otm:
I would suggest that you not ignore it. It seems to get very close to the heart to your complaints.
If we assume for the moment that Mary is the immediate source (as opposed to the issue of God being the ultimate source) of the painting of her on Juan Diego’s tilma, and we accept as true statments of hsitorians and archeologists that the symbols on her cloak in the picture are symbols that were widely understood by the pagan culture in central America, then it would appear that Mary saw fit to use pagan symbology which interrelated with the pagan religion to convert the pagans to Christianity. and given that something on the order of one to one and one half million pagans converted almost immediately, it would appear that her choiices were effective in speaking to them about Christianity.
If Mary can therefore use pagan symbology to transmit the message of Christianity, then what is the source of your unease about the use of the smoke of the burning grass?
I am not asking you to “get yourself into trouble”, I am asking you to enter into dialogue about what you appear to not like about the Church. It would appear to me that you may think this a recent (as in, possibly, post-Vatican 2) change in the Church. I am suggesting that it has been something the Church has done throughout the ages, and I would suggest that this is a prime example, and one that cannot be cast upon some heretical individual.
I, for one, have tried arduously to convince the church to sacrifice a goat on the altar and try to summon up Martin Luther so we can at leats get some answers about the reformation from a reliable source. No luck yet.
Seriously, the section of your answer that I have bolded makes an excellent point. I remember a History Channel documentary on the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans. In one of those cultures, the emperor would come out at the top of the ziggurat temple and the high priest would slash his forearms so the emperor could give up his blood for the ritual. (The man could not be emperor if he refused to shed his blood.) When these people heard about a man named Jesus, who shed his blood for his people, it made perfect sense to them.
In this case, the pagan belief fitted the Christian one; and so a connection was made.
Sometimes, one can fit a Christian practice to fit a pagan one to make a similar connection just as long as the focus is properly dedicated to the true God rather than a false one. Naturally some pagan practices, such as human sacrifice, have to be abandoned altogether.
The accusations from Protestants against what they percieve to be the pagan origins of some Catholic practices are due to the fact that
they didn’t have to deal with the problem those many and varied pagan religions presented. Most of these peoples and nations were converted by the Catholic church before the reformation.
I remember a non-denominational friend of mine knocking the church on this matter. When I asked him how he would have done it, he said he would have boldly marched in with his bible in hand and preached the Gospel! If they accepted it, great. If not, he would shake the dust off his shoes as testimony against them.
I told him… “Jim, the dust on your shoes, as well as the person in them, would be in the cooking pot before you knew it. You would then be giving them as much indigestion as your simplistic approach to reality is giving me now!”
Thal59
www.ironmountain.com
but I was called to a married vocation at a young age, and have a wonderful Catholic wife and 3 grown sons.