Mary criticism hurts me deeply, Bible commentary

No one is forced to honor and love the Blessed Virgin Mary, but we all know that there are some people who go out of their way to defame and insult her memory and her reality in the Communion of Saints. These people do it for a variety of reasons, ranging from atheists who like to bull bait when they see the faithful gather to honor Mary all the way to certain Christians who misuse the Gospel to do what they think is "protecting giving Jesus all his due" so that like a bank account with limited funds "others beside Jesus don't get anything that is 'taken away' from Jesus." Honestly, I find both equally hurtful.

Since I'm in a mindset this early morning (pre dawn) to help readers in placing the Bible in its proper context, I will mention a few of the things that those of good genuine heart need to remember when interpreting scripture and the relationship between Jesus and the Holy Family, including all of the saints. By the way, I must take time to praise the many people who have become much more learned in these matters and express themselves so well in defense and amplification of the Catholic faith when they are commenting in inflammatory threads and so forth. I see that people are truly regrounding themselves in understanding and glorifying their faith, and patiently but firmly addressing the all too familiar and tiresome usual criticisms and insulting misstatements. So I do notice and am very gratified!

Many scripture quoters who diminish Mary quote how Jesus corrected the woman in the crowd who blessed Mary for being his mother, directing her to bless instead those who hear and believe. While most people understand what that is about in truth, there are persistent people who totally miss the point. If Jesus had yelled back, "Yeah, she's great, and you can be just like her if you hear and believe" I think that would have been abundantly clear. That IS what he was saying to the crowd. Jesus was pointing out that biological blessedness is not the highest form in the sense that spiritual family who believe in God have access to the same blessedness of Mary his mother. Jesus would have said the same thing if some guy had shouted out, "Blessed is your father Joseph who protected you when Herod slayed the infants, for we would not have you if Joseph had not been a good stepfather." Jesus would have agreed, but would have cut him off exactly the same way as he did the woman who blessed Mary, repointing the lesson back to the fundamental that it is not family connection and biological relationship, however holy and blessed, but the "virtual" (to use the modern term) family community of the faithful that should be blessed! So I really fume (and despair of the charity of the insulter) when people use this event of Jesus taking an opportunity to teach to look beyond biological reality to attack or diminish Mary, when Jesus was doing no such thing, and was in fact inviting people to operate at the same level of faith and virtue AS her!

Speaking of Joseph, Mary attackers and diminishers like to point out that she, to put it in modern business terms, does not have much "ad space" in the Gospels! They are so totally lost in understanding both the original purpose of the Gospels and Epistles AND their continuing purpose that like modern publicity hounds they read into lack of "press coverage" of Mary that she is not a significant mover and shaker and player. It's like they feel that there are only so many print pages and so many minutes on "Access Hollywood" aka the Gospel that they don't want "anything to take away from Jesus" and gloat that Mary therefore gets short press. Um, well, this was addressed even when I was a young girl and the nuns were excellent at pointing out that even the beloved Joseph, earthly father of Jesus, did not get a mention at all after the adult public ministry of Jesus began. Goodness, it just should not take much genius to understand that one cannot measure how much Jesus loved a person, whether Mary or Joseph, by how much "press" they got in the Gospels. And one certainly cannot deduce God's very opinion on the matter, except to continually remember how Gabriel sent by God and speaking for him greeted Mary. Again, this attitude of counting "mentions" as some sort of measure of importance is an example of modern day distortion of faith and giving in to temptation of giant egos who think human words have more importance than what God is saying with them.

As an aside, here is a useful Bible reading mental exercise. Remember that the Bible is totally accurate and is God inspired, and therefore holy. Let's open to a verse at random. Philippians 1:9:

And this I pray, that your charity may more and more abound in knowledge and all discernment.

(I'm not kidding, I actually opened my childhood Bible to that passage!)

By the way, this Epistle was written by St. Paul to his first European church.

Anyway, so here is an example of sacred scripture, the divinely inspired and protected words of St. Paul.

Here are two exercises to consider to help you be more fully accurate and enriched in your Biblical comprehension.

1) St. Paul is praying that this one church receive more discernment and knowledge regarding their charity. Since he doesn't mention any other churches does that mean they are all "OK?" Or that he doesn't care if they get more of the above? Is he implying that his first European church has special need for grace? Or a problem?

See, when you take one sentence out of the Bible and then obsess that no one else got mentioned that way, you totally miss the point of what is being said. In the Bible the vast majority of things are exactly as obvious as they seem to be, and humans should not word smith and read motives into what they set themselves up as judging what is and is not being said. And thus if you read the entire Epistle you have restored the context in which St. Paul, writing from prison, is praising this Christian community, and giving them some guidance about issues they are facing. Pulling one sentence out of inspired text and then applying paranoid human motivations could, and often does, result is total skewing of the intentions of both the writer but also of God himself.

2) "And this I pray, that your charity may more and more abound in knowledge and all discernment." This is sacred text.

Is this? :

"And this I pray"
"that your charity may"
"more and more abound in knowledge"
"and all discernment."

Are those four examples of sacred text? Obviously not. In fact, a mini anti-Christ wannabe could use each of those four sentence fragments to justify that he or she is the source of prayer, that he or she can dictate charity, that more and more knowledge (even of evil) is good, and that he or she is the source of all discernment. I'm only slightly exaggerating in order to make the point that one cannot take sacred scripture and word smith it to one's own interpretation, AND, to also point out that the sentence sections and the words themselves are not sacred. Is the word "and" sacred because it is in the Bible? Therefore, is each individual word and punctuation mark sacred? And those left out not? Obviously not.

People used to be motivated by common sense and charitable generosity, so you did not have to teach them these obvious matters and exercises. But modern society is so ego centric, narcissistic, agenda ridden, phony, false and plastic that it's like I feel I have to teach many people how to have a reality based clear uncomplicated thought process again. And I guess I do.

So I will leave this topic, thinking that it actually is helpful in two points, the example of how it is uncharitable and Biblically incorrect to diminish people in the life of Jesus based on willful misinterpretation of what he said and did AND a reminder to discern (that word again, it is so important) the difference between sacred scripture and the words, punctuation and sounds that comprise its presentation in written format.