Miles to go before I sleep
There's nothing like getting behind on things. It forces you to do twice the amount of normal work in the same "I don't have enough time to do all this" state you were in before the event came along that put you behind. I made a dent over the past two weeks, having completed my scheduled responses to most of the bloggers I wanted to respond to on the Reformed Catholicism website. In between those, I also found time to address the side issue of 4.5 Calvinism.
I now have about 11 pages of "catch-up" text left to deal with, mostly with regard to Kevin Johnson's Roman-Catholic-like facination with Mary. I'll respond to that in due time; but here's some advice to all Mary venerators in the meantime:
If you're going to adore Mary this Christmas, at least adore the right Mary; you know, the Mary of humble circumstances rather than the Mary of exaltation; the Mary who initially receives the word of God with great enthusiasm, who then struggles to understand her true role vis-à-vis the conflict between her old role as mother of Jesus (in which she exercises her will over him) and her new role as servant of Jesus (in which she humbly submits to his will), who at times gets it right, while other times not, who incurs many rebuffs by Jesus himself due to her presumptiousness in asserting perceived "rights" based on her biological relationship to him, who must finally accept that her relationship to Jesus in the kingdom is no greater than that of any other disciple, who must come to terms with the fact that her "motherhood" of Jesus is a mere temporal condition that (along with all other biological ties) is severed in the new eschatological family of God, and who at times even opposes Jesus’ mission and sides with those who deem Jesus “insane”--in short, the frail (but real) Mary of the New Testament; rather than the mythical Mary who ends up in later history as a gnostic virgin, a sinless human being, an intercessor between man and Christ, a mother of God, an idolatrous queen of heaven, and an object of prayer and worship.
I mean, if you're going to allow yourself to be consumed with devotional thoughts about Mary your Savior, the very least of your obligations is to be sure you've got the right Mary. After all, the last thing you'll want when you stand before Mary's great white throne at the end of the age is to have to give an account to her regarding your lack of diligence in learning who she really is.
Just a thought.
I now have about 11 pages of "catch-up" text left to deal with, mostly with regard to Kevin Johnson's Roman-Catholic-like facination with Mary. I'll respond to that in due time; but here's some advice to all Mary venerators in the meantime:
If you're going to adore Mary this Christmas, at least adore the right Mary; you know, the Mary of humble circumstances rather than the Mary of exaltation; the Mary who initially receives the word of God with great enthusiasm, who then struggles to understand her true role vis-à-vis the conflict between her old role as mother of Jesus (in which she exercises her will over him) and her new role as servant of Jesus (in which she humbly submits to his will), who at times gets it right, while other times not, who incurs many rebuffs by Jesus himself due to her presumptiousness in asserting perceived "rights" based on her biological relationship to him, who must finally accept that her relationship to Jesus in the kingdom is no greater than that of any other disciple, who must come to terms with the fact that her "motherhood" of Jesus is a mere temporal condition that (along with all other biological ties) is severed in the new eschatological family of God, and who at times even opposes Jesus’ mission and sides with those who deem Jesus “insane”--in short, the frail (but real) Mary of the New Testament; rather than the mythical Mary who ends up in later history as a gnostic virgin, a sinless human being, an intercessor between man and Christ, a mother of God, an idolatrous queen of heaven, and an object of prayer and worship.
I mean, if you're going to allow yourself to be consumed with devotional thoughts about Mary your Savior, the very least of your obligations is to be sure you've got the right Mary. After all, the last thing you'll want when you stand before Mary's great white throne at the end of the age is to have to give an account to her regarding your lack of diligence in learning who she really is.
Just a thought.
posted by NA at 6:15 AM
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