Simple Marian Devotions #2

At our local Family Dollar I can buy Catholic, glass jar candles for a couple of dollars. I have one with a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe on it. The prayer reads, Merciful Virgin Mary of Guadalupe, show clemency, love and compassion to those who love you and search for your protection. May the sweet fragrance of roses reach your divine son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that he may hear our prayers. Wipe our tears and give us comfort and assistance. (concentrate on your desires). Amen. 

As a simple devotion, you can light the candle and say the prayer, adding your special needs and petitions. I have the candle burning right beside me as I write this. I am also listening to "An English Ladymass" on CD, which contains 13th- and 14th-century chant and polyphony in honor of the Virgin Mary. The lyrics are in Latin, so I don't understand them, but the women's voices are glorious, and the music is calming. I borrowed the CD from my library system and have others on the way. You can play music such as this and meditate upon the love and intercession of our heavenly Mother while making dinner, folding laundry, writing in your journal, or practicing yoga.

Today I went for a walk in the woods with my 8-year-old daughter. Luckily I had my Rosary in my purse, and I recalled how John Paul II had a regular practice of walking in nature while praying the Rosary. I got through most of the Luminous Mysteries before we had to go. There is something about a moving meditation that is especially gratifying.

 Pope John Paul II

I usually pray for a particular intention at the start of my Rosary recitations. Sharing our smallest worries and our deepest needs and sorrows, as well as our joys, hopes, and dreams, truly honors our Holy Queen. And we can trust that she will present them as the most fragrant and lovely bouquet of roses to her divine Son. In honoring her, we honor our Lord.

Rosary Miracle

Mother's Day weekend my daughter, Beezy, and I attended a mother-daughter banquet at church. Among the gifts for the little girls was a pink rosary with plastic beads held together by string, and a felt pouch in which to keep it. Beezy also already had a chain rosary with red beads, and she kept both in the pouch under her pillow at night. After a bout with the stomach flu last week involving numerous puking episodes, her dad put the bedding in the wash on hot. He did not realize until after drying it that he had inadvertently washed the rosaries.

The chain had come apart on the red rosary, but it was going to be fixable. This was a relief, because it was a vintage rosary given to her by our priest to replace her very first rosary, which had been purchased at the church book sale and blessed by him, but then had broken shortly after. The pink rosary was another story. The two were tangled together, and the strings of the pink one had become seriously frayed and undone. It looked like a mess and was obviously ruined. I was sad, since we had so much enjoyed the mother-daughter banquet, and this was a special memento of the day. I lovingly cut the strings to extricate the chain rosary, and set about repairing it with pliers and my fingernails.

Once finished with the red rosary, I picked up the pink one, thinking I would just have to throw it away. But for some reason I decided to untangle it first. As I went along, a strange feeling overcame me, and at last I realized that the rosary was completely intact. It was as if I had never cut it, as if it had never gone through the washing machine at all! I was holding the cut threads in my hand, yet there was nothing missing from the rosary, no place that was frayed or unraveled. It was perfect. The handmade, felt pouch had also come through without any sign of damage.

What does this mean? It means whatever it means to you. For me, the message is that what has been severed will be restored. What has been broken will be made whole, even if I have cut it apart with my own hands. My prayers will be answered. The circle of roses is forever unbroken. For with God nothing is impossible.

Poetic Catholicism

One criticism of the Catholic Church by Protestants is that it is too ritualistic, and therefore seems "pagan". But this is exactly what is so cool about Catholicism! First of all, let's acknowledge that all forms of Christianity use rituals. Perhaps what is unique about Catholicism is the more expansive incorporation of all the senses. For instance, on Holy Thursday last week, special oils were brought forth and blessed, and there was a procession around the sanctuary using incense. On Good Friday we kissed the feet of Jesus on the cross. We bless ourselves with holy water to remind us of our baptism, and we make the sign of the cross many times during the liturgy. We kneel before taking a seat, and we stand, sit, and kneel throughout a typical service. Bells are rung during the Eucharist celebration, and at every mass we partake of the bread and wine, the transubstantiated body and blood of Jesus. That in itself ignites the imagination.

When praying the Rosary, we use our voices, our hands, and our memories to picture the mysteries of the lives of Jesus and Mary. We have statues and stations of the cross, candles, paintings, and chanting. Belief in the holiness of things, such as the containers used in the Eucharist, is a given.  We learn the lives of the saints and mystics, make pilgrimages to holy places, hold relics such as bones in awe, and hear of visitations to people by the Virgin Mary. We have a profound sense of the ancient. In short, Catholics are poetic. They think in metaphor. Jesus himself was like this, which we know because he taught using parables, where people and things in a story are analogies for deeper spiritual truths. When He said to build your house on a rock, he was talking about faith. Using symbols, we grasp meaning that would otherwise elude us.

When people accuse the Catholic Church of being pagan, they admit that Catholics are better at seeing and understanding God in the workings and beauty of nature. Yes, they may also be saying that Catholics worship saints and so are polytheistic and other such misunderstandings. But intuitively I think they know that Catholics have better mastered the art of connecting body, mind, and spirit in worship and life. Critics of Catholicism know on some level that they are missing something, a state of wholeness, and so they defensively dismiss Catholicism as too "Eastern", like Buddhism, perhaps (and this is yet another way of saying "pagan").

For myself, I love the poetic soul of the Church, her sights, sounds, fragrances, symbols, and imagination. My religious experience is enhanced and deepened by her rituals. Even her weirdness, like that cross kissing experience. I can't wait for the May crowning parade!

The Mother of My Lord

When I pray the Hail Mary, I sometimes replace "Mother of God" with the phrase, "Mother of my Lord," which comes directly from the Bible. I have often come across in my Marian studies the assertion that the first part of the Hail Mary is biblical and should not present a problem to Protestants. It is the second part, it is feared, that crosses the line. I have discussed this in more detail in a previous article. Using the title Mother of My Lord accomplishes two things: it sets the second part of the Hail Mary more strongly in biblical tradition, and it reflects the personal nature of my relationship with Mary. I don't have any issue with the theologically valid title "Mother of God," but at times I prefer the more intimate title that Elizabeth gives Mary in the Visitation scene in the Gospel of Luke. Elizabeth exclaims, "Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb!"

I attended a candlelight Christmas Eve service at my grandparents' United Methodist Church, and curiously, the pastor began his scripture readings with the Visitation rather than the Annunciation. His reading brought tears to my eyes. This Christmas Eve service typically consists of bible readings and the singing of hymns, with no actual sermon. The pastor did not comment on the passage. He did not explain its meaning. He just let it stand on its own, leaving us to ponder these mysterious events, allowing the attention given to Mary to shine forth, and he read her entire Magnificat, in which she sings, "My soul magnifies the Lord" and "Every generation shall call me blessed." Mary's song places her in the role of prophetess. Based on the Visitation scene alone, Protestants should have no issue with honoring Mary deeply as "the mother of my Lord." I heard in the pastor's voice that night a tone of reverence as he read this passage.

This experience gave me pause. God's indispensable role for Mary in his plan of salvation was so evident to me, without any explanations, overemphasis, bells, whistles, grandiose poetry or exalted titles that I began to wonder if I could not, indeed, be quite comfortable as a Marian Protestant, rather than feeling that in order to "have" Mary, I would need to convert to Catholicism. It has seemed in my quest to know Mary that in order to experience her spiritual presence in a church setting, it would be mandatory for me to force myself to believe in purgatory, confession to a priest, transubstantiation, worship of the Eucharist, and Mary's perpetual virginity. But when I reflect on how I came to know her, it was to her Rosary Garden that she called me, not to a Catholic mass. It was in her presence in nature that we communed. All I had to do was call to her, and she answered, immediately.

While Mary has mediated between humans and Jesus both in the Bible and in her appearances up to modern times, for me the nature of her intercession is as a spiritual mother, mediating God's maternal love and revealing his feminine face. She has always pointed us to her son. It was through her that God mediated his grace by virtue of making her the mother of his Son. Asking her to pray for us, talking to her in this role of mediation, and enjoying a very personal relationship with and deep devotion to her seems to me entirely Christological.

While I am heartened by recent Protestant attention toward Mary and the reasons we should call her blessed, so far what I have read on the subject lacks acknowledgment of any Protestant possibility of knowing Mary as "The Mother of My Lord" and embracing her as their own mother. Catholic writings, on the other hand, are often so passionate and loving. That's it exactly; they love Mary. They know her intimately. They don't worship her as God, but they understand her through the eyes of love and sonship, rather than honoring her from only a theological/literal/biblical perspective. They don't just venerate Mary because they feel they should, but because it is the most natural response of a child to his mother.

If I ultimately choose membership in a Protestant church, I think I could assert my Marian devotions as both biblical and spiritually essential to my Christian walk, and I think I could teach my child my personal Mariology in a way that should not contradict the church's teachings. Emphasizing that all churches have their own, unique interpretations, and individual Christians have theirs as well, would go a long way toward Christian inclusiveness, love, and respect. Shying away from affirmation of the sacred feminine in the Protestant churches for fear of "Mariolatry" will leave us stuck in a dominantly patriarchal and unsatisfying spirituality that simply doesn't work, even if people do not know precisely what is missing. I have been there, and now I know, and it's thanks to the intercession of Mary, praise be to God.

Conversion

In my article "The Mother of My Lord," I had basically determined to "have" Mary while remaining Protestant, convincing myself that I could practice Marian devotions at home while worshiping in a church that doesn't acknowledge them. Then the very next day that prospect seemed like madness! What happened? I think that by giving myself permission to be devoted to Mary within the Protestant tradition, I opened myself up to a full Catholic conversion. There is more to Catholicism than Mary, but she is integral to understanding the faith and practicing it.

A series of events that day lead me in this new direction. First, I had searched the internet for Eastern Orthodox churches and their beliefs. They "have" Mary too, but I would have to drive over an hour to attend one of their churches. They have Sunday school, but can one really be part of a church home so far away? Still, they don't believe in purgatory, so that seemed promising. But they also don't pray the Rosary, and I just love the Rosary.

Next, I sat down and did some reading from a Catholic For a Reason series book on the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary. Also, another book came in at the library from this series that day. Truthfully, I have learned more about the Bible through Catholicism than I ever have in Protestant churches. This makes sense, since the Catholic Church is responsible for putting the Bible together in the first place! I began to realize that I would miss being Catholic. Catholics love Mary. Do I really want, in my heart of hearts, to sit in a church that doesn't love Mary as Mother? I do not.

Perhaps the clincher came in the evening, when I heard this on youtube, from onetruefaith.tv:
"The Holy Trinity chose this woman from all eternity, and you think she's just some door into earth... This one beautiful thought alone, that she existed in the heart of God, closer to God than any other creature from all time--that should be so deeply moving that somebody would want to become Catholic immediately just on that thought alone." And my soul sang out, "Yes!"

Even before I heard that, I read something on the internet about the Protestant belief in "total depravity," that humans are entirely lacking in holiness and are in fact inherently evil due to the Fall. Luther described the human soul as a pile of dung that is covered over by snow. In opposition to total depravity is the Catholic doctrine that people are inherently good!  These two things together, the veneration of Mary and the teaching of the essential goodness of humanity, must place me squarely on the Catholic side. Like I stated in my previous article, belief comes first, and then understanding. I learned from my dad not to do things "half-assed" (love this phrase of his!) and to "shit, or get off the pot." My dad is right.

I will not be able to begin my process of Catholic initiation officially until September, but my daughter will start her religious education classes tonight! As it looks now, the path is leading to the Catholic Church, calling me home.

Step 11 and Ecumenism

November 8, 2011

Step 11 of the AA/Al-Anon Twelve Step groups:  sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

ecumenical (from Webster's dictionary) 1: worldwide or general in extent, influence, or application; 2, a: of, relating to, or representing the whole of a body of churches; b: promoting or tending toward worldwide Christian unity or cooperation.

catholic (from Webster): including a wide variety of things; universal

"Though traditionally considered a Catholic act of devotion, the Rosary with its primary focus on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, is ultimately a catholic, or universal, prayer that can appeal to Christians of all faiths and denominations...Ultimately, the Rosary is your prayer and can be prayed the way you see fit."
--from The Rosary: A Journey to the Beloved by Catholic writer Gary Jansen

"I am the Mother of all nations." --Our Lady of Guadalupe, to Juan Diego

A common saying in the rooms of AA and its affiliated groups is, "Take what you like and leave the rest." This comes to mind as I proceed in my spiritual journey of exploring the history of the Christian church and the Virgin Mary and the beliefs and practices of Catholicism. My vintage Rosary arrived in the mail today, and I look forward to using it as a tool for prayer and meditation. I have already been praying the Rosary using Jansen's book, as cited above, which includes pictures of the beads to use in the absence of the real thing.

Interestingly, prayer beads were not invented by the Catholic Church. Buddhist Japa Mala prayer beads preceeded the Rosary and are likely one of its sources. There are also Islamic prayer beads. I already own and have used Japa Mala beads for meditation, though I am not Buddhist. I also practice yoga (a spiritual as well as physical practice), though I am not of Indian origin or Hindu. Charlotte Mason, a Christian educational philosopher and homeschooling pioneer declared that all of the world religions contain the light of truth but that Christianity contains the greatest, brightest light.

When I was a Montessori teacher at St. Joseph's school in Columbus, I heard for the first time the word ecumenical, defined above. Students and teachers did not have to be Catholic to attend the school. It welcomed members of any religion or none, just like AA and its affiliated groups. I thought this was a pretty cool attitude, and it seems that many Christians could use a dose of it.

Protestants do not only object to what they perceive as the overly exalted veneration of Mary and her worship, but also Catholic beliefs and practices such as purgatory, confession to a priest, penance, the community of saints, and in some cases the baptism of babies. I believe in baptism by water when the person is old enough to make a conscious decision, but I don't think the baptism of babies is wrong. I have been to Protestant churches that baptize babies and ones that baptize adults in the Holy Spirit only, with no water at all, neither by sprinkling nor immersion. As a Protestant raised with the baptismal practice of immersion in water and with that as my personal preference/belief, should I subsequently avoid like the plague any church that baptizes in a different way? Such nitpicking over the details of Christian practice surely misses the point and would not be pleasing to God. This is why C.S. Lewis wrote his book, Mere Christianity. 

I have a Jehovah's Witness friend who considers herself and her church Christian, and they do not believe in hell. They assert Biblical sources for this belief. We must consider that there are a plethora of interpretations of the Bible, as well as the certain disadvantage we have in reading an English translation, where much is lost and translations can vary widely and be incorrect. It is also of historical record that the Bible was many times edited by men. The Jews, Catholics, and Protestants all have certain parts of the same Bible in common but others that are included or not included. Also, the religion of Islam has a common ancestry.

A homeschooling Christian friend of mine commented, in a discussion of organic food, that it is possible to make an idol of what we eat, referring to the scripture passage from Matthew 6 of not worrying about what we will eat or wear. Taking focus off  the meaning of Jesus' life and putting it on details of contention within the Christian community instead, especially in an attitude of judgment and fear (which is not in love, and so is not of God) is idolatrous. For any human being to think that he completely understands the ineffable God and the holy scriptures, or that he has the market cornered on salvation, lacks wisdom and is prideful. Jesus said, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God." This is what I am doing.

Being devoted to Mary is not the sole domain of the Catholic Church. In fact, according to Catholic writer Charlene Spretnak, devotion to Mary has waned since Vatican II. And many Protestants are rediscovering Mary in the light of ecumenical dialogue and the quality of her place in scripture. (Consider too that devotion and worship are not the same thing.) The Rosary does not belong exclusively to Catholics either and can be embraced by any Christian. One doesn't have to be Catholic to attend mass at a Catholic church, nor does one have to be Protestant to attend a service at one of their churches. One can be Protestant and honor the holiness of Mary and the sacred feminine.

Take what you like and leave the rest, practice Step 11 whether you are a member of a Twelve Step group or not, and seek the Kingdom of God first, setting aside fear, anger, indignation, the judgment and condemnation of others and their religious beliefs and practices, and the idolatry of placing your focus on the red tape rather than the Redeemer. The life of Mary is surely inseparable from the life of Jesus, and the contemplation of the Mysteries can be a part of any Christian path.

Marian Protestantism?

November 6, 2011

It is evident that I must continue to write about the Virgin Mary. As personal as this spiritual journey truly is, it can't stay locked in my head or hidden in my heart; perhaps because I intuit that I am not the only one facing these questions. And it is conceivable that I may have a unique perspective as a person brought up Protestant, as a spiritual seeker, and not least as a woman. While it makes me vulnerable to post for the whole world to read, I have never been one to shy from controversy. I may very well have something entirely new to contribute to the ecumenical dialogue.

I went to St. Mary's Catholic Church in Edgerton last night for mass for the first time. Beezy went with me, and when we entered the sanctuary a little early, there were already "Hail Mary" prayers being recited. The Rosary is of particular interest to me. I have for some time craved a spiritual practice that involves a metaphysical element, a meditative path to the deeper mysteries of the Christian faith. The church I grew up in, and was baptized in, was in no way mystical. My personal experience, however, was mystical indeed. At the age of 8, while sitting in Sunday school in the basement of the Church of Christ, God spoke to me quite clearly and instructed me to be baptized.

Right after Sunday school I told my mom of my experience. Surprisingly to me, she took me seriously. I thought that because I was a kid she would not. She asked if we had learned about baptism in Sunday school, which we had not, and I told her again that God just told me to get baptized. She said we would talk to the minister after church about it, and we did. I was ready to be baptized immediately, but because of my age I had to undergo religious instruction via visits by the minister to give me a slide show presentation with corresponding workbooks to be completed. To me it was all very simple. God told me to get baptized, and I wanted my sins to be forgiven. The condescension of the slides and workbooks was annoying.

At last the day of my baptism arrived, with the slight insult of my uncle, who was 13, getting to go first. After all, it was my idea (or rather, God had personally directed me), and he was copying me (as it seemed in my young mind)! What I remember is affirming my belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and He is my savior. I wore a white robe, which I remember being very heavy after I was dunked and it became thoroughly saturated. My spiritual experience was the opposite. I felt completely light, pure, and free from sin. I vowed never to be mean to my little brother again!

So having my first experience as a mystic at the age of only 8, I suppose I was destined to continue a long, long search for the Divine. Mary, as I have written before, was of no great significance in my religious upbringing. Now I am finding that there is a vast history of the Christian church of which I have been wholly ignorant. From the time of the earliest Christian communities, the people were devoted to Mary and understood her role in the new religion as a full spiritual presence, in a cosmological as well as a human sense. This was all lost in the Protestant tradition, and as I have read in the book Missing Mary, much of the mystical beauty surrounding devotions to the Mother of God was also lost to the Catholic Church after Vatican II in the early 1960s. Yet apparitions of Mary appearing to people on earth right into modern times is certainly significant and should not be ignored.

My question today then, is can a Protestant be devoted to the Virgin Mary, or must one convert to Catholicism to do so? With a quick internet search, I could see that there is a resurgence of ecumenical dialogue on the subject of Mary, and the idea that she may very well serve as the bridge between the various branches of Christian faith, that is so desperately needed. In fact, Mary seems to be honored more in the religion of Islam than she is in the Protestant tradition!

So here I find myself often visiting the Rosary Garden, and with a small statue of Mary on my fireplace mantle, studying how to pray the Rosary, and waiting for vintage rosary beads to arrive in the mail. Unfortunately, although I want my daughter to be raised with a much fuller expression of the sacred feminine as part of her religious experience than I ever knew, the Catholic churches in this area have no Sunday school or children's church experiences. So to a 7 year old child it is a boring service! Can a family belong to two churches? On the Sundays in which the Presbyterian church that we have attended does not have children's church, perhaps we could go to the Catholic church instead. And perhaps I could go to mass by myself some of the other weeks.

I don't doubt that some readers will think me confused. But a renewal and deepening of my faith, and a deeper dimension to the mysteries of the life of Christ are being opened, and I believe that there are many, many possible paths. This is mine, and I am sharing the journey.