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After all the serious discussion of late on this blog about the nature of faith, whether protestants ever possess this virtue, whether they sometimes possess it, et cetera, and despite my attempts to persuade the concerned parties of what I take to be Newman’s and Aquinas’ view (I do submit myself to correction), I figured that we could do far worse than to turn to poetry for some suggestions.
Accordingly, I present this piece by a friend of a friend, Nicholas Eaton:
The Queen of Heaven did once enjoy
The birthing of a most divinized boy;
And as the prophets said She named Him God with men;
Then never gave She birth again!
But protestants, that silly bunch,
Who on Fridays will still eat meat for lunch,
Will say something to break Our Lady’s fame:
She gave birth to all Christ’s brothers, they claim.
Yet these are fools, predestin’d for hell,
And my! how Hades with their ranks does swell.
And what, may you ask, causes all their souls to rot?
Well, God gets mad when you claim His Mum did something which She did not.
Yet so they go and do persist,
And Christ our Lord gets very pissed,
Then sends them all to burn in bitter flames
And forever forgets their wretched names.
Yet you’ll do well this Holy Lent
To pray those poor fools repent,
So that they may one day in Heaven see,
Our Lady reigning in perfect Virginity.
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
Quite apt! As I tried to explain in a post after the Newman article, it is quite a misidentification of Our Lord if you misidentify Our Lady. I can’t believe that Our Lord would give sanctifying grace and real, salvific faith to people only then to forget to tell them that they should call His Mother “Blessed.” I’m not so obtuse as to think that conversion happens over night; I do hold that people who persist in sincere prayer will, this side of the grave, come to know Our Lady for who she is. Once you do that, your involvement in protestantim had better be described in the past tense. I pray (through Mary!) that I may be a better servant of her. Rosary’s still at 9:00?
Rosary is, indeed, at 9PM, Monday through Thursday. If you can make it, there will be a Rosary at 5PM in ATH tomorrow afternoon. Bene valeto!
Quick apologetics: A protestant friend of mine once argued that Our Lady and St. Joseph must have had children together since this was the normal Jewish custom and the contrary would be odd. If any of you should get stuck on this (I don’t know, but it could happen), you might want to avoid arguing from the ambiguity of the koine Greek “adelphoi,” early Church tradition, etc.,etc. and focus on the issue of “normalcy.” Point out that the B.V.M. and St. J. were most certainly NOT a normal couple, and that angelic interventions prevented St. J. from doing the “normal” thing and divorcing Mary when she first was pregnant. It also prevented them from going straight back to Nazareth from Bethlehem. They were were an odd (-ly holy) couple, and one cannot draw inferences from normal Jewish (or human, for that matter) custom. The other guy had no answer.
I would note that the image I’ve used above was not chosen by me at random, but selected on account of my love for St. Alphonsus Maria de’Liguori–may he love us from heaven! This is the image of Our Lady entrusted by Blessed Pius IX, author of the immortal syllabus errorum, to the church of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer in Rome. She is called Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
Wow, qua poetry, that sucks.
It’s meant to be fun, not to rival Gerard Manley Hopkins. Does it fail to be fun, Doctor?
Well, I’ve seen this before, and I’ve never been a fan, but I guess that’s no surprise to anyone.
Well…I enjoyed it!
Thank you Iosephus for posting the picture of the Icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help! I made my consecration to Our Lord through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, according to the formula of St. Maximilian Kolbe, on the Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, 27 June 2003. That icon is my favorite image of Our Lady. After I say the Angelus, I pray Maria, Mater de Perpetuo Succursu, ora pro nobis.
Oh, by the way, where did you get that quote of St. Francis de Sales from your earlier post?
I recently purchased a couple of chapel veils from this company for friends here at Cornell. Along with the order came a little booklet Conformity to the Will of God, and the subtitle reads: “Drawn Chiefly from the Writings of St. Alphonsus Liguori.” My guess is that they reprinted the texts which appear in this booklet from St. Alphonsus’ book, Conformity to the Divine Will which you can get from TAN for a couple dollars. And so perhaps the St. Francis de Sales quotation comes from that book.
You are correct. I did a Google search, and found it in an online version Conformity to the Will of God. Who printed the booklet?
Roman Catholic Sacramentals, as far as I can tell. It says: “From the 12th edition, 1955, published with permission.” The imprimatur is good:
“+ Carolus Hurbertus Le Blond, Episcopus Sancti Josephi”
:) sounds downright medieval, “Le Blond”
Thanks Iosephus! You prompted me to make my latest installment in my “Catholic Masterpieces” feature on my blog on Our Lady of Perpetual Help. God bless you, and may Mary intercede for you!