Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Pro-lifers: Please stop insulting the Blessed Virgin Mary

People tend get upset when their mother is insulted, do they not? Given that, one might wonder how Jesus feels about the offensive comparisons pro-life groups tend to make this time of year with regard to His holy Mother Mary (e.g. "The Christmas story of the birth of Jesus Christ is the ultimate portrayal of a single mother with an unplanned pregnancy that ends in an overwhelming success"). While a mere mortal obviously can't speak for Christ, it is clear that other "children of Mary" are likely to find such references to our holy Mother terribly offensive.

There's no denying that pro-lifers have noble goals in mind, but it is NOT at all noble to compare the holy immaculate, chaste, sinless Virgin Mary's pregnancy - her womb, a holy tabernacle carrying God, as per God's own design - with that of sinful, unchaste, fornicating unmarried women who contravene God's laws and conceive illegitimately. Certainly the Virgin Mary's pregnancy was far from "unplanned", rather it was divinely ordained, promised in Genesis, and consented to in advance by the Blessed Virgin Mary herself. Further, her sacred Child was conceived miraculously by the Holy Spirit and born into a chaste married home - He was not a product of fornication, nor was He raised by a "single mother". God chose a chaste Virgin, betrothed to the holy St. Joseph, and thereby honored marriage.

Likewise, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the handmaid of the Lord, and St. Joseph are perfect role models who did God's will, whereas fornicating couples have acted immorally against God's will, and they give a bad example to others (not to mention making their children victims of their sin by conceiving them illegitimately). Mary risked being shamed and even her own life to follow God's will, unwed mothers have chosen pleasure over God's will.

It is offensive - even blasphemous - to compare the incomprehensible dignity of the Immaculate Virgin to the shame of fornicating women. Pro-lifers, will you please stop insulting the Blessed Virgin Mary? If mere mortals get upset when their mother (sinful though she be) is insulted, do you imagine Christ feels differently about insults to His holy & immaculate Mother?

Keep in mind that if Mary really was similar to the women the pro-lifers compare her to, she wouldn't have been chosen to be the Mother of God.

"Hail, God's palace; hail, tabernacle of the Most High; hail, house of God; hail, His holy vestments; hail, handmaid of God!" (St. Francis of Assisi)

"The Blessed Mother, Mary, raises the Divine Infant from the Crib; she presses him to heart; she places him on her knees; it is our God, Emmanuel, throned, but with such love and majesty on the Ark of the New Covenant. How far is the glory of Mary above that of the other living Throne formed for the Eternal Word by the trembling wings of Cherubim! And the Ark of Moses, made of corruptible wood, covered with plates of gold, holding within it the Manna and the Rod of Aaron and the very Tables of the Law - it is not a figure that pales in the presence of the holiness and the dignity of the Mother of God?" (Dom Gueranger)

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