Mary alone found grace before God without the help of any other creature. All those who have since found grace before God have found it only through her. She was full of grace when she was greeted by the Archangel Gabriel and was filled with grace to overflowing by the Holy Spirit when he so mysteriously overshadowed her. From day to day, from moment to moment, she increased so much this twofold plenitude that she attained an immense and inconceivable degree of grace. So much so, that the Almighty made her the sole custodian of his treasures and the sole dispenser of his graces. She can now ennoble, exalt and enrich all she chooses. She can lead them along the narrow path to heaven and guide them through the narrow gate to life. She can give a royal throne, sceptre and crown to whom she wishes. Jesus is always and everywhere the fruit and Son of Mary and Mary is everywhere the genuine tree that bears that Fruit of life, the true Mother who bears that Son.-(RC Saint) Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort
To Mary alone God gave the keys of the cellars of divine love and the ability to enter the most sublime and secret ways of perfection, and lead others along them. Mary alone gives to the unfortunate children of unfaithful Eve entry into that earthly paradise where they may walk pleasantly with God and be safely hidden from their enemies. There they can feed without fear of death on the delicious fruit of the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They can drink copiously the heavenly waters of that beauteous fountain which gushes forth in such abundance. As she is herself the earthly paradise, that virgin and blessed land from which sinful Adam and Eve were expelled she lets only those whom she chooses enter her domain in order to make them saints.
...
The salvation of the world began through Mary and through her it must be accomplished. Mary scarcely appeared in the first coming of Jesus Christ so that men, as yet insufficiently instructed and enlightened concerning the person of her Son, might not wander from the truth by becoming too strongly attached to her. This would apparently have happened if she had been known, on account of the wondrous charms with which Almighty God had endowed even her outward appearance. So true is this that St. Denis the Areopagite tells us in his writings that when he saw her he would have taken her for a goddess, because of her incomparable beauty, had not his well-grounded faith taught him otherwise. But in the second coming of Jesus Christ, Mary must be known and openly revealed by the Holy Spirit so that Jesus may be known, loved and served through her. The reasons which moved the Holy Spirit to hide his spouse during her life and to reveal but very little of her since the first preaching of the gospel exist no longer.
Am I the only one who finds this disturbing? I ask that as even as I stare at the icon of the Theotokos over my desk. Frankly, this is so over the top that parts of it strike me as straying perilously close to heresy.
32 comments:
Sounds like normal patristics and standard for later Orthodox themes - have you read Untrodden Portal?
M
No it doesn't, and 'Untrodden Portal' is not authoritative.
This reminds me of the overwrought 'Sacred Heart' theology.
Actually I find it a relief to know that to Mary alone was given "the ability to enter the most sublime and secret ways of perfection." All the less aescetic work towards perfection for the rest of us!
On a more serious note, what a great quote for seeing the relationship between Late Latin and Protestant theologies, where both seem to have the individualistic goal of finding "grace before God without the help of any other creature."
You mean it's outside the Byzantine tradition to say Mary recapitulates Eden and/or she is the dispenser of all graces? I don't have time to start throwing out quotes, but I think a bit of googling late Byzantine Fathers will uncover the same ideas. M
This is an example of why, when I became Orthodox, it was (and to some extent still is) hard for me to develop and grow in a devotion to the Theotokos. I had a hard time separating the authentic Orthodox Tradition from this kind of stuff.
What precisely is outside the Tradition? Have you read St Gregory Palamas on the Mother of God?
I am not trying to defend this, there just isn't anything immediately obvious here that I haven't seen in Orthodox Fathers as well - which raised my eyebrows on discovery as well.
M
I don't pretend to be particularly well versed in this type of thing and so I probably shouldn't even share my thoughts, but I've always read this sort of thing the way I have read, say, Edmund Burke's description of Marie Antoinette... you know, "Surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more lovely vision of" yada yada yada or however it goes.
I find most of what is said here unobjectionable really. (Then again, I'm a Roman Catholic.) But a sentence, like, "She can lead them along the narrow path to heaven and guide them through the narrow gate to life" doesn't suggest to me that God's grace is in any way being diminished, or that the soul in question need not participate actively in his own salvation, or that the Church is made superfluous by Mary... it just strikes me as a particularly florid way of saying that the Blessed Mother helps to guide souls on the paths to eternal life, and that her favor is an unparalleled powerful aid for those souls.
I must admit though that that word "sole"--the "sole custodian of his treasures and the sole dispenser of his graces"--is a bit unnerving. But I'm sure not even the Orthodox expect that every saint they venerate is perfectly free from all error. It seems clear to me that St. Louis-Marie's sentiments may be somewhat over the top, but they aren't necessarily representative of the nuances of the Church's official teachings and for that reason too much stock shouldn't be placed in his excess.
But, as I said, I'm pretty much ignorant of these types of Catholic / Orthodox divisions and what's really implied by them. I can see why this is upsetting to the Orthodox, but I also wonder whether the upset isn't perhaps disproportionate to the actual issue. I'm always open to correction and further instruction in these matters.
And in case it's not very clear why I began by mentioning the Burke quote, it's just to show that it's not altogether uncommon for writers to ameliorate their actual thoughts with grandiose expression and exaggerated description, and I imagine that St. Louis-Marie is falling into more of a stylistic error than a theological one...
Mary save us
The word "sole" piqued my interest, but it is "creature" that really sent up my red flags. Christ is a creature according to the flesh. It is precisely that his created flesh has been divinized that enables God's grace to flow to the human race. This is just basic Athanasius 101.
I thing that is missing is the explanation for the types used: "since you gave birth to the savior O virgin..." Salvation ends with Mary precisely because she gave birth to Christ. Grace pours forth through Mary because she gave flesh to Christ. That is the missing ingredient in this soliloquy.
"...in the endless age to come, without her mediation, every emanation of illuminating divine light, every revelation of the mysteries of the Godhead, every form of spiritual gift, will exceed the capacity of every created being. She alone has received the all-pervading fulness of Him that filleth all things, and through her all may now contain it, for she dispenses it according to the power of each, in proportion and to the degree of the purity of each. Hence she is the treasury and overseer of the riches of the Godhead. For it is an everlasting ordinance in the heavens that the inferior partake of what lies beyond being, by the mediation of the superior, and the Virgin Mother is incomparably superior to all. It is through her that as many as partake of God do partake."
St Gregory Palamas
I don't know that this is quite identical, but it's not far off either. M
Higher than the Seraphim and more glorious than the Cherubim
I am honoring the Theotokos on my FB page for mothers day. You can talk in circles quote fallible church fathers and so on but there is no doubting that to degrees fallen humanity has fallen into Virgin worship.
Maria Coredemptrix, ora pro nobis!
David, I'm sure in some respects that may be true, it's just not obvious to me that is the case here and being substantially more familiar with St. Gregory, I don't believe that to have been the case for him in any way, shape or form.
M
What really bugs me are two things people poorly catechized who openly speak about worshiping The Theotokos and the other is people who think they can judge the internals of my faith, saying I worship Mary when in reality I know she would never want that, like C.S. Lewis said Like any good mother she gives the honor and glory to her son.
When I first encountered Orthodoxy I thought that the Orthodox praised and adulated Mary more than the Catholics did, though this may have more to do with the stripped-bare-bones nature of Mariology in American Catholicism. (Though, my father's side of the family was heavily Catholic and prayed the Rosary every night. It wasn't until recently that I learned that there are those who pray the Rosary who only do a decade at a time, etc.)
Along with others on this thread, I take this as an example of pious hyperbole. It's not the way I'd say it, but than again I was born and raised in cowboy country. As an Orthodox, I'm not particularly bothered by this.
- dp
As an Orthodox Christian I am not particularly bothered by the flowery and poetic language. What does bother me is how that flowery and poetic language is received and understood by Rome, and the theological implications of that understanding.
As an Orthodox Christian I am not particularly bothered by the flowery and poetic language. What does bother me is how that flowery and poetic language is received and understood by Rome, and the theological implications of that understanding.
If I were a more thoughtful man this is what I would have said. There is an odd reliance on fervor that I just don't get the same sense from, even with the very effusive Theotokions we sing during Lent.
What troubled me more when I was contemplating East or West was the lurid imagery of, e.g., the Sacred Heart devotionals, which a number of Catholics seem oddly determined to make a very Plank of the Tradition.
It strikes me that Rome is sometimes too eager to grab any bit of flotsam that surfaces out there and graft it on to the ark.
We are typically fervent about things which we perceive to be under attack. Catholicism has such a fervent devotion to Mary and the Eucharist because of centuries of conflict over those doctrines with Protestants (controversy over the Eucharist dates back to the 11th century, off the top of my head). No doubt they wonder why we have such a burr under our saddles over icons and the essence/energy distinction; they don't have the same history with these doctrines that we do.
- dp
My understanding of such devotions as the Sacred Heart, the Divine Mercy, and even the Rosary for that matter, is that they are optional for Catholics. The suggestion I've heard is that if they don't work for you, find something else. I know several Catholics who have recently turned to more traditional devotions, such as the Daily Office, instead of the aforementioned practices.
- dp
Yes, but these are clearly both recent developments (with Nestorian overtones in the case of the Sacred Heart) based on revelations that are foreign to Orthodox Catholicism. Honestly, the reason much of this feels so foreign to us is that it was invented well after the schism - in many ways these are just different forms of development that find their parallels in protestantism.
large scale use of icons screens came after the schism, national patriarchs came 800 years after Christ, bishops with actual crowns came quite late, the energy/essence distinction argument came quite late, the idea of 3 marriages for a Orthodox Christian does not come into being until an Orthodox Emperor wanted to remarry.
Some time back on this blog someone wrote that the the Roman Church should "stop developing!" Sorry that I can't remember the context, but I do remember the quote.
For all my 43 years I've been a Roman Catholic, and I've seen a number of things taken to bad ends. I almost said "unhealthy" ends, but I'm tired of having to be pc; it's damn near impossible anymore to be rc and retain a modicum of sanity.
This coming Advent, there will be different responses put in the Mass, which, big newsflash here, have met with controversy. We can tinker with the Mass all we want; we can develop all kinds of speculative devotional tracts, but until we face certain things, it's going to be business as usual.
One of these things is this: IT'S NOT ABOUT US. All this "WE ARE CHURCH" crap has got to go. When repentance and humility and a host of other things are downplayed and damn-near rejected in RCIA classes, when we sing ditties about "Gather Us In" and have an obsession with the "People of God," all the liturgical gymnastics in the world aren't going to mean anything.
St. Athanasios (298-373)
He is in everything by his love, but outside of everything by his own nature (De Decretis II)
‘He is outside all things according to his essence’, writes St Athanasius, ‘but he is in all things through his acts of power.” “We know the essence through the energy’, St Basil affirms. ‘No one has ever seen the essence of God, but we believe in the essence because we experience the energy.’ (Ware, *The Orthodox Way)
St. Basil the Great (born c. 330)
Is it not ridiculous to say that the creative power is an essence, and similarly, that providence is an essence, and foreknowledge, simply taking every energy as essence?” (Contra Eunomius, I.8, PG 29, 528B)
“The energies are various, and the essence simple, but we say that we know our God from His energies, but do not undertake to approach near to His essence. His energies come down to us, but His essence remains beyond our reach.” (Epistle 234)
We say that we know our God from his energies (activities), but we do not profess to approach his essence—for his energies descend to us, but his essence remains inaccessible (Epist. 234, ad Amphilochium)
It's not Mark, it's Anastasia from Mark's computer...
St. Cyril of Alexandria (circa. 378 - 444)
“Essence and energy are not identical.” (Thesaurus 18, PG 75:312c)
St. John Chrysostom (c. 347–407)
Nor does He have anything in common with us but is separated from communion with created things, I mean as to essence, though, not as to relation. (Commentary on John, Homily 2, Chapter 7, PG 59:33-34)
St. Maximos the Confessor (ca. 580-662)
We do not know God in his essence. We know him rather from the grandeur of his creation and from his providential care for all creatures. For by this means, as if using a mirror, we attain insight into his infinite goodness, wisdom, and power.” ( On Love, i, 96)
“The man divinized by grace will be everything that God is, apart from identity of essence.” (Ad Thalassium 22, PG 90:320a)
Gregory of Nyssa, (d. circa 386)
And if we may reckon that the Cause of our existence did not come to the creation of man out of necessity but by benevolent choice, once more we say that we have seen God in this way too, arriving at an understanding of his goodness, not of his being…He who is by nature invisible becomes visible in his operations, being seen in certain cases by the properties he possesses. (Homily on the Beatitudes, VI)
St. Justin Martyr (d. 165)
Though God is able to do all that He wills to do, He does not will to do all that he is able to do. To be is not the same as to will…if God creates in His being, it is by necessity that He creates whatever He creates. But if it is by will that He creates, he creates out of sovereignty. Creating out of sovereignty, then, He creates as much as He wills and whatever He wills and whenever He wills. If God creates in His being, His will serves no purpose and is altogether useless. (Christian Inquiries, III, 2)
(Anastasia again, who is tired of hearing the essence-energies distinction referred to as a late development.)
St. Irenaeus, (c. 130-202)
As regards His greatness, therefore, it is not possible to know God, for it is impossible that the Father can be measured; but as regards His love (for this it is which leads us to God by His Word), when we obey Him, we do always learn that there is so great a God, and that it is He who by Himself has established, and selected, and adorned, and contains all things; and among the all things, both ourselves and this our world.
But in respect to His greatness, and His wonderful glory, “no man shall see God and live, for the Father is incomprehensible; but in regard to His love, and kindness, and as to His infinite power, even this He grants to those who love Him, that is, to see God, which thing the prophets did also predict. (Adversus Haereses, 4, 20,1&5)
Note that although the priest-martyr St. Irenaeus came from Asia Minor, he was the bishop of Lyons. That’s Lyons, France, or Gaul as it was at the time. Thus, not only is he a very early witness to the Essence-Energies distinction, but he is also a Western witness to it. This is the true doctrine of the entire, ecumenical church, East and West. How it came to be forgotten, or dropped, and finally rejected in the West I can only speculate. But the Essence-Energies distinction is the authentic heritage of every Christian — for excellent and most necessary reasons
this quote is from the same work by St Montfort and puts his thought in context:
61. Jesus, our Saviour, true God and true man must be the ultimate end of all our other devotions;
otherwise they would be false and misleading. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and end of everything. "We labour," says St. Paul, "only to make all men perfect in Jesus Christ.”
For in him alone dwells the entire fullness of the divinity and the complete fullness of grace, virtue and perfection. In him alone we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing; he is the only teacher from whom we must learn; the only Lord on whom we should depend; the only Head to whom we should be united and the only model that we should imitate. He is the only Physician that can heal us; the only Shepherd that can feed us; the only Way that can lead us; the only Truth that we can believe; the only Life that can animate us. He alone is everything to us and he alone can satisfy all our desires.
We are given no other name under heaven by which we can be saved. God has laid no other
foundation for our salvation, perfection and glory than Jesus. Every edifice which is not built on that firm rock, is founded upon shifting sands and will certainly fall sooner or later. Every one of the faithful who is not united to him is like a branch broken from the stem of the vine. It falls and withers and is fit only to be burnt. If we live in Jesus and Jesus lives in us, we need not fear damnation. Neither angels in heaven nor men on earth, nor devils in hell, no creature whatever can harm us, for no creature can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Through him, with him and in him, we can do all things and render all
honour and glory to the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit; we can make ourselves perfect and be for our neighbour a fragrance of eternal life.
62. If then we are establishing sound devotion to our Blessed Lady, it is only in order to establish
devotion to our Lord more perfectly, by providing a smooth but certain way of reaching Jesus Christ. If devotion to our Lady distracted us from our Lord, we would have to reject it as an illusion of the devil. But this is far from being the case. As I have already shown and will show again later on, this devotion is necessary, simply and solely because it is a way of reaching Jesus perfectly, loving him tenderly, and serving him faithfully.
Anastasia - in addition to the quotes you provided, I strongly recommend Bradshaw's Aristotle East and West. The idea that the essence-energy distinction "came quite late" is just absurd. It's like saying "the Trinity came quite late." Honestly, modern Roman Catholics are sounding more and more like Jehovah's Witnesses these days.
The problem with comments like Jason's is that they dwell on try to ding the Orthodox on developments that are liturgical or matters of discipline to justify theological deviations: the Orthodox are most concerned with matters of theology. No one is suggesting that Western liturgies need employee an icon screen in the late Byzantine style. Nor are Latin devotions necessarily problematic - I know plenty of Orthodox who pray a rosary or follow the stations of the Cross. Most Orthodox are suggesting that new theologies and devotions that smell a lot like heresy are unacceptable.
"Honestly, modern Roman Catholics are sounding more and more like Jehovah's Witnesses these days."
huh?
Post a Comment