Mingling Halos

God willed that His Most Beloved Son be born of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. The Bible can not be cut up to forget this important fact: an angel appeared to the Virgin Mary to receive her consent to become the Mother of God. Her consent! Gratitude and honor are owed to this Queen for having taken on something so beautiful, yet so difficult, laden, as it was, with incomprehensible sorrow and sufferings. If she had not said yes…..no, it is best not to think of that. She did say yes, and Catholics remember and esteem her in her Immaculate Conception, in the mystery of her Motherhood, and in her incomparable loyalty and courage in fulfilling the duties of her state in life with never a blemish or stain in her thoughts, words, or deeds.

It is nearly impossible to understand her, and perhaps she will not be fully understood until either the Kingdom of God is established on Earth, or as each individual enters the Kingdom of Heaven. For now, as God knows, things are seen in a murky fashion, as if seen through a veil. This veil is often made more dense due to sin that darkens the intellect. Our Lord understood our intellectual deficits; He established the Church to teach and guide, and to fill in those gaps of understanding which afflict us in this life.

The Church can be looked to in understanding the mystery which is the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Church has always kept devotion to Mary close to devotion to Her Most Holy Son, and devotion to Jesus close to devotion to Mary. The Church did not make the mistake of splitting them apart, seeing one without the other, for as G.K. Chesterton said:

“You cannot chip away the statue of a mother from all round that of a newborn child. You cannot suspend the new-born child in mid-air; indeed you cannot really have a statue of a newborn child at all. Similarly, you cannot suspend the idea of a newborn child in the void or think of him without thinking of his mother. You cannot visit the child without visiting the mother, you cannot in common human life approach the child except through the mother. If we are to think of Christ in this aspect at all … we must admit, if only as we admit it in an old picture, that those holy heads are too near together for the haloes not to mingle and cross.” ~G.K. Chesterton, from The Everlasting Man

Understanding the idea of the mingling halos of Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary is the beginning of understanding devotion to Jesus through Mary.

So when voices call to split these two apart, look to the Church, and refuse to listen.

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