Joyful Mysteries ~ Birth of Our Savior, Jesus Christ
[Many
holy persons have described the necessity of True Devotion to Mary in
memorable, truly inspired ways, but none has done so, to the best of my
knowledge, more delightfully than GK Chesterton does here. From his classic The
Everlasting Man.]
Bethlehem
is emphatically a place where extremes meet. Here begins, it is needless to
say, another mighty influence for the humanization of Christendom. If the world
wanted what is called a non-controversial aspect of Christianity, it would
probably select Christmas. Yet it is obviously bound up with what is supposed
to be a controversial aspect (I could never at any stage of my opinions imagine
why); the respect paid to the Blessed Virgin. When I was a boy, a more Puritan
generation objected to a statue upon my parish church representing the Virgin
and Child. After much controversy, they compromised by taking away the Child.
One would think that this was even more corrupted with Mariolatry, unless the
mother was counted less dangerous when deprived of a sort of weapon. But the
practical difficulty is also a parable.
You
cannot chip away the statue of a mother from all round that of a newborn child.
You cannot suspend the new-born child in mid-air; indeed, you cannot really
have a statue of a newborn child at all. Similarly, you cannot suspend the idea
of a newborn child in the void or think of him without thinking of his mother.
You cannot visit the child without visiting the mother; you cannot in common
human life approach the child except through the mother. If we are to think of
Christ in this aspect at all, the other idea follows it as it is followed in
history. We must either leave Christ out of Christmas, or Christmas out of
Christ, or we must admit, if only as we admit it in an old picture, that those
holy heads are too near together for the haloes not to mingle and cross.
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