Let us trustingly invoke Most Holy Mary that she may guide our hearts always to draw from the well of divine mercy, which liberates and heals our human condition, filling it with all grace and benevolence, with the power of love.Notice the problems.
1) Rather placing our trust in God alone, Ratzinger wants us to trust Mary.
2) Rather than ascribing the highest degree of holiness to God alone, Ratzinger calls Mary "Most Holy"
3) Rather than ascribing guidance of our hearts to the Holy Spirit, Ratzinger ascribes it to Mary.
I suppose we should, on some level, be thankful that the remainder of the sentence relates to divine mercy and its consequences. It's small conciliation, however.
Moreover, also notice the synergism of the description - the object of the trust and invocation is not simply to receive grace from God, but rather to receive Marian guidance for us to use our own abilities to "draw from the well."
By contrast, Jesus says:
John 4:14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
The gifts that the Father gives us, promised to us by Jesus, are greater than those promised by the leader of the Roman communion and sought by those in communion with him. Whereas they have to draw from a well, our well springs up to us.
We also have a better mediator to invoke than Mary. Our mediator encouraged us in this way:
John 4:10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
You see, we don't have to just ask Jesus for guidance to the divine well - if we ask water of him, he will give it to us!
Dear readers, drink from the rock! Not from Peter the apostle but Jesus Christ the Righteous. As it is written:
1 Corinthians 10:4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
-TurretinFan
I want to say for the benefit of naive Catholics that I recall nothing of what you lay out here while going through catechism at St. Joseph's as a dutiful Catholic boy. Hmmmmm?
ReplyDeleteThere are several places from Romans that come to mind to point to as well as what you have laid out from the Scriptures in your article that underscores the idea of "drinking" from the well of Water God intends on His People drinking from. The first Scripture from Romans 6 talks about "walking in newness of life", (drinking from the well of Water God supplies) while the second place of Scriptures from Romans 7 talks about "bearing fruit" for God. In those verses the Apostle effectively destroys the notion of a synergistic application when one is drinking from the Well of Water God supplies for us to drink from, that spiritual Rock. Both imply the nature of the Spiritual water we drink and the Spiritual well from which we draw this water from to drink :
Rom 6:4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
and
Rom 7:4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
Rom 7:5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.
Rom 7:6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
Later on in Romans 8 Paul puts these spiritual thoughts forth for our learning and admonition, too:
Rom 8:8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Rom 8:9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
Rom 8:10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
Rom 8:11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.