"You forget, Father Jenkins: My Immaculate Heart will triumph!"Of all the great masters' renderings of Mary, this is my favorite. Painted by Giambattista Tiepolo between 1767 and 1769, this breathtaking oil-on-canvas, The Immaculate Conception, hangs in the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid. (To better appreciate this and other great works, go to http://www.museodelprado.es/.)
For me, the most outstanding feature of Tiepolo's masterpiece is Mary's striking countenance. A reflection of her central role in the plan of salvation, it conveys utter contempt for the progenitor of evil she crushes and, at the same time, the sublime dignity she possesses as the pinnacle of creation: Daughter of the Father, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, Mother of the Son.
And speaking of Mary, I can find no clearer, more authoritative description of the forces now colliding at the University of Notre Dame than the following passages from St. Louis Marie de Montfort's True Devotion to Mary. The excerpts below may appear long, but de Montfort's words are worth far more than the time needed to read them:
It is principally of these last and cruel persecutions of the devil, which shall go on increasing daily till the reign of Antichrist, that we ought to understand that first and celebrated prediction and curse of God pronounced in the terrestrial paradise against the serpent. It is to our purpose to explain this here for the glory of the most holy Virgin, for the salvation of her children and for the confusion of the devil: "I will put enmities between thee and the woman and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." (Gen. 3:15).
God has never made and formed but one enmity; but it is an irreconcilable one, which shall endure and grow even to the end. It is between Mary, His worthy Mother, and the devil-- between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin, and the children and tools of Lucifer. The most terrible of all the enemies which God has set up against the devil is His holy Mother Mary. He has inspired her, even since the days of the earthly paradise-- though she existed then only in His idea-- with so much hatred against that cursed enemy of God, with so much ingenuity in unveiling the malice of that ancient serpent, with so much power to conquer, to overthrow and to crush that proud, impious rebel, that he fears her not only more than all angels and men, but in a sense more than God Himself. Not that the anger, the hatred and the power of God are not infinitely greater than those of the Blessed Virgin, for the perfections of Mary are limited; but first, because Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little and humble handmaid of God, and her humility humbles him more than the divine power; and secondly, because God has given Mary such great power against the devils that-- as they have often been obliged to confess, in spite of themselves, by the mouths of the possessed-- they fear one of her sighs for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats against them more than all other torments.
What Lucifer has lost by pride, Mary has gained by humility. What Eve has damned and lost by disobedience, Mary has saved by obedience. Eve, in obeying the Serpent, has destroyed all her children together with herself, and has delivered them to him; Mary, in being perfectly faithful to God, has saved all her children and servants together with herself, and has consecrated them to His Majesty.
But the power of Mary over all the devils will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lay his snares against her heel; that is to say, her humble slaves and her poor children, whom she will raise up to make war against him. They shall be little and poor in the world's esteem, and abased before all like the heel, trodden underfoot and persecuted as the heel is by the other members of the body. But in return for this they shall be rich in the grace of God, which Mary shall distribute to them abundantly. They shall be great and exalted before God in sanctity, superior to all other creatures by their lively zeal, and so well sustained with God's assistance that, with the humility of their heel, in union with Mary, they shall crush the head of the devil and cause Jesus Christ to triumph.
Who, now, can read these passages, penned three centuries ago and an ocean away, and not see prefigured "the children and servants of the Blessed Virgin" assembling to oppose "the children and tools of Lucifer" who've hijacked the University of Notre Dame?
Most telling is the manner in which Fr. John Jenkins, president of the school, informed his bishop that Barack Obama would be speaking at Notre Dame. In Bishop John M. D'Arcy's own words...
On Friday, March 21, Father John Jenkins, CSC, phoned to inform me that President Obama had accepted his invitation to speak to the graduating class at Notre Dame and receive an honorary degree. We spoke shortly before the announcement was made public at the White House press briefing. It was the first time that I had been informed that Notre Dame had issued this invitation.
Fr. Jenkins has chosen political ideology over the true Faith, an anti-Catholic politician over his bishop. In defying the Church, he has defied Christ. As for Our Lady-- the Lady of earnest entreaties and dire warnings-- Fr. Jenkins has done far more than turn a deaf ear to her. He has struck her heel.
On Friday, March 21, Father John Jenkins, CSC, phoned to inform me that President Obama had accepted his invitation to speak to the graduating class at Notre Dame and receive an honorary degree. We spoke shortly before the announcement was made public at the White House press briefing. It was the first time that I had been informed that Notre Dame had issued this invitation.
Fr. Jenkins has chosen political ideology over the true Faith, an anti-Catholic politician over his bishop. In defying the Church, he has defied Christ. As for Our Lady-- the Lady of earnest entreaties and dire warnings-- Fr. Jenkins has done far more than turn a deaf ear to her. He has struck her heel.
4 comments:
Great post (and image) John; very nice!
The P.O.P.E. Project
She will Triumph! I love it. Fr. Jenkins' tears will mix with ours when (if) he has a change of heart and converts. Come Holy Spirit and renew the face of the earth!
In case you haven't noticed, Notre Dame isn't 'really' a Catholic university. If they were truly Catholic, they couldn't attract top academic talent, whether in terms of students or in terms of professors. You're getting worked up over nothing; it's the same situation at Georgetown and any other Catholic school that actually has academics worth a damn.
If you want to have a purity hunt within the Church, you'll have a much smaller Church, and the people left will be largely the mediocrities. The exceptional members of the Church (particularly the Jesuits), and the best Catholic educational institutions (Georgetown, Notre Dame) are generally the most heterodox. You don't see anybody sweating their SATs worrying if they're scoring high enough to get into Catholic University of America.
So, in your opinion, Joe, a Catholic cannot reason.
I don't have time to waste replying to anti-Catholic bigots. However, as an act of charity, I'll waste some on you; after all, you're begging for enlightenment.
I'll get right to the point: Pride enslaves; humility liberates.
Pride blinds us. It prevents us from seeing ourselves as we really are. It prevents us from seeing the world as it really exists. The antidote is humility. Humility opens us to the truth. And it is the truth which sets us free.
This, by the way, is why Mary is the surest way to God. Mary, the perfect creature, is perfectly humble and, so, perfectly open to the Truth-- God Himself. It goes without saying, then, that she is perfectly free. And this is why Catholics have sought to immitate her. She is the perfect example of discipleship.
Maybe one day you, too, will embrace the truth, Joe.
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