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From a Homily on the Commemoration of St. Mary (Aug 15)
"Yet both extremes - the extreme of excessive veneration and the extreme of excessive downgrading of the Mother of God - are sources of concern and scandal to Christians who stand committed to the Book of Concord and to the Book of God. The reason for their concern in both directions finds a focus in the words of St. Elisabeth in today’s Gospel: “And why is this granted me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?” That is precisely the point. She is the Mother of Our Lord, hence Elizabeth’s awed delight. But she is the Mother of Our Lord, so that the bright aureole that enfolds her figure is only a reflection of His blazing and unearthly glory.
The function of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Sacred Scriptures, in the history of salvation, and in the faith and worship of the Church, is to point to her Son. The noblest picture that can be painted of her is with her Child in her arms. She is the living and loving proof that when the time had fully come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the Law, to redeem those that were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as children. She is the living and loving proof that for us men and for our salvation the only God who is the bosom of the Father came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost and was made man; that He who died for us is one of us; that the one Mediator between God and man is the man Christ Jesus, that “there is no other God besides this Man” that the merciful and faithful High Priest Whom we have in the service of God to make expiation for the sins of our fallen kind is made like us His brethren in every respect, that we have an Intercessor Who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, one Who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning, that He partook of our nature of flesh and blood so that through death He might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.
As long as the focus of the spotlight is on the Lord Jesus Christ, the richer the radiance that reflects upon His Mother the better. We are not offended that Gabriel addressed her, “Hail, O Favored One,” or that St. Elisabeth by divine inspiration twice called her blessed, while expressing humble amazement that the favor should be granted her of entertaining in her home the Mother of her Lord; or that by the same inspiration the Holy Virgin should say, “All generations will call me blessed.”
Nor ought we feel any particular compulsion to execrate pious opinions long held by Christians. We need not feel obligated to blacken her reputation and to invent transgressions for her to have committed as if somehow we were saved by the sinfulness of the Blessed Virgin rather than by the sinlessness of her Son.
Here we stand with Blessed Martin Luther. In his exasperated distress at the exaggerations of the medieval Mary cult, he might delcare: “I should wish that the veneration of Mary be altogether exterminated solely on account of its abuse.” Yet, three years before his death he was still affirming in print the opinion that he had worked out in detail and with considerable theological ingenuity twenty-five years earlier, namely, that through the merits of her Son-to-be the Blessed Virgin was marvelously preserved from taint of sin from the first moment of her existence as a human being. We who have been reading him at least in English will recall that in the Exposition of the Magnificat he calls “Queen of heaven” a true enough name for her, and that elsewhere he acknowledges her as a gracious Lady exalted above all empresses.
"Yet both extremes - the extreme of excessive veneration and the extreme of excessive downgrading of the Mother of God - are sources of concern and scandal to Christians who stand committed to the Book of Concord and to the Book of God. The reason for their concern in both directions finds a focus in the words of St. Elisabeth in today’s Gospel: “And why is this granted me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?” That is precisely the point. She is the Mother of Our Lord, hence Elizabeth’s awed delight. But she is the Mother of Our Lord, so that the bright aureole that enfolds her figure is only a reflection of His blazing and unearthly glory.
The function of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Sacred Scriptures, in the history of salvation, and in the faith and worship of the Church, is to point to her Son. The noblest picture that can be painted of her is with her Child in her arms. She is the living and loving proof that when the time had fully come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the Law, to redeem those that were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as children. She is the living and loving proof that for us men and for our salvation the only God who is the bosom of the Father came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost and was made man; that He who died for us is one of us; that the one Mediator between God and man is the man Christ Jesus, that “there is no other God besides this Man” that the merciful and faithful High Priest Whom we have in the service of God to make expiation for the sins of our fallen kind is made like us His brethren in every respect, that we have an Intercessor Who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, one Who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning, that He partook of our nature of flesh and blood so that through death He might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.
As long as the focus of the spotlight is on the Lord Jesus Christ, the richer the radiance that reflects upon His Mother the better. We are not offended that Gabriel addressed her, “Hail, O Favored One,” or that St. Elisabeth by divine inspiration twice called her blessed, while expressing humble amazement that the favor should be granted her of entertaining in her home the Mother of her Lord; or that by the same inspiration the Holy Virgin should say, “All generations will call me blessed.”
Nor ought we feel any particular compulsion to execrate pious opinions long held by Christians. We need not feel obligated to blacken her reputation and to invent transgressions for her to have committed as if somehow we were saved by the sinfulness of the Blessed Virgin rather than by the sinlessness of her Son.
Here we stand with Blessed Martin Luther. In his exasperated distress at the exaggerations of the medieval Mary cult, he might delcare: “I should wish that the veneration of Mary be altogether exterminated solely on account of its abuse.” Yet, three years before his death he was still affirming in print the opinion that he had worked out in detail and with considerable theological ingenuity twenty-five years earlier, namely, that through the merits of her Son-to-be the Blessed Virgin was marvelously preserved from taint of sin from the first moment of her existence as a human being. We who have been reading him at least in English will recall that in the Exposition of the Magnificat he calls “Queen of heaven” a true enough name for her, and that elsewhere he acknowledges her as a gracious Lady exalted above all empresses.
