“Blessed is she who believed” Luke 1/45
Let me begin this reflection on Mary as exemplar of our faith with a story told by Cardinal Suenens. It seems Father Karl Rahner was asked why there has been a decline in devotion to Mary. Father Rahner’s reply was most interesting. He said that all Christians, Catholics and protestants alike, who face the common temptation of turning the central truth of the faith into abstractions and abstractions have no need of mothers” (cf. Cardinal Suenens, “Mary in the World of Today”, L’Osservatore Romano. June 15,1972).
Today we still face the temptation to reduce the faith to a series of abstractions. In teaching, in pastoral practice, in confronting social evils, the Church must be vigilant lest her living Faith be reduced to a mere intellectual or mythical system, to any ideology, to “the spirit of the age”. The sorrowful Mother and the beloved disciple did not come to Golgotha to consider theories about mercy and Redemption:
1.Temptation to Abstraction
Our vocation demands that we take our stand each and every day beneath the Cross with Mary and John. We are called to bear witness not just to something; we are sent to be the witness of Someone, whom we gladly call “Son of God” and “Son of Mary” In the world today, many names other than the name of Jesus are presented as sources of Redemption and Joy. At times these alternative sources of redemption are presented not only as part of the Gospel, but indeed as the Gospel itself. What results is a Gospel without Christ!
As a mere literary figure or myth, Jesus is presented as the proponent of various competing philosophical and political systems. The ordinary Magistrerium of the Church has spoken forcefully about the dangers of allowing either collectivism or capitalism to claim the faith as its own. The Church has exercised great vigilance in pointing out the danger of a Gospel without Christ.
11. Faith in the Person of Christ
We must look into our own hearts, to examine our own personal life of faith. For example, homilies can be filled with good ideas and good admonitions, all in accordance with the teaching of the Church, yet lack the witness of a heart that is daily transfigured by contact with the person of Christ. We may find ourselves speaking always about something but seldom about Someone! It is that Someone who must daily inhabit our innermost self and constitute the substance of our ministry.
Father Rahner was right when he said that “abstractions do not need a mother”. If we take Mary as our model in faith, we will not succumb to the danger of reducing our Faith to a series of abstract points and teachings.
Mary, gazing upon her dying Son, understood that he and no other is Savior and Messiah. Mary did not learn this from any source other than her intense and loving relationship with Jesus, the fruit of her womb.
As our mother, as Mother of the Church, she engenders in us a deeply personal knowledge and union with her Son. She stands with us when we preach about her Son, helping us to unveil for those we serve the mystery of his saving love, She, who was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, “the Lord and Giver of Life”, encourages us to open our hearts to the Holy spirit, who enables us to speak convincingly of Christ and his saving deeds.
111 To live in Christ Jesus
The Cross makes it possible for us and for those whom we serve to lead lives that bear the unmistakable marks of Redemption in Christ Jesus.
Indeed, that conversion of life is an essential part of coming to know Christ. The homilies of the Fathers of the Church made it clear that the first condition for entry into the Community of Believers was precisely this transformation of life. The Fathers were giving a way of life that makes it possible for the word of Life to penetrate their minds and hearts.
"It seems Father Karl Rahner was asked why there has been a decline in devotion to Mary. Father Rahner’s reply was most interesting. He said that all Christians, Catholics and protestants alike, face the common temptation of turning the central truth of the faith into abstractions and abstractions have no need of mothers” (cf. Cardinal Suenens, “Mary in the World of Today”, L’Osservatore Romano. June 15,1972)"
Standing beneath the Cross with Mary, we must find the courage to preach the Gospel in undiluted fashion “the gospel without compromise”. The moral demands of the Christian life, are the concrete form that living our faith takes. The truths and realities that we embrace by faith and celebrate by worship (lex orandi est lex credendi) must find expression in the decisions great and small of day-to-day living. Without genuine moral conversion, faith remains a stock of pleasant thoughts, a series of abstractions.
We must sometimes suffer the martyrdom of saying ‘No”. No one likes to be thought unduly negative or to have the reputation of being “ behind the times”. Few of us relish the thought of being a sign of contradiction to the culture in which we live, and yet it is precisely that sort of witness that is asked of us.
The temptation to take refuge in an abstract Gospel is almost as old as the Church itself. In a sense, the old temptation dons a new guise in every age. To know Jesus, who has known and loved us first, is our joy, our strength, and our message. May we, like Mary, be overshadowed by the Holy spirit so that Christ and him crucified ( 1 Cor 1:23) will truly live in us.
Auxiliary Bishop &
Vicar General
Published by: Ranjan De Mel
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