Our Lady In Scripture
OUR LADY IN SCRIPTURE
The popular astonishment, excited by our belief in the blessed Virgin’s present dignity, arises from the circumstance that the bulk of men, engaged in matters of this world, have never calmly considered her historical position in the gospels, so as rightly to realize what that position imports. I do not claim for the generality of Catholics any greater powers of reflection upon the objects of their faith, than Protestants commonly have; but, putting the run of Catholics aside, there is a sufficient number of religious men among us who, instead of expending their devotional energies (as so many serious Protestants do) on abstract doctrines, such as justification by faith only, or the sufficiency of Holy Scripture, employ themselves in the contemplation of Scripture facts, and bring out before their minds in a tangible form the doctrines involved in them, and give such a substance and color to the sacred history, as to influence their brethren; and their brethren, though superficial themselves, are drawn by their Catholic instinct to accept conclusions which they could not indeed themselves have elicited, but which, when elicited, they feel to be true. However, it would be out of place to pursue this course of reasoning here; and instead of doing so, I shall take what perhaps some may think a very bold step,—I shall find the doctrine of our Lady’s present exaltation in Scripture.
I mean to find it in the vision of the Woman and Child in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse. Now, here two objections will be made to me at once; first that such an interpretation is but poorly supported by the Fathers, and secondly that in ascribing such a picture of the Madonna (as it may be called) to the Apostolic age, I am committing an anachronism.
As to the former of these objections, I answer as follows: Christians have never gone to Scripture for proof of their doctrines, until there was actual need from the pressure of controversy. If in those times the Blessed Virgin’s dignity was unchallenged on all sides, as a matter of doctrine, Scripture, as far as its argumentative matter was concerned, was likely to remain a sealed book to them. Many texts there are, which ought to find a place in ancient controversies, and the omission of which by the Fathers affords matter for more surprise; those for instance, which are real proofs of our Lord’s divinity, and yet are passed over by Catholic disputants; for these bear upon a then existing controversy of the highest importance, and of the most urgent exigency.
–Letter to Dr. Pusey