DEVOTION TO OUR LADY AND THE SAINTS

                       By Father William Most

1. <Worship>: Do Catholics worship her? Protestants often claim 
that. But let us examine the command of Our Lord: "Judge Not".

We distinguish two things: a) the objective rating of an action, 
e.g., murder is gravely sinful. We can say this independently of 
the interior dispositions of anyone who does it. If I see someone 
put a gun to another's head and pull the trigger, it is not 
"judging' to say I saw murder.

b) The interior dispositions of the sinner - here we must not 
judge, for at least in general, we cannot know much if anything 
of the interior. It is to this that the Gospel command applies.

Therefore: as to Marian devotion: a) the forms it takes, asking 
her to intercede with her Son, lighting candles etc - these are 
not in themselves worship. What of the eternal flame at the grave 
of JFK?

b) The interior attitudes of Catholics: to insist they mean it to 
be worship, i. e., the kind of honor due to God alone - this is 
simply rash judgment, and is forbidden by "Judge not." So those 
who make the charge are guilty of objective sin, and of violating 
the Gospel.

2. <Honor in general>: Jesus obeyed the fourth commandment to 
honor Father and Mother, for He went down to Nazareth and was 
even subject to them. If He honored her, we can and should 
imitate Him. God Himself has honored her so greatly. For anyone 
to say: I reject her, will not honor her, would be an affront to 
His judgment.

3. <Only One Mediator: 1 Tim 2:5>: That is true in three senses: 
a) There is only one who is by nature a mediator, having both 
divine and human natures; b) there is only one whose mediation is 
strictly needed; c) there is only one who can mediate by His own 
power. -- Others, including Our Lady and the Saints, can act only 
by His power. So to say they do it does not detract from Him, but 
rather shows the greatness of His power in that He can even make 
creatures capable of doing something, not of course the same as 
what He does, as we have said.

4. <Need>?: In itself, She and the Saints would not be needed at 
all. But Our Father loves good order. He likes to have one thing 
in place to serve as the reason or title for doing the second 
(cf. St. Thomas, <Summa> I.19.5.c) Thus though He could grant 
prayers simply, He preferred to bind Himself by the promise:

Ask and you shall receive." Similarly with the covenant.

In redeeming us, He had several options to choose from:

a) forgive all sin without any makeup. But this would not satisfy 
His love of good order, nor be so rich for us.

b) Appoint any human to do any religious act, perhaps an animal 
sacrifice, and then count it as redemption, even though it would 
be less than the weight of all sin.

c) Send His Son to be born in a palace, with every possible 
luxury. He would not need to die. The mere fact of becoming man 
would be enough to earn all grace and to make satisfaction, for 
an incarnation is a "comedown" for a divine Person. He could have 
added a little prayer,"Father, forgive them", and then He could 
have ascended without death. This would be infinite in worth. But 
Our Father in His love of good order and love of us wanted to go 
beyond infinity and He did it.

d) Go beyond the palace to the stable, beyond a short prayer to 
the terrible death of the cross. Then He could not only forgive, 
but do it lavishly, which is what He does. For He gave to the 
Apostles and their successors the power to act in His name: 
"Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them." (For 
someone to attempt to bypass His generous arrangement is of 
course wrong, to ask Him to forget the means He established, and 
just forgive without it).

e) He did not need Our Lady for anything but to furnish the flesh, 
of the human family, in which He could die. But He chose to use 
her much more. Starting with St. Justin Martyr, c. 145-150, the 
Fathers speak of her as the New Eve: Just as the first Eve really 
shared in bringing down original sin, so the New Eve would really 
share, by her obedient acceptance of God's plan, in reversing the 
damage. Today, the Church sees still more, that He willed to have 
her obedience joined with that of her Son (Rom 5:19) on Calvary. 
This would melt, as it were, with His to form the obedience which 
is the covenant condition of the New Covenant. In that, of 
course, she could do nothing on her own, but it shows His power 
that He could and did will to associate her with Him, to make all 
richer for good order and richer for us.

Thomas Aquinas expressed this principle well in <Summa> I.19.5.c: 
God in His love of good order likes to have one thing in place to 
serve as a reason for His giving of the second, even though that 
reason or title does not move Him. In the OT God promised to 
accept the prayer of Job for his three "friends" who were not 
worthy in themselves" Job 42:8. Often Moses reminded God of 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - would refer to His promises to them, 
but probably also to their intercession or merits.

5. <The Saints>: Only Our Lady was taken into the objective 
redemption, the great sacrifice, the once for all earning of a 
title or claim to all forgiveness and grace. But in the process 
of giving out those fruits, the subjective redemption, it pleased 
our Father again to bring still others into the work. Hence, the 
other Saints, and her too of course.

Calvary earned all grace and forgiveness infinitely. But He 
wanted to provide, in the subjective redemption, a title for the 
giving out of the fruits of Calvary. So He ordered:"Do this in 
memory of me". He wanted us to join with His dispositions, to 
form part of the condition for giving out that which was once 
earned. This is accord with St. Paul's picture of the Christian 
regime, the <syn Christo> theme: We are saved and made holy if 
and to the extent that we are members of Christ, and like Him: 
cf. Romans 8:17: "We are heirs with Him, provided we suffer with 
Him, so we may also be glorified with Him." St. Paul in Col 1.24 
said:

"I fill up the things that are lacking to the tribulations of 
Christ in my body, for His body, which is the Church." There is 
nothing lacking of course to the sufferings of Christ the Head. 
But there can be lacking the things our Father wills, for 
rebalancing the objective order, in members of Christ. By the 
unity of the Mystical Body, one can make up for another. St. Paul 
did much of that.

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