Fountainhead of Salvation, Pt. 1

(Yes, I finally did get to this. I’m a bit shocked myself, actually. )

Mary is the Mother of God. To say anything less is a denial of the dual nature of Christ – fully God and fully man. What then are the implications of this?

Aside from Christ himself, it is not too much to say that Mary was the purest person to ever walk the earth; she had to be! God did not wake up one day, decide the time was right to send Christ into the world, and pick the most righteous woman who happened to be alive. No, He had been preparing Mary’s lineage for centuries, as we see in Matthew 1 and Luke 3.  She was hand-chosen by Him to bear the Son of God.

According to tradition, Mary’s parents presented her to the Lord at the age of three, and she lived in the Temple at Jerusalem until she was fourteen, during which time she “grew deeply devout, [and] in everything was submissive to God,”¹ a true maidservant of the Lord (Luke 1:46).  Clearly God’s hand was on Mary throughout her life. Noah was chosen by God because he was the most righteous person of his day (Genesis 6:8-9). Is it too much to say the same of Mary?

Several times during the Annunciation and Mary’s subsequent visit Elizabeth, Mary is referred to as “blessed” or “favored”, most notably by the Archangel Gabriel:

[T]he angel said to her, ‘Rejoice highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!… ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ’” (Luke 1:28, 30)

Later, Mary prophesies and says:

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.’” (Luke 1:46-48, emphasis mine)

Today, when we say someone is “blessed”, we typically think in terms of temporal things, whether they be material goods or a stroke of luck or whatever. It’s all too easy to brush this verse off with a shrug and say, “Yeah, Mary was blessed to give birth to Christ, but why do I care?”

We should care a whole lot! By choosing to give birth to Christ, Mary is the vessel through which our salvation is made available to us! In the same way Eve chose to disobey God in the Garden and bring sin into the world, an exercise of free will was necessary to remove that sin. With Mary’s “yes”, Christ was made flesh and our salvation provided. Without it, there is no Incarnation, and no salvation. Without Mary, we could very well still be waiting for the Messiah. 

How can we then say that Mary is not deserving of our eternal gratitude?

(To be continued…)

¹ “The Law of God”, pg 227. Archpreist Seraphim Slobodskoy, translated from Russian by Holy Trinity Monastery

New issue of Virtue

Yup, our 32nd issue came out yesterday. Some good articles in there. Be sure to check out the featured article. I found it entertaining. *grin* And the one on the Constitution party is insightful, too. And what's more, you can get to it all from the sidebar on the right! You have no excuse not to…

Oh, and the follow-up to my post on Mary is coming. Sometime. In the future. When I get around to it…*flees the angry masses*

Should we lynch Moussaoui?

Moussaoui Evades Death, Receives Life in Prison

As soon as my co-worker found out, he exclaimed, "Oh man! Moussaoui got life in prison!" He was obviously disappointed. At first I was too. A lot of people were hoping for the death penalty. But isn't this just a case of mob psychology? Think about it. The man was brought up on conspiracy charges. No matter what he was conspiring to do, we shouldn't execute people because they were planning to do something.

In my criminal law classes, one of the first things we were taught was that the parts of a crime are mens rea, the thought, and actus reus, the act. You simply can't obtain a conviction without both. The punishment for murder is not the same for thinking or helping plan a murder, nor should it be. I know thousands of people think this man should die for the magnitude of the crime he helped plan. But would they say the same for someone helping plan to murder John Doe down the street?

Make no mistake, I am a proponent of the death penalty in some cases, but this is not one of them. Kudos to the jury on this one.

“Mariolatry”?

Was reading a old back issue of Tabletalk magazine, which is published by R.C. Sprouls organization, Ligonier Ministries. It has a decidedly Presbyterian bent, but I don't think they're explicitly affiliated with them. Anyway, this issue was from 1999 and was about the faith of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Needless to say, I was intrigued to see what flames…er, that is, comments they had.

I don't even remember what the specific article I was reading was about, but it used the word "Mariolatry". I thought it was an interesting word, and after looking it up to confirm my suspicisions, I found that it means "excessive veneration of the Virgin Mary".

Excessive veneration? Where'd that come from? Sure, we Orthodox pay Mary her due, but I'd hardly call it excessive. Maybe he meant in comparison to the Presbyterians

So I'm going to open what's probably a huge can of worms and ask this question: What do y'all think about Mary? Is she anyone special, and where do you think she fits in in today's Christianity? I'll post my views later, though I bet you can guess what they are…

It’s elections year…

So much for once a week. Quick, somebody chastise me!

Now that that’s out of the way, this year is shaping up to be a pretty interesting election season in
Alabama, on many fronts. The Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, all constitutional officers, the Legislature, and many seats on the appellate and supreme courts are all up for grabs. (And I get to vote for them. Feel the power.)

Governor: Governor Riley claims to be a conservative, and while he may be on a few fronts (when it suits his purpose), taxes are the main thorn in his side. After making a campaign promise to not raise taxes, he turned right around and authorized the largest tax increase in state history. That was back in 2003, and of course it caused a lot hullabaloo, but opponents are having a tough time using that against him now. Too bad. Polls show him well in the lead for the June primary. Opponents include Mr. Controversy himself, Roy Moore; as well as current Lieutenant-Governor Lucy Baxley and former Governor Don Siegelman.
Moore has a real chance if he uses the grassroots effectively, but his refusal to take PAC money is making it tough for him to do much of anything. Baxley scores major points in the charm-and-personality sector, but is otherwise a political joke. Somehow, she’s still managed to get elected to State Treasurer and of course Lt. Gov. Polls show her in a slight lead if Riley wins the Republican primary. Siegelman has had criminal charges lingering over his head for a few years now, and if he wins anything, I’m leaving the state.

Lieutenant-Governor: Not much going on here as far as I can tell. As mentioned, the incumbent isn’t running for re-election, so it’s an open seat. The most interesting candidate is George Wallace, Jr., but I’m not educated enough for any witty comments.

The Legislature: The Democrats have a comfortable majority in both houses, but this is the South, so that’s not always a bad thing. The Republicans might gain some seats, but I don’t expect any huge political turnovers. Both my legislators are said Democrats and have no Republican opponents, so there’s nothing I can do about it anyway.

Supreme Court: A pit of vipers as it stands right now. Fortunately, there are a few strong conservatives running who actually have a chance at winning, so I’m hopeful. Justice Tom Parker (elected 2004) is running for Chief Justice, and frankly, anyone would be better than the current occupant, Drayton Nabers. Nabers was appointed by the Governor to finish out Roy Moore’s term. Aside from having zilch in that charm-and-personality sector I was talking about, Nabers moved up from the state accounting department, which is of course the logical choice for a court that deals with constitutional law. Parker’s judicial opinions are works of art, making him great CJ material, in my opinion. However, Parker’s connections with Moore are apparently the only thing keeping him alive politically, and this ticks some folks off. Another race of note is that between sitting Justice Champ Lyons, Jr. and newcomer Ben Hand. In recent news here, Justice Lyons’ son sent Hand a letter supposedly intended to scare Hand out of the race. Hand went to the press, and now Lyons’ son is doing some major backtracking. If things play out right, this could effectively destroy Lyons’ campaign, or at least deal a major blow.

To sum things up, it looks like a lot of seats could change hands, but I’m not hopeful for much real change in the way things are run around here unless Moore were to win the governor’s chair. A lot of power lies with the Legislature, and that’s where Republican’s should be focusing their efforts. Unfortunately, they’re not doing much of anything except holding pep rallies for themselves and hoping they pick up a seat or two. A few key wins could start to turn the tide. We’ll see.

And so it begins

Well, I've been wanting to have a "serious" blog for some time now. I've mustered up the determination to post here about a current event or some such at least once a week. Maybe more if I get into it. 'Course, this is timed rather badly, since I have a research paper due this week. Oh well.

So we'll start at the beginning (a very good place to start). What's a sleepy idealist, anyway? I'm certainly an idealist. Always have been. But idealism can lead to denial of reality, something else I'm good at (I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that). What I'll be blogging about will likely be me rambling on about what I think on what's going on in this world. I make no guarantees as to the cohesivness and clarity of my arguments, but you'll just have to live with that. Oh, and I like sleep. That's where that came from. It also makes for a cool, absract sounding blog name, and a pretty nifty tagline, too.

So…yeah. Check back often for posts. Maybe.