The 15th August is the annual commemoration of the Assumption of Mary, the date when the Blessed Virgin Mary was believed to have entered the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a solemn and momentous day in the Church calendar. It is also one of the four Marian dogmas.
Mary is a holy and revered figure within the Roman Catholic Church and she plays a vital role in its doctrine. Catholics venerate Mary, as they feel a special connection to her as the Mother of God. In the Bible she was inviolate, specially chosen by God to bear the Messiah. Her life, and her fate after death were clearly marked out for her.
According to prophecy, her emergence into the world was entirely without sin, and her exit out of it was as equally seamless. Catholic doctrine also stipulates that her entrance into Heaven was not just seamless, but swift and unlike mortal humans, she did not have to face the usual trials to enter God’s eternal Kingdom. Her status as inviolate continued in the hereafter, and her body and soul remained incorruptible.
After the Reformation, Protestant countries in Europe made strident and often defiant attempts to undermine these traditions. They were convinced that the veneration of Mary in particular was indicative of idolatry, and heretical. This, however, was a fundamental misunderstanding, which unfortunately continues today. Ignorance is at the root of Catholic prejudice, and it is a driver of division and hatred.
Roman Catholics defend the practice of praying to statues, arguing that they are not in fact worshipping an “idol”. Statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary are visual representations that aid prayer, comparable to the visual reminders of family. It is normal to find family photographs in people’s homes, but nobody idolises the photographs, they are only placed there to remember the people we love and have loved. It is useful to draw this analogy, because far too many people have a literal interpretation of Catholic ritual.
The denigration of Catholicism in this country has been a tragedy, as it has detached us from our spiritual origins. The Church of England did not emerge out of the ether, it was created from the remnants of English Catholicism. The Anglican Church owes an immense debt to this venerable institution. Anglicans are the spiritual heirs of the reformed Catholic Church, but this is often forgotten or maligned. Sadly many continue to deride Catholicism, and treat its many dogmas with contempt. However the Church itself would not exist without its Catholic foundations.
The English theologian and Catholic revert St John Henry Newman is considered by many eminent theological commentators to be an important bridge between the two Churches. Newman lived and worked in nineteenth century England. It was a time of increasing material wealth, and luxury. However this came at a cost, to the soul of the nation. Religion went into a decline. No-one really considered the profundity of the spiritual realm and nobody feared God.
Newman knew from an early age that he had a definite calling, to restore the spirit and faith of the nation and to return its people back into the benevolent arms of the true Church. In his memoir he recalled how this nascent vocation manifested itself, he opined,
“I thought life might be a dream, or I an Angel and all this world a deception”.
Unlike his contemporaries who sought fame and fortune, he shunned these worldly desires. In his mind, superficial and fleeting things like money merely formed part of “the unreality of material phenomena”. In his eyes, there was a higher reality.
When Newman attended Oxford University, he was part of a coterie of students who debated the key tenets of Anglicanism. It was called the “Oxford Movement”. This exclusive group of scholars focussed upon the inconsistencies and contradictions inherent within the Established Church. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1825 and three years later he was appointed the vicar of St. Mary’s in Oxford. His flock included a particular set of devoted undergraduates who were so wrapped up in their piety that they would fast before attending his services.
However Newman was torn, he could never reconcile himself with a Church riddled with ambiguity. Ultimately he had to make a decision. He was certain, he had to make the path towards Rome. In 1845, he relinquished his Anglican faith and was accepted into the Roman Catholic Church. In 1847, he was appointed priest at the Oratory in Birmingham. He continued his scholarly work in tandem with a selfless ministry attending the poor.
He never lost his religious convictions, maintaining that Roman Catholic theology was absolute truth. He never deviated from this position, while other theologians attempted to soften the more dogmatic aspects of the faith he kept his ground. He lived at the Oratory until his death in 1890. The inscription on his gravestone read “out of shadows and phantasms into the truth”. His legacy as a truth teller continues to be admired by both Anglicans and Catholics today.
Ponderings 