Last week's Newsweek featured an interesting cover story, "From Jesus to Christ." A great deal of it we've heard before, but it is nevertheless fascinating to contemplate how Christianity grew from a handful of disheartened followers of an executed leader to the worldwide force it is today. Interestingly, a lot of it has to do with the early church's adaptability--something to consider, perhaps, for those who inexplicably insist that the church is somehow "unchanging."
Meanwhile, Time magazine a couple of weeks ago ran a cover story about "The Protestant Mary." (The article is available online to Time subscribers only.) The gist of it is that many Protestant ministers, theologians, and laypeople are "discovering" Mary as a central New Testament figure. Not so much the "Mother of God" angle that my church typically takes, but rather the "first disciple" angle, a key figure who was relegated to the background in the aftermath of the Reformation.
On the whole, I find that cheering. I've long felt it unfortunate that in the Reformers' desire to dissociate themselves from Rome, one of the discarded gems was the pantheon of saints. To those of us who believe in eternity, asking, St. Anthony, St. Jude, or, yes, St. Mary to pray for us is no different than asking a friend or family member to do so. (Contrary to popular misconception, a careful Catholic knows that he or she does not pray "to" a saint--that would be idolatry, which is heretical--but rather we ask a saint to pray for or with us. It's unfortunate that we will colloquially refer to praying "to" St. Christopher--it causes confusion for both Catholics and non-Catholics.) To look to the saints as exemplars of the holy life in no way diminishes the rightful focus on Christ. As a college friend of mine succinctly put it, "These are the guys who hang around with Jesus." It's curious, especially, that Mary all but vanished from the Protestantreligions, inasmuch as Martin Luther was himself a devotee of the Virgin.
That said, I am inherently suspicious of Mariology, especially those within my church who push to have the Vatican proclaim her "co-redemptrix" of the world. Nothing against Mary, but the foundation of the Christian faith is that there is one redeemer, viz., Jesus. Proponents insist that "co-" in this context does not imply equality, but the fact is that the prefix "co-" in modern usage does indeed connote an equal footing--two people writing a book are said to be co-authors; the people with whom I labor in the salt mines are my co-workers; and so on--and it's disingenuous to pretend otherwise, or hearken back to some antiquated or strict-constructionist definition of the prefix. In fact, it smacks of deceitfulness. I think Mary would agree that she probably has enough titles and honorifics already, and I suspect she too would/does look askance at attempts to elevate her to, effectively, goddess status.
As with the other saints, Mary deserves our contemplation and imitation...after all, she was the one who said yes! (Here's a thought for you: I'm enough of a Catholic to believe wholeheartedly in free will. So Mary, when approached by the angel, was free to take a pass on the whole deal. What would have happened in that case? Would God continue to prod her, as God is sometimes wont to do? Or would he have moved on to someone else? If nothing else, that would play havoc with my church's idea of the Immaculate Conception--which refers, by the way, to Mary's conception, not Jesus'--since that philosophy presumes that Mary was born without sin in preparation of her eventually carrying the Savior.) But none of them deserves idolatry.
________
Apropos of nothing, in searching for the Time magazine link above I landed upon the following: http://www.time.gov/, which gives "official" US time for the various time zones. Although I enjoy that sort of thing (in a past life, I would daily use my company's WATS line to call the US Naval Observatory Master Clock--this was pre-internet, obviously--and set my watch accordingly), I do have to ask myself if it really matters what the "official" time is. I mean, in our daily routine, does it matter that much if it's, say 1:14:01 or 1:15:34? Isn't "about" good enough?
And yet it bugs me inexplicably that I can't seem to get the digital clock on the microwave and the digital clock on the stove to stay in synch.
And it really bugs me that the TV networks can't coordinate their clocks--it's annoying to have to set the VCR manually when the capability exists to set it automatically simply because I can't trust the network to start a show at 8:00 and not 7:59...or worse, to end it on time! I mean, don't they know about http://www.time.gov/?
No comments:
Post a Comment