Episode 040: The Blessed Virgin Mary

[Music] this is God's planning get up-to-date on all our latest episodes at opec org slash god's blaming i'll connect dots planing my name is father Patrick Mary Briscoe I'm joined via as we're now fond of commenting by the magic wires listen to anyone I'm joined by father Gregory Maria pine of the two mystic Institute he is all the way in Washington DC he shouts very loudly though so I can hear them here in Providence Rhode Island it's just incredible the sometimes I mean we were we were on the call earlier and I think somebody cut the string between the tin cans yeah which made it difficult right now in Providence and we've been sitting through with a pastor at st. Pius Church for the change so and that's one of my responsibilities as you know we've been thinking about all the things that we're going to have to do to allow people to come back to Mass and those conversations to me are just really exciting they're heartening even though you know it's going to continue to be some weeks the bishop of Providence is talking about Pentecost May 31st as a possible back to mass state but I know now this he I you guys have been doing some some thinking about this I think we grieve you many comments on the the hopes for back to mass courts sure yeah so how to describe best if you go to Michigan's to toward website you'll find there a tab at the top called cover 19 and the sacraments and the director of the domestic Institute father Dominic leg has been working very closely with infectious disease specialists epidemiologists doctors other pastors in the church to come up with it's basically a working group to describe how best is should be the sacraments in a time of plague the idea being that the sacraments right are necessary for the flourishing and the people of God and growth in the life of grace freedom from sin and you know encouragement unto eternity so it's not a matter of like whether or not it's a matter of how and yeah he's just gotten some really excellent input and come up with some creative solutions which have an eye towards the like the dignity of the sacraments and their distribution and then the desire of the people of God obviously to approach the altar and then their kind of care and solicitude for others to them they do not want to spread contagion so it's just like it's very simple stuff that you can kind of like read through point by point that takes account of the best kind of CDC and w-h-o guidelines and also the best sacramental to like theology and canon law so it's a resource for bishops and pastors to implement as they reintroduce the sacraments in a more public or broadly accessible fashion in their in their diocese in their jurisdictions so it's awesome he's done yeoman work and it's really impressive it's just it's just so exciting to see okay we're to the point in this where we're starting to think you know again what was it going to look like for the church to be worshipping visibly the body of Christ she is and that we're just longing for that right now each and every one of us you know we've already we've done a lot of things to make this a grants available I know you've been hearing drive-thru confessions in Providence we're still creating professions in the church our churches are open we're just using this behind the screen only priests wearing that has to be six feet away from people which our confessionals provide for us so there's so there have been some ways that we've been able to continue to be present and those ways are important but looking for the next things again it's just heartening to begin to see the light so but that's some of the topic of our episode state no don't want to riff from John sinski I guess a little bit not for some good news bingo it's a prime time we the God's flaming sgn but today we we have now budding exciting perf novel accomplished author with us well not the author of a novel no but father Gregory - as I would hope that our listeners are now recently wrote this beautiful devotional book on the bus mother I'm cooperate with math Brad and it's certainly a lovely resource so father Gregory has been thinking about of the Blessed Mother and that's what we want to talk about on our episode today as we begin this month of May which is dedicated to Our Lady yes I'm okay yeah not our pastor our lady as we give this episode the Blessed Mother Gregory I thought maybe you could jump in here by by pointing out some how how your work on the recent book devotions sure what do I presume that I presume that it did that you wanted me to do but I didn't mean to make an assumption you know I thought well he probably didn't walk away from this project thinking less of the Blessed Virgin step no it seems like no yeah yeah I know that for sure I mean so Marian devotion was a big part in my family's life my father is very devoted to the Blessed Virgin as is my mother my sisters and brother so like the daily rosary was a mainstay in the pine household I wasn't always entirely pleased with this feature of our public devotion or our familial domestic devotion on account of the fact that I like I wanted to like get my homework done and you know work more hours in the evening or whatever you know crazy things but gradually the logic of my parents devotion made its way to me and we used to take pilgrimages to measure Gloria so Marian like alleged Marian apparition site in former Yugoslavia specifically in Bosnia and Herzegovina you don't have to believe in it obviously but it's a place where my parents experienced a deeper call to live you know a very intense devout Christian life to pray the rosary right to attend daily Mass asked to read the scriptures and - yeah I mean to pray so it was it was a kind of central feature of our family's devotion my parents actually had like a little Catholic bookstore for many years and it didn't make any money as Catholic bookstores or wants to do but it was like kind of like a hub of Christian Communion and ministry in our in our in our town and it became a place from which my mother would kind of advertise and then subsequently lead these pilgrimages to magic Ori often times but to Lourdes to Fatima to other places Marion shrines so it's always big and I think I think a big part of you know that the study that we have done in formation and subsequently and then the preparation for this book and authoring it was to examine the reasons for which right so it's good to believe obviously and believing entails an act of the will right it's to think with assent and so it's a choice that you make so you don't fall in and out of belief the way that some speak of falling in and out of love right one chooses to believe and does the things necessary for growing in belief and one of the things whereby we can grow and belief is to learn about the things in which we believe which isn't to say that we explain them away right or we kind of dispel the mystery that that is just kind of part and parcel of those realities but rather that we examine the sense in which the doctrine is coherent we examine the sense in which the doctrine actually lumens different aspects of our life we examine the way in which the doctrine like some of it can you know kind of be proved by natural analogy to speak of proof in loose ways a lot of it is testified to by other aspects of the faith like it fits in things like that so the preparation made for this was certainly confirming and it's just a lot of what was was reading st. Thomas more closely on these particular matters specifically his commentary on the Hail Mary which is a popular sermon which is really beautiful short and then an academic sermon that he gave called Luke's a sorta just light has arisen and then the prayer that he wrote of consecration or entrustment to the Blessed Virgin Mary and then like a little bit from the Summa but simple text like there's not heavy lifting to be done I mean I write like a maniac with a really range michalak registers so the book isn't gonna be like you know it's not gonna be like Reader's Digest II that's not to say it's haul artist just like it would like that what for exactly yeah you'll just you'll read it be like what a weird dude why can you talk like a normal human being but yeah the preparation made for it was encouraging for me in that regard illumining and it certainly has you know as had its effect I started praying another rosary today so there you go there's a cash value because cuz why not speaking of meriting graces the Blessed Mother is just an extraordinary role in Salvation history and one of the things that I've always appreciated is that the study of Mary helps sharpen and illuminate our true understanding of Christ right so the basic the basic and fundamental doctrine of Mary is this first claim and first pronounce about how we understand her that the church makes when we when we call her the mother of God can you comment a little bit on divine maternity and how Mary and how Mary begins to connect us to to to Christ to God by her divine maternity yeah so this is something about which Christians fought in the fifth century and it was something like that that you can look forward to turns of phrase like that in the book yeah whatever okay prepositions man they're just handle them with care we're not who cares all right so um in 431 the council of ephesus pronounced upon this point and said that Mary is rightly to be called the God bear because there's one who right in the Lord Jesus Christ that who is the divine person second of the Most Holy Trinity there's two what's right and so he has or he subsists in both divine and human nature's which is to say that he's got everything proper to divinity and everything proper to humanity but on account of the fact that she gave birth to a person right she gave birth to a who we truly can call her the mother of God right so the grace that she has given that of divine maternity is the grace which approximates most closely the grace of the Incarnation so for the Lord to take to himself a human nature that's a grace which we call the grace of Union or the hypostatic Union and for the Blessed Mother to bear him is also a grace why why this grace well Dante has this line that she has the face which most resembles that of her son and we can say that kind of the logic that we would use to describe the source of the Lord's Grace's is a logic that we can extend the Blessed Virgin Mary she's given such grace because God loves her most right because God chooses to do so and mind you there are reasons for which it makes sense right that God come and take human flesh at this particular time in this particular setting in these circumstances but it's not as if the Blessed Mother did something ahead of time to merit it right she is graced right she is highly favored because God so wills because God is generous because God is merciful and on our own you know two feet or by our own resources we merit nothing you know like we're we don't have any claim on super nature and so the Lord just chooses to express a peculiar mercy in the case of the Blessed Virgin Mary whereby she has made the mother of God and you can see how it fits in His divine plan because it's a maternity that's that's broken open to us we hope to have her and we do indeed have her as a mother precisely because she is the mother of God so it's a grace that's um you know that's fruitful it's a grace that's generous it's grace that overflows now Mary's response to this grace was totally free and yet we can talk about this grace as being meritorious in the sense that she true and she truly one's something for us by this yes can you unpack a little a little bit of that mystery for us mystery Mary's freedom the mystery of how it is that how does the leaf begin safety that she and and her especially her consent to be the mother of Christ how this is meritorious you know there's a beautiful sermon of st. Bernard that comes up in the office of readings in the days leading up to Christmas it's I think the sermon is called on the Nativity of the Lord then invitato Domini but he envisions all of those father's kind of like of the Old Testament right the patriarchs and the prophets and the angels even right he envisions all of them arrayed around a blessed virgin mary as she prepares to make her choice Adam and Eve specifically and they're all encouraging her you know let's it says something like let humility be bold right or let modesty be forward almost as if to say like we know that you've been getting all these graces but you've been given these graces so that you can say yes so do it you know do it say yes because our salvation hinges upon your consent so I think the mystery which is really made concrete and the Blessed Virgin Mary is that God operates as he sees fit right so he's not arbitrary in any way shape or form but the Lord chooses to have mercy on whom He wills he must owes Grace on those whom He wills but that's not something that just runs roughshod over our freedom right it's something in which we are deeply implicated so it's a grace that we have to consent to it's a great grace that we have to cooperate with and when we do so it actually makes us more free not in a sense of like we have more options like before you could eat vanilla or strawberry ice cream but now you can also eat chocolate no it's not a matter of having options it's a matter of being fixed in the good and so when she's given this grace and she consents to it she inclines more perfectly towards you know her happiness and the happiness of the church so yeah it's it's it's strange and that you know God has eternal knowledge thank you so he knows what she's gonna say and so is she really free to affirm the thing what God wills that it happened through her yes he wills that the Lord Jesus Christ come into the world through her yes and so her yes is prized of infinite importance because on her yes hinges the Lord's plan now could the Lord's plan have been defeated by her no no because the Lord's plan accounts for everything and if you depart from him in one way he returned to him in another and yet it is beautiful that she said yes and we can appreciate the divine wisdom which informs the set of circumstances that led to that excellent moment no it's not it's not like eventually finding the cheese you know there's something there's something truly there's something truly more liberal there and Abril and a map so the real protected freedom originated that we have to defend and without that we begin to empty we begin to empty her response and even speak so I I really appreciate all that I was also thinking - as you mentioned chocolate ice cream chick-fil-a's chocolate milkshakes hmm sometimes your mind some of your mind just goes there you know but like but as concerns milkshakes right so there's a hierarchy of milkshakes and usually chocolate milkshakes are good unless they're based on vanilla soft serve with added chocolate because when you have an officer of an added chocolate the thing never really coheres right it's like you're having a vanilla milkshake with like a subpar product and there's like an alien presence you know which makes it dirty that's my experience of Hershey's syrup that's not your experience my sincere apologies for being offensive but I like all chick-fil-a products though I will say when I do go to chick-fil-a I will get the cookies and cream milkshake right so for one reason while to raise I mean a million reasons how many reasons can I list one of which is I mean it's just like it's got it's got its got fuller body than the chocolate milkshake because the chocolate milkshake feels almost like a soft-serve milkshake it's not as you know chick-fil-a people can tell me but it's tending in that direction the kind of dissociative thing but I mean even the cookies and cream milkshake though pales by comparison to the peppermint chocolate chip milkshake my gosh which just devastates me for the entirety of the months of December in January so good I'll stop talking about milkshake sorry well I mean there is a logical point to be made there though that Christ's humanity is not like divinity being added to a vanilla saucer can go exactly yeah manatee yeah it's truly it's truly it's true yes I mean is his humanity has taken up into the divinity in such a way that it's not like you got a pre-existing man who is then like joined morally to God it's a it's a real union so well done bringing chick-fil-a back around to the incarnation kudos well that makes you're probably possible right here we'll come right back [Music] this is God's planning get up-to-date on all our latest episodes at opec org slash god's blaming welcome back to God's waiting and we've been talking about milkshakes the divine maternity of the bus the Virgin Mary thought of Patrick's version of John Krasinski some good news and I know you're returning to the practice of the sacraments that host pointy little summary in the first part so you can remember that we do things on the podcast mmm I don't know I guess that's all they really have their argument that something is going on here there you go yeah yeah justify your existence somehow because otherwise you know the Vaughn the yawning void is just too oppressive in its visit one of the theme one of them one of the questions about the Blessed Mother that we want to make sure that we covered in today's episode on that one is Mary it has a media tricks of grace so we're talking about the important way the important way that the Blessed Mother begins to lead us to Christ the plenty people lead us to Christ the Apostles had function we can think of a beautiful moment at the beginning at the beginning the Gospels where Andrew leaves his brother Simon Peter to meet the Lord right but it seems in the book the Blessed Mother has a has a different function than that she's not just she's not just leading in an occasional way that other people lead that she has a particular role that she plays in the lives of the people and one of one of one of the ways that we understand her unique role in our own lives is that Mary is this claim that Mary is the mediate ryx of all graces so let me cut a great you can comment on this great time totes so um okay as is my won't when you're like I have a specific question for you I'm always like but what if I gave you a bunch of background information well that's better than what I usually do which is but what if I answered a different question well you did politician not the question I'm prepared for but I'm I'm very pleased that you asked something that's tangentially related so so they they exactly I think you know you gestured towards the fact that mediation is kind of baked into our experience of the faith the Lord uses instruments and maybe just a word on why that's good because God could do everything that he wills directly right he could do all of it directly that is to say without any mediation so without any instruments without any participants in the work but he chooses to use participants in the work for a variety of reasons and they're good reasons does it make it sloppier absolutely but it also makes it richer so you can think about like God will sometimes like use the prayers of the Saints when he goes about effecting change in the world so he inspires the just to pray for a particular intention say that you have a brother sister who has fallen away from the practice of the faith you have a great desire that they come back into the practice of the faith and he's actually using your desire and your prayers to reincorporate them into the divine life why couldn't he have done it otherwise absolutely right he could have just zapped them with a conversion lightning bolt and made them to ascent freely to his offer of grace in such a way that it could not be otherwise God could do that but he chooses to use you why well think about you for the kind of first piece because because in this way not only are you a recipient of grace but you're also a giver of grace he's made you more like him in the process because you know giving grace makes us or our receiving of grace makes us kind of partakers of the divine life but our now being prayer warriors makes us more like the Lord God who is the giver of grace and in the you know in the process we are made yet more perfectly conforms to the Lord Jesus Christ which is the whole point of sanctity right because recall like the goal of Christian life isn't to just like get the right answer or to be a swell fella the goal is to be like the Lord Jesus okay so that's for you but then think about it for the other person too they're coming into the faith isn't this like strange experience done and a hermetically sealed environment where God is zaps and grace lightning bolts rather they're coming to the faith is already part of like an experience of the church right it's something that they come to buy an experience of communion and so they are going to be yet better prepared when it comes to a time when they are invited to look upon the face of God for all eternity because that's a communion and heaven is a communion among the Saints who have persevered in their practice of the faith and in their love of the Lord and each other and that that like we go to God in such a way that the communion now prepares us for the communion yen so there's like there's just like real rich logic and in the hierarchy of instruments that the Lord uses you can think about you know look he only uses the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ he uses the church he uses the sacraments he uses all these different things as as mediators but there's a peculiar place that the Blessed Virgin Mary occupies because it's through her that the Lord Jesus came into the world right and he came into the world so that we might enter into heaven God became man so that men might become gods and so she is this like especially excellent conduit she is this especially excellent instrument or mediator in a certain sense now whenever you talk about that a lot of people get nervous about extending mediation beyond Christ because doesn't the letter to the Hebrews say that she is excuse me that he is the sole mediator absolutely so we're using capital and mediator of him and lowercase that mediator of other people so we're not like trying to undermine or somehow like divide up mediation and give part of it to other people Christ is the sole mediator of salvation he alone dispenses salvation by right but he uses other mediators not for any deficiency on his part but out of generosity and you can think about it like with respect to the well that some other and here I'll just stop talking this torrent of words has an end that that he has chosen it to be such that not only do we have a brother with whom we are co-heirs you know from whom we learn and imbibe spiritual adoption and our incorporation the triune life but we also have a mother in the spiritual order okay she's not part of the Blessed Trinity but she is a true mother and as a result of which we look to her you know for consolation and we look to her for encouragement we look to her for all kinds of graces which she is happy to bestow by the good pleasure of our Lord Jesus the love that Christ has for his mother has to be more than just a romantic thing in the sense that it has to be one just an emotional thing right you know and and he has to with all due respect to how to Gregory's mother Regina who will listen to this short boom with all due respect to her Christ must love his mother infinitely more that do you love your mother mmm I love father Gregory's mother a very great deal so you know there's so like we could we could just see that we could just see the depths of love pouring out here and and we can understand that that that must have a real effect otherwise otherwise it's just words and passions we know that the work doesn't does more impacting our salvation than speak at us or office or offer us feelings that something real is being changed and and the very order of things as being is being actively shaped by by his love so I think as we as we really push on this Mary the mediators the mediators of Graces I think it's important to see that to remember always the you know the beautiful point that you made that crisis is the source of the source of our Redemption that he is our one mediator but that but that the Blessed Mother has an important place in his plan I've heard reception traces of her soul and life the church and that that we can really lean on various Marian dogmas flow from this right like we could think of the Assumption we can think of the immaculate conception that having all end up connected so I'm wondering father Gregory you know just kind of throwing things out here's away forever conversation about less money but if you could if you could show I think there are a few things that we could say about about these various doctrines these very strong when I was about to close to mother the reveal is for so their way the Cuckoo's hurt tie these things up for us in a nice bow yes gladly as we approach Mother's Day come on I mean the timing of this episode is incredible that is incredible it's almost like we planned it yeah I know gosh don't let on it should all appear spontaneous so the the different Marian dogmas are indeed connected because grace is a as a unifying force it's an integrative force and so we can see the Lord's logic at work and how all of these things line up and so just to kind of take him in order that Our Lady is full of grace right it's not necessary that our lady be full of grace free from original sin free from personal sin and filled to overflowing actually st. Thomas has this question and the Prima pars on the power of God where he asks whether the Lord could have created a better world than he did and he says yeah of course he could have because you can imagine it and it could have done it but he chose to make this but he says there are certain things upon which he could not have improved says the Lord Jesus he says you know our experience of the attitude and he says the Blessed Virgin Mary so he fills her to overflowing with grace why well you think how it fits into the plan of salvation he wanted to make not only a dwelling for his son but he wanted to make a worthy dwelling so we see how the grace of the Incarnation blesses everything that it touches even by anticipation and that's what the same grace which we are meant to imbibe that's the grace that is to touch us through the sacraments through our experience of the church through the proclamation of the word for our experience of Christian community things like that so full of grace and then next you think about the Immaculate Conception so in the ordinary course we are freed from sin we are liberated from sin so we're born right having been deprived of the graces that Adam and Eve were created in and so we speak about you know this kind of privation as original sin but the Blessed Virgin Mary did not suffer original sin even only momentarily she did not suffer it in any wise why is that well because she partakes of the redemption in peculiar fashion whereas we are liberated she is preserved okay because well for a variety of reasons but again the same logic that the Lord makes for himself a fitting and we see how the grace of the Incarnation kind of touches each in its turn so it radiates from the Lord Jesus through the Blessed Mother st. Joseph you know the saints and angels etc and it has a way of making everything that it touches good because holiness as a matter of being set apart yes but it's also a matter contact it's a matter of touching holy things and partaking thereof and then with the Assumption you just see the the term of the Lord's affection like so great is his love for her that he does not permit his beloved to know corruption and you see I mean you see this in our own ordinary experience like when you know when you love somebody very much you kind of want to let like you just want to be with them you know you're kind of like annoyed by the fact that you are you and that person is that person that you can't like have a perfectly whole and entire life but the Lord wants the Blessed Mother with him right and he wants to have her with him in such a way that she enjoys the bodily Communion in which he reigns gloriously and so whether she fell asleep or whether she died this is a matter of disputed doctrine but we know that he loves her and as a result of which he draws her to him that's the most recently defined when I was like 1950 with Pius the 12th so that's me yeah there would be the main things the only one I didn't mention his perpetual virginity that the Lord was a virgin before during and after and not like the arguments surrounding that or more like kind of involved scriptural arguments but the early Fathers of the Church certainly suss that out in excellent fashion but you might profit from reading a kind of Catholic Encyclopedia article that new Advent calm has about perpetual virginity because it's quite the rodeo call your mother call your mother pray the rosary and dedicated way this month get father Gregory Hines book he's totally that now that was completely me and not this sort of shameless thing that I would do that not straight Gettys get this book and get a book on Marian devotion and and really give yourself over to continued reflection study and practice of devotion to the Blessed Mother and this month this month of May which is dedicated to her and that's all we have today for God's flaming so thank you for listening as always I haven't feel free to share the podcast not feel free consider it a request a sort of begging plea from us to continue to share the podcast and spread it we're delighted that so many people have been reaching out especially in these career other times that the podcast has managed to do some good that would be the point because we want to help you I think think about God in in a meaningful a real meaningful and slightly refinement theological way continue to pray for us well pray for you god bless [Music] thanks for listening to God's planning a work of the Dominican friars of the province of st. Joseph visit us at opec org [Music]

Channel: Godsplaining Podcast

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Id: V5Ubn-BrJio

Length: 32min 28sec (1948 seconds)

Published: Thu May 07 2020