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S.M. Fuller - "Summer on the Lakes, in 1843"

W.W. Jacobs - "The Third String"

George Sand - "Contes d'une grand mere"

Miss Coulton - "Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it"

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Our Lady Saint Mary by J. G. H. Barry

J >> J. G. H. Barry >> Our Lady Saint Mary



OUR LADY SAINT MARY

BY

J. G. H. BARRY, D.D.

1922







Would that it might happen to me that I should be called a
fool by the unbelieving, in that I have believed such
things as these.

--Origen.




TO THE MEMBERS

OF THE

LEAGUE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN

THIS VOLUME IS HOPEFULLY

DEDICATED




PREFACE


The two papers in Part I have been published in the American Church
Magazine. Of Part II Chapter 1 has been published separately; Chapters
2, 4, 7, 9 and 12 have been published in the Holy Cross Magazine. The
rest of the volume is here published for the first time.

I would emphasise the fact that the contents of Part II is a series of
sermons which were prepared as such, and were preached in the Church of
S. Mary the Virgin, New York City, for the most part in the Winter of
1921-22. In preparing them for publication in this volume no attempt has
been made to alter their sermon character. It is not a theological
treatise on the Blessed Virgin that I have attempted, but a devotional
presentation of her life.

I have added to the text as originally prepared certain prayers and
poems. The object of the selection of the prayers, almost exclusively
from the Liturgies of the Catholic Church, is to illustrate the
prevalence of the address of devotion to our Lady throughout
Christendom. The poems are selected with much the same thought, and have
been mostly gathered from mediaeval sources, and so far as possible,
from British. I have no special knowledge of devotional poetry, but
have selected such poems as I have from time to time copied into my note
books. This fact has made it impossible for me to give credit for them
to the extent that I should have liked. I trust that any one who is
entitled to credit will accept this apology.

Much of the difficulty felt by Anglicans at expressions commonly found
in prayers and hymns addressed to our Lady is due to prevalent
unfamiliarity with the devotional language of the Catholic Church
throughout the ages. Those whose background of thought is the theology
of the Catholic Church, not in any one period, but in the whole extent
of its life, will have no difficulty in such language because the
limitations which are implied in it will be clear to them. To others, I
can only say that it is fair to assume that the great saints of the
Church of God in all times and in all places did not habitually use
language which was idolatrous, and our limitations are much more likely
to be at fault than their meaning. It is not true in any degree that the
teaching of Catholics as to the place of the Virgin intrudes on the
prerogative of our Lord. It is, as matter of fact Catholics, and not
those who oppose the Catholic Religion who are upholding that
prerogative. This has been excellently expressed by a modern French
theologian. "We are established in the friendship of God, in the divine
adoption, in the heavenly inheritance, solely in virtue of the covenent
by which our souls are bound to the Son of God, and by which the goods,
the merits, and the rights of the Son of God are communicated to our
souls, as in the natural order, the property of the husband becomes the
property of the wife. Surely, one can say nothing more than we say here,
and assuredly the sects opposed to the Church have never said more:
indeed, they are far to-day from saying so much to maintain intact this
truth, that Jesus Christ is our sole Redeemer, and to give that truth
the entire extent that belongs to it."



CONTENTS

PART I.

CHAPTER I. OF LOYALTY. II. THE MEANING OF WORSHIP.

PART II.

I. MARY OF NAZARETH. II. THE ANNUNCIATION I. III. THE ANNUNCIATION II.
IV. THE VISITATION I. V. THE VISITATION II. VI. S. JOSEPH. VII. THE
NATIVITY. VIII. THE MAGI. IX. THE PRESENTATION. X. EGYPT. XI. NAZARETH.
XII. THE TEMPLE. XIII. CANA I. XIV. CANA II. XV. WHO IS MY MOTHER? XVI.
HOLY WEEK I. XVII. HOLY WEEK II. XVIII. THE CRUCIFIXION. XIX. THE
DESCENT AND BURIAL. XX. THE RESURRECTION. XXI. THE FORTY DAYS. XXII. THE
ASCENSION. XXIII. THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. XXIV. THE HOME OF S.
JOHN. XXV. THE ASSUMPTION. XXVI. THE CORONATION.



PART ONE

CHAPTER I

OF LOYALTY

O God, who causes us to rejoice in recalling the joys of the
conception, the nativity, the annunciation, the visitation, the
purification, and the assumption of the blessed and glorious virgin
Mary; grant to us so worthily to devote ourselves to her praise and
service, that we may be conscious of her presence and assistance in all
our necessities and straits, and especially in the hour of death, and
that after death we may be found worthy, through her and in her, to
rejoice in heaven with thee. Through &c.

SARUM MISSAL.

The dream of the Middle Ages was of one Christian society of which the
Church should be the embodiment of the spiritual, and the State of the
temporal interests. As there is one humanity united to God in Incarnate
God, all its interests should be capable of unification in institutions
which should be based on that which is essential in humanity, and not on
that which is accidental: men should be united because they are human
and Christian, and not divided because of diversity of blood or color or
language. The dream proved impossible of realization, and the struggle
for human unity went to pieces on the rocks of the rapidly developing
nationalism of the later Middle Ages.

The Reformation was the triumph of nationalism and the defeat of
Catholic idealism. It resulted in a shattered Christendom in which the
interests of local and homogeneous groups became supreme over the purely
human interests. In state and Church alike patriotism has tended more
and more to become dominant over the interests that are supralocal and
universal. The last few years have seen an intensification of localism.
We have seen bitter scorn heaped on the few who have labored for
internationalism in thought and feeling. We have seen the attempt of
labor at internationalism utterly break down under the pressure of
patriotic motive. We are finding that the same concentration on
immediate and local interests is an insuperable bar to the realization
of an ideal of internationalism which would effectively deal with
questions arising between nations and put an end to war. The Church
failed to establish a spiritual internationalism; the indications are
that it will be long before humanitarian idealists will be able to
effect a union among nations still infected with patriotic motive, such
as shall bring about a subordination of local and immediate interests to
the interests of humanity as such. That the general interests are also
in the end the local interests is still far from the vision of
the patriot.

What the growth of nationalities with its consequent rise of
international jealousies and hostilities has effected in civil society,
has been brought about in matters spiritual by the divisions of
Christendom. The various bodies into which Christendom has been split up
are infected with the same sort of localism as infects the state. They
dwell with pride upon their own peculiarities, and treat with suspicion
if not with contempt the peculiarities of other bodies. The effort to
induce the members of any body of Christians to appreciate what belongs
to others, or to try to construe Christianity in terms of a true
Catholicity, is almost hopeless. All attempts at the restoration of the
visible unity of the Church have been wrecked, and seem destined for
long to be wrecked, on the rocks of local pride and local interests. The
motives which in secular affairs lead a man to put, not only his body
and his goods, as he ought, at the disposal of his country; but also
induce him to surrender his mind to the prevailing party and shout, "My
country, right or wrong," in matters ecclesiastical lead him to cry, "My
Church, right or wrong." It is only by transcending this localism that
we can hope for progress in Church or State--can hope to conquer the
wars and fightings among our members that make peace impossible.

This infection of localism is not peculiar to any body of Christians.
The Oriental Churches have been largely state-bound for centuries, and,
in addition, have been mentally immobile. The Roman Church with its
claims to exclusive ownership of the Christian Religion has lost the
vision it once had and subordinated the Catholic interests of the Church
to the local interests of the Papacy. The fragments of Protestantism are
too small any longer to claim the universalism claimed by the East and
West, and perforce acknowledge their partial character; but it is only
to indulge in a more acute patriotism, and assertion of rights of
division, and the supremacy of the local over the general. The Churches
of the Anglican Rite are less bound, perhaps, than others. They are
restless under the limitations of localism and are haunted by a vision
of an unrealized Catholicity; but they are torn by internal divisions
and find their attempts at movement in any direction thwarted by the
pull of opposing parties.

One result of the mental attitude generated by the conditions indicated
above is that any attempt to deal with subjects other than those which
are authorized because they are customary, or tolerated because they
are familiar, is liable to be greeted with cries of reproach and
accusations of disloyalty. Such and such teachings we are told, without
much effort at proof, are contrary to the teachings of the Anglican
Church, or are not in harmony with that teaching, or are illegitimate
attempts to bring in doctrines or practices which were definitely
rejected by our fathers at the Reformation. Those who are implicated in
such attempts are told that they are disturbers of the peace of the
Church and are invited to go elsewhere.

As one who is not guiltless of such attempts, and as one who is becoming
accustomed to be charged with novelty in teaching, and disloyalty in
practice to that which is undoubtedly and historically Anglican, I have
been compelled to ask myself, "What is loyalty to the Anglican Church?
Is there, in fact, some peculiar and limited form of Christianity to
which I owe allegiance?" I had got accustomed to think of myself as a
Catholic Christian whose lot was cast in a certain province of the
Catholic Church which was administratively separated from other parts of
that Church. This I felt--this separation--to be unfortunate; but I was
not responsible for it, and would be glad to do anything that I could to
end it. I had not thought that this administrative separation from other
provinces of the Catholic Church meant that I was pledged to a different
religion; I had not thought of there being an Anglican Religion. I have
all my life, in intention and as far as I know, accepted the whole
Catholic Faith of which it is said in a Creed accepted by the Anglican
Church that "except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved." I do
not intend to believe any other Faith than that, and I intend to believe
all of that; and I have not thought of myself as other than a loyal
Anglican in so doing.

But criticism has led me to go back over the whole question and ask
whether there is any indication anywhere in the approved documents of
the Anglican Communion of an intention at all to depart from the Faith
of Christendom as it was held by the whole Catholic Church, East and
West, at the time when an administrative separation from Rome was
effected. Was a new faith at any time introduced? Has there at any time
been any official action of the Anglican Church to limit my acceptance
of the historic Faith? That many Anglican writers have denied many
articles of the Catholic Faith I of course knew to be true. That some
Anglican writer could be found who had denied every article of the
Catholic Faith I thought quite possible. But I was not interested in the
beliefs or practices of individuals. I am not at all interested in what
opinions may or may not have been held by Cranmer at various stages of
his career, or what opinions may be unearthed from the writings of Bale
by experts in immoral literature; I am interested solely in the official
utterances of the Anglican Communion.

In following out this line of investigation I have spent many weeks in
the reading of many dreary documents: but fortunately documents are not
important in proportion to the element of excitement they contain. I
have read the documents contained in the collection of Gee and Hardy
entitled "Documents Illustrative of English Church History." I have read
the "Formularies of Faith Put Forth by Authority during the Reign of
Henry VIII." I have read Cardwell's "Synodalia." And I have also read
"Certain Sermons or Homilies Appointed to be read in Churches at the
time of Queen Elizabeth of Famous Memory." I doubt whether any other
extant human being has read them.

And the upshot of the whole matter is that in none of these documents
have I found any expressed intention to depart from the Faith of the
Catholic Church of the past as that Faith had been set forth by
authority. No doubt in the Homilies there are things said which cannot
be reconciled with the Faith of Catholic Christendom. But the Homilies
are of no binding authority, and I have included them in my
investigation only because I wanted their point of view. That is
harmonious with the rest of the authoritative documents--the intention
is to hold the Faith: unfortunately the knowledge of some of the writers
was not as pure as their intention.

The point that I am concerned with is this: there is no intention
anywhere shown in the authoritative documents of the Anglican Church to
effect a change in religion, or to break with the religion which had
been from the beginning taught and practised in England. The Reformation
did not mean the introduction of a new religion, but was simply a
declaration of governmental independence. I will quote somewhat at
length from the documents for the purpose of showing that there is no
indication of an intention to set up a new Church.

One or two quotations from pre-reformation documents will make clear the
customary phraseology in England during the Middle Ages. King John's
Ecclesiastical Charter of 1214 uses the terms "Church of England" and
"English Church." The Magna Charta of 1215 grants that the "Church of
England shall be free and have her rights intact, and her liberties
uninjured." The Articuli Cleri of 1316 speak of the "English Church."
The Second Statute of Provisors of 1390 uses the title "The Holy Church
of England." "The English Church" is the form used in the Act "De
Haeretico Comburendo" of 1401, as it is also in "the Remonstrance against
the Legatine Powers of Cardinal Beaufort" of 1428[1].

[Footnote 1: Documents in Gee & Hardy.]

These quotations will suffice to show the customary way of speaking of
the Church in England. If this customary way of speaking went on during
and after the Reformation the inference is that there had no change
taken place in the way of men's thinking about the Church; that they
were unconscious of having created a new or a different Church. We know
that the Protestant bodies on the Continent and the later Protestant
bodies in England did change their way of thinking about the Church from
that of their fathers and consequently their way of speaking of it. But
the formal documents of the Church of England show no change. "The
Answer of the Ordinaries" of 1532 appeals as authoritative to the
"determination of Scripture and Holy Church," and to the determination
of "Christ's Catholic Church." The "Conditional Restraint of Annates" of
1532 protests that the English "as well spiritual as temporal, be as
obedient, devout, catholic, and humble children of God and Holy Church,
as any people be within any realm christened." In the Act for "The
Restraint of Appeals" of 1533, which is the act embodying the legal
principle of the English Reformation, it is the "English Church" which
acts. The statement in the "Act Forbidding Papal Dispensations and the
Payment of Peter's Pence" of 1534 is entirely explicit as to the
intention of the English authorities. It declares that nothing in this
Act "shall be hereafter interpreted or expounded that your grace, your
nobles and subjects intend, by the same, to decline or vary from the
congregation of Christ's Church in any things concerning the very
articles of the Catholic Faith of Christendom[2]."

[Footnote 2: Gee & Hardy.]

These documents date from the reign of Henry VIII. In the same reign
another series of authoritative documents was put forth which contains
the same teaching as to the Church. "The Institution of a Christian Man"
set forth in 1536, in the article on the Church has this: "I believe
assuredly--that there is and hath been from the beginning of the world,
and so shall endure and continue forever, one certain number, society,
communion, or company of the elect and faithful people of God.... And I
believe assuredly that this congregation ... is, in very deed the city
of heavenly Jerusalem ... the holy catholic church, the temple or
habitacle of God, the pure and undefiled espouse of Christ, the very
mystical body of Christ," "The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any
Christian Man" of 1543 in treating of the faith declares that "all those
things which were taught by the apostles, and have been by an whole
universal consent of the church of Christ ever sith that time taught
continually, ought to be received, accepted, and kept, as a perfect
doctrine apostolic." It is further taught in the same document in the
eighth article, that on "The Holy Catholic Church," that the Church is
"catholic, that is to say, not limited to any one place or region of the
world, but is in every place universally through the world where it
pleaseth God to call people to him in the profession of Christ's name
and faith, be it in Europe, Africa, or Asia. And all these churches in
divers countries severally called, although for the knowledge of the one
from the other among them they have divers additions of names, and for
their most necessary government, as they be distinct in places, so they
have distinct ministers and divers heads in earth, governors and rulers,
yet be all these holy churches but one holy church catholic, invited and
called by one God the Father to enjoy the benefit of redemption wrought
by our Lord and Saviour Jesu Christ, and governed by one Holy Spirit,
which teacheth this foresaid one truth of God's holy word in one faith
and baptism[3]."

[Footnote 3: Formularies of Faith in the Reign of Henry VIII.]

With the accession of Edward VI. the Protestant element in the
Reformation gained increased influence. Our question is, Did it succeed
in imprinting a new theory of the nature and authority of the Church on
the formal and authoritative utterances of the Church in England? The
first "Act of Uniformity" of 1549 contains the now familiar appeal to
Scripture and to the primitive Church, and the Book set forth is called
"The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and
other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, after the Use of the Church of
England." The "Second Act of Uniformity," 1552, uses the same language
about the Church of England and the primitive Church. Passing on to the
reign of Elizabeth, in the "Injunctions" of 1559 there is set forth "a
form of bidding the prayers," which begins: "Ye shall pray for Christ's
Holy Catholic Church, that is for the whole congregation of Christian
people dispersed throughout the whole world, and especially for the
Church of England and Ireland." In the "Act of Supremacy" of the same
year it is provided that an opinion shall "be ordered, or adjudged to be
heresy, by the authority of the canonical Scriptures, or by the first
four general Councils, or any of them, or by any other general Council
wherein the same was declared heresy by the express and plain words of
the said canonical Scriptures." This test of doctrine is repeated in
Canon VI of the Canons of 1571. "Preachers shall ... see to it that
they teach nothing in the way of a sermon ... save what is agreeable to
the teaching of the Old or New Testament, and what the Catholic fathers
and ancient bishops have collected from this self-same doctrine[4]."

[Footnote 4: Documents in Gee & Hardy.]

It is hardly worth while to spend much time on the Homilies. I will
simply note that they continue the appeal to the primitive Church which
is asserted to have been holy, godly, pure and uncorrupt; and to the
"old holy fathers and most ancient learned doctors" which are quoted as
authoritative against later innovations. They still speak of the Church
of England as continuous with the past. I do not find that they treat
the contemporary reformers as of authority or quote them as against the
traditional teaching of the Church.

We will go on to one more stage, that is, to the Canons of 1604 which
represent the mind of the Church of England at the time of the accession
of James I. They declare that "whosoever shall hereafter affirm, That
the Church of England, by law established under the King's majesty, is
not a true and an apostolical church, teaching and maintaining the
doctrine of the apostles; let him be excommunicated." (III) They appeal
to the "Ancient fathers of the Church, led by the example of the
apostles." (XXXI) In treating of the use of the sign of the Cross in
baptism they assert that its use follows the "rules of Scripture and the
practice of the primitive Church." And further, "This use of the sign of
the Cross in baptism was held in the primitive Church, as well by the
Greeks as the Latins, with one consent and great applause." And replying
to the argument from abuse the canon goes on: "But the abuse of a thing
doth not take away the lawful use of it. Nay, so far was it from the
purpose of the Church of England to forsake and reject the Churches of
Italy, France, Spain, Germany, or any such like Churches, in all things
that they held and practised, that, as the Apology of the Church of
England confesseth, it doth with reverence retain those ceremonies,
which do neither endanger the Church of God, nor offend the minds of
sober men." (XXX)

It appears clear from a study of the passages quoted and of many others
of kindred nature that the Anglican Church did not start out upon its
separate career with any intention of becoming a sect; it did not
complain of the corruption of the existing religion and declare its
purpose to show to the world what true and pure religion is. It did not
put forward as the basis of its action the existing corruption of
doctrine, but the corruption of administration. Its claim was a claim to
manage its own local affairs, and was put into execution when the
Convocation of Canterbury voted in the negative on the question
submitted to it, viz., "Whether the Roman pontiff has any greater
jurisdiction bestowed on him by God in Holy Scripture in this realm of
England, than any other foreign bishop?"

The attitude indicated is one that has been characteristic of the
Anglican Church ever since. It has always been restless in the presence
of a divided Christendom; the sin of the broken unity has always haunted
it. It never has taken the smug attitude of sectarianism, a placid
self-satisfaction with its own perfection. It has felt the constant pull
of the Catholic ideal and has been inspired by it to make effort after
effort for the union of Christendom. It has never lost the sense that it
was in itself not complete but a part of a greater whole. It has never
seen in the existing shattered state of the Christian Church anything
but the evidences of sin. Its appeal has constantly been, not to its own
sufficiency for the determination of all questions, but to the
Scriptures as interpreted by the undivided Church. If it has at times
been prone to overstress the authority of some ideal and undefined
primitive Church, it was because it thought that there and there only
could the Catholic Church be found speaking in its ideal unity.

This the attitude of the Anglican Church of the past is its attitude
to-day. The Lambeth Conference of 1920 gave voice to it:

"The Conference urges on every branch of the Anglican
Communion that it should prepare its members for taking their
part in the universal fellowship of the re-united Church, by
setting before them the loyalty which they owe to the
universal Church, and the charity and understanding which are
required of the members of so inclusive a society."

Commenting upon this utterance of the Lambeth Conference the three
bishops who are the joint authors of "Lambeth and Reunion" say:

The bishops at Lambeth "beg for loyalty to the universal
Church. The doctrinal standards of the undivided Church must
not be ignored. Nor must modern developments, consistent with
the past, be ruled out merely because they are modern. Men
must hold strongly what they have received; but they must
forsake the policy of denying one another's positive
presentment of truth. That only must be forbidden which the
universal fellowship cannot conceivably accept within any one
of its groups[5]."