Along Comes Mary (part 3)

 Twelfth Thursday after Pentecost

The question was, "Can I be a Methodist and still pray to Mary?" My answer to my Catholic becoming Methodist church member was "Yes." I was ordained 50 years ago. Had I been asked that same question then, I would have answered "No." Why has my mind changed?

Thursdays are Prayer and Spirituality days on the blog. Today, in this longer than I thought it would be series "Along Comes Mary" series, we'll deal with the question, "What are we going to do with Mary?' Let me put up again Jerry's insightful comment on this question:

"I find Mary inspiring and comforting. As such, I likely have a lot more reverence for Mary than most protestants. While I don't necessarily pray TO her, I sometimes meditate ON her. This difference may be as much a reaction to the anti-catholic admonitions I received as a child as opposed to a recognition of the difference in divinity between Mary and God."

What's the population of Heaven? The Sadducees of Jesus' time had a clear answer, "One." The Sadducees didn't believe in angels or any other divine beings, and didn't believe in the immortality of the soul or the resurrection of the dead. 

Jesus' heaven was considerably more populated. I remember a phrase from one of the communion liturgies, "Therefore with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we join their unending hymn." What follows is the sung Sanctus: "Holy, Holy, Holy, God of power and might..."

I know quite a few rather Sadducaic Methodists. They don't like The Apostles' Creed and really don't like the second of the four church membership vows, "Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, rejects the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin." My 1970 thinking was much more along that line. One God, distantly ensconced in heaven, was about all I could handle. Now I am much more accepting of historic Christian understandings of angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven, and of that phrase in the Apostles' Creed, "the communion of saints." 

I'm reminded of a phrase from an interview with the poet, T.S. Eliot. The interviewer asked, "Why should we read the ancients? We know so much more than they did." Eliot responded, "Yes, and they are precisely what we know."

Mothers are immensely important to us. They give us birth, nourish us, teach us, love us. We honor them (particularly on that second Sunday in May, Mothers' Day). Jesus' mother was no less important to him than ours are to us. Since he is our Lord, his mother merits special honor. She is a saint, and a part of the communion of saints.

The Catholic Ave Maria begins, "Hail Mary, full of grace." Catholics understand Mary as having a special overwhelming fullness of grace, so much grace that she can share it with us, if we pray for her to do so. 

In modern translations of Luke 1:28 the angel Gabriel says to Mary, "Greetings, O favored one." These translations may reflect a bit of Protestant bias. The Greek word, translated, "favored one." is kecharitomene. The Greek word for "grace" is charis. A truly literal translation of the perfect passive participle nominative singular feminine kecharitomene is"one who has been graced." We have no verb for grace in English, only the noun. Greek has the verb. This participle (a verbal adjective in grammar) kecharitomene is applied to no one else in the New Testament, only Mary.

My intention for the next week is to do what Jerry does, meditate on Mary. Don't worry, I won't spend the whole week on this. I'll do it maybe two or three times for a couple of minutes (my meditation attention span is rather short). Next Thursday I'll tell you how it went.

This quiz question for this week is "where does the title of this blog series come from." First correct answer gets a point in the quiz.

Faithfully,

Christian