Journey to the Center of the Universe
Or
Journey to the ‘Midst of the Earth’
Our previous newsletter focused on inviting Christians to a familiarity with history – a true history – which can only be found alongside the Church. To this end, Dom Guéranger’s The Christian Sense of History was suggested as a bookshelf must-have, and a link to its British publisher was given. Today’s newsletter falls on the nativity of one of our patron saints – The Queen of Heaven.
In all likelihood, most of our readers have viewed Journey to the Center of the Universe. This Catholic scientific documentary (made on a lowly laptop!) demonstrated the hitherto little-known scientific and observational evidence for the unique place of Earth in the cosmos. If you have not watched this documentary, make sure to do so before 2029! Even if you have tossed out the TV (Congratulations!), it is well worth a viewing – hopefully with the whole family. So where lies the connection between Dom Guéranger, the focus of our previous newsletter, and today’s subject, i.e. the failing cornerstone of modernity, the Copernican Principle? It is in Dom Guéranger’s entry for today’s feast – The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary – in The Liturgical Year.
Let us take a look!
(See below)
Is Mary really the “centre of the universe,” as written by St. Bernard, cited here by Dom Guéranger in the September 8th entry? We invite the reader to read the entire entry. Our purpose in looking at this quick reference to The Liturgical Year is to point to its spiritual aspect, as one can do with any exegesis or interpretation. Alongside the exterior reality of earth’s privileged place with Mary, its Queen, prepared to make way for Her Son, the King, comes the interior reality of the privileged place of the Queen in our interior life.
To demonstrate her privileged and central place in the “universe” of our interior lives, we turn to the 1948 work by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Mother of the Savior and Our Interior Life,
[…]theologians commonly hold that Mary’s initial grace was greater than the final grace of the highest of angels and men. This is the teaching, for example, of St. John Damascene, Suarez, Justin of Miechow, O.P., Contenson, St. Alphonsus, Fathers Terrien, Godts, Hugon, Merkelbach, etc. Today, all textbooks of Mariology are unanimous in considering this teaching certain. It can even be found expressed by Pius IX in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus in the passage we have quoted already. The principal argument in favor of this teaching is arrived at from a consideration of the divine maternity, which is the reason for all the privileges conferred on Mary [p. 71].
This gives us something to meditate on. If the above is even half true, what kind of union with God did Mary have those many months after her conception on today’s feast, her nativity? Hopefully such a writing will induce us to consider the central place for the intercessory power of Mary in our own interior universes, not merely in terms of the quantity of devotions, but in the quality of the confidence we have in something as simple as prayerfully reciting two words – “Hail Mary.”
If the earth is the apple of God’s eye because it was to house His Son, then what of Mary? We indeed have a very privileged place in the cosmos. This privileged place in space, meant to be the kingdom of the Creator, shows the privileged place in grace for the King and Queen, along with the elect, who share not only their nature, but the very place they occupied in their earthly lives 2,000 years ago (continuing to this day via the Sacraments, apparitions, etc.).
So, was Mary worth more in God’s eyes? Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange mentions this privilege of Mary,
Thus Mary, in virtue of the first grace which disposed her for the divine maternity, was worth more in God’s eyes than all the apostles, martyrs, confessors, and virgins united, more than all men and all angels created from the beginning [p. 76].
Such a privileged place with God should remind us to centralize Mary in our own interior universe. Let us celebrate this nativity then with two answers to the questions below:
Was Mary the Center of the Universe?
> Let us watch Journey to the Center of the Universe.
Is Mary the Center of our Interior Universe?
> Let us pray the Rosary.
