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Mother, Mary, so as to ensure a good reception.
He seeks also the company of the Saints and Angels and the support of the Holy Souls in Purgatory, so that he may carry out the Eternal-will of Christ's Father in Heaven.
He joins himself with the Blessed Virgin and the Saints - they being part of The Mystical Body of Christ - so that he too may become a permanent part of this Mystical Body.
What better way to prepare oneself for entering into Christ's Presence then by first seeking our The Woman of Scripture and pleading for her special assistance and intercession before her Son, for him?
That seems to me to be the smart way. Indeed, to deliberately forfeit this sure means of success, must be considered foolhardy.
On top of that surety, the devotee of Mary also finds great consolation in Mary's presence and experiences tremendous delight in her motherly care and attention for him.
Realising The Reality of Jesus Christ
However, more then this, the Catholic, in his devotion to Mary and the Saints, is given the greatest insight possible in realising Christ's reality.
In focusing on Mary and coming to grips with her astonishing perfections before God and before man, the Catholic becomes familiar with the incomprehensible power of The Almighty in sharing exquisite beauty amongst His creatures.
In perceiving, for example, the perfection of The Eternal-father in Mary's Immaculate Conception, the Catholic becomes imbued with The Creator's Wisdom and Love.
As the Catholic becomes aware of the parameters of Mary's awesome being, so aptly revealed in Revelation's Woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars about her head, (12:1), and having come to comprehend some of her magnificence,
he then raises his eyes
to Jesus Christ.
THEN, he begins to fathom The unfathomable Reality of Jesus Christ.
Having been wonderfully
astonished at the beauty
and wonder
of Jesus' Mother,
the Catholic,
in raising his perception
beyond her, so to speak,
to perceive
her adored Son,
suddenly, he begins to grasp
the ungraspable
Divinity of Christ
and to be absolutely awed
at His Humanity.
If Mary is a creature of The Almighty and is endowed with such mystical and physical marvels, then what of Jesus Christ Who is God-made-man?
The anti-Catholic who turns his back on this Woman of Scripture, loses an unequalled opportunity to gain so marvellous an insight to The Lord and Saviour of creation.
Even the Christian who proposes that it is best to go straight to Jesus bypassing Mary, loses this opportunity of knowing Jesus so much more fully.
Not only does he lose the wonder and delight of knowing Mary, but he misses out totally on gaining the closest possible relationship that Jesus reserves for those who venerate what His Eternal-father has created.
Of course, I would choose Mary.
If a person put the question to me Who would you choose to teach you about Jesus? Would you choose the local church pastor or would you choose Mary, The Mother of Jesus? I would be a bit annoyed because I would have to think that the questioner was treating me as he would a drongo!
But the fact of the matter is that so many people would choose otherwise.
Now, it may be that some would say - e.g. born-again Christians - that it is impossible to be spiritually taught about Jesus by Mary! But at the same time, they contradict themselves in that they claim to have a direct relationship with Jesus Himself, and that they are spiritually influenced by Him.
Likewise they contradict themselves in that they are spiritually influenced by other persons around them, but claim that The Woman of Scripture has no influence over them!
Supermen
I suppose I could liken them to Superman who does not need to use the steps to go to the mountain-top - he merely leaps directly to it.
Us poor Catholics - who must seem to these 'supermen' as to be crippled - have to go step by step up the ladder to Heaven with the assistance of Jesus' Mother. Not only do we crippled Catholics need The Woman of Scripture but we need all the Saints and all the Angels, too!! We even need the Holy Souls in Purgatory!!!
P And he saw
in his sleep
a ladder standing
upon the earth,
and the top thereof
touching heaven:
the angels
also of God
ascending and descending
by it. P(Gen. 28:12)
SO!?
The Angels themselves ascend and descend by the ladder but these supermen - somehow - fly directly to Heaven. They think they have no need of any ladder even if the angels have use of it!
BUT, in the very next paragraph of Scripture we find the absolutely delightful words:- P 13 And the Lord leaning upon the ladder saying to him: I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: The land, wherein thou sleepest, I will give to thee and to thy seed. P
The Lord
leaning upon the ladder
This ladder that Catholics use to ascend to Heaven is not only used by the Angels to come and go, but God Himself is so familiar with the ladder that He leans upon it!
It seems to me that this ladder is the means that God gives His children as a connection to Heaven. The ladder, if we may put it that way, that Christ Himself used to descend to earth, was His Mother, Mary.
Mary is the way God in Heaven used to come to mankind and Mary's Issue, Jesus, is the way mankind uses to go to Heaven.
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