Advent reflections by Blessed John Henry Newman Queen with a crown of 12 stars
An important part of Cardinal Newman’s Advent preparation consisted of devotion to the Virgin Mary. His third reflection for the season is taken from a letter to his old friend in the Oxford Movement, E.B. Pusey, who remained an Anglican
I
fully grant that devotion towards the Blessed Virgin has increased among Catholics with the progress of centuries; I do not allow that the doctrine concerning her has undergone a growth, for I believe that it has been in substance one and the same from the beginning. By “devotion” I mean such religious honours as belong to the objects of our faith, and the payment of those honours. Faith and devotion are as distinct in fact, as they are in idea … The sun in the springtime will have to shine many days before he is able to melt the frost, open the soil, and bring out the leaves; yet he shines out from the first notwithstanding, though he makes his power felt but gradually. It is one and the same sun, though his
influence day by day becomes greater; and so in the Catholic Church it is the one Virgin Mother, one and the same from first to last, and Catholics may have ever acknowledged her; and yet, in spite of that acknowledgment, their devotion to her may be scanty in one time and place, and overflowing in another.
What is the great rudimental teaching of Antiquity from its earliest date concerning her? By “rudimental teaching”, I mean the prima facie view of her person and office, the broad outline laid down of her, the aspect under which she comes to us, in the writings of the Fathers. She is the Second Eve … and the new Eve was to be the mother of the new Adam. “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.” The seed of the woman is the Word Incarnate, and the woman, whose seed or son he is, is his mother, Mary. This interpretation, and the parallelism it
involves, seem to me undeniable; but at all events (and this is my point) the parallelism is the doctrine of the Fathers, from the earliest times; and, this being established, we are able, by the position and office of Eve in our fall, to determine the position and office of Mary in our restoration … What dignity can be too great to attribute to her who is as closely bound up, as intimately one, with the Eternal Word, as a mother is with a son? What outfit of sanctity, what fullness and redundance of
The Virgin Mary greets Elizabeth, as depicted on a roof boss in Norwich Cathedral. Photo: © Julia Hedgecoe
grace, what exuberance of merits must have been hers, when once we admit the supposition, which the Fathers justify, that her Maker really did regard those merits, and take them into account, when he condescended “not to abhor the Virgin’s womb”? Is it surprising then that on the one hand she should be immaculate in her Conception? Or on the other that she should be honoured with an Assumption, and exalted as a queen with a crown of 12 stars, with the rulers of day and night to do her service? Men sometimes wonder that we call her Mother of life, of mercy, of salvation; what are all these titles compared to that one name, Mother of God?
■Our Advent series has been prepared by Stratford Caldecott, editor of Second Spring. The above is taken from Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching Considered of 1876.
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