The Mother of God, Blessings and Heresies

Just as Mary Brings Forth the Word, True Blessing Unleashing Saving Truth

As we honor the Mother of God, a battle is being fought for blessings. More than a millennium and a half ago, the Church argued to secure the title of Mary as the Mother of God precisely to safeguard the meaning of blessing in the Church. Somehow, affirming her motherhood protects the incarnation and the incarnation reveals that God is reordering human affairs with a blessing that surpasses every hope. This battle is more ancient than the Bible. The blessings of Moses and the Prophets stood out against a disordered efforts to advance power, pleasure and prestige through the false blessings of idolatry. With John the Baptist, the battle for blessings culminated with his witness to the Bridegroom to all of Israel and the sanctity of marriage before Herod. Today, in the Church, this same battle tests the unity of minds and hearts established by Christ when He laid down his life for our sake.

It is not disobedient to observe that ecclesial power and authority can be abused when they are not ordered to the saving purpose of Christ. The battle waged in the Church is to protect against this abuse — and bishops are speaking out not only because of cultural conditions in their own churches but because the Holy Spirit is unveiling in the pastoral circumstances that they face universal truths that the whole Church must recover. The form of this battle goes beyond theological argument, though purification and renewal of minds in the Church is a grace for every believer. The darkness we face is deeper than the world of ideas and a proclivity to conform to this age obscures the very structure of things, even in the Church. We need now more than ever the Light and Truth that comes forth from the womb of the Virgin to help us find our way.

The mystery of Mary helps us see that the hope of humanity is at stake. Without the Light the comes through her obedient faith, the reality of sin and death seem to have the upper hand. Satan seems to be the center of the story and human thriving seems completely blocked by the ancient adversary and obstacle. Under this shadow, the powerful make absolute claims over every aspect of human life. Under this darkness, the home cannot be shielded from the competitiveness of the world. There is no room for the sacred when this enchantment seizes the soul. In this smothering obscurity, one lacks the clarity to distinguish good from evil, the order of creation from the order of sin, of holy unions from the merely banal. But Mary’s Motherhood contradicts this appearance and makes space for a pure love to freely flow through humanity once again.

The blessings of our faith come from the one St. Paul declares “man born of woman.” Just as Christ came through Mary’s “yes” to the Holy Spirit, so too every blessing that comes through Christ. In her maternal love, we see a nobility deeper than sin at work in humanity, a gift from God on which all human action plays out, including the blessings that we give in the name of her Son. Such blessings are about the advancement of God’s plan even in a world darkened by sin - so that darkness and confusion do not get the last word in human affairs.

Blessings of faith all share this deep connection with all that is good, holy and pure about humanity - because the Son of Mary reveals the truth of humanity to itself. This is the truth of the Father’s love and the truth of its most high calling. When a blessing of faith is spoken, whether in the liturgy or in para-liturgical devotion, the purity and holiness of the Church, which the Mother of God personifies, help us see how the light shines in the darkness and darkness cannot hold it back.

Mary in the Bible is a woman of blessings - from the Angel, from the Mother of the Forerunner, from her own lips we see a new power at work in humanity. Blessings are a form of sacred speech - a language of the heart that flows from and leads to God’s presence in the center of human history and the human heart. As speech, the words and gestures that convey this great reality are to be safeguarded from abuse.

Dangerous are meaningless words and powerful is meaningful speech! Yes, it is meaningless to accuse and condemn, even if we need to correct bad teaching, for every accusation is silenced by the Cross. Whenever condemnation is made, one must always be mindful that Satan is the accuser of the brethren. So must we be careful not to become his mouthpieces when we debate. Our debate advances not by clever argument or by personal attacks, but by prayer and sacrifice, by forgiveness and mutual understanding. Only when we suffer the truth together do new capacities of heart help us remain faithful to the mystery that we have received.

At stake is every word that affirms the dignity of another, that helps a soul make a new beginning, no matter its plight, has provided a moment of grace that can change human history for eternity. Thus, words matter, especially those ordered to and from the sacred for these have the power of helping a soul go forward into God’s plan or else lose their way. Freedom from sin, freedom to live, to love and to lift up others - this freedom requires a recovery of the sacred, of that part of human life that cannot be changed because it measures what it is to be human. The battle for blessings is a battle for the sacred, and all of us need to rally under what is good, holy and true about our lives. The Mother of God is celebrated precisely because she has given birth to this Standard - Her Son helps us rediscover the truth about the sacred, about humanity, about the whole of reality. He does this because He reveals the face of the Father - and those who gaze upon this love know a wisdom too great for this world to hold.

Blessings are abused in the machinations of those who discern the life of the Church apart from the Mother of God. She safeguards the holiness of the Church and its sacred structure through her very motherhood but many today exclude her if not by overt declaration then by the practical discernment of life in the Church. This “practical” heresy could be called “Catholic Church Incorporated” and it is the imposition of “technocracy” onto the mystery of the Body of Christ.

In this heresy, the Motherhood of Mary is displaced by exigencies whose urgency, experts tell us, must be addressed. To manage the next pastoral crisis, we must secure power even if it means sacrificing a little moral truth along the way. “Technocracy” claims sovereignty over human affairs through offering technology’s power at the price of freedom and truth. The sacredness of human relationships - marital relations, relations of fatherhood, motherhood, of family - are as displaced by experts in the name of compassion as is the virginal faith of the Mother of God by technology.

It is dangerous to the life of the Church when experts use the power of technology, including social communications, to filter the truth until the boundaries of good and evil are obscured. They assure us that the good can be reduced to the socially acceptable and evil limited to what makes others feel uncomfortable. If concern over sin is mentioned, we are promptly assured that only the experts know the truth and that they only have altruistic motives. Technocracy robs clergy of a pastoral charity rooted in spiritual paternity. Discussions become about limiting risk, appeasing factions and increasing numbers. This coldhearted form of governance takes hold because we Christians are too inclined to what is comfortable, convenient and familiar, and have not disciplined ourselves toward conversion of heart.

Having lost sight of Revelation’s “Great Sign” that mysterious woman with child, we allow experts to nudge us towards whatever ideological agendas they have mistaken for the Gospel of Christ. In this thinking, devotion is reduced to facilitating an emotional connection with a religious corporation. The Church may be hidden in this somewhere but where the vast horizons of the Church begin and the narrow confines of corporation ends are a little obscured. Yet the Incarnation reveals that eternal truth has invaded human affairs.

By faith one receives power to act beyond what is comfortable, convenient and merely familiar with a new subjectivity that lives in the life of the Church. These ecclesial horizons open up when, through the shedding of Christ’s blood, one is at last free from sin, free to love in a way that is right and just, free at last to be fully human and alive. When it obscures the truth, technocracy contradicts the Incarnation.

The Fathers of the Church debated fiercely over the truth of the Incarnation, the truth of the Mother of God, because of all that is at stake when words to flow from and lead to what is sacred. This is why care must be taken not to use blessings to approve perversion - even as experts begin to advance confusion over marriage and extra-marital sexual relationships of all kinds. Blessings for what is evil are not chaste. This means that they contradict purity of heart. Unchaste abuse of sacred speech only leads to heartless resentment and anxiety because the heart can only rest in truth. But for those whose blessings are chaste, true love quells aggression, even if the truth is won with the shedding of their blood in Christ.

When confusion and heartlessness seem to have the upper hand, the loving Mother of the Redeemer is already blessing all families who dare to rise again and celebrate the Christmas mystery. Her virginal Motherhood leads heaven to protect the sacredness of marriage for man and woman, to keep the home sacred for life and innocence, to safeguard the blessings of the Church even from political agendas. And for those who most need a word of hope, for the loneliness and forgotten, the Mother of the Redeemer comes with the love of her Son. Even those who no longer think they deserve another chance, she knows her Son gains nothing when souls are lost and so calls them to repentance as only a mother can. This is why we call her Theotokos, God-bearer, the Great Mother of God.