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The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,/His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,/But here is all aright.)
The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast/His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,/But here the true hearts are.)
The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart,/His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,/But here the world's desire.)
The Christ-child stood on Mary's knee,/His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,/And all the stars looked down
A Christmas Poem by G.K. Chesterton
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One of the (relatively recent) bones of contention which Protestants have against the Church is her teachings concerning Our Lady. Whether it's over the particular dogmas of the Church concerning Mary (there are five, most modern Evangelical Protestants challenge four of these), the sources for the Church's teachings, or the place of Our Lady in popular Catholic devotion, challenges arise from both curious Protestants and more militant ones. In his
Mary, Mother of the Son trilogy, Mr Mark Shea addresses these various challenges.
In the first volume of the series, "Modern Myths and Ancient Truths," Mr Shea seeks to address "the fundamental truths of where the Church gets its teachings about Mary." In particular, he rebuts the claims that the Church gets her teachings from ancient pagan sources, rather than from the teachings handed down by the apostles. In a sense, this volume is a logical continuation of his previous (and quite good)
By What Authority? An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition (
reviewed here), though "Modern Myths and Ancient Truth" does work as a stand-alone. It is a logical continuation of that previous work in that it examines the source and importance of Tradition, maintaining that Tradition is an important source of revelation in its own right; but in this case the relevant parts of Tradition are more specific, namely, those parts which pertain to our Lady.
He begins his works with a chapter about "pseudo-knowledge," or, as he says, "stuff everybody knows." He contrasts several sources of this pseudo-knowledge, form the poorly catechized Catholics who are ill-prepared to "to satisfy every one that asketh you a reason of that hope which is in you" (1 Peter 3:15), to confusion experienced by a Protestant on hearing the rosary, to more deliberate attempts at spreading falsehood (e.g. Dan Brown, Jack Chick) about Church teaching and Church history. He also notes the confusion which comes about from simple cultural differences, as for example, the fact that we often hear Evangelical culture (not theology!) expressed in masculine terms but Catholic culture (again, not theology) in feminine terms. An unfortunate result of this is that
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"Before we ever get around to discussing substantial theological disagreements, Catholics and Evangelicals often mistake cultural differences as theological quarrels. Moreover, secular culture (which is hostile to both Catholic and Evangelical Christianity) often compounds the problems by feeding its own stereotypes about both cultures....There are, in additional to this phenomenon, plenty of real theological differences. But still, because this cultural difference is typically not noticed by either party, its sits there quietly operating and producing misunderstandings and feelings of alienation on both sides before the theological discussion ever begins."
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Read the rest on the Nicene Guys site.
Tags: Books Apologetics Our-Lady
