Die Buchwalds

Funky Dung poses these questions about Mary:

Why did the Church find it necessary to define the Marian dogmas as such? Shouldn’t dogma be limited to those articles of faith which are absolutely required for salvation? My faith is unaffected by whether or not Mary was conceived without sin. Nor is it affected by her bodily assumption into Heaven. I accept these dogmas as a faithful and obedient Catholic, but I do not understand why they are important.

Could someone please explain why they were defined? In particular, why couldn’t they remain at the level of doctrine rather than be promoted to dogma? I’ve heard that the Orthodox agree that Mary was conceived without sin, but were uncomfortable about declaring as dogma. Since the Orthodox Church is the only other Church we recognize as maintaining the Deposit of Faith, their discomfort gives me pause.

On a related note, where does the tradition of Mary’s perpetual virginity come from? I know the words for “brother” and “sister” in Scripture can mean “cousin” or other relatives, but what evidential support do we have for this interpretation?

Mrs. B. proposes these answers:
Shouldn’t dogma be limited to those articles of faith which are absolutely required for salvation? In a word, yes. In a few more words, Mary’s Immaculate Conception and Assumption are articles of faith required for salvation. Why? My thought is this… Mary is definitely not your typical woman. She gave birth to God.
As far as the Immaculate Conception goes, I think in order to carry out such an important task you’d have to be totally without sin. If an angel showed up & told me I’d give birth to God, I’d totally freak out because I’m certainly no saint. Not Mary, though, she said yes with very little hesitation. Mary’s Immaculate Conception is directly tied to the Annunciation and Nativity… and Jesus being both God & Man. So… if believing that Jesus is God & man is dogma, then it would follow that believing Mary was immaculately conceived would also be dogma.
The Assumption is also important to our salvation. Sure, Jesus was raised from the dead & ascended into heaven… He’s God. For Mary to be assumed, body and soul, into heaven gives us the extra push of hope & faith that we’ll share the same someday. It’s saying that it happened to someone who, though without sin, was not divine and thus can/will someday happen for all who are in heaven.

On a related note, where does the tradition of Mary’s perpetual virginity come from? I know the words for “brother” and “sister” in Scripture can mean “cousin” or other relatives, but what evidential support do we have for this interpretation? I don’t know where exactly the tradition comes from, and I don’t have any sources to back me up, but I will say that I struggled for a long time with Mary’s perpetual virginity. One day, it occured to me that Mary’s marriage to Joseph could not have been a typical marriage whatsoever. So, even though nobody’s ever put anything in front of my face & said, “see, the answer is HERE,” I no longer find it difficult to believe. It was a weird little epiphany. I just suddenly realized that Mary’s existance as Mary’s life was most incredibly unique and extraordinary and that nothing about the idea of her perpetual virginity seemed weird anymore.

So, there you have it, Funky… Mrs. B.’s take on Marian theology, however flawed it may be.

Stay Tuned for Next Week’s puzzle… Advent: Blue or Violet???

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Have you mailed your Christmas cards yet? No? Well, don’t. Not yet at least. Allow me to explain…
Advent started this past Sunday (November 28) and continues on into December 24, the later part of which kicks off the Christmas season. Christmas continues until the Baptism of the Lord which this liturgical year occurs on January 9.
So, in keeping with the liturgical calendar and not the retail calendar, I’d like to invite anyone who happens upon this blog to wait until Christmas to send Christmas cards. In the mean time, send advent cards and make good use of this time of waiting and preparation.

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Today I have good news and I have bad news…

The bad news: Matt has officially had it up to here *stretches WAY UP HIGH* with Burger King, so he has put in his two-weeks notice. Say some prayers that things will take a turn for the better for him on his quest for a job actually using his education and also on writing his Masters Thesis.

The good news: Tomorrow, on the Feast of Christ the King, the last Sunday of the liturgical year, we will celebrate Matt’s Rite of Welcome for RCIA. The Rite will take place during the 10:30 Mass at St. Matthias, where we were married back in June. If you’re in the area, do feel free to stop by. Call, email, or IM if you need more details.

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Time to start thinking about CHRISTMAS, folks. Don’t believe me? Ask your favorite retailers… they’re getting started already. I’m sure dear Wally World is starting to make room in the garden department!
Matt has the whole day off today. I wanted to go to the local amusement park (no, not Kennywood, silly people, the LOCAL park, Waldameer) today, but it’s supposed to storm off & on all day and who wants to deal with that while trying to ride roller coasters?
Instead, we’re going to head to the local “big mall” (good ol’ Mill Creek) and get a head start on Christmas. My hope is that most of the last minute back to school purchases have been made & we can shop with limited distractions.
I’m feeling the Catholic Guilt kicking in about shopping on a Sunday. Perhaps today should be the day that dh learns how to pray the Rosary. It’s something he’s going to have to learn sooner or later, especially if he’s going to go on the March with me in January, and I think it would be a wonderful thing to do on “long” car trips. Lately, if it’s not somewhere right in town, every car trip is a “long” car trip. Even on the trip to our parents’ houses, I can get in two sets of mysteries.
Time to get ready for Mass! (pray for me! in our new parish, everyone stands too much & kneels too little… that’s another entry for another day, though)

P.S. You know you’ve moved way to far north when ERIE is the “local” stuff and Pittsburgh is “far away”! I have to admit that Erie is really probably only 20 minutes closer, depending on where you want to go.

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The other night Amy and I were watching Seventh Heaven. No, I don’t know which night it was; Seventh Heaven is on like every night of the week. It’s everywhere. It’s so omnipresent that it’s on nine days a week! Okay so maybe not so much, but it’s there a lot. And we watch it. And we were watching it on that night during which our activities consisted of watching Seventh Heaven and doing other things. Which could be any night really. Hah hah hahaha! I just tricked you into a reading a whole freakin’ paragraph and all I basically said was, “Hey, I don’t remember what night that was exactly.” Sucker.

So during the show, there was dating stuff going on. There’s always dating stuff going on in that show, amongst whatever other moral lesson it happens to be bringing to you this fine evening in question. So, after said dating stuff occurred (does occurred have one r or two r’s? I can never quite decide), Amy emits these following words of impending doom: “See what we have to look forward to?”

I did what comes naturally: I used my male intellect to produce the best course of action that would prevent said impending doom and thus make her point invalid. I told her that our children simply weren’t going to date, because they were all going to be priests and nuns. I stood triumphant, beaming with pride at my quick thinking. That was until it was realised that we’d never have grandchildren at that rate, and grandchildren are good things. See, grandchildren are children with all the fun and none of the effort. It’s like you took something of mixed blessing, like taxes, and removed the bad parts. You get all the joy af mailing random pieces of paper to complete strangers without having to spend buttloads of money while doing so.

So this brings us to my point: taxes are like children. You heard it here first.

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