Romano Guardini wrote in his book on the Rosary, “To linger in the domain of Mary is a divinely great thing. One does not ask about the utility of truly noble things, because they have their meaning within themselves. So it is of infinite meaning to draw a deep breath of this purity, to be secure in the peace of this union with God.”
Guardini was speaking of spending time with Mary in praying the Rosary, but David Mills, in his latest book, Discovering Mary, helps us linger in the domain of Mary by opening up to us the riches of divine revelation, both from tradition and Scripture. Mills, a convert from the Episcopal Church, former editor of the Christian journal Touchstone and editor of the 1998 book of essays commemorating the centennial of C.S. Lewis’ birth The Pilgrim’s Guide: C. S. Lewis and the Art of Witness, as well as the author of Knowing the Real Jesus (2001), has written a rock-solid introduction to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and done so with intellectual rigor and an affable tone.
His book begins with an introduction in which he describes how he came to discover the riches of the Church’s teachings on Mary: “I began to see how a sacred vessel is made holy by the sacred thing it carries,” he writes. “I began to feel this in a way I had not before. I found myself developing an experiential understanding of Mary and indeed a Marian devotion. Which surprised me. It surprised me a lot.”
Unfortunately, he notes, he did not learn about Mary from contemporary Catholics, nor in homilies, “even on Marian feast days.” It seems he learned on his own by reading magisterial documents and going back to Scriptures in light of those documents.
This book shares the fruit of that study. Mills examines the life of Mary, Mary in the Bible, Mary in Catholic doctrine, Marian feast days and the names of Mary. He includes an appendix full of references to papal documents and books on Mary.
Most of the book is done in a question-and-answer format, which usually works well, although at times it feels awkward. Would someone really ask, for instance, “What is happening in the liturgy on the Marian feast days?”
But most of the questions are natural. “What is the point of Marian devotion?” Mills asks. It is “to live the Catholic life as well as we can,” he answers. “This means going ever more deeply into the mystery of Christ, to become saintlier, more conformed to his image, by following Mary’s example and by turning to her for help and comfort.”
Next question: “Does devotion to Mary detract from our devotion to Christ?”
“Christians since the beginning of serious Marian devotion have been careful to emphasize Mary’s subordination to her son,” Mills replies. “In fact, they have said it so often that the reader begins to expect it. In the fifth century St. Ambrose put it nicely: ‘Mary was the temple of God, not the god of the temple.’”
David Mills, with the same radical clarity he showed in Knowing the Real Jesus, has written what has to be one of the best, if not the very best, short introductions to Catholic teaching on Mary, the Mother of God. Discovering Mary is ideal for those wanting to know more about her, whether they be skeptics, Protestants, or Catholics who don’t know the Mother of the Church well enough.
Franklin Freeman writes from Saco, Maine.
DISCOVERING MARY
Answers to Questions About the Mother of God
By David Mills
Servant Books, 2009
148 pages, $12.99
To order: servantbooks.org
Comments
Post a Comment
We Catholics have such a tremendous gift in being Catholic. Everything one could want or need is givent to us in our Sacraments, which no other so-called church has. We are the one true Church, begun by Christ HImself. How blessed we are to be Catholic.
I am a born Catholic, who has always had a love for our Blessed Mother. The Lord put into my hands the book on Total Consecration to our Blessed Mother, written by St Louis de Montfort a couple of weeks ago. It has been a wonderful spiritual journey as I use this book, to come to understand in a very profound way, Mary’s role in my relationship with Her Son. Previously it seemed that my devotion to her was a kind of optional extra but now I realise it is absolutely essential to deepen my relationship with Christ. To have Mary lead me to Her Son; to have her who bore Him in her womb, bring Him to birth in my own life, is why Jesus gave her to us on the Cross. In this Year for Priests, let us pray that all priests may have a deep devotion to her for her prayers can bring nothing but peace in their hearts and a determination to be the other Christ as they are meant to. God bless. Marianne
Inviting in the Mother as Mother of all the living , through declaration of the 5th Marian Dogma may be a need for our times to have the Holy Spirit take dominion of many more lives !
Our first parents , by listening to the voice of the evil one, had taken in its spirit and thus brought in its dominion !
Elisabeth and the future ‘voice of The Lord ’ St.John The Baptist , were filled with the Holy Spirit , when the voice of The Mother fell in their ears !
We live at a time when there is much voice that is not of God and to reverse the evil thus brought in, it would be good to listen to the voice of our Mother and ask her , who maginfies The Lord, to help to bring in The Father love ,esp. into the hearts of unrepentant , hardened dying sinners !
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death!
I am not Catholic however many years ago I experienced a difficult suffering which was lightened by the revelation of the heart of Mary for her son Jesus. It was because of my own son’s suffering that I was shown how Mary carried her Son in her heart beyond intellectual understanding. There are just no words to describe this fully.
The Father brought my son deliverance thereby bringing me great joy and peace.
Mary, our Blessed Mother, is the mother of Jesus, true God & true man. Jesus gave us her as our mother when He was on the cross. She is the mother of all God’s children. We are to be Christians or Christ-like & live as Jesus. Jesus followed the 10 Commandments & honored His Father & Mother. Therefore, we sould honor the Father & Mother of Jesus. All generations shall call her blessed. Holy Mother Mary, pray for us.
Thank you, Mr. Freeman, for writing such a kind review. I much appreciate it. I would correct one thing, though, in that though I hear much about Mary in the places I expected to, I did hear about her from some very wise and also energetic Catholics, whose example moved me as much as their words, and of course from the enormous amount of great writing about her. I wasn’t bereft of information.
By the way, someone really did ask me what happened in the liturgy on the Marian feast days. It might have been a nerdy question, but he asked it. I think he suspected something really wild was going on, because he was at that stage of discovering the Catholic life when the Catholic’s relation to Mary seems really, really exotic.
I felt like that at one point, but then as I grew to know Our Lady in and through the Church, I saw that our relation to her wasn’t *exotic* at all, though it *was* mysterious. (I mean “mysterious” in the sense of a reality too holy and too glorious for us to grasp, though we can enjoy and adore it.) Or rather, homey and domestic and mysterious all at once.
Mary the Mother of the Godhead has been very real to me for several years now and has offered me protection and guidance when I had not even known I needed it. Mary is my bridge to Jesus her son and has walked me through many tough times, not just in the huge moments of our lives but in all the smaller ones. Mary is universal, not just for Catholics but for all denominations - we know her as Mary, but other denominations may call on her as divine wisdom.
I am not Catholic however many years ago I experienced a difficult suffering which was lightened by the revelation of the heart of Mary for her son Jesus. It was because of my own son’s suffering that I was shown how Mary carried her Son in her heart beyond intellectual understanding. There are just no words to describe this fully.
The Father brought my son deliverance thereby bringing me great joy and peace.
I love the comment about knowing Mary as divine wisdom! This is Sophia, Holy Wisdom, who is the feminine face of God. Mary is a symbol of this divine feminine presence, and a universal symbol of the Great Mother. Truly Protestants can embrace her and be devoted to her, as I have recently become. She will mean a little something different to each person.
Post a Comment
By submitting this form, you give The National Catholic Register permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.