibility of being stoned to death. After all, how many would believe her tall tale? The males who run the church have always emphasized Mary's obedience to the proposal that she allow herself to be impregnated in some mysterious way - why not emphasize her courage in agreeing to this rather unbelievable proposition?
So - this probably frightened girl runs off to her older cousin - who is also frightened a bit because she too has become pregnant under almost impossible circumstances and faces high risk because of her age. Two somewhat frightened women comforting one another, reassuring one another that "all shall be well". (BTW, it was a homily on the visit to Elizabeth by a woman priest that set me on the path of truly thinking about the "joyful" mysteries for the first time in my life). Carry through the theme - 9 months pregnant and leaving home for another town, away from the family and friends support network normally able to support a woman during birth and after. Giving birth under very undesirable circumstances. Then, 8 days later, following custom, presenting your newborn son in the temple only to be told that her heart will be pierced with a sword. Imagine how this aroused fear in her heart for her tiny baby's future! Finally, the perfect child becomes a 12 year old who disappears without a word to anyone while traveling home. Every parent has a deep-seated fear that their child could disappear - it's a nightmare if you think about it too much - especially when you've "lost" your child at the mall, or he/she is not in the back yard playing as you thought. Pure, unadulterated fear - no joy involved. So yes - finding Jesus did bring joy - but his non-apology for causing his parents so much worry makes one wonder how perfect he really was!
Marian dogmas are one thing that I lose absolutely no sleep over. I let the theologians hash that out, it has zero bearing on my life. I honor Mary because she is Jesus' mother. I mainly pray for her intercession when I am praying for the sick or dying, or protection of loved ones. My kids drove some "two rosary cars" in their younger days.
ReplyDeleteI didn't lay a bouquet at her statue when we got married, mainly because half the people there were Protestant and wouldn't have understood the gesture. But there was one time when I did ask her help and that was two weeks before our wedding when I had a bad case of cold feet. It was hitting home to me what "until death do us part" really meant. It was a family custom to light a candle at church when something big was going down. Our church had a "Mary chapel" with a rack of votive candles. I lit one. In fact I may have lit a bunch of them. And knelt there and prayed for a sign that I was doing the right thing. I didn't get a bolt of lightning moment, but when I left there I was at peace, and was able to go forward with confidence.
Difference between cradle and convert Catholics, I guess. Explaining the perpetual virginity of Mary to adults was a frustrating proposition in RCIA for both us and the Church Ladies. For me, it was almost a deal breaker until I said that if God wanted Mary to be a perpetual virgin, born without sin, and bodily assumed to Heave, of course he could do so, but it wasn't that important to me. The Church Ladies consulted with Father about it and decided I could continue.
DeleteWhen my husband and I got married, there was no mention of the custom of the bride kneeling in front of the statue of Mary with a bouquet offering. In fact I don’t ever remember attending a Catholic wedding where that was part of the ceremony, either in California or back East. Is it mainly a Midwest custom?
DeleteThe seriously schmaltzy song I most associate with that custom is this one. One of my cousins had it at her wedding which was a few weeks before ours. I made up my mind then and there, that nope, not going to happen at ours.
DeleteBTW, Anne, are you in California now?
Yes - we drove three very long days to minimize hotel nights. We left last Saturday morning at 8:00 and pulled into our son’s driveway at 8:30 pm on Monday. The first day we traveled through Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and St. Louis Missouri, where we spent the night. Day 2 was Missouri, Oklahoma, the Texas panhandle, and eastern New Mexico, where we spent another night. Monday was New Mexico, Arizona and California.
DeleteThe weather here is great so we spend most of the day outside where we can socialize with appropriate distance with our son and his family. Evenings we are in their house with masks and the French doors open all evening. We stay on the guesthouse - a converted garage with kitchen, bathroom etc. we had good weather all across the country because we delayed a day - due to rain from Maryland to Indiana.
Glad you made it safely. It had to be a gruelling trip to do that distance in three days!
DeleteLet me try to make my point without all the medieval sci-fi circular time baggage that seemed to distract people:
ReplyDeleteI cannot relate to the Mary presented by the Church Ladies as sexless, perfect, passive, passionless, subordinated and co-opted by God strictly for breeding purposes. That Mary is the creation of centuries of men and their Mommy and sex hang-ups.
In later years, I have come to believe that Mary's "yes" to the Holy Spirit at the Annunciation is the root cause of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption.
She didn't say "yes" because she was born without sin and therefore was pre-programmed by God to do so. Rather, she had free will and a choice. It the choice that she would make at the Annunciation that caused her to be born without sin and taken bodily to Heaven.
This does not exactly square with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in the CCC, 490-493, which seems to indicate that she was prepared for the Annunciation with special (i.e., inhuman) holiness from the moment of her conception. (It's a linear time trap that sometimes limits our thinking about God, IMO.)
That she had a say in what happened to her makes her less an "instrument" and more a "real" person who was asked to do a wonderful and terrible job and agreed to it.
Jean, I agree with that understanding. To believe that she was preprogrammed to say "yes" negates her free will.
DeleteThere is a lot of popular Marian piety through the ages that says more about the people promoting it than it does about Mary.
Jean says
ReplyDelete"In later years, I have come to believe that Mary's "yes" to the Holy Spirit at the Annunciation is the root cause of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption."
Yes, this is close to the Orthodox view of Mary, at least as I have experienced it. In the East the Annunciation is observed as a great feast, since Mary's "Yes" made possible the Incarnation, the beginning of our salvation. Because of the Christological controversies at the great Councils in the East, they have emphasized that transformation not only of humanity but also of all of creation began with Mary's Yes to the Incarnation.
Our local Orthodox priest, knowing that many of the congregation are former Catholics or Evangelicals emphasizes that in the Orthodox view Mary is human, one of us. In fact she is the first disciple because of her Yes. Orthodox speak of the Domition (going to sleep) of Mary and do not celebrate her Immaculate Conception. Orthodox have been very skeptical of Augustine and his doctrine of Original Sin. Their view of humanity and creation is much more positive more like that of Saint Thomas.
The Orthodox priest emphasizes that a lot which the Church celebrates about Mary does not come from the Bible. Things like the Assumption come from the Church's reflection upon revelation and what people have thought ought to have happened. We should respect those traditions but we don't have to believe they as historical.
The Orthodox priest emphasizes that we like Mary should say yes to Christ, to become in our life God-bearers like she was.
FWIW, I played "church" when I was a kid, too. Welch's had a promotion where they sold grape jelly in a glass that looked like a goblet. That sort of looked like a chalice. My grandma had a brocade jacket that stood in for a vestment. I was the priest, and my brother Martin was the server. I didn't have any urge that I wanted to be a priest when I grew up, it was just make believe, like playing cowboys, or grocery store. One thing that I appreciate in retrospect was that neither my parents or my grandma said that "girls can't he priests", or that I should let Martin be the priest instead.
ReplyDelete