“The Reverence due to the Blessed Virgin Mary”

  Image Credit (Public Domain): DaVinci's Annunciation, 1472–1476

“The Reverence due to the Blessed Virgin Mary”

 Heart Speaks to Heart, Cor ad Cor Loquitur

Sermon Reflection 2 for May, 2025

by Sister Mary CatherineBlanding, IHM

 "In spite of my ingrained fears of Rome, … I had a true devotion to the Blessed Virgin, in  whose College I lived, whose Altar I served, and whose Immaculate Purity I had in one of my earliest printed Sermons made much of.”  

                                        -St. John Henry Newman

Sermon Synopsis: In 1835, St. John Henry published the sermon “The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary: The Reverence Due to Her” The sermon contains a Marian interpretation of the Oxford Movement---- the “via media” or  middle way between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. At this time before his conversion to the Catholic Faith, Newman believed the Anglican Church to be “in the middle” between the excesses of Protestantism and Romanism.

John Henry and his companions (called Tractarians for the tracts they published) asserted a church position faithful to both the early Church and the Anglican Church. John Henry as an Anglican expresses a strong Mariology (theology of Mary) but also cautions that this teaching could lead to Mariolatry (making Mary an idol). Some scholars speculate this tension between teaching of Marian doctrine and warnings of idolatry reflect his own inner tension as he began to doubt Anglicanism’s teachings.   Interestingly, he re-published this sermon in 1840, and it seemed to be more Roman Catholic!

Sermon 12. The Reverence Due to the Virgin Mary (Click to see text of sermon)

Some Reading Helps

1. John Henry Newman (St JHN) first brings out context for the feast. (127-129)
   
   
2. He then explains how Christ restored woman’s true dignity and even elevated her. Our Saint is known for his teaching on “Mary, the Second Eve” which he discovered in reading the early teachers of the Faith called “Fathers of the Church.”  (130-131)
   
   
3. He contemplates Mary’s gifts (132) and then gives a warning (132-136) that we humans would adore Mary, if we saw her as she was. (We see in the Anglican Newman an aversion & fear of the Roman Catholic devotion to Our Lady.)
   
   
4. He then states an unusual thought: that most people need suffering, but a few do not, such as the Blessed Virgin Mary. She suffered out of love, he writes, for Her Son’s sufferings, there are those who go on in a calm and unswerving course, learning day by day to love Him who has redeemed {137} them, and overcoming the sin of their nature by His heavenly grace, as the various temptations to evil successively present themselves. And, of these undefiled followers of the Lamb, the Blessed Mary is the chief … And when sorrow came upon her afterwards, it was but the blessed participation of her Son's sacred sorrows, not the sorrow of those who suffer for their sins.

Questions for Pondering, Discussing (The numbers refer to note numbers from his sermon).

1. John Henry writes that Christ redeemed and elevated the position of women. What does he say about the pagan and even Jewish treatment of women? How did Christianity bring about not only a restored dignity but an elevation of woman not even seen before the Fall? (130)
   
   
2. How did Christ restore marriage in a way surpassing the time of Adam and Eve before the Fall? (131)
   
   
3. Comment "This contemplation runs to a higher subject, did we dare follow it, for what ..was the sanctified state of that human nature.(of Mary.)” (132)
   
   
4. Why do we find instruction in silence about Our Lady? (132)
5. What are your thoughts on JHN saying the Blessed Virgin is hidden from us "in mercy to our weakness? Agree or disagree? (135) What is true? False? Mere opinion?
   
   
6. Do you think Newman was approaching in seminal for the teaching on the Immaculate Conception? Why does he write "the more we consider who St. Mary was, the more dangerous will such knowledge be?" (135)
   
   
7. Is this true or lacking of truth…”The highest graces of the soul may be matured in private and without those fierce trials to which the many are exposed in order to (aid) in their sanctification? (136) Most people need suffering, but a few do not, such as the Blessed Virgin Mary?

 Personal Reflection Questions

1. John Henry cannot imagine the ardor in the way Mary prayed the Magnificat. Yet we often come to liturgy with other things, albeit good, in our hearts. How can praying with Mary help us in liturgical devotion?
   
   
2. We see in John Henry a man who warned his congregation about knowing too much about Our Lady, and then later proclaimed her greatness in his meditations & commentaries on Her, such as his beautiful reflections on the Litany of Loreto and his writing the Litany to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. What lesson is the Lord teaching us about being patient with ourselves and others?...in taking ourselves & others, not where we want them to be, but where they are actually at?