Lent Day Nineteen - A Ha-boob , A Lady, And a camel

Gospel	Luke 1:26-38 ©

'I am the handmaid of the Lord'

The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. He went in and said to her, ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, The Lord is with you.’ She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, ‘Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God’s favor. Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob forever and his reign will have no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘But how can this come about, since I am a virgin?’ ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you’ the angel answered ‘and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God. Know this too: your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in her old age, herself conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible to God.’ ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me.’ And the angel left her.

We were lucky today.  Before dawn today a great wind came up and one of the things even seasoned desert travelers fear came up a sandstorm!  My first thought was of Benjamin, I rose and began to dress quickly so I could do something to help the camel that I was in charge of.  I was just getting ready to leave when Uriah, our leader, stopped me and asked where I thought I was going.  I told him that I was going to help Benjamin and find a safe place for him to weather the storm.  Uriah almost died laughing when he heard this.  He said. "You idiot, the camel is happier than you are right now.  If we had to we could load up and march on.  The camel is perfectly adapted to whatever this cursed desert can throw at him.  His hooves are large so he has no trouble walking in the soft sand and his eyes are protected by his eyelashes.  If you go out there, you will take the chance of breathing in the sand into your lungs and perhaps somewhere down the line get an infection.  No, sit and meditate and enjoy this brief respite.  It will be over soon and I will be all over you to get that stinking camel loaded so we can make up the time we are wasting because of this ha-boob, which is a word that means sandstorm."  He walked away still laughing over my ignorance.  It gave me pause though to think about how the camel received everything he could need from God to live in the space allotted to him.  He was perfectly adapted.  

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation when God sent the Angel Gabriel to a young girl named Mary and with her consent, the Savior was sent on His way to become a man and to save us from our sins.  

May Mary, the Mother of God forgive me, but she like the camel is perfectly adapted to her role in the story of salvation.  She, by a favor granted by God, was born without original sin. This was a necessary thing that God did because the mother of God could have no connection with evil, not even the stain of original sin.  So, while we were drawn out of the pit of sin by the work of Jesus, God, drawing on the benefits of the sacrificial death of Jesus beforehand, He caused Mary to be carried over the pit of sin that the rest of us all fell into.  So God saved Mary and was her needed savior. 

While the winds were howling I broke out my Bible and read the account of the Annunciation.  I was struck by one phrase and that was "Hail Mary, full of grace."  The angel did not bring a supply of grace to Mary, he recognized that her soul was filled with it.  When something is filled, you cannot fit in anymore.  The angel Gabriel simply was greeting the woman and saying what was in his view. 

How do we know that Mary was full of grace?  That is simple, she was humble and selfless and immediately took on the work that God had asked her to do. She could have refused without any consequences what-so-ever but she didn't because her whole heart was turned to God and refusing God anything would not be something she would want to do.  She was, like the camel, forgive me gentle mother, adapted to her role.  

Today, I believe her to be physically in heaven and always beside her Son.  I pity those who take little notice of her because they miss the opportunity to receive graces from Jesus through her.  Jesus loves His mother so much that He cannot refuse her anything.  For her part, her eyes are on the hands of her master, her Son, and the spiritual mother of us all. 

The haboob came to an end and Uriah was as good as his word. He was all over us to get the camp struck and us on the move.  I could imagine John Wayne playing his part if this were a movie because one of his favorite sayings in the morning was, "Let's get a move on.  We're burning daylight."  And so I put my back into breaking camp and loading the camels, breakfast will happen at lunchtime today.  Another day which would pass like so many others.  Funny, isn't it?  I now have a greater love for the Blessed Mother because of a camel named Benjamin. 

Who is to blame?

Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more,  so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through justification for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

A young boy was having trouble in school.  He just could not understand how numbers worked.  It wasn't that he was stupid, he just had a blind spot in his brain that made it hard for him to understand numbers and how they worked.  This was not his fault.  It was a built-in defect that he did not ask for nor did he do anything to cause it. His parents were not aware of the issue but his teacher saw that while the boy was pretty good at most subjects, he lagged behind the rest of the class when it came to mathematics.  The teacher contacted the parents and they agreed to get their son some help.  He was enrolled in an after-school program at a learning center that specialized in teaching people that had learning disabilities in mathematics.  The boy was not too happy that his after-school time was being eaten up by this extra tutoring in numbers.  The first few times either his father or mother brought him to the classes.  He went in and he actually tried to absorb what the tutor was telling him.  He started to improve a little bit at a time.  He was still very resentful that he could not use this time to visit with his friends and play video games with them.  After a few times, since the learning center was only a couple of blocks from home, his parents sent him to the class on his own.  The walk took him past his best friends house and one day his friend called to him and told him he had a new video game.  It was THE game that everyone wanted!  The boy was sorely tempted but the books under his arm pulled him away from his friend and he went to the learning center because that is what his parents expected him to do.  He was making excellent progress and starting to feel more comfortable with mathematics than he ever did before.  One day, he was on his way to tutoring when a couple of his friends were sitting with his best friend on the porch as he started to pass by.  They called out to him and invited him to play "the game."  He wanted to very much, but once again, he yielded to the wishes of his parents.  His conscience was leading him in the right direction.  About a week later, he was again passing his best friends house and this time there were more classmates there, all of them had come over to experience the video game of the century.  Today among the people on the porch was the class bully.  He saw the boy and started making fun of him, calling him a "sucker" and a "retard" and all of the other kids laughed and made fun of him.   Still, in spite of all of this peer pressure, the boy knew he had to go to tutoring because it was the right thing to do.  And so, hearing the taunts and laughter of his classmates fade as he walked away he felt good because he had done the right thing.  

All of us, man, woman, boy or girl have within us two opposing forces.  As sinful humans we can be persuaded to go our own way, to sin against God, with remarkable ease.  Just look at the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were seduced by a snake and a piece of fruit,  But because we are sons and daughters of the Great King, beloved by Him, each of us just because of who we are, we have inside of us a cache of grace that we can call on when we are being tempted to go our own way.  Sometimes, the grace we have at our command is not enough.  Our Father sees that and he immediately sends us additional grace to help us to keep on the straight path. If we accept this help, we will continue on our journey without delay. 

But who is to blame here?  If the compulsion to sin is already inside us, isn't God to blame for that?  Afterall, he did create us in His own image.  To blame God for our tendency to sin would be like blaming the boy in our story for his mental allergy to the science of numbers.  When we are born, we have the sin of Adam and Eve on our souls.  It is washed away in baptism but deep within us we still want to taste the fruit, we still want to be as God.  This remnant of original sin colors our judgment and at times makes us go off on a wrong road.  Our Father does what He can and He does send us all of the graces we need to defeat the bully of sin, we just have to be open to the graces and be ready to embrace them and just to say "no" to the sin of the moment.  If we cooperate fully with God, if we are always open to His graces, we will never sin again. Please remember I said "if" we cooperate.  In the lives of each of us, we will fail at one time or another.  At these times we can imitate one of two people.  We can be Judas and commit spiritual suicide or we can be Peter who went out and wept bitterly and came back to receive the forgiveness of Christ.   The grace of God can defeat any temptation to sin, but when it does not because of our choice, God's mercy can and will forgive any sin we have committed if we own up to it, confess it humbly and make a firm commitment to avoid the sin in the future. 

Our brothers and sisters in purgatory need our help. Please pray for them today.  On the sidebar, please feel free to access that fact sheet I have published regarding Purgatory.  

Things Protestants Don't Understand About the Catholic Church - Worshipping Mary

C A T H O L I C S   D O   N OT   W O R S H I PM A R Y 

W E   N E V E R   H A V E   A N D   W E   N E V E R  W I L L 

I wanted to get the main point of this post out of the way very early on, and in a very clear manner, so that even those of the most limited attention span would have time to grasp what this post is all about.  To reprise, Catholics do not worship Mary.  This would be offensive to God, to Jesus, and to the Holy Spirit.  It would be offensive to Mary herself and so we do not do it.  Mary is a created creature, like ourselves, except in one very important aspect which is discussed below. 

Mary was a very pious young lady in an age where piety reigned.  To look at her you would see nothing special.  She was a normal person, perhaps just a bit happier than most but her

outward appearance was normal. 

Inwardly, Mary was very special indeed. She had been chosen from all creation to be the Mother of God.  She had been chosen by God as early as in the Garden of Eden when God Himself set her and her offspring as enemies of evil.  

To understand what made Mary different from any other created creature on earth we have to understand a little bit about the very nature of God.  God is all good, all loving, all knowing. God is not surprised by anything.  He does not live in time.  He sees and is present in what we consider the past, the present, and the future all at the same time.  He is all powerful. I believe He COULD create a rock that he could not move simply because he would will it so.  He would then, of course, will it out of existence because it would be a nuisance in his living room!  I do not think that any of my Protestant friends would disagree so far with my very brief description of the attributes of God.  Let's add Mary to the mix. 

Mary was a created creature. She was different from you and me because the stain of original sin never touched her soul.  She was immaculately conceived in the womb as a special gift of God to her.  Please understand that Mary, as a human, needed a savior.  As she was going to be the mother of Jesus, she was saved by Jesus in a very special and wonderful way.  God, in his mercy, applied the merits of the Cross to her before she was born so that the devil had no hold what-so-ever on her.  I can hear you asking how can this be?  Well, God, who is all-knowing and is not hampered by time saw the obedience of His Son and acted accordingly.  Here is an example of what was done.  For you and me, when we were born, we had the sin of Adam and Eve on our soul.  We were an enemy of God.  We were cast into a pit and Jesus came and drew us out of the pit by his saving death on the cross.  Mary too was saved by Christ.  In her case, she was carried over the pit and her soul never was touched by the original sin of Adam and Eve.  This special favor is what is called The Immaculate Conception of Mary.  She was born in the furnace of human love between her mother and father and was saved from original sin by the merits of Jesus.  Just for the record, Martin Luther believed in the Immaculate Conception and perpetual virginity of Mary.  

Mary in the Gospels does not speak often but when she does she says a whole lot in just a few words.  Can you remember the wedding feast at Cana?  Wedding feasts went on for days back then.  The feasting and drinking often went on for days as the community celebrated the birth of a new family.  The couple in this case either did not buy enough wine or the guests were making merry at a much higher rate than was expected for they ran out of wine.  This was a disaster for the young couple and there was not much that they could do about it.  Mary felt their pain and called to her Son and told Him the tail of woe.  He said to her that it wasn't time for Him to start his ministry yet. Mary looked deeply into His eyes and turned to the head waiter and told him to "Do whatever He tells you."  He had some stone vessels filled to the brim and told the servants to bring a ladle full to the head waiter.  When the head waiter tasted it he realized that this was the most magnificent wine that he had ever tasted.  He sent his staff out to fill the cups of the thirsty revelers and approached the bridegroom.  He asked him why he had saved the good wine for last?  Because he knew that at most parties the best wine was served first because the guests would enjoy it more and then when their pallets were dulled by the alcohol they would not notice that a lesser vintage was being served.   The point here is that Mary, all through scripture, never points to herself.  She always points to Jesus.  She knew who her Son was. 

Catholics do not worship Mary, as good as she is, as sinless as she is, she is but a creature.  We do venerate her.  She has a very special place in salvation history.  She is the mother of Jesus.  Jesus made special provision for her when he was dying on the Cross because he knew that a woman without a man to take care of her would be in desperate straits.  From the Cross he told John, "Here is your mother" and to His mother, He said,"Mother, here is your son."  The Bible tells us from that moment on John took her into his house and cared for her.  Jesus was not only giving Mary to John, he was giving her to us to be our spiritual mother. 

I think we all can agree that Jesus led a perfect life.  He fulfilled the Law without any of slips that we call sin.  His life was perfection indeed.  The ten commandments were followed perfectly by Him.  One of the commandments tells us to "Honor our Father and Mother."  Jesus did this perfectly throughout his whole life.  He committed no sin. So, if Jesus did this and we are to imitate his life in what we do then we too as adopted sons and daughters of God should honor our Mother in heaven.  It would not offend God that we honor the new Eve, the new Ark of the Covenant.  Catholics do just that.  We honor our mother.  

We honor Mary in various ways.  As the greatest saint in heaven, we pray to her and ask her to pray to Jesus for us.  Remember please, for a Christian, life is changed and not ended when we die so Mary can pray for us and is pleased to do so.  

But Jesus is the mediator between God and man.  Does praying to Mary asking for her intercession mean she is taking the place of Jesus and as such is forbidden?  No, not at all.  We are told in scripture to pray for one another.  We pray for our friends that the surgery goes well, or that the problems in their marriage heal.  When we pray for another we are acting as an intercessor for them and yet scripture commands us to pray for one another so it cannot be wrong.  So, if for a Christian life is not ended but changed then the saints in heaven, of which Mary is the greatest, can pray for us just like your best friend can here on earth. 

I want to touch on the apparitions of Mary on Earth.  It is widely believed that Mary has appeared in certain places at certain times.  The Catholic Church believes that public revelation ended with the death of the last Apostle.  All of the apparitions, both those that are approved by the Church, such as Fatima and Guadalupe and unapproved ones fall into the category of private revelation.  The approval of the Church does not certify the apparition as a dogma of the Church, it only certifies that Christians are free to believe in the apparition or not as their conscience dictates as there is nothing contrary to the faith being taught.  The amazing thing about all of the approved apparitions is that in none of them is Mary commanding anything for herself.  She is always pointing to her Son and recommending prayer and repentance.  

Mary is revered by Catholics.  No Catholic who is knowledgeable about their faith would consider worshipping Mary.  Have there been excesses? Yes, I would say that there have been.  Some Catholics in ignorance can go off half cocked when it comes to Mary.  But, the mainstream Catholic knows who Mary is and knows how she wants to be considered by her adopted children. 

This is a very complicated subject and the Catechism of the Catholic Church which is available online for free treats this subject much better than I can.  If you are going to criticize the Catholic Church, I would recommend you do so from a position of strength using her official teachings which can be found easily online.  The funny thing is that once you read the real teachings of the Church and see the Biblical origins you might have to take writers such as Bittner and Jack Chic to task as to why they spend so much of their time lying about the Church and what she believes.  Ignorance is a curable disease.  God bless you.